An Oxford Tragedy by J. C. Masterman Page A

from his. Good night.’

    I saw little of him throughout Friday, though I knew from many stray remarks of others, and from my own observations, that he was busy throughout the day. I caught a glimpse of him driving in my car in the direction of Mottram’s laboratory, I heard by chance from a friend in Balliol that he had called upon Tweddle, I heard that he had smoked and chatted in the rooms of Prendergast and Mitton and others, and that he had flattered Callendar by a request that the latter would show him our college silver and the Common Room cellar. For myself I was in a fever of disquiet over the thought of the inquest which was to take place on Saturday morning. I paced up and down my rooms, considering time after time how I should give my evidence. In vain I told myself that my own part in the proceedings was of very minor importance. My old nightmare thought that I should make a fool of myself, and appear ridiculous in public, gripped me once more. In imagination I saw myself stuttering or tongue-tied as the coroner posed his questions; I saw the expressions on the pale beautiful facesof Ruth and Mary change from pity to surprise, even to contempt. I read too in advance the lurid accounts in the paper. Up to now the press had been admirably reticent, ‘Well-known don shot in mysterious circumstances at Oxford. Investigations proceeding’ had been a summary of all that had appeared. But after the inquest it would, I knew, be impossible to prevent a spate of hateful detail. I seemed to see a front-page picture of myself. ‘F. W. Winn, Senior Tutor of St Thomas’s, one of the first to see the murdered body’, and above a miserable effigy of myself, old, feeble, and ineffective. In vain my reason told me that since I was neither corpse, nor murderer, nor even the first to discover the crime, I could not be starred as a protagonist by even the most unprincipled of journalists in search of copy. Instinct is stronger than reason, and no efforts could make me thrust myself into the decent obscurity of unimportance. My wretched habit of introspection and self-analysis tortured me. Again and again I went over in my mind my actions on that fatal evening. Should I not have prevented that ill-omened discussion on murder? Might I not, by a swift decision, have collected a band of eager helpers as soon as I saw Shirley’s body, and with them have searched for and discovered the murderer before he could have escaped? Why had I not summoned the doctor before the police, and why had it taken me so long to fetch him? Half an hour earlier an experienced medical man might have been able to fix the time of the crime almost to a minute, and thus enabled us to trace the murderer. From nervous panic my mood changed to one of irritation. Why should the even tenor of my life be disturbed like this? For years I had lived the easy life of leisure and learning, hurting no one, content with my well-ordered, cultured, intellectual life. How easy it had always been over the port and coffee to discuss with enlightened and broad-minded calm the affairs of a troubled butdistant world! How liberal had been my views, how even and well-informed my judgement! And on the whole how well I had done it! That surely had been my
métier
.
    Like Cato, give his little senate laws
,
    And sit attentive to his own applause
.
    That was how I had seen myself in the midst of my circle. Yes, Pope’s words were curiously applicable, except that perhaps the applause had come from myself more than from my colleagues. And suddenly ugly facts had obtruded themselves and broken up my sheltered world. In a moment of insight I saw myself as perhaps I was; a weak, ineffective man too long protected from contact with realities, and now girding helplessly and bitterly against fate. And how would all this end? Could I hope to settle down again into the old groove? Should I float again serenely on the old sea of selfsatisfaction? For the first