“Your daughters might find husbands,” Delia said.
A giggle erupted. “And pigs might fly!”
Dean Charles Wainfleet was upset at the manner of Dr. Tinkerman’s passing, but immensely pleased to be rid of him.
“The most painful bore ever wished on this school,” he said to Carmine frankly.
“Would you have tolerated him were the Parsons not his most ardent patrons?” Carmine asked, smiling. The Dean was a formidable Renaissance scholar who had incorporated philosophy and history into his school, but, as his answer to Carmine’s question revealed, he knew which side his bread was buttered on.
“Without Parson patronage, he would have been gone,” said Wainfleet cheerfully. “As it was, Tom brought a lot of Parson money our way in the form of endowments for several chairs — including his own, I add. The humanities and religion are not pulling in the number of students they used to, but Chubb Divinity has enjoyed relative prosperity thanks to the Parsons, including the number of students enrolled in the college. They endow in many ways.”
“Is there anything I should know about Dr. Tinkerman that is known only within these college walls?” Carmine asked.
“Only that he didn’t give up his Chair of Medieval Christian Studies when he assumed his role as Head Scholar. He thought he could combine both, though he had taken a sabbatical for his first year at C.U.P. After that, both would function equally well. I didn’t agree, but the Parson Brothers did.”
“Either the man was a fool, or a demon for work.”
“A little of each, actually. For instance, he had managed to read every book C.U.P. had on its publication list, not only definitely to be published, but also possibly. Including several scientific works that can have meant nothing to him. He said he was reading them for — er — style.”
“That’s the fool,” Carmine said.
“Perhaps, but only perhaps, Captain. Tom Tinkerman wasn’t a critic of the colloquialism per se, nor even of what Percy Lee would call sloppy prose. His passion was style, and he really believed every author had a unique one. Dr. James Hunter was his obsession — he read A Helical God, he read Jim’s two other books, and every paper he ever published. A Helical God offended his ideals, ethics and principles, but style entered into it too, as it did Jim’s other works. He would rant in his stiff, quiet way about God’s taking as much offense from style as from content!— isn’t that extraordinary? I always felt that race lay at the bottom of Tom’s fixation on Hunter — at heart he was a bigot. Tom’s idea of God was of a white man, and black men with Jim Hunter’s degree of intellectual excellence had to be torn down.”
“That’s a terrible indictment, Dean.”
“I know it. Had he not died, anything might have happened.”
“Did Dr. Tinkerman and Dr. Hunter ever lock horns in public?”
“Once, that I know of. Just before Christmas, at one of M.M.’s professorial shindigs. Tom attacked Jim Hunter as if he’d personally crucified Jesus Christ. It was embarrassing.”
“Do you remember the gist of it?”
“Lord, no! We all moved out of earshot. It seemed wiser.”
“Just before Christmas? So the new Head Scholar’s identity was known?”
“Yes. Christmas Eve. M.M. was oozing bonhomie and Yuletide cheer — principally the egg-nog.”
“Did M.M. hear it?”
“No. Bobby Highman was telling one of his better stories.”
“How did Jim take the attack?”
“Nobly. A trifle pinched around the mouth, but he kept his cool. It was Tom who lost it.”
“As only uptight guys can lose it, I imagine. Thank you for that, Dean. It gives me one idea.” Carmine grimaced. “I’m not sure I can follow where the idea leads, but I can try.”
An extraordinary idea, but one that wouldn’t go away. Yet it had nothing to do with style, or with confrontations. It just popped into Carmine’s brain along with Dean Wainfleet’s verbal description of how things looked at a distance, when nothing could be heard, but much inferred from, when it all boiled down, very little.
Gus Fennell was just out of the autopsy room, and tired. “Oh, what now?” he demanded crossly, then gave himself a visible shake. “Sorry, Carmine. Having Patrick sequestered makes for too much work in my court and not enough in his.”
“We’ll move to fix that as soon as possible, Gus. Now sit down and I’ll get you a coffee.”
“I’d rather tea,” Gus said, still peevish.
Carmine brought him tea. “Lemon, or milk?”