1
Carfax was buried. There had been an inquest; certain tramps and wanderers had been arrested, examined and dismissed. No discovery had been made, and a verdict of Wilful "Wilful murder against some person or persons unknown" had been returned. It was generally felt that Carfax's life had not been of the most savoury and that there were, in all probability, amongst the back streets of Cambridge several persons who had owed him a grudge. He appeared, indeed, in the discoveries that were now made on every side, to be something better dead than alive. A stout and somnolent gentleman, with red cheeks and eyes half closed, was the only mourner from the outside world at the funeral. This, it appeared, was an uncle. Father dead, mother divorced and leading a pleasant existence amongst the capitals of Europe. The uncle, although maintaining a decent appearance of grief, was obviously, at heart, relieved to be rid of his nephew so easily. Poor Carfax! For so rubicund and noisy a person he left strangely little mark upon the world. Within a fortnight the college had nearly lost account of his existence. He lent to Sannet Wood a sinister air that caused numberless undergraduates to cycle out in that direction. Now and again, when conversation flagged, some one revived the subject. But it was a horse that needed much whipping to make it go. It had kicked with its violent hoof upon the soft walls of Cambridge life. For a moment it had seemed that it would force its way, but the impression had been of the slightest.
Even within the gates and courts of Saul's itself the impression that Carfax had left faded with surprising swiftness into a melodramatic memory. But nothing could have been more remarkable than the resolute determination of these young men to push grim facts away. They were not made—one could hear it so eloquently explained—for that kind of tragedy. The autumn air, the furious exercise, the hissing kettles, the decent and amiable discussions on Life reduced to the importance of a Greek Accent—these things rejected violently the absurdity of Tragic Crudity.
They were quite right, these young men. They paid their shining pounds for the capture—conscious or not as it might be—of an atmosphere, a delicate and gentle setting to the crudity of their later life. Carfax, when alive, had blundered into coarse disaster but had blundered in back streets. Now the manner of his death painted him in shrieking colours. The harmony was disturbed, therefore he must go.
Of more importance to this world of Saul's was the strange revival—as though from the dead—of Olva Dune. They had been prepared, many of them, for some odd development, but this perfectly normal, healthy interest in the affairs of the College was the last thing that his grave, romantic air could ever have led any one to expect. His football in the first place opened wide avenues of speculation. First there had been the College game, then there had been the University match against the Harlequins, and it was, admittedly, a very long time since any one had seen anything like it. He had seemed, in that game against the Harlequins, to possess every virtue that should belong to the ideal three-quarter—pace, swerve, tackle, and through them all the steady working of the brain. Nevertheless those earlier games were yet remembered against him, and it was confidently said that this brilliance, with a man of Dune's temperament, could not possibly last. But, nevertheless, the expectation of his success brought him up, with precipitation, against the personality of Cardillac, and it was this implied rivalry that agitated the College. It is only in one's second year that a matter of this kind can assume world-shaking importance. The First-year Undergraduate is too near the child, the Third-year Undergraduate too near the man. For the First-year man School, for the Third-year man the World looms too heavily. So it is from the men of the Second year that the leaders are to be selected, and at this time in Saul's Cardillac seemed to have no rival. He combined, to an admirable degree, the man of the world and the sportsman; he had an air that was beyond rubies. He was elegant without being effeminate, arrogant without being conceited, indifferent without being blase. He had learnt, at Eton, and at the knee of a rich and charming mother, that to be crude was the unforgivable sin. He worshipped the god of good manners and would have made an admirable son of the great Lord Chesterfield. Finally he was the only man in Saul's who had any "air" at all, and he had already travelled round the world and been introduced by his mother to Royalty at Marienbad.
The only man who could ever have claimed any possible rivalry was Dune, and Dune had seemed determined, until now, to avoid any-thing of the kind. Suddenly the situation leapt upon the startled eyes of the attentive world. Possibility of excitement. . . .