Scholar's Plot

by Hilari Bell

  Michael, who can be curst stubborn about getting what he wants, said that by the time we reached the other end of town we’d have a much longer walk back to Stint’s place, and that he’d let me take us to Dobb’s work yard first.

  I pointed out that we’d have to walk the same distance from Stint’s to the west end of town as we would from the west end of town to Stint’s, and reminded him that this time I was in charge.

  Michael shut up rather abruptly, but the walk to the richer neighborhood that lay between the river and the Crown City road was long enough that after a while we had to start discussing what to do next. The best houses in that neighborhood, Dobbs had told us, had gardens that backed down to the riverbank and often had their own docks — and professional boatmen to ferry them about, because despite the name, Slowbend, the current here was strong and swift. Master Arnoll’s house, brick instead of the local stone, didn’t back onto the river … but the houses across the street from him probably did.

  As we’d discussed it, I’d made up my mind not to confront Master Arnoll with the evidence that he’d paid blackmail — he might be able to get us kicked off the campus for keeps. Instead, I’d tell him what we’d discovered among Hotchkiss’ papers and give him the fake play script, which Michael was carrying. Then I could ask, sympathetically, how a nice man like him had come to be paying Hotchkiss, why he thought the killer might have done it, and any other questions I could work in before we asked, tactfully, where he’d been on the evening of the lecture.

  Michael, rather stiffly, approved this approach … so it was a considerable letdown to be told by the housemaid who answered our knock that Master Arnoll had gone into the country for a hunting party, and wouldn’t be back for several days. Though she’d be glad to give him a message, if we cared to leave one.

  Jack used to say that the death of one plan hatched the next — a metaphor that made no sense, even knowing as little about birds as I did. But I knew how to bring it off.

  “How long has he been at this hunting party?” I asked. “How far out of town is it?”

  “He left yesterday.” Her voice sounded a bit less polite. “And his friend’s estate is half a day’s journey. If you’d like to leave a message?”

  That last was said in a way that made it clear the door was about to close.

  “We’re keeping you from your work.” I offered her an apologetic smile. I also let the coins jingle as I dug into my purse. “Here’s a tin ha’ for your trouble. It’s too bad Master Arnoll’s not here, to answer my questions.”

  I handed her the ha’ as I spoke. A silver roundel, likely a week’s pay for a housemaid, remained in my hand, flashing as I turned it.

  The door didn’t close.

  “I don’t know if I can help you. Master Arnoll’s an important man with the university. I couldn’t talk about his business, even if I knew it. And I probably don’t.”

  Ah, she suspected academic skullduggery, which meant she’d overheard some of it going on.

  “It’s nothing like that,” I said, regretfully. Academic blackmail appeared to be profitable. “I just want to know where Master Arnoll was last Skinday evening. Do you know if he attended that big lecture?”

  Nothing more harmless than a board member going to an open lecture at his own university, but her eyes fell to the silver coin and her lips compressed. A silver roundel was too much to pay for anything “harmless.”

  But it was enough to get results.

  “No, he was home. He hosted a meeting of the staffing committee, over dinner. And I can’t tell you what they decided. I wasn’t paying attention,” she added firmly.

  Which meant she’d remember exactly what was said, if a few more roundels showed up.

  “Did the meeting run through the time of the lecture?” I flipped the coin, casually. “It lasted pretty late, you know.”

  “The committee meeting ended before the lecture started. A couple of members were going to attend, and they were worried about missing the beginning. But Master Arnoll and three of the others, they went into his office and went on talking for several hours after that. I’ve no idea what they said,” she finished regretfully. “They took the wine with them, and served themselves.”

  She could probably be persuaded to tell me what had been said at the staffing meeting, but I already knew they were interviewing people to take Benton’s place. I tossed her the roundel, which she caught neatly, and I also declined a final offer to leave a message — making certain that even if she wanted to tell her boss she’d been bribed to reveal his whereabouts, which wasn’t likely, she wouldn’t be able to say who’d paid her. Not that it mattered.

