by Alice Duncan
"Yes. When you get to California Street, turn left. There's a parking lot off of Allen Avenue just north of California. You'll have to make another left turn into the lot. I hope it isn't all muddy."
So did I, but I didn't say so. "Cal Tech is in a lovely neighborhood," I said, only telling the truth. There were glorious homes around the university, and the Castleton estate wasn't far away from it.
"Yes. Homer and I thought about buying a home closer to his place of work, but I decided if we did that, I'd see him even less than I do now. He's such an inquisitive fellow. He adores working on projects like the one he, Mr. Browning and Dr. Malton are pursuing. I think Mr. Browning spends most of his time away from the chemical factory doing research for the project these days. I fear he's not a happy man." She heaved a sigh. "The loss of his fiancé hurt him dreadfully."
"I know. Detective Rotondo and I spoke to him about that a few months ago. We both know what he's going through, because Sam's wife died from tuberculosis about a year or so before my Billy died. It's very difficult to lose a person one loves."
"Life can be hard," said Gladys.
I couldn't argue with her on that one.
Chapter 15
After I'd parked the Chevrolet in a paved parking lot—thank God for paving, or we'd have been slopping through a muddy mire—Gladys led me into what looked as if it were the main building of the university. It was a pretty place, Cal Tech, and quite an improvement over the school's last headquarters when it called itself the Throop Institute and sat in the middle of Pasadena.
Gladys led the way, since I had no idea where we were going. "Dr. Fellowes's office is up these stairs and down the hall a way." She began climbing said stairs, hanging on to the banister and puffing a good deal. I admit to having puffed a bit myself by the time we got to the head of the staircase, and I didn't have Gladys's excuse. I was carrying no one but myself. I'd take Spike on longer walks I decided on the spot. He'd love them, and they'd help get me toned up. Maybe. Bother.
Panting slightly, Gladys said, "Here's Homer's office. Let me—Oh! Mr. Davidson! I was looking for Dr. Fellowes."
A young man who had been glancing through papers on a very messy desk swung around. After looking guilty for so short a time that I might have mistaken his expression, he smiled and said, "Good morning, Mrs. Fellowes. The doctor sent me up to fetch a couple of his reports. He's in the geology library with Dr. Malton, Mr. Browning and Mr. Jeffreys. We're all quite excited about the project."
"Mrs. Majesty," said Gladys formally, "please allow me to introduce you to Mr. Bartholomew Davidson. Mr. Davidson is assisting Dr. Fellowes, Dr. Malton and Mr. Browning on that project I told you about. He's a student here at the university."
I walked a bit toward Mr. Davidson, holding out my hand. "It's good to meet you, Mr. Davidson." Then, taking a chance, I said, "It must be difficult to carry on after such a tragedy."
Instantly his face fell. Aaaand, there I went again, spouting another silly expression. His face didn't fall. It remained firmly glued to his skull; however, his expression lost its cheery aspect. "Yes. The loss of Miss Carleton is keenly felt by all of us. She was of great service to us and the project."
"Will you be getting another librarian to... er... replace her?" That didn't sound right, but I didn't stop to think long enough to come up with a more sensitive way of expressing the question.
"I'm not sure. That, of course, will be up to Doctors Fellowes and Malton and Mr. Browning. They're in charge of the project."
"I see. I was terribly sorry to learn of her death," I said. "She used to work at the Pasadena Public Library, and I met her there."
"Yes. I understand she did. She was a big help to us all on the project."
There it was again: that stupid project.
"I suppose we'd better go down to the library, then," said Gladys, ignoring the subject of Miss Carleton's untimely demise. "I want Mrs. Majesty to take lunch with us at the Athenaeum. She's assisting me with the planning of what I hope will be a jolly Halloween party." She gave Mr. Davidson a smile that might have looked friendly on anyone other than Gladys. On her, it just looked out of place. Poor thing.
"How nice. I didn't know you were planning a party, Mrs. Fellowes. That sounds charming."
I had to admit that Bartholomew Davidson went a long way toward reminding me that not all intelligent people were stuffy and unsocial. He was a tall fellow with wavy brown hair, lovely brown eyes with long, curling eyelashes, and a downright charming smile. He didn't seem socially awkward at all. I was almost sorry I hadn't frequented Cal Tech more often, although how I could have managed doing it, I didn't know.
