The Memorial Hall Murder

by Jane Langton

  Oliphant kicked the mattress. Dust flew out of it. “Not lately. Nobody’s slept here lately. Who would have a key to these rooms up here anyway?”

  “Oh, of course nobody’s supposed to have keys unless they’re issued by the university,” said Donald Maderna. “But after the keys get out of our hands, we can’t really guarantee what happens to them.”

  “They have to change the locks all the time,” explained Marley of Harvard Police. “We get a hundred break-and-enter complaints a year around here. I mean, let’s face it, this is a high-crime area.” He turned to Homer Kelly. “You should have seen all those little rooms in the basement. Crazy mess of offices and organizations they’ve got down there. And the whole place was full of cots and blankets and sleeping bags and illegal hot plates. Makes you wonder what the hell’s going on.”

  “Not like that in my time,” said Frank Harvey darkly. “Back in the fifties. Not so many fruit cakes around here then. Whole Boston area’s gone to hell.”

  Donald Maderna opened another door. “Careful now,” he said. “From here on it’s all catwalks and ladders.” He climbed a narrow stair and led them crouching under a low-hanging jungle of ventilating ducts and pipes. “Your people will have their work cut out for them up here, Mr. McCurdy. It’s like this under the roof all over the building. Look, here we are at last.” Mr. Maderna’s voice turned thin and flat, its reverberations lost in the great empty spaces of the tower. “We’re right above the memorial corridor now. The trap door to the bell deck is way up there over our heads.”

  They had emerged from the jungle of pipes to find themselves suspended on a narrow wooden catwalk over a void. For a moment they were silent, looking up at the high brick walls rising around them, up and up to the floor of the belfry, and down and down to the curving surfaces of the wooden vaults below. The space contained within the four lofty walls had never been intended for human use. Most of it was filled with another vast system of galvanized iron air-conditioning and ventilating ducts, some of them glittering with silver padding.

  Until now Homer had been silently bringing up the rear, feeling like an Indian in the midst of all the chiefs. But now he was enchanted, and he spoke up. “Oh, isn’t this staggering. Look at those vaults from up here. Wastebaskets! Don’t they look like giant wastebaskets?”

  “Wastebaskets?” said Frank Harvey.

  “Look. See the way they taper down to a point at the bottom, like a container? See those paper cups and lunch bags down there? People working up here have thrown things over the railing. See there: popcorn boxes. Beer cans. Look at all that trash.” Homer threw back his head and laughed, while the others peered solemnly down. “I mean, when you’re standing on the floor of the memorial transept, or whatever you call it, I mean down below, looking up at the vaults, you see all these rising ribs and pointed arches, and you’re filled with religious awe and inspiration, right? When really, just look at that, they’re just a lot of big wastebaskets for old cigarette packages and beer cans.” Homer clutched the railing and the catwalk bounced with his laughter, as the others hung on and tried to see what was funny. “I mean, the way they look like those complicated, mathematical, three-dimensional curves. You know, hyperbolas and parabolas, only all meeting at infinity, you know, those beautiful three-dimensional geometrical constructions with grids making hills and valleys. Oh, noble. You know, now that I really take a look at this building I can see its charm. It’s the sublime and the ridiculous all mixed up together. Grotesquely noble. Nobly grotesque. And what could be more charming than those two things together? I ask you.” The chiefs looked at one another silently and began moving slowly along the catwalk again, while Homer trailed after them, chuckling to himself, shaking his head. “Inside-out vaults. I’m just crazy about upside-down inside-out vaults.”

  Afterwards he tried to explain to Mary and Vick what it had been like. He sat at the kitchen table in the flat on Huron Avenue, eating his third bowl of vegetable soup, describing the open bell chamber at the top of the tower. “There wasn’t any railing, you see, and the asphalt sort of sloped down in the direction of the open arcades all the way around, and it was all slippery with pigeon droppings. Some of McCurdy’s boys were climbing past us into the tower roof to look around up there, and then the bell rang. The clock was striking the hour, and we all nearly fell over the edge with shock and plummeted to our doom. But I hung on to Harvey, and he hung on to Maderna, and Maderna hung on to Oliphant, and Oliphant hung on to Marley, and Marley hung on to Campbell, and Campbell hung on to the corner of a brick with his little finger, so we’re all still here.”

