Treasure by Degrees Read online

  ‘Sit-ins are boring.’

  ‘Exactly – and infantile,’ said Philip loftily, being privately thankful that no one had suggested holding one. ‘You know,’ he added thoughtfully, ‘since we’ve got our fall-back position if there’s real trouble – so has the college . . . if there’s a problem over funds, I mean. There’s a hell of a lot more there than firework money – or so Roger says.’

  The seating arrangements at lunch in the Senior Common Room had not taken the form that the Dean intended, but they suited Treasure admirably. He had succeeded in placing himself next to Dr Goldstein, who had made for the foot of the long, rectangular table while the voluble Ribble had been settling Mrs Hatch and Witaker to his own right and left at the other end. Miss Stopps was opposite Treasure, and Peter Gregory, the Australian to whom he had taken an instant liking, was on his other side. The banker was thus protected from further direct exposure to the Dean’s rhetoric along several yards of polished oak, flanked by an assortment of faculty members.

  While Witaker had been fairly subdued throughout the meal, Treasure had been amused to observe that Mrs Hatch had not been nearly so overwhelmed by Ribble. She had frequently talked the Dean down by the simple process of breaking in on him at greater volume. He, in turn, had assumed the lady was deaf, and at each new opportunity had increased his own bass response. The resulting dialogue had drowned any attempt at independent discourse for some two-thirds of the table length.

  ‘Ribble is a noisy man, but his heart, as they say, is in the right place: I wonder sometimes about his brain. More coffee, Treasure?’ Dr Goldstein delivered the judgement and the invitation without passion or emphasis. Treasure had earlier noted the mode of address, which implied a proper degree of familiarity without the unction that others present had been affording him.

  ‘Thank you.’ Treasure pushed his coffee cup towards the Senior Tutor. ‘I have the impression that the Dean’s heart and mind are probably here in this place.’

  ‘Quite right, UCI would have collapsed around us all without his tireless – and sometimes tiresome – application. There are times when he shames me into an irritating consciousness of my own lack of vigour in the same cause.’ Goldstein did not look particularly conscience-stricken, but he sounded sincere.

  ‘The Senior Tutor is noted for his modesty, Mr Treasure,’ put in Peter Gregory, and Treasure, not for the first time, registered the feeling that the breezy young Australian and the celebrated Dr Goldstein were on terms that licensed the junior man’s easy relationship with the other. The compliment had in no way displeased Goldstein through the touch of sarcasm in its construction. ‘In fact, we couldn’t do without him either,’ Gregory continued. ‘He and the Dean make a pretty formidable pair when we’re threatened from the outside. You might not guess it, but you’d better believe it . . . sir.’

  Treasure smiled at the remembered civility. ‘I get the impression you live in daily fear of being closed down.’

  ‘Not daily; annual perhaps – and even that’s an exaggeration.’ This from Goldstein. ‘We’re something of an anachronism and one hell of an embarrassment to the red-brick brigade. It may sound precious, but in less than twenty years we’ve built a reputation for enthusiastic scholarship that’s almost un-British. People come here to work, not to indulge in political posturing or to train for the Olympics – our sporting record is appalling. But then we’re not trying to out-do Oxford and Cambridge – the scale is quite different, for one thing. We do what we’re good at – and we do it very well.’

  ‘But if you were bigger . . .’

  ‘We’d be a hell of a sight worse, Mr Treasure,’ Gregory interrupted. ‘I’ve been offered better-paid jobs at bigger places but I’m certainly not ready to quit the atmosphere of UCI – not yet awhile, anyway.’ The last comment came as a spoken reaction to the private and levelling thought that marriage to the daughter of a member of the Stock Exchange Council might produce responsibilities beyond the capacity of the speaker’s current stipend.

  Goldstein was less adamant. ‘Some growth is desirable – even perhaps overdue, but it needs to be controlled growth. There’s the problem. We’re too late to hope for eventual university status – and the money that would go with it. So Whitehall and the other powers that control these things are not going to cough up piddling sums of money for odd additional faculties. Result, stalemate.’

