Page 84 of The Oxford Guide to Scandal and Lies

“I’m telling you, it’s all a misunderstanding. She framed me!”

“Of course, sir.” The unfortunate officer burdened with handling him stifled a yawn. “But I think it’s best you come to the station while we make some calls.”

Leland mewled like a wet cat as two sturdy men trundled him from the house, heedless of his complaints, and the room suddenly had more air.

Hughes shook his head. “All’s well that ends well, I suppose. But this whole thing could have been a lot easier if intelligence officers had their ducks in a row.”

“I wouldn’t hold my breath,” Sidney said, and they shared a knowing grimace.

A constable requested Hughes’s assistance, and he shoved off the wall, tipping his hat to Ginevra. “I probably won’t see you again before the end of term, and my time at Oxford is almost over. But I’m thinking about moving to London rather than returning to New York. Maybe we’ll meet again one day.”

Gin smiled. “I would love that. I’d like to throw a party where something dreadful does not happen.”

Sidney shook Hughes’s hand, and the American sauntered away, passing Marion Kirk, who slouched to the door. For a moment, she fumbled to light a cigarette, then flicked it away in disgust and turned around, her arms crossed with suppressed rage.

“An absolute piece of shit,” she said through gritted teeth. “Neville was right; Leland will do anything if he thinks he can wriggle out of it. Even with that recording in existence.”

“What will you do now?” Gin asked. “Perhaps the university would let you come back under the circumstances.”

Kirk snorted. “I don’t think they took very kindly to my friends damaging Malwyn Hall.”

“In a way, though, you were right: There was rot in the Damocles Club. If you hadn’t dug into the issue, Leland’s treachery might never have come to light.” Ginevra gently squeezed her arm, and Kirk stiffened. But she looked down, her eyelashes batting furiously.

“I think some of the faculty would support your readmittance under the circumstances,” Sidney added.

“You really think I ought to try?”

“I do,” Gin said. “Oxford needs girls like you. Who else will keep pompous editors like Oliver Whitby on their toes?” She smiled. “Or perhaps it’s time for a new student paper for the kind of stories you want to write.”

“Maybe.” Kirk crossed her arms and toed at the peeling linoleum. “I came to Oxford because of Uncle Rob, and I read Greats because of him too. But I don’t really like the Classics. I wish I’d chosen French or German—or Russian, even. I don’t know what I’m going to do next, but I need to make a choice for myself.”

“I think you’ll make a wonderful journalist in any language,” Gin said. “Dead or alive.”

Kirk rolled her eyes at this, but she stiffly accepted an embrace from Gin before sauntering off to answer a constable’s summons.

It was nearly three in the morning, and Sidney’s wound throbbed with a dull pain, but it faded as the police escorted Watkins toward the door. The men stopped and checked the don’s handcuffs, and she looked at them with a bleak weariness.

“How did Tolliver work it out?” Gin asked quietly. “That it was you and not Leland.”

Watkins’s eyes grew hooded. “He told me he almost took the Cassius bait. It made him consider Leland’s past more closely, and he pieced together the crown and tooth crown connection, deducing what had really happened in Vosburg. Only, I’d forgotten how much I’d revealed about myself over the years; how I’d confided in him about my relationship with Robert in a moment of weakness after I was hired. He remembered Rob as a student and was sympathetic about his unfair expulsion.” Pain twisted the don’s expression. “As he was dying, Tolliver told me, ‘I knew it wasn’t Michael Leland because he doesn’t have the initiative to put in this kind of legwork.’” She faltered. “Mr. Tolliver was very clever—too clever, perhaps. His death was the low point of this wretched idea for which I was unprepared.”

“We found the broken glass,” Gin said. “I can’t imagine he drank poison willingly.”

Sidney had also struggled to believe the man would have accepted any drink from someone he knew was a suspect, especially judging by his dodgy behavior earlier that evening when he’d hidden behind Sidney and taken the snuff—

He stilled, calculating the time elapsed between their moment in the hall and finding Tolliver in the garden. A small amount of powdered cyanide probably mixed well enough into snuff, but that made controlling the timing of death nearly impossible … “You stole his snuffbox at the debate and poisoned that, didn’t you?” Sidney asked. “Then had a server return it to him. Inhaling the stuff would have caused a heart attack all right.”

Ginevra inhaled sharply. “What a horrible way to die.”

“I’m not that cruel,” Watkins said, her tone pleading. “Yes, I couldn’t believe my luck when the snuffbox fell out of his pocket. He’d started avoiding me at the library, and I suspected my deception had been uncovered. Olenev had advised me to always carry cyanide powder in case I was compromised, and it was an impulsive decision to poison the snuff. But when I found Tolliver in the garden, gasping and struggling because it was taking too long…” She trailed off, closing her eyes with a wince.

“You offered him a tainted glass of water,” Sidney finished in a flat voice. “Enough poison to finish the job.”

“I had no choice.” The don’s voice thickened with emotion. “I wasn’t important enough for the Soviets to care what happened to me, and I have worked far too hard, far too long—”

The police tugged Watkins toward the door with an admonition of silence. Sidney was familiar enough with regret to read it plain on her face, but he wasn’t expecting the answering twist of pity in his gut. The motivations they’d pondered didn’t hold a candle to the vengeance that had burned inside Watkins. But the don had perhaps realized too late who else would be consumed by her wrath against Leland. There was guilt among the ashes.

“Poor Mr. Tolliver,” Gin sighed, shifting closer to Sidney’s side. “Such a lovely man deserved far better. Life isn’t fair.”