  “It seems Master Arnoll is even more thoroughly alibied than Professor Bollinger, whom Benton saw at the lecture,” Michael remarked. “What will you do if all your suspects have alibis?”

  “Either find new suspects or break the alibis,” I said. “We’re just assuming that Halprin and Mabry aren’t in town. And Bollinger is only alibied for the lecture, and Hotchkiss was killed before that. Besides, there’s still Professor Nilcomb, who was paying the most, anyway.”

  But I actually thought that if Halprin or Mabry were in town, the efficient Peebles would probably know about it. And if Bollinger was cold-blooded enough to murder a man, and then go and sit through a lecture without giving anything away, even Benton-the-oblivious should have wondered about him before now. Which meant my likely suspects were down to one man.

  Professor Nilcomb’s house didn’t back onto the river either, but it was grander than Master Arnoll’s. I approached his door ready to bribe whoever answered, because I figured this time of day he’d be teaching. So of course the manservant who answered the door said the professor was in his study, and he’d given instructions for his scholars to be admitted.

  It was useful to be of student age, even though we weren’t wearing the school colors. The man led us into a marble-tiled entry, down a corridor covered with fine rugs, and into a pleasantly masculine study, where a pleasantly handsome man in his late thirties looked up at us with a pleasant smile … which promptly vanished.

  “You’re not my scholars.” He looked at his servant, who looked blank, then increasingly unhappy.

  “We’re not scholars,” I said, before the conversation could disintegrate. “We’re … associates of Master Hotchkiss.”

  He didn’t gasp or turn white, but a distressed expression dawned on Professor Nilcomb’s face.

  “I’ll see them, John. That will be all.”

  He waited till the door had closed and the servant’s steps had retreated before he spoke. “Terrible, what happened to Master Hotchkiss. I was horrified when I heard. Horrified.”

  “I bet you were,” I said, sinking into a chair. “We were investigating his death when we found these.”

  I nodded at Michael, who took out the love letters and laid them on the desk. Nilcomb stared as if they were a nest of writhing snakes.

  “I’ll pay you. I’ll pay you the same amount I paid him, and I was regular, very regular with my payments. He can tell you…”

  The professor then realized that Hotchkiss couldn’t tell us, and stumbled to a stop.

  “How did Hotchkiss get these letters?” I figured I’d better go for a softer tone, or the man might melt from fear right in front of us.

  “I don’t know, but I assume Jessalyn must have… She was angry when I … when we … that is…”

  “She got mad when you dumped her,” I supplied, trying not to sound judgmental.

  Kathy was right about the ick. I remembered her laughter at the terrible metaphors, her indignation over the moral failing that lay beneath. But Nilcomb was talking again.

  “I got more cautious after that. I read my letters, my poems, aloud to my inspirations. Then we burn them, together, so no other eyes will look upon the words.”

  From the man who’d written the letters I’d seen, that was actually credible.

  “You must understand,” he went on. “My wi
fe’s family didn’t approve of our marriage.”

  And they’d been so right.

  “They wouldn’t understand. She wouldn’t understand, but a writer, we need our inspirations.”

  “I don’t care about that.” In fact, I preferred to avoid hearing more. “I just want to know where you were on the evening of the lecture, four days ago.”

  Now he did turn pale, a sickly shade his current “moonbeam” probably wouldn’t appreciate.

  “I meant to attend. I really did. I may have sat toward the back. Yes, I came in late and sat in the back.”

  “No, you didn’t,” I said, confidently. “We talked to the pass checkers, and they hadn’t seen you.”

  “They must have forgotten. Like I’ve forgotten who I sat beside. In the back.”

  “Professor.” Michael’s voice was more gentle than I could manage. “Where were you that evening? You weren’t at the lecture.”

  Nilcomb searched for a bit of spine, and to my surprise he found it. “I won’t tell you where I was. I’ve already said I’d pay, and I will, but the rest is none of your business.”