  ‘Or the Funny Farms Foundation?’ Treasure spoke without emotion.

  ‘Which would be disastrous – and I mean disastrous. You can have no concept of what this place stands for if you truly believe you can graft on such an absurdity.’ Goldstein was clearly quite impervious to the offence he might be offering. ‘Peter and I have opposed the idea from the very beginning. The thing is an academic obscenity, and it will happen over my dead body.’

  ‘And after he’s done in a few others for good measure,’ Gregory added with a grin.

  The bond between the Senior Tutor and the Reader in English Literature was evidently bedded in a cause as well as in mutual esteem. The vehemence and irritation in Goldstein’s voice caused Treasure to. change course. ‘Extra money might be raised by appeal,’ he offered. ‘There is a Trust Fund. Indeed, I’m here partly to represent one of the three Trustees . . .’

  ‘Who have no control over our destiny.’ Goldstein was unmollified. ‘You can’t lumber us with obligations we don’t want. The Trustees are a fund-raising body pure and simple – and the other two are both pure and simple; a bishop and the College lawyer. I’ve met your chap, Grenwood. None of them bothered to be here today, incidentally.’

  ‘I wondered about the Bishop,’ observed Treasure, determined not to be ruffled. ‘Your lawyer couldn’t make it today, I know, but the Bishop was supposed to be here.’

  ‘He’s been sick, I think, but getting better,’ said Gregory, glad to follow through on a subject that was lowering the temperature. ‘Miss Stopps might know.’ He looked across the table towards the lady who appeared to be half engaged in conversation with the Gollege Lecturer in European Cultural History. ‘Do you know what the trouble was, Miss Stopps?’ he asked, raising his voice.

  ‘Syphilis – riddled with it,’ came the surprising reply. ‘Such a talent too. I suppose he got it from, cohabiting with the natives in Tahiti. Are you also an admirer of the Impressionists, Mr Treasure?’

  ‘We were discussing the Bishop, Miss Stopps,’ said Gregory. ‘Surely he hasn’t got syphilis?’

  ‘Good gracious, I hope not. Who could have told you such a thing?’ Miss Stopps glanced around the others with an expression of real alarm. ‘We were talking of Gauguin . . .’

  The opportunity to clear the reputation of the maligned Bishop was lost. The Dean stood up and was banging the table with a spoon. For a fleeting moment Treasure assumed this might represent some desperate last attempt on the part of Ribble to establish private conversational superiority over Mrs Hatch, but this was not the case. ‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ said the Dean loudly, ‘in five minutes’ time I propose to take our guests on a tour of the College. If those of you involved in our . . . er . . . our business meeting would be good enough to reassemble here at three o’clock . . .’

  ‘Business meeting my foot,’ said Goldstein to Treasure, in more than a stage whisper, as Ribble continued to speak. ‘He’s got twelve out of fifteen faculty members voting for your foul endowment and he’s rigging what he thinks will be a demonstration of solidarity. Well, wait and see.’

  ‘. . . so if the ladies would now like to retire? Miss Stopps?’ Ribble looked down the table expectantly at Tottle’s mistress, who rose to her feet, grasped her vast bag, and made to conduct Mrs Hatch away as it had evidently been arranged that she should. The one other lady present – the shy-looking Head of the Modern Languages Department – also left, but by a different door. Treasure guessed that Mrs Hatch and Miss Stopps were to have the exclusive use of whatever superior ablutionary facilities were available close by.

  Remembering Goldstein’s las
t comment, Treasure turned to him, as they both stood watching the ladies leave, and asked, ‘Have the students been consulted about the Funny Farms project? I gather it’s fashionable these days . . .’

  ‘To have the lunatics running the asylums?’ cut in Goldstein firmly. He smiled before continuing. ‘Fortunately our lunatics are pretty well tamed or we wouldn’t let them in. No, we don’t go in for student participation in long-term decision-making, for the very good reason such things are not their concern. Unofficially I gather our young things would prefer not to be part of an agricultural college. But why don’t you ask them?’

