“Of course,” said Harriet, “the idea might have been to make a disturbance and bring me on to the scene in time to be suspected of having done it myself.”

“That would be silly; everybody knows you can’t be the Poltergeist.”

“Well, then, we come back to my first idea. I was to be attacked. But why couldn’t I be attacked at midnight or any other time? Why bring me back at eleven?”

“It couldn’t have been something timed to go off at eleven, while the alibi was being established?”

“Nobody could know to a moment the exact time I should take coming from Somerville to Shrewsbury. Unless you are thinking of a bomb or something that would go off when the gate was opened. But that would work equally well at any time.”

“But if the alibi was fixed for eleven-”

“Then why didn’t the bomb go off? As a matter of fact, I simply can’t believe in a bomb at all.”

“Nor can I-not really,” said Miss Edwards. “We’re just being theoretical. I suppose Padgett saw nothing suspicious?”

“Only Miss Hillyard,” replied Harriet, lightly, “sitting in the Fellows’ Garden.”

“Oh!”

“She does go there sometimes at night; I’ve seen her. Perhaps she frightened away-whatever it was.”

“Perhaps,” said Miss Edwards. “By the way, your noble friend seems to have overcome her prejudices in a remarkable manner. I don’t mean the one who saluted you in the quad-the one who came to dinner.”

“Are you trying to make a mystery out of yesterday afternoon?” asked Harriet, smiling. “I think it was only a matter of introductions to some man in Italy who owns a library.”

“So she informed us,” said Miss Edwards. Harriet realized that, when her own back was turned, a good deal of chaff must have been flying about the History Tutor’s ears. “Well,” Miss Edwards went on, “I promised him a paper on blood groups, but he hasn’t started to badger me for it yet. He’s an interesting man, isn’t he?”

“To the biologist?”

Miss Edwards laughed. “Well, yes-as a specimen of the pedigree animal. Shockingly overbred, but full of nervous intelligence. But I didn’t mean that.”

“To the woman, then?”

Miss Edwards turned a candid eye on Harriet.

“To many women, I should imagine.”

Harriet met the eye with a level gaze.

“I have no information on that point.”

“Ah!” said Miss Edwards. “In your novels, you deal more in material facts than in psychology, don’t you?”

Harriet readily admitted that this was so.

“Well, never mind,” said Miss Edwards; and said goodnight rather brusquely.

Harriet asked herself what all this was about. Oddly enough, it had never yet occurred to her to wonder what other women made of Peter, or he of them. This must argue either very great confidence or very great indifference on her own part; for, when one came to think of it, eligibility was his middle name.

On reaching her room, she took the scribbled note from her bag and destroyed it without re-reading it. Even the thought of it made her blush. Heroics that don’t come off are the very essence of burlesque.

Thursday was chiefly remarkable for a violent, prolonged and wholly inexplicable row between Miss Hillyard and Miss Chilperic, in the Fellows’ Garden after Hall. How it started or what it was about, nobody could afterwards remember. Somebody had disarranged a pile of books and papers on one of the Library tables, with the result that a History Schools candidate had arrived for a coaching with a tale of a set of notes mislaid or missing. Miss Hillyard, whose temper had been exceedingly short all day, was moved to take the matter personally and, after glowering all through dinner, burst out-as soon as the Warden had gone-into a storm of indignation against the world in general.

“Why my pupils should always be the ones to suffer from other people’s carelessness, I don’t know,” said Miss Hillyard. Miss Burrows said she didn’t see that they suffered more than anybody else. Miss Hillyard angrily adduced instances extending over the past three terms of History students whose work had been interfered with by what looked like deliberate persecution.

“Considering,” she went on, “that the History School is the largest in the College and certainly not the least important-”

Miss Chilperic pointed out, quite correctly, that in that particular year there happened to be more candidates for the English School than any other.

“Of course you would say that,” said Miss Hillyard. “There may be a couple more this year-I dare say there may-though why we should need an extra English tutor to cope with them, when I have to grapple single-handed-”

It was at that point that the origin of the quarrel became lost in a fog of personalities, in the course of which Miss Chilperic was accused of insolence, arrogance, inattention to her work, general incompetence and a desire to attract notice to herself. The extreme wildness of these charges left poor Miss Chilperic quite bewildered. Indeed, nobody seemed to be able to make anything of it, except, perhaps, Miss Edwards, who sat with a grim smile knitting herself a silk jumper. At length the attack extended itself from Miss Chilperic to Miss Chilperic’s fiancé, whose scholarship was submitted to scathing criticism.

Miss Chilperic rose up, trembling.

“I think, Miss Hillyard,” she said, “you must be beside yourself. I do not mind what you say about me, but I cannot sit here while you insult Jacob Peppercorn.” She stumbled a little over the syllables of this unfortunate name, and Miss Hillyard laughed unkindly. “Mr. Peppercorn is a very fine scholar,” pursued Miss Chilperic, with rising anger as of an exasperated lamb, “and I insist that-”

“I’m glad to hear you say so,” said Miss Hillyard. “If I were you, I should make do with him.”

“I don’t know what you mean,” cried Miss Chilperic.

“Perhaps Miss Vane could tell you,” retorted Miss Hillyard, and walked away without another word.

“Good gracious!” cried Miss Chilperic, turning to Harriet, “Whatever is she talking about?”

“I haven’t the least idea,” said Harriet.

“I don’t know, but I can guess,” said Miss Edwards. “If people will bring dynamite into a powder factory, they must expect explosions.” While Harriet was rooting about in the back of her mind for some association that these words called up, Miss Edwards went on:

“If somebody doesn’t get to the bottom of these disturbances within the next few days, there’ll be murder done. If we’re like this now, what’s going to happen to us at the end of term? You ought to have had the police in from the start, and if I’d been here, I’d have said so. I’d like to deal with a good, stupid sergeant of police for a change.”

Then she, too, got up and stalked away, leaving the rest of the dons to stare at one another.

Harriet had been only too right about Wilfrid. She had spent portions of four days in altering and humanizing Wilfrid, and today, after a distressful morning with him, had reached the dismal conclusion that she would have to rewrite the whole thing from the beginning. Wilfrid’s tormented humanity stood out now against the competent vacuity of the other characters like a wound. Moreover, with the reduction of Wilfrid’s motives to what was psychologically credible, a large lump of the plot had fallen out, leaving a gap through which one could catch glimpses of new and exciting jungles of intrigue. She stood aimlessly staring into the window of the antique shop. Wilfrid was becoming like one of those coveted ivory chessmen. You probed into his interior and discovered an intricate and delicate carved sphere of sensibilities, and, as you turned it in your fingers, you found another inside that, and within that, another again.