"Will you come with us to the Athenaeum, Mr. Davidson? If I don't haul Dr. Fellowes and Mr. Browning away from their research, they're liable to skip luncheon altogether, and that's not good for either one of them."
"Thank you for the invitation, Mrs. Fellowes. I'd be delighted to join you if it's all right with the others."
It was all right by me if he wanted to dine with us, but I didn't think it was my place to say so.
"Then let's go down to the library and see if we can drag the men away from their research for an hour or so," said Gladys, turning and heading for the door. Right before she got there, she looked back, a puzzled expression on her face. "I thought Homer kept his office locked when he isn't in it." She squinted a bit at Mr. Davidson as if she suspected him of doing something dastardly.
He chuckled. "Indeed he does, but he gave me the key so I could fetch the folders he needed. If you'll wait for me downstairs, I'll join you right after I've found them. I... uh, fear Dr. Fellowes isn't the most organized of individuals sometimes."
"Is that so?" said Gladys. I got the impression she didn't believe the ingenuous student. Or was he ingenuous? Perhaps he was a scoundrel.
Bother. I didn't know what he was except an extremely good-looking young man, and I was glad he aimed to join us for luncheon.
We descended the staircase we'd recently climbed, neither of us puffing as much as we'd puffed on the way up, and Gladys led the way down a hallway and into another room filled with books and maps and globes and all sorts of other things I didn't know what to do with. Well, I can read books, but I doubt those particular tomes would be of interest to me, or that I could understand their contents if I attempted the effort. I suspect my impression was correct.
But there they were: Robert Browning; Homer Fellowes; an older man whom I presumed to be Dr. Malton; and a young man whom I presumed to be another student. They were poring over some documents laid out at a big table in more or less the middle of the room. A fussy-looking woman sat behind a desk eyeing the men as if she didn't trust them not to wrinkle the university's property. I supposed her to be the librarian. She sure looked more like a librarian than any of the other librarians I'd met to date. Well, except for Regina Petrie, but I was going to take care of her that evening.
"Good day, Mr. Browning, Homer, and Mr. Jeffreys."
Aha. The younger man was a student. Mr. Jeffreys, in fact. I had a feeling I was going to lose track of the names if I didn't concentrate.
Robert Browning jumped a foot and swirled around to face the door Gladys and I had just entered. "Daisy!" he cried when he spotted me. "What are you doing here? Oh, good morning, Mrs. Fellowes."
He didn't look well. In fact, he looked as if he hadn't slept a wink since he'd picked up that bloody knife in the library. I'm using bloody here in the literal sense, and I mean no disrespect to any British persons who might read this. Haggard. He appeared haggard.
"Gladys invited me to take luncheon at the university today, Robert." I smiled gently at him. "You don't look well. Have you been under the weather?" And yet again we have a common and silly expression. Is anyone ever over the weather?
Oh, don't mind me.
He gave me a shaky smile. "Not under the weather so much as under intense police scrutiny. Your detective friend can be... rather intrusive and intimidating when he's on a case, can't
he?"
"I don't know. He's never investigated me."
Actually, that was a fib, but I didn't think Robert needed to know that. I walked over to him and laid a hand on his arm. He'd tensed his muscles, and his arm felt sort of like an iron rod.
"But why is he concentrating so hard on you? Do you know? I'm really sorry you're being put to so much trouble."
He relaxed a tiny bit. "It's because I knew Miss Carleton quite well and picked up that... horrible knife. She was a dear friend of Elizabeth's, and... and... Well, I knew things about her that I don't believe the police need to know, quite frankly. Elizabeth and I helped her through... a difficult time in her life."
Ha. I'd bet I knew what that time was, too.
"But here. Please allow me to introduce you to my colleagues, Mrs. Majesty. I believe you know Dr. Fellowes."
I smiled sweetly at Homer Fellowes, who blinked at me and looked as if he'd never seen me in his life. I'd anticipated that. I shook his hand, which he hadn't held out, and not, if I were to judge, because he was being impolite, but because he was as confused about social niceties as was his wife. "It's good to see you again, Dr. Fellowes. I don't believe we've met since you and Gladys married a year and a half ago."