  The double doors tlirough which the two ladies had left were still open. Miss Stopps suddenly reappeared from the hall on the other side moving at a cracking pace and in a state of some agitation. She made for the Dean, but her opening exclamation was heard by everyone. ‘Mr Dean, a most ill-conceived prank. I fear our visitor deserves the most abject apology » . . Extended between the taps of the hand basin . . .’

  Before Miss Stopps could complete her report, attention was diverted by the appearance of Amelia Hatch. She held out before her a string threaded through eight severed chicken heads. She stood in the doorway, smiled wryly in Witaker’s direction, and observed, ‘As I keep saying, Irv, someone’s tryin’ to get a message through.’

  CHAPTER VI

  TREASURE REGARDED the retreating figure of Major Hunter-Smith for a moment before turning to begin a stroll along the lakeside. The Dean’s business meeting was not due to begin for a further ten minutes, and the banker looked forward to some private contemplation after a crowded hour. He decided to inspect the little boathouse which lay some hundred yards along from where he had been talking with the Bursar on the steps of the Hall.

  The persons most discommoded by the incident of the chicken heads – Ribble, Witaker and Miss Stopps – had been pacified by the individual least affected, namely Amelia Hatch. ‘Lan’ sakes, students will be students – and I can take a joke,’ had been Amelia’s good-humoured summary of the whole affair. Nevertheless, even a warning look from his client had not prevented Witaker from retailing the story of the sheep’s head, which produced further expressions of outrage and sympathy.

  Since he had not earlier mentioned the package sent to Lord Grenwood, Treasure might have chosen to do so then. On reflection, he chose to remain silent. He had not known about the sheep’s head either until Witaker had recounted the story – obviously against the better judgement of Mrs Hatch. It was the lady’s attitude to the two incidents that prompted him not to disclose the existence of a third – this despite the fact that each considerably enlarged the significance of the others. In Treasure’s private opinion the triple demonstration was more elaborate and somehow more insidious than the usual product of student protest. The chicken heads had not been accompanied by a message but it was inconceivable that their existence had not been contrived by the same hand or hands as the other two sanguinary warnings. Decorating the taps in the ladies’ wash-room at the Hall involved considerably greater risk of discovery than delivering packages to hotels or merchant banks. The absence of an exhortation might simply relate to a shortage of time.

  Treasure had dutifully accompanied the inspecting party on its tour of UCI and its amenities. He had been duly complimentary about the state of the kitchens, the abundance of lecture rooms, the comparative comfort of the student accommodation, and the immensity of the bathrooms. In turn, he had sympathized about the budget restrictions that limited the cuisine, the availability of books, the numbers of lecturers, the complement of students, and the occurrence of baths. Finally he had sagely regarded the acres of rolling parkland available for extra building – assuredly in harmonious style – and the nurture of whatever animals and crops that might prove consistent with the objects of the Funny Farms Faculty of Agriculture.

  Witaker had been non-committal throughout the ramble. Mrs Hatch, in sharp contrast, had been ecstatically enthusiastic about the whole establishment. Her only expressed regret had been about the marked absence of students available for encounter. Treasure had noted the same fact. Young people could sometimes be observed in the far or middle distance but seemed to evaporate when the party approached. Ribble had explained that Friday afternoons inevitably produced an exodus of students with parental homes not too far distant – weekend exeats being available for the asking, a practice consistent with the need to save food, light and heat. He later seemed to discount this whole story by promising a huge attendance at the firework display and entreating Mrs Hatch to remain for the event. On balance, Treasure construed that students were avoiding the visitors and that the Dean knew it.

  The tour had included an embarrassing interlude. The party had emerged from the north side of the Hall intent on visiting the stable block at precisely the same moment that Sheikh Al Haban and his retinue had appeared on foot through the archway immediately opposite. The two groups were separated by a ciruclar sward of grass skirted by a wide gravel drive but also bisected north and south by a path provided for those more concerned with direct communication than with perambulation.

  The Dean had immediately arrested the progress of his own party with some credible but unnecessary commentary about the view, while waiting to see which direction was adopted by the Arab visitors. As a strategy to avoid direct confrontation – and Treasure guessed it was such – this had everything to commend it. Unfortunately, Al Haban was clearly of the same mind. Both parties remained rooted in their territories for longer than was consistent with whatever intention either had invented for appearing in the first place.

