“Dining clubs are a fairly normal feature of college life, surely, sir?” Redfyre’s tone was one of mild inquiry. “I was a member myself of such a one when I was up. Two, in fact! The ‘Convivium’ and the ‘Goblin Men.’ The first was expensive and pretentious, the second I hardly remember. For good reason—it had rather more to do with quaffin’ than gobblin’.”

Cornelius Wells nodded in agreement. “We’ve all done it. So you can imagine, I was astonished and—if I’m honest—a wee bit insulted when I was approached in the matter of the Jude’s mastership. ‘As temporary and as brief a tenure as you wish,’ I was assured at a very private meeting in London.”

Redfyre interrupted him. “Private, sir? How high did this go?”

“High enough to make my head spin! There were the college people you would expect . . .”

“The chancellor?”

“And the all-important vice-chancellor. Also the sitting member of Parliament for Cambridge and a shady-looking chap with a Ronald Colman moustache. Hear-all-say-nothing type, if you know what I mean. Intelligence outfit written all over him. A few men were hovering about with fountain pens and notebooks at the ready.”

“To investigate a dining club?” Redfyre was baffled. “This speaks of a concern deeper than that springing from a collegiate matter. What sort of shenanigans could have so disturbed them? Political? Criminal? Why didn’t they just come to us in the CID?”

Wells pulled a comically pitying face. “This country’s dirty secrets are kept within ivy-covered walls by choice. ‘No need for police boots tramping through peaceful courtyards,’ I was told. Though your name had come up at an earlier stage.” He smiled. “As a safe pair of hands. A receptive ear. Your skills are highly valued in the . . . um, inner circles, or perhaps I should say rather, ‘opinion-forming cabals’ of Cambridge society.” He looked questioningly at Redfyre, but encountering an expression of puzzlement, he moved on. “In any case, the appointments panel concluded with a reassurance: ‘We’re reasonably certain that no crime has been committed, after all.’”

The two men shared a knowing glance. Reasonably certain? They both knew how to interpret that. These people were damned sure it had happened and were determined to hush it up.

“This heavyweight committee added lightly: ‘It will take you no time at all to flush out this menace.’ When I questioned the use of a strong term like ‘menace’ in relation to the student habit of harmless overindulgence in food and wine after the privations experienced at their boarding schools, heads were shaken and a tutting chorus tap-danced around the table.”

“They made it clear that you ‘didn’t know the half of it’?”