  “Oh, Homer, my God,” said Vick.

  “Oh, don’t worry about Homer,” said Mary. “Don’t believe a single word he says.”

  “Well, it was really great up there,” said Homer. “You could see all over. The river and all the bridges and Harvard Yard. And Donald Maderna showed me all the sights of Harvard, you know, all those nice blue and gold domes. But in the meantime I was looking eastward, straining my eyes for a glimpse of the dear old Middlesex County Courthouse, over there in East Cambridge, where I used to hang out with the District Attorney. Of course, Maderna didn’t know anything about East Cambridge, and neither did the federal guy, Harvey. All they could see was Dunster House and Eliot and Mather, and all those other places with distinguished old Puritanical New England Wasp names like that. Not crummy old Irish East Cambridge, where I grew up.”

  “Well, of course it’s just Town and Gown again,” said Mary. “It always happens like that, I suppose. There’s always a gulf between a school and the city the school is in. I see them in the street, you know, Homer, there in Harvard Square, nice old ladies with shopping bags getting off the subway from Central Square, struggling up those cruel steps, or taking the bus to Lechmere. They look so lost in Harvard Square, with all those wild-eyed students charging past them, never giving them a second glance.”

  “Oh, that’s right,” said Vick. “You’re absolutely right. I know exactly what you mean. I see them there in the square, only I don’t really see them. And they must feel it, sort of. I bet they hate us. I bet they just loathe us.”

  “It’s too bad the citizens of New England don’t have to support the college any more,” said Homer, “the way they did at first, with a peck of wheat or a cord of wood, or something. Then they’d feel sort of responsible for the place. Now they’re just mad at Harvard because it squats and sprawls all over the city and doesn’t pay any taxes. That’s what people think. Actually, it does pay the city a lot of money in lieu of taxes as a sort of friendly gesture of bonhomie and neighborly good will.”

  “Well, I just can’t help but feel for them,” said Mary, “those old dowagers. There aren’t any corner groceries or nice cake shops or dry-goods stores that cater to their needs in Harvard Square.”

  “Oh, well,” said Homer, “I suppose you could say that most of the world is busy catering to their needs. You could say Harvard Square is one of the few places in the universe that caters to the raw gray quivering furrows of the mind. Although I must say, when I think of Harvard Square in all its giddy colors, it’s certainly a funny kind of mind. Not what you normally think of as cold intellectual ponderous deliberation. Mad! It’s a mind gone mad! A dizzy phantasmagoria of steaming fumes from an overworked feverish brain—that’s more what Harvard Square is really like.” Then Homer looked thoughtfully at Vick’s outfit, which was a purple vest over an orange striped blouse that hung loose over her tattered scarlet skirt. “Well, when you get right down to it, it’s just youth, really. It’s just the delirium of being young. That’s what it is, really.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Homer had another look at Harvard Square the next morning, when he stopped at the newsstand on the corner for a copy of the Crimson. The full surge of the square flowed around him, collecting in pulses at the crossing and then streaming forward, trucks thundering and squealing around the corner of Mass Av and Brattle, pedestrians seething on the curb beside the
clock, the pavement trembling with the vibration of trains passing through dark tunnels underground. Homer had once supervised the throbbing tides of traffic from a kind of lighthouse on the curb across the street, but now the lighthouse was gone, and the traffic lights alone held sway over the square. STOP, they commanded. GO. WALK. DONT WALK.

  He looked at the spot on the sidewalk where his tiny house had stood, and remembered the occasional resentment that had risen in his breast as he had watched his peers shoulder their way across the street. They had seemed to him in those days insolent with privilege. It had been a judgment tainted with envy. Night school at Northeastern had not gilded his head with the kind of light that fell on these students now, as they ran boldly across Mass Av to the Yard against the oncoming traffic as if by a kind of divine right. Harvard, after all, was a kind of religion. One said the word with reverence, or ironic awe: Haaaarvard. Strait was the gate and narrow the way that led through the admissions office into the sanctified inner spaces of the Yard. And that was why, when old Dr. Summer had asked Mary if the two Kellys would teach a course in the Department of English and American Literature and Language, there had been on Homer’s part a small unspoken sense of triumph. Not for Mary. For Mary it was home ground anyway. She had gone to school here herself, and most of her male ancestors had come to Cambridge for their higher education. Modest Concord farmers they had been for generations back, riding in on the cars with the Concord sons of bankers and senators and railroad men. Hoars and Keyeses and even Emersons. And of course Henry Thoreau had gone to Harvard, walking from the country into town sometimes, or picking up the coach at the Middlesex Hotel before the railroad had pushed west through Concord to Fitchburg.

  Homer wormed his way into the crowded newsstand and paid for his Crimson and a copy of the Globe.

  HAM DOW DIES IN MEM HALL BOMBING

  ran the banner at the top of the Crimson’s front page. Halfway down there was another headline:

  U.S. UNCONCERNED WITH PLIGHT OF NEPALESE

  The Globe had a feature on Ham Dow:

  BOMBING VICTIM HARVARD FAVORITE

  Outside the Harvard Coop two girls were hawking the Boston Phoenix and the Real Paper.

  FRUSTRATED NEPALESE STRIKE AGAIN?

  suggested the Phoenix.

  HARVARD GOES BOOM!

  said the Real Paper

  “Homer, for heaven’s sake.”

  “What? Mary, dear, what are you doing here?”

  Mary Kelly was shaking him, her big breast heaving. “Didn’t you hear me shouting? I’ve been chasing you ever since you left the house. Screeching at you, making a fool of myself.”

  “Good God, no. What’s happened?”

  “The President of the Overseers, she called you. The Harvard Overseers. Julia Chamberlain, her name is. I didn’t know how I was ever going to reach you in Memorial Hall. So I raced down two flights of stairs and I’ve been galumphing across half of Cambridge trying to catch up.”

  Homer looked around vaguely. “Telephone. Where’s a telephone?”

  “There’s a pay phone in front of the movie. I’ve got the number in my pocket. Here, dear, here’s a dime.”

  “Mrs. Chamberlain?” said Homer, staring into the dark cave of the entrance to the Harvard Square Theatre. “This is Homer Kelly.”

  “Oh, Mr. Kelly, thank you for calling me back. I’ve just got a couple of things to ask you. It’s about this horrible thing at Memorial Hall. We’re all just miserable about Ham Dow. I just can’t believe he’s not going to be around any more. I mean, he was the best-loved person in this whole place. It just makes you want to—Well, I don’t know why those crazy Nepalese couldn’t have blown up somebody else. Ham probably agreed with them, for heaven’s sake. Well, we’re all just sick.”

  “Yes,” murmured Homer, “I get that from every side. I understand he was a good man.”

  “Well, I’ll stop complaining and come to the point. Peter Marley of the Harvard Police tells me you have a background with the forces of law and order here in Cambridge, as well as being on the faculty, and he says you were almost a witness to the disaster. So I wonder if you’d be willing to help us out with a couple of things.”

  “Well, certainly, Mrs. Chamberlain. I’ll do anything I can.”

  “Well, first of all, there’s the funeral. There’s going to be a big funeral service for Ham in the church here in the Yard on Sunday afternoon. The students are in charge. They’ve just taken over the whole thing. Ham didn’t have any near relations, so the kids were insisting on doing it themselves, and nobody could think of any reason why not. They’re going to sing their hearts out, naturally. You know, things from that oratorio they were all doing together, Handel’s Messiah. Ham’s assistant is going to be in charge of the music, a girl named Victoria Van Horn.”

  “Oh, yes. I know Vick.”

  “Well, I understand the chairman of the Music Department has appointed her to be chorus director pro tern in Ham’s place. I mean, she’s just a senior, but everybody seems to think she’s the one Ham would have picked himself. And Charley Flynn’s going to give the eulogy. Young chemistry professor, Ham’s closest friend on the faculty. Well, we’ve had some trouble about that. He’s the faculty radical. But he’s the one the students wanted. And after all, they’re in charge. That’s what I said to President Cheever and Sloan Tinker. I mean, they were raising serious questions. I think they thought he might blow up the church.”

