The Late Scholar by Jill Paton Walsh

Author:Jill Paton Walsh [Walsh, Jill Paton]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton
Published: 2013-12-04T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 11

Angry they may have been, but Peter’s appeal produced a number of visitors to his rooms with whom he had not yet had a one-to-one conversation. The first of these was a junior fellow who suggested that the college nurse had probably known of such a dramatically dangerous condition. She might have had to intervene. Come to that, surely the college servants would have been alerted, and once something was known to the college servants, the whole of Oxford knew.

Peter thanked him for his insights and said he would investigate the college nurse.

The next visitor was Tom Ranger, the fellow in medicine.

‘I didn’t know about poor Oundle, but I’m not surprised,’ he told Peter. ‘There were indications; but the man wasn’t my patient, so I didn’t think hard about it and put two and two together.’

‘What are the two and two you didn’t connect?’ Peter asked him. ‘Were they anything very obvious?’

‘Reasonably obvious, but capable of less exotic explanation,’ said Ranger. ‘He used a stick, and moved rather stiffly for his age – he wasn’t above fifty. His hands were rather gnarled – thick joints like arthritis; in fact I thought it was arthritis. But when you asked your question of us all just now, I remembered an incident in which Oundle bumped his face against one of those pestilential self-closing doors, and got a nose-bleed. We offered the usual remedies – key down the back of his shirt, head tipped back, holding nose between finger and thumb – but he took himself off to the college nurse very promptly. He seemed rather bothered about it. But you see I didn’t think of any of this until you mentioned haemophilia. I’m rather kicking myself for obtuseness.’

‘You don’t think the signs you now recall were obvious enough to allow somebody else to guess?’

‘As I say, I saw some signs. I thought he had severe arthritis. That’s very common, and haemophilia is very rare. Medical students like to diagnose rare conditions, but experienced doctors usually don’t. I’m afraid this is not much help.’

‘On the contrary, Dr Ranger, it is very helpful. Background information is often the source of insight, I find,’ said Peter.

When Ranger had left, feeling that he himself had better sit and wait for any further visitors, Peter asked Harriet to find and interview the college nurse.

That lady’s services were shared between nearby colleges: between St Severin’s and Wadham, and Keble and Shrewsbury. Harriet ran her to earth in Keble. Miss Havershaw was as stiff and formal as a hospital matron, and clearly capable of terrifying the undergraduates out of hypochondria. The mention of Mr Oundle’s name, however, upset her.

‘I wasn’t surprised he had passed on,’ she said to Harriet, when Harriet had introduced herself, confessed to being an emissary for Peter, and explained her errand. ‘The poor gentleman was always at risk, even from a slight accident. But when I heard what had happened to him, I was horrified. Horrified is the word.’

‘We need to find who did it, and quickly,’ said Harriet.

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