"Oh. Uh. Yes, I'm sure," he said, shaking my hand uncertainly. He had no idea who I was.
"Mrs. Majesty is helping me plan our Halloween party, Homer. She's going to play the part of a fortune-teller."
"How fascinating," came a voice from behind us. Aha. Mr. Davidson had rejoined us.
I turned and said, "Did you find the folders you needed?"
"Indeed I did, Mrs. Majesty. Here you go, old chap." He handed two brown folders tied with twine to Dr. Fellowes.
"I see you've met Bartholomew," said Robert. He turned to the man I presumed to be Dr. Malton. That was only because he looked older than the other fellow, who was probably Mr. Jeffreys. "Mrs. Majesty, please let me introduce you to Dr. Malton. Along with Dr. Fellowes and me, he's heading up our geological study."
Dr. Malton was a nice-looking man. Perhaps forty, he had vivid blue eyes that twinkled almost alarmingly. Another blow to my preconceived notion of what a genius should look like.
Without hesitation, he took the hand I held out to him, put his other hand on top of it, and shook warmly. "How delightful to meet so charming a lady," said he.
And how, I wanted to ask, do you know I'm charming? "Thank you," I said stiffly. I had to tug to get my hand out of his grip. Hmmm. Could a Cal Tech professor be a ladies' man? That didn't fit my notion at all.
"And this is Philip Jeffreys. Mr. Jeffreys is a student, like Mr. Davidson. They're both very helpful individuals who have been of great service to us and our project," said Robert.
"How do you do, Mrs. Majesty?" Mr. Jeffreys, unlike Dr. Malton and Mr. Davidson, appeared rather shy. He even blushed when he asked his question and shook my hand.
"I'm very well, thank you. It's good to meet you." I glanced at the other men. "All of you. Gladys has told me you're extremely excited about the project upon which you're working."
"Indeed, we are," said Dr. Malton.
"Let's go to luncheon," said Gladys, interrupting the proceedings in her customary abrupt manner. "I'm sure you gentlemen can't take too much time away from your precious project, but I wanted to show Mrs. Majesty the Athenaeum. It's such a beautiful place, and the food is so good."
"Ah, yes," said Robert. "I suppose it is about lunchtime." He glanced at the wristwatch on his left hand and said, "My goodness, it's already one o'clock. If you hadn't interrupted us, we'd probably not have had any lunch at all."
"That's what I figured," said Gladys wryly.
She took her husband by the arm and seemed almost to drag him away from his papers. He glanced at the fussy-looking woman behind the desk and said, "Please don't allow anyone to touch our work, Mrs. Langton."
"Of course," said the lady in a nasal voice that sounded snippy. "I know my duties, Dr. Fellowes." She sniffed significantly.
"Of course," said Mr. Davidson, giving the woman a sunny smile. It didn't seem to melt her appreciably.
"Please, Mrs. Majesty," said Dr. Malton, "allow me to help you to the Athenaeum. I'm sure you'll enjoy it. It just opened, you know." He didn't wait for my permission, but took my hand and placed it on his arm.
"Oh. Thank you," I said uneasily.
"It's not often we get to take luncheon with two such charming ladies," he said then.
I heard the two students and Robert following behind us. I glanced over my shoulder, and Robert gave me a significant look. I'm not sure what it signified, but he meant something by it. I'd have to get him alone and ask him later.
"Is Mrs. Langton taking over Miss Carleton's duties?" I asked no one in particular.
Robert Browning heaved a largish sigh. "No. No one can replace Mary. Mrs. Langton isn't awfully pleasant to work with, and she begrudges everything she's asked to do."
"That's the truth," said Dr. Malton, squeezing my hand on his arm.
"I'm sorry to hear that," I said, repressing an impulse to yank my hand away from Dr. Malton, who seemed to be taking inappropriate advantage of it.
"As are we all," said Robert.
The Athenaeum wasn't too far away from the building where we'd met Dr. Fellowes and the gang—if gang is an appropriate word for a clutch of scientific individuals—and the rain hadn't recommenced, so the walk wasn't difficult. Dr. Malton continued to hold my hand rather tightly on his arm and walked quite close to me. I wasn't accustomed to pushy men, and I didn't find his overtures welcome. Especially since I'm pretty sure someone—Robert or Gladys?—had told me he was a married man.
