Sidney Chambers and The Shadow of Death (The Grantchester Mysteries)

knee.
    ‘Playful little fellow you’ve got there, I see . . .’
    ‘Somewhat too playful,’ Sidney apologised. ‘Would you like some tea?’
    ‘That would be very kind.’
    Sidney opened his front door and Dickens scampered in. ‘Do come in. May I take your coat?’
    The coroner put down his bottle of wine on the hall table. ‘I brought you a small present for Easter, Canon Chambers.’
    ‘That’s very kind of you. It’s not an egg, I see.’
    ‘It most certainly isn’t. It’s a Bordeaux. Château-Latour 1937. Rather good, I think you’ll find.’
    ‘Oh my,’ said Sidney.
    ‘You are aware of the vintage?’
    ‘I’m not sure I am.’ Sidney filled his kettle with water and lit the gas ring. ‘I’m afraid I’m more of a beer man.’
    ‘You surprise me. I would have thought with all your college feasts you would be quite an oenophilist.’
    ‘I’m really more at home in the pub with my friends. I’m not all that fond of dining at high table.’
    ‘Why ever not?’
    Sidney waited for the kettle to boil. ‘I think it’s because I don’t quite belong. A clergyman is always rather an odd one out. Perhaps it goes back to the last century when if a man had several sons then the eldest joined the army, the second ran the estate and the youngest and dimmest went into the church. I fear some of the Fellows still think that this is the case.’
    ‘They do make a great show of finding you intellectually inferior whoever you are. Which is all very well but while they may have brains they certainly don’t always have manners.’
    ‘Is that what you find?’
    ‘They are in a world of their own. Sometimes I think they can scarcely talk to each other, never mind their guests.’
    Sidney warmed his teapot, added a sprinkle of leaves and then poured in the boiling water. ‘It has always surprised me that some Fellows don’t actually like their students.’
    ‘I think it’s because they want to be students themselves. They are envious of their youth and contemptuous of their intelligence.’
    ‘I wouldn’t put it quite as strongly as that.’
    ‘I would, I am afraid. Do you know that line of Kierkegaard’s, Canon Chambers? “There are many people who reach their conclusions about life like schoolboys: they cheat their master by copying the answer out of a book without having worked the sum out for themselves.” ’
    ‘I certainly think that many of them prefer books to people. Do you take milk with your tea?’ Sidney asked.
    ‘Of course. But never in first . . .’
    Sidney smiled. ‘I am not the kind of vicar who would do such a thing.’
    ‘I never suspected that you were; but it’s sometimes necessary to say so to avoid disaster.’
    Sidney put the teacups on a tray that he had been given to commemorate the Coronation. ‘Shall we go through to the sitting room? It’s kind of you to bring the wine . . .’
    The coroner looked at the bottle as if he was sad to say goodbye to it. ‘It’s meant as an apology, and as a thank you.’
    ‘I don’t think I need either of those. Do sit down.’
    ‘Actually you do, Canon Chambers. I was very brusque with you. I did not like you intruding.’
    Sidney poured out the tea. ‘You made that very clear.’
    ‘But now I am grateful.’
    ‘I am not sure what I did to deserve this.’
    ‘You averted disaster, something rather more serious than putting milk in your tea first.’
    Sidney handed his companion his cup and saucer. ‘I don’t know what you mean.’
    ‘Dr Robinson and his future wife . . .’
    ‘Oh, I don’t think I did anything there.’
    ‘I rather think that you did, Canon Chambers. I know you went to see Dr Robinson. I thought at the time that all of this was none of your business and I’m afraid I may have said so rather too strongly.’
    ‘I am used to people being frank with me, Mr Jarvis. Sugar?’
    ‘No thank you.’
    ‘There’s even some of Mrs Maguire’s shortbread.’
    ‘I feel you are distracting me.’
    ‘Please. Continue.’
    ‘It’s often hard to predict what people might do, don’t you find? I can see that Dr Robinson was acting within the boundaries of the law but I could also see that he was in danger of taking that same law into his own hands.’
    ‘The Anthony Bryant inquiry?’
    ‘Again, the quantity of morphine was just within acceptable limits. He was, as we suspected, bending the law rather than breaking it. But sometimes, and I have seen this before, people get into the habit. If Dr