Death at the Alma Mater Read Online Free PDF Page A

Paris that you’ll never forget. Whatever you want is yours.”
    She didn’t have to pause for thought. She kept a mental list of her latest wants constantly updated.
    “You know I’ve had my eye on that cocktail ring…”
    “Anything.”
    “All right, then. But don’t expect me to enjoy myself for a moment.”
    “You’re a saint, Constance.”

AULD ACQUAINTANCE

    As the instructions accompanying the invitation to the alumni weekend had explained, there would be an informal meal in Hall Friday night, to be followed by a formal dinner on Saturday night. Saturday day would be taken up with lectures, tours, and chances to reminisce. Augie Cramb, late of Austin, Texas, debated the choices as he walked along Sidney Street, past Sidney Sussex College, his footsteps carrying him ever farther away from St. Mike’s. He’d much prefer a pub meal and a chance to chat up the locals to what, however “informal,” would surely be the grinding bore of a meal in Hall. Even when he’d lived here as a graduate student for the two long years it took to get his Master’s, he’d avoided meals in college like the plague they often were. It wasn’t the pomp and circumstance of college life he was after, but to get to know the people. He regarded this natural inclination as the secret to his success. He understood the little man. It was the nobs he couldn’t fathom. Besides, the weekend was going to be awkward enough in spots without his having to go out of his way to have meals with the others. He was here to sightsee. Sightsee he would.
    He pulled out his personal navigation device, although he knew the way perfectly well. Augie, who had made and conserved his fortune during the dot-com bubble, loved gadgets, and this small new GPS seldom left his side. He punched in the name of the pub he remembered from nearly twenty years ago. Nothing. Maybe it was another victim of the pub closings that were swamping England. More than fifty per week were shutting their doors, he’d read somewhere. The smoking ban and cheap supermarket booze had done for them. It was the real end of the British Empire as far as Augie was concerned.
    Well, there was always The Eagle on Bene’t Street. That pub was so famous, so beloved of scientists and World War II buffs, it would be around even if the city fell. Heck, if there were ever any danger of the Eagle’s closing he’d buy the place himself.
    He set his steps towards Petty Cury, turning there to walk towards the river. He kept his eyes on the GPS screen, not realizing how this inhibited his ability to see any actual sights. So engrossed in his gadget was he, in fact, that he had collided with Sir James before he knew it.
    “Oh, I say, I’m jolly sorry,” said Sir James.
    “Jamie, my boy!” shouted Augie in surprise. Several heads turned to see what the commotion was about. Augie, from the wide open spaces of Texas, where a man was free to yell all he wanted, saw no need to moderate his speech.
    Sir James, hugely affronted at the familiarity (his knighthood was a source of immense pride and had been awarded not before time, in his opinion), smiled somewhat frostily and turned to his wife.
    “You’ll remember India, I think,” he said, his voice deliberately kept low in the vain hope Augie Cramb would follow suit.
    “Indy!” shouted Augie. He clapped her on the upper arm hard enough to send her flying into traffic; she was just prevented from such a fate by her husband’s quick thinking. Grabbing her, Sir James set her to rights. Unlike her husband, India could not be bothered to hide her antipathy: Augie Cramb had always been a buffoon, and while age had not withered him—he had to have put on two stone, and all of it around his middle—custom, she felt sure, would quickly stale his infinite variety.
    “It’s my GPS.” Augie was explaining now, in excruciating detail, the device he held to within a few inches of James’ nose. “It uses satnav—satellite navigation—see? I just