The Weight of the Evidence Read Online Free PDF

Vice-Chancellor.’
    Hobhouse gave an inarticulate mutter and stared stonily at the golden-tasselled cap of the Duke of Nesfield where it still perched incongruously on its bust. Plainly, this sort of thing was far from having his approval.
    ‘Sir David is greatly upset – much grieved. He regarded Professor Pluckrose as a close personal friend.’
    ‘Indeed,’ said Crunkhorn – a shade grimly.
    ‘And he advised us to come straight to you for what he called an objective and dispassionate view.’
    ‘Ah,’ said Crunkhorn.
    ‘Nobody, he thought, would be better able to provide such a thing. And he made one or two remarks on the value of a mathematical training which interested me very much. I fear I was a classical man myself.’
    ‘Indeed.’ Crunkhorn spoke more mildly. ‘Our professor of classics is Hissey.’
    ‘Really?’ Appleby was interested. ‘I used to attend his lectures when he was a don at St Anthony’s.’
    ‘Dear me.’ Crunkhorn, though staring a little blankly at this odd policeman, relaxed appreciably in his chair. ‘A sound scholar, I have been told. But somewhat out of his element here. These universities, you know, require for the most part technical men. Applied scientists – that sort of timing.’
    Silly old snob, thought Appleby. ‘These’ universities won’t have a soul of their own until they put the Duke’s Dicks and Harrys into their teaching jobs. Aloud he said: ‘And now I wonder if you can help us? Professor Pluckrose appears to have been murdered, I am very sorry to say. Is there any general picture into which such a thing would conceivably fit?’ He paused. ‘Of course we quite realize that you may not think there is anything profitable to record.’
    Hobhouse stirred slightly, as if reluctantly acknowledging the mature technique concealed in this last remark. Nothing like suggesting to a witness that he may be without anything interesting to say.
    And Professor Crunkhorn said something. It had at least the virtue of being totally unexpected. ‘Galileo,’ he said. ‘I associate the affair with Galileo.’
    ‘I beg your pardon?’
    ‘Galileo.’
    Appleby looked very blank. ‘Do I understand you to refer to – to the sixteenth-century astronomer?’
    Professor Crunkhorn turned to his junior colleague. ‘Church,’ he asked, ‘do you remember when he was born?’
    ‘I’m afraid I don’t.’
    ‘Or when he died?’
    ‘I can’t say I do.’
    ‘Ah.’ Crunkhorn shook his head with facetious sadness over this piece of academic nescience. ‘But stay! The dates have just come into my head.’ He smiled amiably at his discomfited assistant. ‘1564 to 1642. We shall therefore do well to refer to him as a seventeenth -century astronomer.’
    Hobhouse breathed heavily, clearly indicating his conviction that this travesty of correct police procedure could lead only to buffoonery. Appleby, however, looked admiringly at Crunkhorn, as if delighted to meet so forthright and cogent a mind. ‘I certainly agree that we should assign Galileo to the seventeenth century. And it is most interesting that he should be implicated in Professor Pluckrose’s death. Perhaps you could expand the matter a little?’
    ‘Church sees what is in my mind. He will explain better than I can.’ And Crunkhorn again beamed amiably at his colleague. It was plain that one of this young man’s functions was to be taken round and baited, like a sort of learned bear.
    ‘Meteorites,’ said Church uncertainly and gloomily. ‘They say the old person was killed with a meteorite.’ He paused for a moment, as if there was something enticing in the thought of this short way with old persons. ‘I suppose that might link up with astronomy after some fashion.’ He scowled at Appleby – an able youth, acutely conscious of being manoeuvred into saying something thoroughly feeble.
    ‘To be sure,’ said Crunkhorn. ‘Your analysis, my dear Church, carries us some way – some little way. But it is a