  “You mean, it’s not our business who you were with,” I said.

  “I deny that. I completely deny that and you have no proof. And indeed, I might be able to pay just a bit more?”

  Ick. I was out of even pretense-sympathy, so I gestured for Michael to take over.

  “We don’t want your money, Professor. In fact, you may keep these letters, and as far as I know there are no copies. But you should consider,” he went on, “that if you go on sleeping with your scholars, sooner or later your wife and her family are bound to learn of it. It seems…” He waved a hand, to indicate the luxurious room. “…a high price to pay for ‘inspiration.’”

  It was some time after we left the house before I started feeling clean again.

  “I swear, the jeweler’s less creepy than that man.”

  “I think that’s a fair comparison,” Michael said soberly. “’Tis an illness with him, whatever he tells himself. For whatever pleasure he gains, he risks losing wife, wealth, reputation, and being blackmailed. He’s pitiable.”

  “He’s a creep,” I said. “But not a murderer.”

  “I’ve never seen a worse liar,” Michael agreed. “The thought that we might consider him guilty of murder never even crossed his mind.”

  “Which it would, if he’d done it,” I agreed.

  And unless Professor Bollinger could commit murder with his own hands, and then sit through a lecture chatting with his colleagues as if nothing had happened, or one of the others had crept into town without anyone seeing him just to commit this murder — neither of which was likely — then all my suspects had alibis. Which not only meant that I had no idea who’d killed Master Hotchkiss, it meant Michael was now in charge.

  Curse it.

  “So, is there any difference between a bandit and a chemist?” I asked only to draw Fisk out of his silence. He’d been sullen ever since his last suspect turned out … not to be.

  “Not that I’ve heard. The profession’s probably too new. But I can tell you the difference between a bandit and an alchemist.”

  “What?”

  “Even a bandit knows you can’t turn lead into gold.”

  I snorted, and Fisk began to look more cheerful. ’Twas well past midday, and we’d not eaten since break- fast, so I added to his cheer by stepping into a nearby tavern for sandwiches, and ale cold from the cellar. ’Twas pleasant enough to walk about town in the morning but the afternoons were hot. Even fortified with food and drink, the walk back to the lodging house where Professor Stint had rooms proved as tedious as I’d said ’twould be.

  “He’s out now,” the landlady told us. She was a stout dame, in that indeterminate age where women are no longer young but not yet old. Her cap and apron were clean, but there was no lace on cap or cuffs and her hands were rough. A woman who worked in the building she owned.

  “I thought he might be teaching today,” I said. “In fact, I hoped I might talk to you. What kind of tenant is he? Does he pay his rent regularly?”

  What I really wanted to know was whether Stint was short of coin, and thus had reason to take a bribe to sabotage the project — particularly a project where he might well think that he should be in charge. But I don’t care to lie, and unlike Fisk, I hadn’t enough money for bribes.

  When I planned my approach, Fisk had pointed out that Stint, above all others, knew that getting Benton fired would do the project no harm — at least, until the papers were burned. And he didn’t see why Stint would choose to sabotage the project by destroying his own research.

  I countered that Stint could easily have made a secret copy of his formulas before he burned them. Destroying his own work would keep anyone from suspecting him, and he could have assumed that Benton would be so bitter over being fired that he’d refuse to give them his research a second time … though ’twas hard to imagine anyone who knew Benton would believe that. Whatever the case might be, losing those formulas had set the project back by weeks, mayhap months. That might be all that was needed.

  I had thought my questions harmless, but the landlady’s eyes narrowed.

  “Why do you ask? Is he looking to rent from you? He hasn’t said a word about leaving!”

  “No, nothing of the kind.” And I dared not have her report this conversation to Stint, or we might find ourselves barred from the project. Again.