  It was Ribble who had made the first move by leading the Funny Farms contingent to the right, but only fractionally sooner than the Crown Prince also abandoned indecision and led his entourage on a collision course to his left. Before it was too late for either man to adopt an opposite direction with minimum but still preserved decorum, both did so. This caused a certain amount of confusion in both camps. The Dean’s violent about-turn led him straight into the arms of Amelia Hatch who had been following close behind. She, in turn, recoiled on to Witaker so that all three had momentarily become engaged in a curious pas de trois for ill-matched performers.

  Meantime, although Al Haban had turned about, he had paused to motion aside his followers with a sweep of his arm before actually embarking on a new course. This had given him the opportunity to observe Ribble’s change of plan and to counter it by stepping directly on to the grass, continuing in a southerly direction at the side of the path that divided the lawn. Ribble, whose intended progress had been effectively blocked by the Hatch-Witaker ensemble, also stepped on to the grass on the opposite side of the path, and headed north.

  Thus it was that, with opportunity for further dissembling well past, the two parties had approached each other in the style of army patrols, neither of them treading the six-foot-wide gravel pathway so obviously provided for their progress – and which thus took on the character of ‘no-man’s-land’. ‘It is pleasant to walk upon grass,’ remarked the Dean with an evident and justifiable lack of conviction: he had been responsible for the notices scattered about cautioning people to abjure precisely that pleasure.

  ‘Makes you wanna toss your shoes off,’ said Mrs Hatch in ,a tone that presaged intention more than it indicated idle observation.

  Witaker had resigned himself to the thought that this was exactly the kind of peasant-like compulsion to which his client would abandon herself some seconds before encountering a Middle Eastern potentate. Treasure, who was bringing up the rear with Major Hunter-Smith, had speculated on the possibility of that same potentate finding himself bombarded with tossed shoes.

  ‘Good afternoon, your Royal Highness.’ Ribble had halted where the two groups had drawn abreast, and gave a stiff little bow. Amelia, not to be outdone, lined herself up beside the Dean, dropped a deep, wobbly curtsey, and fell over. Witaker, wishing he were somewhere else – anywhere else – had helped her to regain her feet.

  Amelia
had lost her balance, but not her composure. ‘Sorry about that, your Regal Highness,’ she hollered across the path that still divided the parties. She smiled warmly at Al Haban, then, after a frankly appraising glance, she added, ‘Gee, you look swell in those duds.’ An honest observation which Treasure felt neutralized the suggestion of overdone deference in the curtsey.

  Al Haban had shown neither pleasure nor displeasure at the confrontation. The Dean had mumbled introductions while the two groups remained incongruously planted on either side of the path – a situation which at least precluded any question of hand-shaking. The Sheikh – his gaze resting upon Treasure – had formally presented his son, but ignored the presence of his two retainers who had taken up positions behind him.

  It was not until the two groups had moved on in their separate directions that Treasure was stopped by a gentle voice from behind. ‘Excuse me, sir.’ It was young Prince Faisal. ‘My father would be honoured if you would take tea with us at four-thirty.’

  Treasure had smiled at the young man and then in the direction of Sheikh Al Haban who had stopped, looking his way, some yards distant. The older men bowed slightly to each other as the banker had replied, ‘Please tell your father I am more than honoured to be invited. Until four-thirty then, Prince Faisal.’

  Only Hunter-Smith had overheard this exchange, and he had made no comment upon it. Indeed, the Bursar had seemed preternaturally concerned to concentrate his and Treasure’s whole attention on a not very subtle examination of the reasons why University College might, after all, be unworthy of the Funny Farms endowment. At first, Treasure had taken the view that this was evidence of extreme objectivity on the part of the Bursar, who had been author of the College’s first application for the money. Since, however, the diatribe had continued throughout the tour, and even after it was over, Treasure found himself more puzzled to know what prompted it than he was influenced by its content.