No Graves as Yet_ A Novel - Anne Perry [86]
Joseph was almost at the door when he heard the light, rapid footsteps behind him and turned to find Perth a couple of yards away. As always, he wore a suit that fitted without elegance or grace. His hair was combed back straight and his mustache trimmed level. He was carrying a pipe by the bowl, as if he was undecided whether to light it or not.
“Oh! Good. Reverend Reavley . . . glad to catch up wi’ you, sir,” he said cheerfully. “Are you going inside?”
“Yes. I’ve just finished a debate with some of my students.”
“Oi never thought you gentlemen worked so hard, even in holiday times,” Perth observed, following Joseph in through the carved stone doorway and past the oak stairs, almost black with age, the middle of the steps hollowed by centuries of feet.
“Quite a few students choose to remain here and do some extra study,” Joseph replied, turning the bend and going on up. “And then there are always the undergraduates pursuing other studies.”
“Oh, yes, the undergraduates.”
They reached the landing and Joseph opened his own door. “Is there something I can do for you, Inspector?”
Perth smiled appreciatively. “Well, since you ask, sir, there is.” He stood expectantly on the step.
Joseph surrendered and invited him inside. “What is it?” he asked.
“Oi think it’d be true to say, sir, that you knew Mr. Allard better than any o’ the other gentlemen here?”
“Possibly.”
Perth put his hands in his pockets. “You see, Reverend, Oi’ve bin talking to Miss Coopersmith, Mr. Allard’s fiancée, as was, if you see what Oi mean? Nice young lady, very collected, no weeping an’ wailing, just a quiet sort o’ grief. Can’t help admiring it, can you?”
“No,” Joseph agreed. “She seems a fine young woman.”
“Did you know her before, sir? Seeing as you know the Allard family, and Mr. Sebastian especially. People tell me you were very close, gave him lots of advice in his studies, watched over him, as you might say.”
“Academically,” Joseph pointed out, acutely aware how true that was. “I knew very little of his personal life. I have a number of students, Inspector. Sebastian Allard was one of the brightest, but he was certainly not the only one. I would be deeply ashamed if I had neglected any of the others because they were less gifted than he. And to answer your question, no, I did not know Miss Coopersmith.”
Perth nodded, as if that corroborated something he already knew. He closed the door behind him but remained standing in the middle of the floor, as if the room made him uncomfortable. It was alien territory, with its silence and its books. “But you know Mrs. Allard?” he asked.
“A little. What is it you are looking for, Inspector?”
Perth smiled apologetically. “Oi’ll come to the point, sir. Mrs. Allard told me what time Sebastian left home to come back to college on Sunday the twenty-eighth o’ June. He’d been up in London on the Saturday, but he came home in the evening.” His face became very somber. “That were the day of the assassination in Serbia, although o’ course we didn’t know that then. An’ Mr. Mitchell, the porter at the gate, told me what time he got here.”
“The purpose?” Joseph reminded him. Since Perth did not, he felt unable to sit down either.
“Oi’m coming to that,” Perth said unhappily. “He told his mother as he’d got to come back for a meeting here . . . an’ so he had. Six people as’ll confirm that.”
“He wasn’t killed on the twenty-eighth,” Joseph pointed out. “It was several days after that—in fact, a week. I remember because it was after my parents’ funeral, and I was back here.