Body in the Transept by Jeanne M. Dams Page B

he isn’t one of Jane’s ‘protégés,’ as you put it. I did ask her about him yesterday—no, not as a murder suspect, don’t be silly,” as his ears perked up. “I was interested because I saw him at the cathedral and he has such a striking face. She told me a little about him, but said she didn’t know him very well. What on earth makes you think he could have—done something like that?” The words “kill” and “murder” were too embarrassing; they sounded like cheap melodrama, especially in Alice’s highly refined room.
    “Oh, I don’t say he did. But he had reason. I suppose Jane told you, at least, that he worked for Billings?”
    I nodded. “In the cathedral library.”
    “And did she tell you they had a blazing row the very day the good canon—died?”
    Alice and I fastened our eyes on George with an attention that seemed to please him. He cleared his throat again.
    “I presume you do know Evans is a student.” He was going to make us wait for it.
    “Jane told me he’s at the university. She didn’t say what he’s studying.”
    “Reading history. Thinks he’s God’s gift to scholarship. Entirely above himself, that lad. If you ask me, he needs a good kick in the pants, which is just what he would have got if Billings hadn’t died just now. He was about to be sent down.”
    “Sent down! Expelled, you mean? But surely not! Jane called him ‘brilliant.’”
    “That’s as may be.” George was getting worked up; his face was an alarming shade of purple. “He’s bright enough, when he wants to be. He’s also belligerent, rude, and too cocky by half.”
    “He’s one of your students.” It wasn’t a question.
    “Not mine, really. Worked with me from time to time, that’s all, helped proofread my book for a little spare cash. Oh, I won’t deny he’s been a good student. Keen. But he’d got to the point where he knew a little about this and that, and thought he knew it all. Actually argued with me over some points in my book. He’s twenty years old! I was reading history before he was born or thought of.”
    “Oh, for heaven’s sake, George, rudeness is annoying, certainly, but the young
are
sure of themselves.” And, I didn’t say aloud, being rude to you is almost irresistible. “I can’t believe that’s enough to get him thrown out of school! He’s not the first young man in a university to be rude.”
    “Of course that’s not all of it,” said George irritably. “I told you he had a row with Billings. Flinging accusations all over the shop, and the
language
! There would have been no choice but to report his shameful behavior to the university authorities, and what would they have done about it, I ask you?”
    I was beginning not to like the smell of this. “What was the quarrel about, George?”
    “Don’t know,” he admitted with some reluctance. “I was in the library at the time, in the stacks. Apparently they didn’t see me. I couldn’t actually hear what they said until they started shouting, and by that time it was all name-calling, or worse, and I wanted no part of it. But before I left I heard Evans threaten him. ‘You’ll regret it if you do, I promise you that.’”
    “If everyone who made threats carried them out, the undertakers couldn’t keep up,” I retorted. “Personally, I don’t think the canon was murdered at all. It had to have been some sort of accident.”
    “Ah, yes, I wondered what you thought of it all,” said George. “You know more than any of us, of course.”
    “I don’t know a thing, except what I saw, and I don’t want to talk about that.” I felt I had made sufficient payment for my tea. “I don’t even want to think about it. I simply can’t believe anyone would kill a clergyman in his own church.”
    “It has been done,” murmured Alice. “And Canon Billings was a much less popular man than Thomas à Becket. But Dorothy, you haven’t had any Christmas cake. Do let me cut you some.”
    George opened his