The Jewel That Was Ours Read Online Free PDF

could find little to criticise in such a grandly appointed room.
    Sheila Williams, a large gin and tonic in her left hand, was trying to be pleasantly hospitable: 'Now are we all here? Not quite I think? Have we all got drinks?'
    News of Laura Stratton's death had been withheld from the rest of the group, with only Sheila herself being officially notified of that sad event. It was a burden for her, certainly; but also a wonderful excuse for fortifying the inner woman, and Sheila seldom needed any such excuse.
    'Mrs Roscoe! You haven't got a drink. What can I—?'
    'I don't drink, Mrs Williams!' Janet turned her head to a sheepish-looking Phil Aldrich, standing stoically beside her: 'I've already told her once, Phil!'
    'Janet here is a deacon in our church back home, Mrs Williams—’
    But Sheila had already jerked into a tetchy rejoinder: 'Well I do drink, Mrs Roscoe! In fact I'm addicted to the stuff. And my reasons for such addiction may be just as valid as your own reasons for abstinence. All right?'
    With which well-turned sentence she walked back to the table just beside the main door whereon a dozen or so botdes of gin (Booth's and Gordon's), Martini (French and Italian), sherry (dry, medium, sweet) stood in competition with two large jugs of orange juice. She handed over her half-empty glass to the young girl dispensing the various riches. 'Gin - large one, please! - no ice - and no more tonic' Thus, fully re-equipped for her dudes, Sheila looked down once more at the yellow sheet of A4 which John Ashenden had earlier prepared, typed up, photocopied, and distributed. It was high time to get things moving. Of the tourists, only Howard and Shirley Brown (apart from Eddie Stratum) seemed now to be missing - no, that was wrong: apart from Eddie and Laura Stratton. Of the two distinguished speakers (three, if she herself were included), Theodore Kemp had not as yet put in an appearance. But the third of the trio, Cedric Downes, seemed to Sheila to be doing a splendid job as he stood behind a thinly fluted glass of dry sherry and asked, with (as she saw it) a cleverly concealed indifference, whence the tourists hailed and what their pre-retirement professions had been.
    It was 7.25 p.m. before Dr Kemp finally entered, in the company of a subdued-looking Ashenden; and it was almost immediately apparent to Sheila that both of them had now been informed of the disturbing events that had been enacted in the late afternoon. As her eyes had met Kemp's there was, albeit for a moment, a flash of mutual understanding and (almost?) of comradeship.
    'Ladies and Gentlemen . . .' Sheila knocked a table noisily and repeatedly with the bottom of an ash-tray, and the chatter subsided. 'Mr Ashenden has asked me to take you through our Oxford itinerary - briefly! -so if you will all just look at your yellow sheets for a minute . . .' She waved her own sheet; and then, without
    any significant addition (although with a significant omission) to the printed word, read vaguely through the dates and times of the itemised programme:

    THE HISTORIC CITIES OF ENGLAND TOUR 27TH OCT-10TH NOV (Oxford Stage)
    Thursday 1st November
    4.30 p.m. (approx.) Arr. The Randolph 4.30-5.30 p.m.       
    English teas available
    6.4S p.m.                Cocktail Reception (St John's Suite) introduced
    8.00 p.m. 9.30-10.15 p.m.
    by Sheila Williams, MA, BLitt (Cantab), with Cedric Downes, MA (Oxon) Dinner (main dining room) Talk by Dr Theodore Kemp, MA, DPhil (Oxon) on Treasures of the Ashmolean'.
    Friday 2nd November
    7.30-9.15 a.m. 10.30-11.30 a.m.
    12.45 p.m.
    3.00 p.m.
    4.30-5.00 p.m. 6.30 p.m.
    Breakfast (main dining room)
    Visit to The Oxford Story, Broad Street (100 yards only from the hotel) Lunch (St John's Suite) - followed by an informal get-together with our lecturers in the coffee-lounge
    We divide into groups (details to be announced later)
    English tea (Lancaster Room)
    The Tour Highlight! The presentation, by Mrs Laura Stratton, of