The Mammoth Book of New Sherlock Holmes Adventures Read Online Free Page B

Philosophy was known to undergraduates, had already acquired that reputation for eccentricity which was later to spread well beyond the confines of the university.
    Spooner nodded mournfully. “Ah, yes, it’s those things I say, isn’t it? I can’t help myself you know; they just pop out like habbits from a role.”
    After exchanging a few more courtesies each passenger settled to his own occupation for the journey. Holmes returned to his paper. Spooner spent a considerable time organizing his possessions into some semblance of order and arranging them on the overhead rack, then extracted a slim volume of Ovidian poetry from the pocket of his surtout, curled himself into the opposite corner and began to read with the page held close to his face. Yet neither was able to concentrate. Holmes was intrigued by the albino and was conscious that Spooner was taking no less interest in him. Several times the younger man glanced surreptitiously across the intervening space only to find that New College’s most remarkable resident was staring fixedly at him. Once or twice Spooner opened his mouth as though he would speak but either the words would not come or he thought better of them. At last, however, he did break the silence.
    “Mr Holmes, I apologize for disturbing you. I wonder, would you mind if I asked you to discuss a certain matter … delicate, bewildering?”
    “If I can be of service, sir.”
    “It is not the sort of thing I would normally broach with someone upon such short acquaintance but you appear to be a singularly astute young man and it may be that Providence has brought us together.”
    Holmes waited with carefully suppressed amusement to hear what perplexing problem the eccentric don was about to share.
    “I am convinced that the whole thing is an undergraduate prank. It may be that you have heard about it from the perpetrators.”
    “Heard about what, sir?”
    Spooner squinted impatiently through his glasses. “Why the painting, of course – the Dutch Nativity. We’ve lost it permanently for three weeks.”
    “Perhaps, sir, if you were to start from the beginning?”
    “Ah, yes, well Giddings, you see, our senior fellow, brilliant mind, Renaissance scholar, very gracious, not at all put out over the election.”
    The story which would have taken any normal narrator ten minutes or so to recite occupied Spooner for the remainder of the journey, involving, as it did, acrobatic leaps from thought to thought and perilous balancing on the high wire of tenuous connections. Holmes was amused as much by the effort of following the disjointed account as by the events to which it referred. Briefly, these were as follows:
    Some eleven years previously there had been an election for the wardenship of New College. The contest had been between the then dean and the senior fellow, Dr Giddings. The fellowship had decided on the dean, for Giddings, though highly respected, was already well smitten in years and did not enjoy robust health. The old don had shown his regard for the college by warmly congratulating the warden elect and donating to the chapel a magnificent Nativity by Rembrandt. It was this painting which, in October 1873, had been stolen.
    Holmes asked why the crime had not been reported to the police and received the reply that the fellows were disposed to regard it as an internal university matter. Over the past few months there had been a series of similar incidents in various colleges. Oriel’s standard had been removed from its flagpole. A hanging candelabrum had been absconded from the hall at Merton. An ancient sundial had been prised from a quadrangle wall at Magdalen and, more recently someone had walked out of Radcliffe library with a rare incunabulum, deceiving the staff by leaving a superficial fake in its place. The New College authorities attributed these escapades to undergraduate high spirits and were persuing their own enquiries but to Holmes it was evident that Spooner and, probably,