Page 23 of The Oxford Guide to Scandal and Lies

Leland clapped his hands and rose. “I must be off, but don’t forget the Damocles Club is hosting a party for my new book. I hope to see you all there!”

There was a chorus of enthusiastic murmurs, but Donald Craddock shifted his annoyed glare from Sidney to Leland.

“Professor,” he interjected, “did you ever see my notes on your manuscript?”

Leland backed toward the door, waving a dismissive hand. “It’s already left the printers, my boy. You worry too much about trivial matters, but I appreciate your diligence. Ah—Dr. Watkins!”

A pale, petite woman with a knot of curly salt-and-pepper hair bustled into the room and stopped. She peered around Leland at the group of students, lips pursed in confusion, and flipped up the fob watch on her jacket lapel. “Sorry, have I got the wrong room again?”

“No, Dr. Watkins,” Leland laughed. “I am the interloper here. I’ve brought a student who wishes to join you. You know Mr. Braithwaite, yes?”

Sidney lifted a hand, and Dr. Watkins tipped her head in acknowledgment. “Yes, yes, of course,” she said. “You’re welcome to join us.”

Leland clapped his hands. “Splendid! Send him back if he grows unruly.” He withdrew from the room with a merry wave and disappeared, his whistle fading down the hall.

Watkins sank into the empty chair and rifled through her leather satchel. “Now then, where were we in the Suetonius … my book was just here…”

Watkins’s crumpled suit of charcoal wool, the tea stain on her cuff, and the papers slipping from her satchel did not fill Sidney with confidence in her attention to detail and organization—qualities he would expect in a spy for the Kremlin. But he had heard the female don lecture enough times to know she brimmed with wit and intelligence, and that would make her an attractive recruit for foreign eyes.

Watkins pulled out a book with a satisfied flourish. “Now then,” she addressed the circle, thumbing through the pages, “by Suetonius’s account, Caesar had ample opportunities to avert his own fate. From the many portents that foreboded ill, to his own wife’s dreams, to the warning note delivered to him en route to the senate which he delayed reading. And for a time, Caesar did waver in his confidence over what to do. Why do you think he finally caved and entered the senate in the face of such dreadful odds?”

“He was an egomaniac,” a woman said promptly. “He thought himself untouchable. A god.”

“Caesar wasn’t mad,” a man retorted. “He was a strategic genius, and the senate lashed out in desperation. If they hadn’t feared him so much, they might have dealt with him less harshly.”

“Was he a genius then?” Dr. Watkins asked. “Or a madman?”

“They’re not mutually exclusive,” Craddock said with his aristocratic drawl. “Why not both?”

Dr. Watkins smiled wryly. “History doesn’t usually deem men geniuses who kill so many with impunity.”

Craddock waved a long-fingered hand. “The ancients held different standards in that regard. We mustn’t judge them by modern morals, which would have stemmed the tide of progress. I say let him be a genius.”

The self-satisfied, cocksure manner needled at Sidney. The man was so secure in his position of power that he didn’t think anyone would question his remarks. Usually, Sidney would have remained quiet and stewed in his irritation until the feelings ebbed of their own accord. But on that morning, with Craddock’s disdain for Harold still fresh in his mind, Sidney reached the boiling point too swiftly to stop his anger’s overflow. He needed the man taken down a peg.

“Was Hitler a genius?” Sidney asked.

The other students stiffened, eyes darting back and forth between Sidney and Craddock, who now scowled. Hughes, however, raised his eyebrows as though intrigued.

“I didn’t say that,” Craddock said flatly. “Hitler needed to be stopped.”

“And yet he had his own ideas about progress, didn’t he? Thought he was building a master race by eliminating those he deemed unfit.” Sidney leaned forward on his knees, staring until Craddock met his eye. “That’s pretty forward-thinking.”

“It’s barbaric and mad,” Craddock said icily, “as you well know.” He turned back to Dr. Watkins. “I shan’t be baited away from the topic at hand. We were speaking of Caesar—”

“Who by his own account slaughtered the tribes of Gaul,” Sidney continued. “Was that progress too?”

“It was the building of an empire,” Craddock ground out.

“Which Hitler was also after.”

Craddock’s lips made an annoyed twitch. “I suppose.”

“Then I don’t see how you can praise Caesar as a genius and Hitler as a madman. They’re too alike in many regards.” Sidney leaned back in his chair, sliding one leg over the other. “So, which is it, Craddock?”

A muscle quivered in the other man’s jaw. Sidney would have bet a bob Craddock wished to remind him to use his honorary title as a point for his own self-esteem, but it would have been a tactical error in the eyes of the circle, most of whom were not aristocrats. Sidney had the upper hand, and Craddock knew it.

The man gave a small shrug. “I stand corrected,” he said airily. “I suppose Caesar should be regarded as a madman too.”