Gladys turned out to be correct about the Athenaeum. It was gorgeous. Old polished wood, formal place settings, fine china, polished silver and, I'd bet, if I ever were to do anything so foolish as to bet, wildly expensive. Glad I wasn't paying.
Now I love to eat. I adore food. Most foods. I wasn't particularly fond of black-eyed peas, but everyone has his or her limits. Anyhow, we didn't have to endure black-eyed peas in Pasadena as a rule. However, I recalled we were having not two, but three, guests for dinner that night at home—I counted Frank Pagano as a guest even though he was more of a nuisance than anything else—and I tried to pace myself. Gladys ordered for all of us, bless her, and we had soup, a fish course, a chicken course, a salad, and then a waiter who looked like a student in a waiter costume—which, I learned later, he was—brought around a dessert cart. I didn't order dessert, although it was torture to see a slice of fabulous-looking chocolate cake pass us by without grabbing it. I did attempt not to eat too much. I hadn't a clue what Vi aimed to serve us for dinner that night, but I was sure it would be lavish because she adored having guests to dine and, while Frank Pagano wasn't what I'd call prime guest material, Regina Petrie certainly was.
After saying our farewells to the men—Dr. Malton again held my hand a trifle too long for my comfort—Gladys and I headed back out to the Chevrolet. The sky had recommenced dripping, but the rain was spotty.
"So," said Gladys as we pulled out of the parking area, "what do you think?"
"About what?" I asked, looking both ways before inching out onto Allen Avenue.
"About the suspects, of course! I absolutely do not believe Robert Browning had anything to do with Miss Carleton's death, but Dr. Malton has always struck me as sort of a slippery fellow, and students are notoriously unsteady of character."
"They are? I didn't know that."
"Mercy, yes. Especially in a university like Cal Tech, the competition among students is sometimes nearly rabid. It's difficult for me to believe either Mr. Davidson or Mr. Jeffreys had anything to do with Miss Carleton's murder, but I can't be sure. You're a better judge of people than I am, Daisy. What do you think?"
Good heavens. "Um... I really don't think anything yet, Gladys. I've only just met the people involved. I must say I was taken aback about by Dr. Malton's instant familiarity. Does he often... attach hims
elf to women that way?"
After heaving a sigh, Gladys said tightly, "Yes. He does. He's a notorious... What do you call men like that? A rake? A roué? He's both of those things. And he's a married man! Shameful."
"Hmm. I feel sorry for his wife."
"I understand she's as bad as he is," said Gladys, sounding irritated. It was the first time since I'd met her—and that was in elementary school—I'd ever heard Gladys utter anything even vaguely resembling gossip. "I try to keep Homer away from her at faculty dinners and so forth."
Hmm. I couldn't quite see the bespectacled, sober-sided, generally abstracted and serious Dr. Homer Fellowes being swept off his feet by a designing woman, especially the wife of a colleague. Granted, he'd been blinded by the beauty of a cinema star, Lola de la Monica, a couple of years earlier, but that was almost understandable. Once he learned her true character, which was deplorable, he abandoned that forlorn hope for the much more compatible—for him—Gladys.
"My goodness. For some reason, I don't think of Cal Tech professors as being... rakes."
"No one does," said Gladys bitterly. "But you'd be surprised. Some of them are terrible cads."
"Dear me. I'm sorry to hear it."
"You'll probably get to watch some of their goings-on at the Halloween party."
"Speaking of that, are all the gentlemen we saw today going to be invited to the party?"
"Yes, and I'll invite a few others, too. I don't want anyone to suspect you're really looking for a murderer."
"Um..." Good Lord. Looking for a murderer? "Please don't give me too much credit, Gladys. I'm not a detective. I'm just a phony spiritualist-medium."
"I know that, but you're very good at assisting people with their problems. You, after all, were the one who discovered it was that beastly woman who was writing those poison-pen letters."
"Harold and I did," I said, giving credit where it was due. "And that was almost by accident."
"Propitious accidents are the way most great discoveries are... discovered."