And so, my dear Evelyn, this awful tragedy refuses to go away. She was a popular girl who seemed to attract attention wherever she went, and her death continues to cast a shadow over the college, and I believe to some extent over the whole university … He put his pen down, brushed some tobacco ash off the table, and lifted the phone. ‘Gaveston.’ ‘Henry. This is James.’ ‘My dear fellow, I was thinking of you.’ ‘Perhaps with reason. I have just killed two men.’ ‘… What? What d’you mean? What are you talking about?’ ‘Just that.’ ‘My dear chap, don’t make that sort of joke. Where are you – at home?’ ‘No, at Partridge Manor. Errol Colton’s house.’ A brief silence. Gaveston took the telephone away from his ear, considered it, then said: ‘ You can’t be serious.’ ‘What?’ ‘I said, you can’t be serious.’ ‘Oh, but I am. And Colton is one of the two.’ It had been in Henry’s mind to continue his letter to Evelyn telling her of how hardly James had taken his loss and expressing the hope that he wouldn’t pursue too obstinately and to his own detriment his almost paranoid belief that Stephanie had not taken her own life.
