The Weight of the Evidence by Michael Innes

him. He is opsessed.’ Sir David had quite ceased to be the rugged but benevolent philosopher and had become a frank little Welshman of the bardic and excitable sort. He was, in fact, well-launched upon a piece of bad poetry. ‘He is opsessed. And then, walking over the moors one day – he finds the meteorite. A thing, look you, sent from hefen! He hurries away. But he has met his myth and he returns, again and again, compelled. The thing has grown a fetish. He comes to know efery contour of it by heart. Now in his dreams there is a real stone: here a well-known jagged edge; there a smooth knob like a pig pludgeon. And at last he acts: he tries to move the stone! He pushes, heaves, levers. The stone stirs, moves, falls pack again into its place. Now he is caught. He has pecome Sisyphus indeed. Then, one dark night–’
    ‘Then, one dark night, he goes mad.’ Appleby interrupted civilly. ‘The theory, I take it, requires that?’
    ‘To be sure.’ The Vice-Chancellor nodded, slightly resentful of this short-cut to his climax. ‘It iss a thing to remember about professors. They go mad. And Pluckrose iss compelled to raise the stone – up, up as far as it will go. Into his car, into the hoist, up and up to the tower. He will palance it on the window-sill, where it can pe seen from the court. And next day he will pe able to point and say: “ Ha-ha! ”’
    At this juncture Sir David threw back his beautiful mane of hair and laughed so loudly that Hobhouse jumped. The interview was becoming dream-shaped and monstrous, like something in Kafka. And the last sunbeam had disappeared, so that Hume and Hartley and Locke were growing shadowy and insubstantial.
    ‘“ Ha-ha! ” he will say; “see how high Sisyphus has raised his stone after all. None ever raised it higher, look you!”’ Sir David was now craning his neck up at his own ceiling, and involuntarily Appleby and Hobhouse found themselves doing the same. ‘It is perilously palanced; he will give it just one more push–’ Sir David thrust his arms outward and upward. ‘Just one more inch, when – crash! ’ And Sir David’s arms fell dramatically to his sides.
    They stared at him, astonished. ‘You mean’ – Appleby had to strive for words – ‘that he had an accident while contriving some insane piece of exhibitionism; that he came tumbling down with the meteorite and was crushed; that he didn’t commit suicide after all?’
    Sir David Evans looked momentarily surprised, as if he had failed to notice the position at which he had arrived. But then he nodded emphatically. ‘Just so. It iss death by misadventure. And during a preakdown such as professors have.’ He paused and looked about the room, now filling with dusk. ‘Where are the reporters? They must be told what we have discovered, mark you. And who is the City coroner now? I must write to him. It will not do to have mistakes.’ He raised a finger – a finger which was now wholly minatory and threatening. ‘You will inquire. You will infestigate. But there will be no mistakes, look you, no mistakes!’
     
    ‘Damocles,’ said Appleby as they walked down the corridor.
    ‘Huh?’ Hobhouse at the moment appeared to find inarticulate sounds of most service to him.
    ‘If Sisyphus, why not Damocles? It’s true he had nothing to do with stones or meteorites. But they suspended a sword over his head by a single horse-hair and expected him to take his ease under it. I think somebody might bring Damocles into the story. The Damocles Complex.’
    Hobhouse looked cautiously behind him, rather as if he expected Sir David Evans to be following them quietly on all fours. ‘I say, what did you make of all that? I suppose his mind broods on that sort of stuff – Sisyphus Complexes and the like.’
    ‘I’m sure it doesn’t. That’s the odd thing. The sort of academic philosopher Evans is or was invariably thinks Freud and what-not a mass of nonsense. It was a sheer fantasy for the benefit of two