The Norfolk Mystery. Ian Sansom
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writing. There were reams of notepaper and envelopes of various types stacked in neat piles on occasional tables by the main desk, and stacks of visiting cards, a row of shining, nickel-sheathed pencils laid out neatly, and a selection of pens, and a staple press, and paper piercers, a stamp and envelope damper, an ink stand, loose-leaf manuscript books, table book-rests crammed with books, and various scribbling and memo tablets. The whole place gave off a whiff of ink, beeswax, hard work, tweed and … carbolic soap.
A man was seated at the main desk, typing at a vast, solid Underwood, several lamps lit around him like beacons, with dictionaries and encyclopedias stacked high, as a child might build a fortress from wooden blocks. He glanced up at me briefly over the typewriter and the books, long enough to recognise my presence and to register, I thought, his disapproval, and then his eyes returned to his work. He was, I guessed, in his late fifties, with white, neatly trimmed hair, and a luxuriant moustache in the Empire manner. He wore a light grey suit and a polka-dot bow tie, which gave him the appearance rather of a medical doctor or, I thought – the tapping of the keys of the typewriter perhaps – of a bird. A woodpecker.
‘Sit,’ he said. His voice was pleasant, like an old yellow vellum – the voice of a long-accomplished public speaker. It was a voice thick with the authority of books. I sat in the leather armchair facing the desk.
From this position I could see him cross and uncross his legs as he sat at the table. He had improvised for himself, I noted, as a footrest a copy of Debrett’s Peerage, Baronetage, Knightage and Companionage, illustrated with armorial bearings – half-calf, well rubbed – his restless feet jogging constantly upon it. He wore a pair of highly polished brown brogue boots of the kind gentlemen sometimes wear for country pursuits; it was almost as if he were striding through his typing, the sound of which filled the room like gunfire. He continued to type and did not speak to me for what seemed like a long time, yet I did not find this curious silence at all unsettling, for what somehow emanated from him was a sense of complete calm and control, of light, even, a quality of personality of the kind I had occasionally encountered at Cambridge, and in Spain, among both men and women of all classes and types, a personality of the sort I believe Mr Jung calls the ‘extravert’, a character somehow unshadowed as many of us are shadowed, someone fully realised and confident, completely present, blazing. Another word for this kind of determining character, I suppose, is ‘charisma’, and my interviewer, whether knowing it or not, seemed to epitomise this elusive and much prized quality. He had ‘it’, whatever ‘it’ is – something more than a twinkle in the eye. He also seemed, I have to admit, deeply familiar, but I could not at this stage have identified him precisely.
‘You are?’ he asked, in a momentary pause from his labours.
‘Stephen Sefton.’
He glanced at what I assumed were my employment particulars set out on the top of a pile of papers by his right elbow.
‘Sefton. Apologies. Must finish an article,’ he said. He had a large egg-timer beside the Underwood, whose sands were fast running out. ‘Two minutes till the post.’
‘I see,’ I said.
‘You can type?’ he asked, continuing himself to beat out a rhythm on the keys.
‘Yes.’
Rattle.
‘Shorthand?’
Ping.
‘I’m afraid not, sir, no.’
‘I see. Too much of a’ – carriage return – ‘hoity-toity?’
‘No, sir, I don’t think so.’
Rattle. ‘You’d be prepared to learn, then?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Good.’ Back space.
‘Photography. You can handle a camera?’
‘I’m sure I could try, sir.’
‘Hmm. And Cambridge, wasn’t it? Christ’s College.’
‘Yes, sir.’
Ping.
‘Which makes you rather over-qualified for this position.’
‘Sorry, sir.’
Rattle.
‘No need to apologise. It’s just that none of the other candidates has been blessed with anything like your educational advantages, Sefton.’ Carriage return.
‘I have been very … lucky, sir.’
‘Not a varsity type among them.’
‘I see, sir.’
Ping.
‘Curious. Perhaps you can tell me about it.’
‘About what, sir?’
‘What went wrong.’
‘What went wrong? I … I don’t know what went wrong.’
‘Clearly. Well, tell me about the college then, Sefton.’
‘The college?’
‘Yes. Christ’s College. I am intrigued.’
‘Well, it was very … nice.’
‘Nice?’
He paused in his typing and peered dimly at me in a manner I later came to recognise as a characteristic sign of his disbelief and despair at another’s complete ignorance and lack of effort. ‘Come on, man. Buck up. You can do better than that, can’t you?’
I was uncertain as to how to respond.
‘I certainly enjoyed my time there, sir.’
‘I believe you did enjoy your time at college, Sefton. Indeed, I see by your abysmal degree classification that you may have enjoyed your time there rather more than was advisable.’
‘Perhaps, sir, yes.’
‘Too rich to work, are we?’
‘No, sir,’ I replied. I was not, in fact, rich at all. My parents were dead. The family fortune, such as it was, had been squandered. I had inherited only cutlery, crockery, debts, regrets and memories.
He looked at me sceptically. And then tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, and then a final and resounding tap as the sands of the timer ran out. A knock came at the door.
‘Eleven o’clock post,’ said my interviewer. ‘Enter!’
A porter entered the dark room as my interviewer peeled the page he had been typing from the Underwood, shook it decisively, folded it twice, placed it in an envelope, sealed it and handed it over. The porter left the room in silence.
My interviewer then checked his watch, promptly upended his egg-timer – ‘Fifteen minutes,’ he said – sat back in his chair, stroked his moustache, and returned to the subject we had been discussing as if nothing had occurred.
‘I was asking about the history of the college, Sefton.’
‘I’m afraid I don’t know much about the history, sir.’
‘It was founded by?’
‘I don’t know, sir.’
‘I see. You are interested in history, though?’
‘I have taught history, sir, as a schoolmaster.’
‘That’s not the question I asked, though, Sefton, is it?’
‘No, sir.’
‘Schooled at Merchant Taylors’, I see.’ He brandished my curriculum vitae before him, as though it were a piece of dubious evidence and I were a felon on trial.
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Never