Jane Langton - Dead As a Dodo (A Homer Kelly Mystery)

FOR JOHN AND JILL

I am almost convinced ... that species are not (it is like confessing a murder) immutable.
Charles Darwin, letter to Joseph Hooker

*1*

When Homer and Mary Kelly came to Oxford that October, they were not the only new arrivals.

As their bus from the airport began nosing through the suburbs, a swarm of goldfinches landed on the oak trees in the Botanic Gardens, pausing on the way to their winter quarters in Cornwall. Chattering and calling, they rose from one tree, came down on another, and fluttered up again to change places.

On the Cherwell, beyond the University Parks, a flock of migrating swans settled on the water, remembering from last year the bridge where people threw down torn scraps of lettuce and kernels of cracked corn.

And beside the ditch next to the car-rental company on the Botley Road a small cluster of wigeon rested on their flight from the north. One of the females stood on the tangled bank and pecked furiously at the feathers on her back. Wading into the water, she loosened from her feet the mud of the River Spey. The mud settled at once to the bottom of the creek, but the seeds embedded in it rose to the surface and floated to the shore.

They were peculiar seeds, new to the county of Oxfordshire. They lay on the damp ground for only a few hours. Then a succession of migrating mallards trampled them into the soil, and at once the foreign seeds made themselves at home.

Homer and Mary Kelly knew nothing about these arrivals. They saw only the other Americans on the bus from Gatwick. Most were reference librarians heading for a conference in the Oxford University Museum.

Mary introduced herself to the woman across the aisle. She was surprised to learn about the conference in the museum. "That's where my husband is going to be lecturing. What kind of conference is it?"

The librarian fished in her pocketbook and showed Mary a pamphlet, New Directions in Information Storage .

"Oh, then you won't be listening to Homer," said Mary. "He doesn't know anything about information storage. He'll be tutoring a few students, and he has to give a lot of lectures on American literature."

The librarian leaned across the aisle and stared past Mary at Homer, who was slumped against the window fast asleep. "You mean, you're Mr. and Mrs. Homer Kelly? Like your husband's a famous detective?"

"Oh, well, it's true he was a detective once, but not anymore. He's just a teacher now. I mean, we both teach. Homer has a lectureship for this term from one of the Oxford colleges. It's just Homer, unfortunately. They didn't offer one to me."

"How sexist!" said the librarian. "You two teach at Harvard, right? And now at Oxford? How distinguished!"

Mary smiled. If the librarian knew the truth about teaching at Harvard, she wouldn't be so impressed. It was like teaching anywhere. There were good students and bad students, academic rivalries, malicious gossip, the constant scrabbling up of the next day's lecture, the endless grading of papers and exams, and faculty meetings so boring they were like penances for abominable crimes.

"The golden towers of Oxford," said the librarian sentimentally, looking out the window as they crossed Magdalen Bridge. "The dreaming spires."

"Ah, yes," said Mary, gazing up at the tower of Magdalen, rising beside them on the right.

There were no dreaming spires at the Gloucester Green bus station, and no green. It was a busy square with buses pulling in and out and passengers getting on and off.

Homer roused himself sleepily and followed Mary and the librarians down off the bus. "What day is this anyway?" he said, smoothing down his wild hair. "Wednesday or Thursday?"

"Wednesday," said Mary cheerfully. "We're just in time for the reception."

"Reception? My God, what reception?"

"The reception at the museum. You remember, Homer, Dr. Jamison invited us."

"But everybody else will be bug experts and mineralogists, people of that ilk." Homer groaned. "All I want to do is go to bed. I didn't get a wink of sleep on that goddamned plane."

"Buck up, Homer." Mary prodded his arm. "Look, the taxis are right out of an old movie."

They dragged their baggage across the brick pavement, and Mary opened the back door of a neat black car with high rounded curves.

"Sorry, love," said the driver, "take the one up front."

"Ah," mumbled Homer, grinning. "British fair play. There's always a queue."

*2*

Mark Soffit was a student of zoology, but he failed to notice the rare black squirrel dodging out of his way as he approached the Oxford University Museum. Nor did he look up to see the heavy flapping of a pair of gray lag geese racing over the roof on their way to the River Cherwell. His thoughts were fixed on the object of his journey from the United States.

The great William Dubchick would surely be present at this reception. Mark was eager to meet him. The whole thrust of his application for a Rhodes scholarship had centered on Dubchick. The opportunity to study with the eminent Oxford zoologist William Dubchick will advance my investigation of the work of Charles Darwin.

In his application he had not admitted that Dubchick had never heard of him. Nor did he explain that his concentration on Darwin would be an attack on that old nineteenth-century fossil. In any case, the application had worked, and here he was, a Rhodes scholar at the University of Oxford, about to meet the greatest naturalist in the world.

At the door to the museum Mark looked down at himself. Back in Arizona he had bought an expensive tweed jacket, assuming it was the right uniform for an Oxford man. The jacket was crisp and bristling with woolly fibers. But when he opened the door and saw the crowd in the courtyard, there wasn't a tweed jacket in sight. Most of the younger people standing around with glasses in their hands were wearing jeans and T-shirts.

Blanching, Mark backed up, tore off his jacket, and dumped it over an umbrella stand. He wrestled with his tie, stuffed it in the pocket of the jacket, and undid the top button of his shirt.

Then, gazing at the men and women talking and laughing among the animal skeletons and glass cases, he started forward, wondering which was the great Dubchick.

God, who was this? An old man was walking toward him, smiling and extending his hand. He had a full white beard and a long fringe of untidy white hair. Mark placed him instantly as one of those embarrassing outcasts who hang around the edges of a party. Turning his back on the outstretched hand, he grinned at nobody, waved hugely, and walked into the courtyard.