Sidney Chambers and the Perils of the Night Read Online Free PDF Page B

something else.’
    ‘But why murder a man who was going to die anyway?’
    ‘Perhaps because you are afraid of his recklessness; because you understand that a man who knows he is about to die is capable of anything.’
     
    Inspector Keating was, he told Sidney, ‘in no mood for mucking about’, as they sat together in the RAF bar at the back of the Eagle for one of their regular Thursday-night backgammon sessions. Keating was already complaining. His feet were cold, his gloves thin and it took an age to move around the town. Too many of his colleagues were on sick leave and his home was filled with three children who kept passing their colds between each other so that there was never a moment when everyone was healthy. His wife was exhausted and he himself was not much better.
    After he had progressed through the litany of his lot in life and downed his first pint of the evening, Keating turned his complaint to the limitations of a Cambridge education and the irritation caused by the fact that members of the university believed they were a law unto themselves. ‘Academic ability isn’t everything, Sidney,’ he pronounced, ‘especially when it comes to crime. You have to know what makes people tick. You have to understand the human character. You can’t just get all the answers out of books. That’s why you and I get on with each other.’
    ‘I agree, although you do need intelligence as well as intuition.’
    ‘Then there are different kinds of “intelligence”, aren’t there? The public and the private . . .’
    ‘The stated and the concealed.’
    Such was Inspector Keating’s impatience that he was not going to wait to hear Sidney’s ideas but pressed on with his own. ‘We need to establish the truth about Valentine Lyall. Who was he and what were they all doing on the roof in the first place? Was this a relatively innocent escapade or did one or more of them have sinister motives? Did Lyall fall or did Bartlett push him? If he was pushed, was he deliberately lured on to the roof in order to meet his doom? If so, then for what purpose? And why this method?’
    ‘To make it look like an accident.’
    ‘There are simpler ways of killing a man. Second, we need to know if Rory Montague saw as little as he says he did and whether he is as innocent as he sounds. Can he remember anything more, and what was his relationship with the two other men? Why is he still here when Bartlett has disappeared? And lastly, why is the Master of your college so keen that I should only talk to you?’
    ‘He is worried that you will think it might have something to do with espionage.’
    ‘I wouldn’t be surprised. I do have a few contacts in the Foreign Office and they’ve been warning me about this place for years. Although I don’t always get the information I’m after. They can be quite evasive when they want to be.’
    ‘I imagine that’s their job. But it’s always hard to know what’s going on and how much people know,’ Sidney continued. ‘I’m not a great believer in conspiracy theories myself. People at this university are generally too consumed by their own ideas. You cannot underestimate the limited preoccupations of the intellectual. But whether this is, or is not, an accident, it’s certainly unusual for three men to be on a roof together and for one to die and another to disappear from the face of the earth. I also share your doubts about Rory Montague. I think he’s hiding something.’
    ‘We need to go through their movements as accurately as we can; and that, unfortunately, means getting on to the roof ourselves.’
    ‘I imagined you might say that,’ Sidney replied warily. ‘I presume we can forgo the use of climbing ropes. There is a perfectly good interior staircase.’
    ‘And I assume you know how to get to it.’
    ‘My friend, the precentor, will supply us with a key.’
    ‘You have friends in high places.’
    ‘And some low ones too,’ Sidney replied, finishing his pint. He told