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that Blake’s gently unemphatic exhortation, devoid of violence or despair, was more appropriate to suicide by drowning or by poison—a ceremonious floating or sinking into oblivion—than to the trauma of hanging. And yet there was the analogy of falling, of launching oneself into the void. But this speculation was indulgent fantasy. He had chosen Blake; he had chosen hanging. Perhaps other and more gentle means were not to hand; perhaps he had acted upon impulse. What was it that the Super always said? “Never theorize in advance of your facts.” She would have to look at the cottage.
    Sir Ronald said, with a touch of impatience, “Well, don’t you want the job?”
    Cordelia looked at Miss Leaming but the woman did not meet her eyes.
    “I want it very much. I was wondering whether you really wanted me to take it.”
    “I’m offering it to you. Worry about your own responsibilities, Miss Gray, and I’ll look after mine.”
    Cordelia said: “Is there anything else that you can tell me? The ordinary things. Was your son in good health? Did he seem worried about his work or his love affairs? About money?”
    “Mark would have inherited a considerable fortune from his maternal grandfather had he reached the age of twenty-five. In the meantime, he received an adequate allowance from me, but from the date of leaving college he transferred the balance back to my own account and instructed his Bank Manager to deal similarly with any future payments. Presumably he lived on his earnings for the last two weeks of his life. The postmortem revealed no illnesses and his tutor testified that his academic work was satisfactory. I, of course, know nothing of his subject. He didn’t confide in me about his love affairs—what young man does to his father? If he had any, I would expect them to be heterosexual.”
    Miss Leaming turned from her contemplation of the garden. She held out her hands in a gesture which could have been resignation or despair: “We knew nothing about him, nothing! So why wait until he’s dead and then start finding out?”
    “And his friends?” asked Cordelia quietly.
    “They rarely visited here but there were two I recognized at the inquest and the funeral: Hugo Tilling from his own college and his sister who is a post-graduate student at New Hall, studying philology. Do you remember her name, Eliza?”
    “Sophie. Sophia Tilling. Mark brought her here to dinner once or twice.”
    “Could you tell me something about your son’s early life? Where was he educated?”
    “He went to a pre-prep school when he was five and to a prep school subsequently. I couldn’t have a child here running unsupervised in and out of the laboratory. Later, at his mother’s wish—she died when Mark was nine months old—he went to a Woodard Foundation. My wife was what I believe is called a High Anglican and wanted the boy educated in that tradition. As far as I know, it had no deleterious effect on him.”
    “Was he happy at prep school?”
    “I expect he was as happy as most eight-year-olds are, which means that he was miserable most of the time, interposed with periods of animal spirits. Is all this relevant?”
    “Anything could be. I have to try to get to know him, you see.”
    What was it that the supercilious, sapient, superhuman Super had taught? “Get to know the dead person. Nothing about him is too trivial, too unimportant. Dead men can talk. They can lead directly to their murderer.” Only this time, of course, there wasn’t a murderer.
    She said: “It would be helpful if Miss Leaming could type out the information you have given to me and add the name of his college and his tutor. And please may I have a note signed by you to authorize me to make enquiries.”
    He reached down to a left-hand drawer in the desk, took out a sheet of writing paper and wrote on it; then he passed it to Cordelia. The printed heading read: From Sir Ronald Callender, FRC, Garforth House, Cambridgeshire. Underneath he had