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 Hello Orlando, lovely to see you, and then found a sleepy, satiated Jonty Stewart at your side. He decided
he really should count his blessings before he began to enumerate his woes.
The misery had started when Orlando had turned up at the private library where the manuscripts and
books were stored, to find it locked. It was a good fifty minutes later, during which various other people
had turned up, gone off to enquire then returned none the wiser, that a flustered gentleman had arrived with
a huge bunch of keys. He d explained, rather slowly as if he were talking to five-year-olds, that the usual
custodian had been taken ill and that he d come to open up for them, assuming he could work out which of
the keys on his bunch was the correct one.
In what seemed like a fortnight, the man at last had the doors opened and Orlando was able to make a
beeline for his morning s work. He d found two badly water-stained books, handwritten in a tiny, almost
cryptic hand, which he d been assured contained wondrous mathematical treasures. Neither was so badly
damaged as to be condemned out of hand and so they both had to be pored through to find out whether
there were nuggets of knowledge lurking in their pages or whether they weren t worth the parchment they
were written on. Fond memories of the Woodville Ward case, of his own amnesia and the glorious second
wooing of Jonty, flooded through Orlando s mind as he enjoyed the feel of the old material under his
fingers.
This proved his only satisfaction of the morning, though. The first book seemed interesting enough
but the damage to the middle part of it made it impossible to follow the theorem adequately and the last few
pages seemed to have been cut out with a knife. Cursing himself for not doing Jonty s trick of looking at
the end of the book first, Orlando set about the second tome, the one the custodian had particularly praised.
This seemed much more hopeful, beginning with an intriguing proposition that was developed, or at least
seemed to be, over the succeeding pages, what he could make out of them. The middle part was missing
again, but at least the end seemed to be all present, and Orlando became excited about the theorem being
explored.
The other occupants of the library had a terrible shock as a loud harrumph rent the air. Orlando had
found the wonderful hypothesis fizzled out into a load of pretentious nonsense, full of leaps of logic and
impossible assumptions which made no sense. From being a treasure trove, this had turned out to be shoddy
Lessons in Temptation
and reprehensible scholarship of the very worst kind. The university wouldn t pay tuppence for such
slovenly work they got plenty of that for free from the dunderheads.
An entirely fruitless morning then, followed by a lunch of sandwiches taken in his room, Jonty having
gone off to see the actors up on the hill and taking a cheese roll with them, no doubt. That was another
source of annoyance. Their conversation over breakfast had concerned jealousy and Jonty s inability to
empathise with the emotion.
 And that s the problem with this dark lady woman, is it? You can t understand how Old Will gets
into such a state about her? Orlando hadn t particularly wanted the Bard over his sausages, but if Jonty got
a bee in his bonnet, you couldn t shift it.
 I know what Shakespeare s saying, yet I can t put myself in his place and really get to the heart of
things. How can I prepare my nice little idiots guide to the sonnets which will launch my publishing
career and no doubt become a standard work for all undergraduates of taste and intelligence if I can t get
this burning covetousness and sense of unworthiness into the thing? I mean in more than just an objective
manner? Couldn t you go and get yourself a nice little missy to chase after you and make the green-eyed
monster rise in my breast?
The remark had made Orlando snort. If Jonty wanted to know about jealousy he should come and
change places with him for a few days. Then there d be no problem in experiencing envy, or feeling lack of
worth. He d pointedly changed the subject to trigonometry.
Orlando took as long as he could over his lunch, well aware that he should be going out talking to
people in relation to the investigation. He didn t feel like talking to anybody, except one, of course. He d be
quite happy to go and tell a certain Mr. Harding a few home truths. He even had a few choice words in
mind, leave off, my fist and your nose being among the more repeatable ones.
He decided he needed comfort and as his main source of it wasn t present he determined to take
refuge among boxes, lists, arrows and underlinings. Producing paper and his favourite pen, he began to
make a list of the people they knew to have been present the night of the murder alongside any information
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