by Hilari Bell
My heart contracted with sudden, painful understanding. Kathy had seen it too. Her grip on my hand was tight with horror and pity.
“Nothing, nothing, nothing,” she whispered. “The number for love.”
“Love of a parent for a child is 003,” Michael said. “It goes on all through life, listing all the loves that man may know. And Hotchkiss created this system years after the death of Seymour Peebles.”
“Whose mother,” I said, “has access to the keys to every building the university owns. Including Hotchkiss’ house. And that abandoned print shop.”
Michael turned to us, his face set with distress and determination.
“I’m going back to the tower to get Captain Chaldon. You two find one of those master lists you told me about, and meet us at the gates.”
He left us the lamp when he departed, and I heard him bump into something in the hallway and swear. But I had no desire to laugh.
Kathy’s face was full of sorrow and I put an arm around her, just for comfort. For both our comfort, which was almost sweeter than a kiss.
“Can we stop this, Fisk? Should we?”
“Michael will be talking to the Captain in minutes. As for whether we should have tried to stop him, I honestly don’t know. But your brother’s not just thinking about Clerk Peebles. He’s thinking about the next person who’ll be suspected of this murder. Some random burglar, say, who might not have an alibi.”
“Ah.” I felt her sigh as much as heard it. “Then I suppose we’d better get that master list for him.”
Since we knew where it was kept, that was easy. We reached the gates several minutes before Michael and Captain Chaldon came to join us.
“Good, you’ve got it,” Michael said. “Do you recognize this, Captain?”
“Not without reading the title.” The captain’s voice was tart, and I deduced that Michael hadn’t told him much.
People resist conclusions less if they reach them on their own, so I just handed over the thick book. To my surprise, he recognized it.
“This is the master list for the alphanumeric system. I thought they never let it out of the library.”
“They would for this,” I told him.
Michael had already passed through the gates, unguarded in this emergency. I took back the book and led the Captain and Kathy after him. Having walked her home after our dinner, Michael knew where Clerk Peebles lived.
It was a tall narrow house, in a row of such houses. As we approached, I couldn’t help but wonder if the cobbles we walked across were the ones that had shattered Seymour Peebles’ head when he jumped. And whether his mother remembered that, every time she approached her own front door.
If she’d gone to the fire I don’t know what we’d have done — I could hardly have picked her door lock under Captain Chaldon’s eyes. But candlelight glowed in her windows — she must have heard the alarm, and sensibly decided that a middle-aged woman wouldn’t be much use fighting fires. She was ready, though. She opened the door immediately when Michael knocked, fully dressed.
“What’s happening on the campus? Am I needed there? I thought…”
She took in the fact that none of us were scholar-messengers, and then the insignia on Captain Chaldon’s coat, and the animation died out of her face. This was how she’d look when she was old, and Kathy darted from my side to throw an arm around her, though she stood steady and straight.
“We’d like to see your son’s room,” Michael said.
It was all he needed to say and her face changed again … but oddly, she looked stronger now.
“It’s the second door at the top of the stairs,” she said. “I locked it after Seymour’s death. Couldn’t bear it. But it hasn’t been locked for over a month, now.”
Kathy took her into a comfortable front room, off to the right, while Michael led the rest of us up the stairs. He took a lit candle from the entry with him, and collected another from a stand on the landing.
Under the dust, Seymour Peebles’ room could have been that of any young scholar. Perhaps a bit tidier than most, before his death, but filled with the books and notes that were now scattered wildly over the floor, where he’d tossed them in his final despair. I understood why his mother hadn’t been able to clean it out, to throw those notes away. But even if she had, he’d scribbled on the walls as well, when a thought had struck him and he’d no paper to hand.
Tree-root-wood-bark-leaves-blossom-fruit-seed appeared by the window, with a list of numbers in the 530’s. Beside a chest of drawers was a sketch of a human skeleton, with a list of numbers in the 650’s that ran from eye level down to the floor. A complex thing to number, human anatomy.
But Seymour Peebles had created a number for everything. And his “friend,” Winton Hotchkiss, had stolen them.
Chaldon must have spent more time in the library than I’d have expected, for he got it almost at once.
“These numbers.” He gestured to marked walls, the paper strewn floor. “Do they match?”
“You can check.” I held out the master list that had sprung from those tumbled notes.
The captain sighed. “There’s hardly any need, is there. The man I was partnered with when I first joined the guard, he’d investigated Seymour Peebles’ suicide. There was no doubt he took his own life, but his mother was so insistent that he’d been betrayed by someone he trusted… