“Okay, then,” he said. “We now come to the hub around which this course really turns, the American Revolution. And before we get into the nuts and bolts of it, let me make a point or two about the meaning of two more important words, revolution and treason—because, as commonly used, they are not in fact what they seem.
“For instance, a survey of Americans not long ago indicated that they have almost no valid information relevant to either geography or history, although they think they do …” Chandler slipped his spectacles off the hooked nose and thrust them at the point he was making. “And they have a greater fund of misinformation about the American Revolution than about any other period of our history … presumably, you are all better informed than the populace at large. But, let me get at a couple of basic points …
“First, the state of mind that produced the American Revolution—it is misunderstood rather widely. In the summer of 1773 Ben Franklin wrote a letter to John Winthrop here at Harvard, and I quote—” Chandler flipped open his Harvard three-ring notebook but hardly needed to look at it.
“‘As between friends every affront is not worth a duel, between nations every injury not worth a war, so between governed and the government every mistake in government, every encroachment on rights, is not worth a rebellion.’”
Chandler leaned on the lectern, his hands clasped before him, glasses dangling, letting the words sink in: “And so it went, Franklin and Jefferson and John Adams, none of them wanted a war … or independence. In seventy-five Adams said the idea of independence was universally disavowed on our side of the water …” He dogged the point, pressed the idea that both the American Whigs and the Tories looked upon themselves as profoundly loyal to the crown. And when it came to war, he told them, it was a war by Whigs who sought to uphold their rights as Englishmen.
“These are crucial points to keep in mind when applying yourself to the study of the American Revolution … Revolution is a word with many meanings …”
He put his glasses back on and thrust his hand back into his pockets, straining the buttons on his jacket. He looked at the blackboard.
“The other word … treason. Now, Out of this new angle on revolution, it stands to reason that we’re going to get a new look at treason. And, incidentally, treason is an almost entirely subjective word—one man’s traitor is almost always another man’s hero. It’s an untrustworthy word, treason, yet the history of the American Revolution is riddled with … one righteous accusation of treason after another. But what is the illusion and what is the reality?
“Think—it started as anything but a revolution. Hell, no sane man could conceive of a war against the immeasurable might of England! These men thought of themselves as Englishmen, none more English than themselves—loyal subjects and proud to be. Yet events kept on conspiring as events will, pushing these loyal subjects toward a war … a war they didn’t want. But even as the spirit of independence was growing, even after July 4, 1776, the populace was far from unanimous in support of this declaration … in every corner of the country, in every city, there were thousands, tens of thousands who utterly opposed this precipitate act of insurrection—a suicidal rush to war.
“But get the point—they all saw themselves as patriots …
“And as the revolution gathered steam, as war engulfed them all, the differences and similarities grew in intensity. Political controversy had become a shooting war. Political views were reduced to only two, the population was polarized … You were either a patriot or a loyalist. The patriots insisted you were either willing to fight for the rights and liberties of Americans or you weren’t. And the loyalists said that was all irrelevant crap—the fact was, you were either for or against the lawful government.
“Naturally there were a great many intelligent, circumspect men who looked this way and that, unable to accept this harsh separation, this black-and-white view … and these men might be called, ah, realists. They were simply not convinced of the absolute tightness of one view or the other, they could not irrevocably join one side or the other … or, finding themselves serving one side or the other, they could not turn off their brains, they could not keep from seeing the other side’s point of view …
“The fact was, many great and powerful men were capable of shifting loyalties. Did that make them traitors?
“Shifting loyalties. Keep that in mind. You may be quite amazed at some of the fellows who found themselves prey to shifting loyalties … Quite amazed.” He sighed, picked up the Rolex and snapped it back on his wrist. “You’ve got the reading list. Keep at it.” He smiled, picked up his scarf. “That’s it for today.”
The woman with the huge eyes and the rakish cheekbones approached at a determined clip while he was struggling into his scruffy Burberry with the frayed cuffs, floppy plaid lining, and the odd spots that clustered to him, it seemed, wherever he went. He watched her coming toward him, trying to place the face with a name: Audrey Hepburn was as close as he could come and unless his life had taken a sudden, dramatic turn for the better, it wasn’t going to turn out to be Audrey Hepburn. She spoke his name, held out her hand, which he shook awkwardly, entangled in the voluminous coat.
“I’m Polly Bishop. Channel Three News—”
“Of course,” he said, smiting his forehead, “I’ve seen you a thousand times but I—”
“That’s television, we become as familiar as the furniture …” She smiled winsomely: “And just as forgettable.”
“Like history professors, I suspect.” He began strangling himself with the scarf, wondering why he had such difficulty with apparently simple tasks.
“Here, you’re caught in the little flap,” she said, pulling the scarf loose. “Do you always have this problem?” She was smiling broadly, the corners of her wide mouth curling up.
“Not always, thank God, just usually. What exactly can I do for you, Miss Bishop?”
“You were pretty rough on us television people, Professor,” she said, ignoring his question. “Here, don’t forget your umbrella …”
“No rougher than you deserve, surely. Television has a good deal to answer for, don’t you agree?”
“Oh, it’s certainly no worse than a draw, the good and the bad.” She cocked her head, still smiling, appraising his ensemble. “Maybe we’ve even done a little better than that—”
He wasn’t overjoyed by the smile, the air of amused tolerance. “Look, you justify your existence any way you like—”
“Oho, it’s my whole existence that’s in question now … oh, dear.”
“Look, Miss Bishop, I don’t know what brings you here but surely it isn’t to badger me about my credentials as television critic … As I can tell from the look on your face, you’ve enjoyed watching me fight it out with my coat and scarf. So why don’t we get to the point or just leave it at that.” He was stuffing papers and books into his briefcase. He picked up his Boston Globe and she reached out, tapped it with a neatly manicured nail:
“That’s why I’m here.” Her smile was gone. “I’m sorry, Professor, I didn’t mean to get off to such a lousy start …”
“Bill Davis’s murder,” he said softly. The boyish, long-haired face, a typical class portrait, looked up blankly from the sheet of newsprint. His hand trembled for a moment; then he stuffed it into the bulging briefcase. “Senseless, awful thing … You just never know—” He closed the briefcase and looked down at the woman.
“I’m covering the murder … it’s a big story, ‘The Harvard Murder.’ That’s why I’m here.” She looked around the room, back to him, shrugged sheepishly. “You happened to be lecturing. I stayed.”
“I don’t understand,” he said, shook his head. “Why me? I hardly knew him—”
“You were his adviser, Professor. And you say you hardly knew him?”
“He got switched over to me this semester. We’d only met once or twice, he seemed like an independent kid, working on some things that weren’t really ready for me to see—his previous adviser had gotte
n Bill’s motor started and there wasn’t much for me to do yet …” He shook his head again, as if it were the only gesture left. How many ways could you exhibit futility and sorrow? “I don’t know anything about … this … what happened to Bill.”
“Well, Professor, you seem to be all we’ve got, the only lead. The police have already spoken with you and they won’t say a word … that makes you interesting to us, Professor. You seem to be the only person at Harvard they have talked to, the only link to Harvard and, quite frankly, it’s Harvard that makes this murder of more than passing interest. You understand? I don’t mean to sound callous—”
“I’m disgusted, Miss Bishop, by that kind of sleazy sensationalism. The invasion of my privacy is bad enough but the connection to Harvard making the kid’s life of more than passing—”
“Not his life. It’s his death we’re discussing and Boston is full of bodies, every day.” She was about to flare up, her face coloring.
“The Harvard murder, good God!” He tried to push past her but she wouldn’t move. The heat in the room was awful. He was soaking his shirt beneath all the layers of clothing.
Polly Bishop fixed him with a stern eye.
“Your name was found on a piece of notepaper in his pocket, along with your office hours … We know the secretary saw him leaving your office the day he was killed, only a few hours before he was killed—”
“Do you think I did it? Do you want me to account for my time? Well, I was at the University Theatre in Harvard Square watching a revival of Charade with Cary Grant and … Audrey Hepburn.” He cleared his throat self-consciously; “No, I wasn’t in the company of Cary and Audrey, they were in the movie. Yes, I have a witness called Brennan … He didn’t kill Bill Davis either. And now, Miss Bishop, I’ve had about enough of this interrogation—”
“Why did Bill Davis come to see you that last day, Professor?”
“Listen,” he said angrily, “what is it with you? You know why my name and hours were on his person—I was his adviser. Yes, he came to see me. No, I didn’t see him. He was late! We missed each other!” He felt the muscle flickering along his jaw. Goddamnit, woman …”
“Just not his lucky day, is that it?”
“That’s funny,” he said sourly. “Very funny.”
“Why was he coming to see you? Why did he stop and tell the secretary to have you call him? What was so important?”
Chandler threw up his hands and looked around the room: “Listen to her! Just listen to her! Miss Bishop, I don’t know what he wanted with me. I didn’t see him—can you grasp that?”
“I think there’s something you know and aren’t telling!” She bobbed her head decisively. “You’re just the type—”
“Oh, for God’s sake!” He stormed past her and charged through the doorway. Why did God make such an attractive woman so bloody irritating? Why? Chauvinism lives …
She followed him, her boots pounding along behind him. She drew near and he got a whiff of her perfume. Gardenias or something. There were dainty little crow’s-feet at the corners of her eyes, little ridges of determination around the mouth. Thirty-five? Why the hell did he care?
“You may not know that you know,” she said, vaguely conciliatory. “But I’ll bet there’s something, some little thing …”
“You, lady, are pissing in the wind.”
“Smooth,” she said, “very smooth. You Harvard men …”
He went through the outside door onto the entry stairway and, as if by a bolt of lightning, he was momentarily blinded. Someone had snapped on a high intensity, handheld lamp, and Chandler realized too late that he’d been had. There was a cameraman, a light man, a guy holding a microphone and some other kind of apparatus. There was a big green numeral three inside a chocolate-brown rectangle painted on each piece of equipment. Someone was holding an umbrella over the camera and the light. Chandler turned, astonished, to Polly Bishop and dropped his umbrella which clattered down the steps. “Talk about lucky days,” he muttered.
She grabbed the microphone, struck a pose, took a signal and began talking. Chandler looked into the camera, began edging away, felt a tug on his sleeve and realized she had neatly hooked her arm through his: he was trapped and, short of striking this extraordinary woman a stunning blow, he was about to be interviewed on television. He heard her talking as the rain dripped down from the gray, spongy overcast.
“We’re in venerable old Harvard Yard, within the sound of bustling Harvard Square … and also within the spreading shadows of the violent death of young Bill Davis, the Harvard student brutally gunned down less than forty-eight hours ago on the lawn of his parents’ home in suburban Brookline. We’re speaking with Bill Davis’s adviser, Harvard’s well-known historian and author, Professor Colin Chandler—” She turned to meet his eyes, her face bright and serious, the earnest newshound whose good looks he’d admired so often on the evening news. Sharp features, soft brown eyes, a few flecks of gray artfully arranged in the thick chestnut hair swept back covering her ears. He almost smiled, then he heard the question. He wished her an evening with snakes in her boots.
“Is it true, Professor Chandler, that you were the last person at Harvard to see Bill Davis alive?”
“No, that is patently untrue, Miss Bishop, as I have just taken some pains to tell you. Bill came to my office on the afternoon of the day he was killed—I wasn’t there and he went away.”
“Do you know why he wanted so desperately to see you? Why he left word with the secretary that you should call him as soon as you came in?”