  “No,” I went on desperately. “I’m working for … for someone Stint asked to invest in … in a project of his. Chemical research. Secret chemical research. My employer wants to inquire into his habits and character, but quietly. I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t tell the professor about this. Very much.”

  I reached behind me and dragged Fisk forward. I could feel him laughing, even though his face showed nothing. He was already digging into his purse for a brass quart.

  There was a time, before I met Fisk, I’d have refused to lie. But just as I’d sparked his conscience, it seemed that he’d rubbed off on me. And curse it, I needed to learn about Professor Stint’s finances. His landlady was the best place I knew to start.

  She looked at the coin, shrugged, and tucked it into a pocket.

  “What do you want to know?”

  “Does he pay his rent in full, and promptly? And has he always done so?”

  “He has since he moved in, several years ago now. I know he gambles a bit, but he’s never missed a payment.”

  “He gambles? He didn’t tell my employer that.”

  Fisk stopped smirking. A gambling habit could leave a man with a serious need for money. “What’s his game?”

  “How often does he play?” I added.

  “Moon’s Bane. And he plays most Scaledays. But Moon’s Bane isn’t a bad game if you’ve a head for cards, and he seems to. He wins more than he loses, as far as I can tell.”

  She might not be able to tell. I could think of a number of reasons not to inform your landlady that you’d lost the rent. But ’twould not do to show the excite- ment coursing through me.

  “Where does he play, do you know? Does he have a regular group, or pickup?”

  She told us that Stint usually played at a tavern near the river, the Fighting Fish, and that while he had several partners he preferred, the others at the table were usually pickups.

  “But he’s good,” she insisted. “At least half the time, when I see him come in, his purse is heavier than when he left.” I asked a few more questions, thanked her, and departed, ignoring Fisk’s sour expression. His investigation had been snuffed out, but mine was ablaze! “He gambles! ’Tis a perfect reason for him to need money badly enough to sabotage the project!”

  “You can win at Moon’s Bane, if you’re good.” Fisk strolled beside me, hands in his pockets. He was beginning to look interested, despite himself. “In fact, if he racked up a big debt and Hotchkiss found out about it, that could have led to blackmail!”

  “Then why wasn’
t he mentioned in Hotchkiss’ records? Besides, the university might not approve of deep gambling, but as long as it didn’t affect his teaching no one would care. None but those he owed, and if they pressed hard for payment…”

  “Yes, and we might be able to find out who they are. I suppose we’re going to that tavern, next?”

  I took an unworthy pleasure in this tacit acknowledgement that ’twas I who was now in charge. But I had a better idea.

  “Have you ever met Professor Stint, Fisk? When you visited the jeweler, mayhap?”

  “No. I looked into his laboratory, but he didn’t see me. You’re not thinking what I think you’re thinking. Are you?”

  “Why not?” I said. “If you were to win a large sum of money from him, ’twould not only prove he was vulnerable, you could then demand information to settle the debt instead of coin. ’Tis a bribe he’d be hard put to resist and costs us nothing.”

  “That’s silly. He’s not going to confess to murder to clear a gambling debt. The worst a judicar would do is set up a payment schedule, and forbid him to gamble till he’d paid it off.”

  “Not the murder, of course. But if we pretend to want the name of his contact at court, the man who paid him for the sabotage, he might confess to burning the papers and framing Benton.”

  “Assuming he did frame Benton,” Fisk said.

  “Even if he only burned the papers, learning who paid him might be the loose thread that unravels the whole stocking!”

  Fisk looked skeptical. But then, he was losing.

  “If you’re that certain I’m going to win, then you’re proposing that I cheat. You do know that, Noble Sir?”

  “’Tis for a worthy cause,” I said. “And ’tis not as if we’ll keep his money. We only want to persuade him to talk.”

  “What about his partner? If Stint loses, his table partner will too. And that’s assuming a two couple game — what if there are six players?”

  This stopped me. I could see my way to cheating Stint out of some information, particularly if he proved to be guilty. I couldn’t cheat the other players.