Sidney Chambers and the Perils of the Night by James Runcie

don’t want to lose one of their own. That was a near miss.’
    ‘I wouldn’t call myself an angel, Bill.’
    ‘Better than being a devil, though, isn’t it?’ the porter winked.
    Sidney was irritated. He didn’t like people winking, he had to talk to the Master, and he worried that someone was trying to kill him. In a moment of madness he wondered if it was Kit Bartlett. What the hell was going on?
    Sidney was determined to have it out with the Master, but when he finally got to see him he found the man was incapable of concentrating on their conversation. He appeared to have lost something and kept rearranging the papers on his desk, looking under the stacks of books that lay on the tables, chairs and piled on the floor. Even the library ladder was so filled with academic paraphernalia that it could no longer fulfil its function in enabling the reader to reach the higher shelves in the study.
    ‘Have you mislaid something, Master?’
    ‘It’s a curious thing. It’s only notes.’
    Sidney was bemused. ‘I’m sure they will turn up.’
    ‘I am a little worried because I have been rather acerbic and I would prefer it if they didn’t get into the wrong hands. I have looked everywhere.’
    ‘Perhaps your secretary has taken them away?’
    ‘Miss Madge knows that she must touch nothing in this room,’ the Master replied. ‘I have her well trained.’
    Sidney wondered how he had achieved this. His own housekeeper, Mrs Maguire, moved everything willy-nilly and her vacuum cleaner took precedence to everything. The result was that after one of her ‘proper cleans’ Sidney could never find anything at all.
    ‘It’s very troubling,’ the Master continued. ‘It is not just that Lyall is so tragically dead and Bartlett has disappeared. It’s the air of uncertainty I can’t stand.’
    ‘I suppose we all like a semblance of order.’
    ‘A semblance? There’s no illusion in order. It is what we are supposed to offer in this college. History. Continuity. Academic excellence.’
    ‘And you think that the event on the roof of the chapel will adversely affect our reputation?’
    ‘It will if we don’t explain the nature of the accident clearly. Lyall was one of our better-known fellows and, even in his lifetime, he attracted a few stories. Now, of course, there are more.’
    ‘Insinuations, accusations of a sexual nature?’
    ‘You know the kind of thing. It doesn’t take much. I wish I could find these notes.’
    ‘Perhaps they have been stolen?’
    ‘I doubt that. Although it is irritating.’
    ‘Theft is a crime, Master. You could always call in the police.’
    The Master stopped tidying his papers and asked, ‘How do you think your man is getting on?’
    ‘Inspector Keating?’
    ‘You’ve nothing to report yourself? Nothing out of the ordinary has occurred to you recently?’
    Sidney was alarmed. Why would the Master ask such a question if he didn’t suspect that something had happened or that Sidney had become suspicious? He must know that Sidney was being followed. He knew that there had been attempts to scare him off the case.
    ‘I don’t think so,’ Sidney replied.
    ‘Are you sure?’
    Sidney hesitated. ‘I am quite sure.’ He wasn’t going to give the Master the advantage in a situation where he wasn’t sure whom he could trust.
    ‘You are aware that Rory Montague has returned home?’
    ‘In the middle of term?’ Sidney thought that this, too, was unusual. ‘Why?’
    Sir Giles tried to sound nonchalant. ‘I thought a break might be good for him.’
    ‘It was your idea?’
    ‘Just for a few days. While things calm down.’
    ‘Do you think he will lead us to Bartlett?’
    ‘I suppose he might. Bartlett’s parents certainly hope so; although I have hinted that this is a question of government secrecy and that they shouldn’t be unduly alarmed.’
    ‘You said that? Even though we cannot be sure? I would have thought that would only make them worry more. Have you told the police