“The desperation is entirely yours, Miss Bishop. So far as I know there was nothing desperate about the message he left—he simply wanted me to call him. Many people leave messages for me and are not subsequently murdered … I surely would have called him had he been alive when I got the message.”
A small crowd of students paused to watch, pointing, smirking. Chandler didn’t blame them. Two men stood uncomfortably beneath a bare-limbed tree, rain blowing against them. They looked curiously out of place and out of date, particularly the shorter one wearing a checked raincoat and matching porkpie hat.
He barely heard what she was saying: his anger and frustration at her handling of the situation helped blot out her voice. The students lost interest, moved on. The two men stomped their feet, acted embarrassed at being so attentive to the television antics. Chandler’s eyes moved across the Yard, dreading the thought of any of his colleagues stumbling across this ridiculous charade. Two more men were standing on the stoop of Matthews Hall where Chandler had lived as a freshman. They weren’t watching him, fortunately; inexplicably they seemed to be watching the two men beneath the tree. An image registered in Chandler’s mind: a bald man, with a ruffle of gray hair over his ears, wiping his dome with a white handkerchief.
“And so,” she was saying, her voice dramatic in the easy way of those who deal with a new horror each day, “the mystery of Bill Davis’s murder deepens and the question which lingers and which must eventually be answered is—what was so important about his seeing Professor Chandler? It’s not much to go on but right now it’s all any of us has got …” A weighty pause, Chandler heard his own teeth grinding. “Polly Bishop for Channel Three News in Harvard Yard.”
The lights went off. She unhooked her arm from his. She handed the microphone back to the man who’d given it to her and patted away the rain on her face. She smiled at Chandler as if nothing had happened.
“Miss Bishop, in the last two minutes you have made me see what a reasonable act murder can be …” He felt his jaw clenching involuntarily.
“Well, that’s show business, Professor. Quick, strong, entertaining … not necessarily intelligent or thoughtful or valid. You should be very pleased with yourself and your little theory.” She picked up her Vuitton bag, slipped tight brown leather gloves over elegant, long-fingered hands devoid of rings, and looked him rather wickedly in the eye. “But the fact of my life is this—we’re the number one news station in Bos
ton. We are reporters, not talking heads … we go out and find out what’s going on. And we don’t just report on murders in this town, or corruption, or scandal, or the mob—we try to do something about it. In this case we’re going to find out who killed Bill Davis!” She was at the bottom of the steps looking up, the softness in her eyes replaced by an angry glitter. “Here, take your stupid umbrella.”
He took it, drew even with her: “Well, at least we agree about my television theory. You really are something, Miss Bishop, number one in Boston … I don’t doubt it for a moment, whatever it’s worth.” He pulled away, clutching his umbrella and briefcase. There was rain spattering his glasses.
“Thank you for your time, Professor. Really.” She had the most remarkable ability to switch her attitude, ignoring the previous instant. He’d never encountered anything like it. “And if you think of anything important about Bill Davis, if anything occurs to you, if anything happens—and believe me, things are always happening in murder cases …” She was following him again. “Get hold of me, at home or at the station.” She handed him her card and reflexively he took it, stood staring at the small white rectangle.
“If I were you, Miss Bishop, I wouldn’t count on me as a source.”
She smiled, unperturbed: “Well, thanks anyway. And, you know, don’t carry a grudge. It’ll wreck your stomach and you’ll wind up with an ulcer, like me.” She waved whimsically, turned back to the crew. Beyond the gates to Mass Avenue he saw a station wagon, green and brown, a 3 on the front door. The motor was running, wiper blades clicking.
Frustrated, he crumpled the small card and dropped it at his feet. Turning abruptly he brushed past the man in the porkpie hat and got out of her range as quickly as possible. God, what an irritating creature! But she was right: everything he’d said about television was proven.
The Glendower Legacy Page 5