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years. It was of prodigious learned interest, and its discovery by Benton in the Levant had won him his Fellowship and much attention he had never received before – attention to which he had reacted in the most dubious way. Printing only what might whet the curiosity of his fellow scholars, he firmly locked up the Codex, intimating that it would not be published until it passed to the nation on his death. When charged with the perversity of this course he was in the habit of replying mysteriously that his action was the consequence of an undertaking he had given to the Sublime Porte. As nobody knew just how he had come by the Codex – nor very much about the Sublime Porte – this contention could not be disproved. But it was widely believed that Benton had simply hit upon a trick for retaining more importance in the scheme of things than was his natural due. If this was so he had abundantly succeeded: the list of honorary degrees which he had collected from universities ambitious one day to possess the Codex was formidable indeed: he had a commodious box overflowing with foreign decorations; the authorities at the British Museum had been devoted students of the Benton psychology for years; and within the college itself there had been no end of attempts to collar him. A grudge may be none the less keen for being learned. And here was Bussenschutt indulging himself in a demonstration of stored indignation.
    Faced with the social duty of blanketing the explosion, Winter felt that this was an expedient moment to bring forward the matter of the Spider. It would be a diversion, and some account of the plight of the Eliots was necessary to make Timmy’s request for an exeat reasonable. There was moreover a link of association – rather slight though it might appear – which he could exploit: that of a celebrated female traveller and Benton’s Levant. So he plunged. ‘By the way, Benton, talking of the Codex: did you ever happen to meet Mrs Birdwire?’
    The result of this question was surprising. Benton fell back in his chair with a little cry, his white shirt front splashed with red. There was a moment’s bewildered silence, broken by a noise of intense appreciation from Mummery and the whisk of a servant stooping to retrieve the shattered wine-glass. Benton had merely been startled and spilt his port, but the effect was much as if he had been shot or stabbed.
    Bussenschutt, whose features were once more heavily benign, was politely offering Benton a table-napkin, but his eyes – and they were formidably intelligent – were upon Winter. And Winter realized with some dismay that he was suspected of deliberately contriving sensation. It is the instinct of common-rooms to divine in any problematical situation the milder forms of malice.
    Benton dabbed at shirt and chin. ‘A rheumatic twinge,’ he said weakly. ‘I wish the Thames Valley was not so dreadfully damp. Mrs Birdwire, did you say? I believe we have met. Why do you ask?’
    ‘Because of rather an odd story. Eliot–’
    Benton recovered himself sufficiently to scowl. ‘A lazy and graceless youth,’ he said unpromisingly.
    ‘Eliot’s father writes novels. They all concern a character called the Spider.’
    Bussenschutt interrupted. ‘Our Eliot is that Eliot! Dear me, I must ask him to luncheon.’
    ‘Novels?’ Benton looked perplexed. ‘I sometime wish I had time to read prose fiction. But I have not. And when I come to think of it I doubt if I have a taste that way.’ He looked about him more confidently. ‘When I come to weigh the matter I am inclined to say that such reading is mere indulgence.’ Benton’s eye went round the table rather as if searching for a weapon. He took a deep breath. ‘Like drink.’
    Bussenschutt’s hand went suavely to the decanter. ‘You read no fiction, Benton? I believe that some of the dialect writers might interest you. For example–’
    ‘There is’, said Winter, raising his voice to cut short this familiar