  “Was Ham pretty far to the left himself? I mean, it just occurs to me to wonder whether he was or not.”

  “Ham? Oh, I suppose so. Well, really, I don’t know if he was a political radical or not. The way he lived was certainly unconventional. But he didn’t upset people the way Charley Flynn does. You know, I sometimes wonder if Charley is related to Errol Flynn, that movie star from way back. Remember those old pirate movies? The way he was always jumping on board some ship with his cloak flying behind him and a knife between his teeth? Really refreshing. Well, Charley’s like that. Oh, I know he wants us all to walk the plank, I mean all of us in the Harvard establishment, but God knows he’s probably right most of the time. We need people like that desperately, believe me.”

  Homer found himself warming to the President of the Overseers. “Just what is it you want me to do, Mrs. Chamberlain?”

  “Oh, sorry; back to the point. You see, I volunteered to help out in any way I could, so Vick asked me to take care of the grim practical side of things. So I need to know about the body. Where is it? And can we have it in the church for the service on Sunday? And there’s a lot of sentiment about a plain pine box; in fact, the students are really fierce on the subject, and they don’t want any embalming or anything like that. They just want to let nature take its course. You know the kind of thing. They want a real funeral, with the body right there in the church, not just a polite memorial service. Everybody facing up to death, and so on.”

  “I see, Mrs. Chamberlain. You want me to make the necessary arrangements to get the body released for burial. I’ll be glad to.”

  “Well, that’s great. Now, the other thing is this. Could you come to the meeting of the Board of Overseers next week and report to us about the whole miserable bombing episode? I mean, the Overseers will be coming to the meeting from all over the place, and they’ll be worried. They’ll be wondering if the place is safe for the students. Well, of course, Buildings and Grounds has already given the all clear on the use of Memorial Hall. That man from the Bomb Squad said he was satisfied there weren’t any more bombs in there anywhere, and Donald Maderna’s got the hole in the floor all fenced in and that part of the basement boarded up, and the poor old rose windows are boarded up too. They’re going to seal up the floor and put down fresh cement, but they’re going to leave all the debris in the basement till next spring. Next April sometime they’re going to gut that whole part of the basement and turn it into new office space. That Donald Maderna works fast. He had people in there all night long, getting the place ready for public
use once again.”

  “That was quick work, all right. You mean I can use my classroom again tomorrow? Say, that’s great. Now, just tell me where and when the Overseers meet.”

  “University Hall, right there behind the statue of John Harvard in the old Yard, the Faculty Room on the second floor. Monday morning. Now, the question is, what time? Usually the Overseers don’t get together until two, but President Cheever is calling for a joint session with the Corporation, so we’re starting early so we can go on with the reports of the Visiting Committees later on. You’ll be present at a historic occasion, I guess, Mr. Kelly, a joint session of both groups. I mean, I never heard of them meeting together before. But President Cheever has a building project he wants to bring up before everybody at the same time. I gather the Corporation already turned it down, but I guess in the President’s opinion that didn’t exactly settle the matter. In fact, I understand it came up before the faculty last week. Anyway, our meeting is supposed to begin at nine-thirty, but I think if you came along about ten o’clock, we could squeeze you into the agenda. Is that all right with you?”

  “That’s fine. I’ll be there. And I’ll see about the funeral. I’ll call you back this afternoon, Mrs. Chamberlain.”

  “Well, good for you. You’re a peach.”

  NORTH CAMBRIDGE FUNERAL PARLOR

  Dignified Personal Service

  FINEST FACILITIES

  Centrally Air-Conditioned

  PRE-NEED PLANNING

  Air-conditioned, noted Homer. That was important. You wouldn’t want the body of your loved one to smell on a hot day. Pre-need planning was probably a good thing too. More efficient. Pre-griefstricken folks could make plans to get their nearest and dearest into the ground a lot faster when the sad moment finally arrived.

  Homer poked around the building and found Mr. Ratchit in a small office at the back.

  “Oh, sure,” said Mr. Ratchit. “He’s all yours. We’ve got the permit from the Board of Health. The Medical Examiner saw him at the place where he was blown up, Whatchacallit Hall, that big church there. And they had the autopsy already.”