No Graves as Yet_ A Novel - Anne Perry [87]
Perth’s face registered his surprise and then his sympathy. “Oi’m sorry, sir. A dreadful thing. But my point is, like yourself, Mr. and Mrs. Allard live close by, not more’n ten miles. How long would you say it’d take to drive that far, for a young man with a fast car like his?”
“Half an hour,” Joseph replied. “Probably less, depending on the traffic. Why?”
“When he left home he told his parents he was going to see Miss Coopersmith for a couple of hours,” Perth replied. “But she says that he stayed barely ten minutes with her. He went, going through your village o’ St. Giles, an’ on toward Cambridge, about three o’clock.” He shook his head. He was still holding the pipe by its bowl. “That means he should’ve bin here by quarter to four, at the outside. Whereas he didn’t actually get here, Mr. Mitchell says, until just after six.”
“So he went somewhere else,” Joseph reasoned. “He changed his mind, met a friend, or stopped in the town before coming on to college. What does it matter?”
“Just an example, sir,” Perth said. “Bin asking around a bit. Seems he did things like that quite regular, couple of hours here, couple there. Oi thought as you might know where he spent that time, an’ why he lied to folks about it.”
“No, I don’t.” It was an unpleasant thought that Sebastian had regularly done something he had wanted or needed to hide from his friends. But it was drowned in Joseph’s mind by another thought, sharp and clear as a knife in sudden light. If Perth was accurate about the time Sebastian had left his home, and that he had driven south to Cambridge through St. Giles, which was the natural and obvious way, then he would have passed the place on the Hauxton Road where John and Alys Reavley were killed, within a few minutes of it happening.
If it had been just before, then it meant nothing; it was merely a coincidence easily explained by circumstance. But if it had been just after, then what had he seen? And why had he said nothing?
Perth was staring at him, bland, patient, as if he could wait forever. Joseph forced himself to meet his eyes, uncomfortably aware of the intelligence in them; Perth was far more astute than he had appreciated until now. “I’m afraid I have no idea,” he said. “If I learn anything I shall tell you. Now if you will excuse me, I have an errand to run before my next tutorial.” That was not true, but he needed to be alone. He must sort out the turbulence of thought in his mind.
Perth looked a little surprised, as if the possibility had not occurred to him. “Oh. You sure you have no idea what he was doing? You know students better ’n Oi do, sir. What might it’ve bin? What do these young men do when they ain’t studying an’ attending lectures and the loike?” He looked at Joseph innocently.
“Talk,” Joseph replied. “Go boating sometimes, or to the pub, the library, walk along the Backs. Some go cycling or practice cricket at the nets. And of course there are papers to write.”
“Interesting,” Perth said, chewing on his pipe. “None of that seems worth lying about, does it?” He smiled, but it was not friendliness so much as satisfaction. “You have a very innocent view o’ young men, Reverend.” He took the pipe out again, as if suddenly remembering where he was. “Are those the things you did when you was a student? Maybe divinity students are a great deal more righteous-living than most.” If there was sarcasm in his voice, it was well concealed.
Joseph found himself uncomfortable, aware not only that he sounded like a prig, but that perhaps he had been as deliberately blind as that made him sound, and that Perth was not. He could remember his own student days perfectly well, and they were not as idealized as the picture he had just painted. Divinity students, along with medical, were among the heaviest drinkers of all, not to mention other even less salubrious pursuits.
“I started in medicine,” he said aloud. “But as I recall, none of us appreciated being obliged to account for our free time.”
“Really?” Perth was startled. “A medical student? You? Oi din’t know that. So you know some o’ the less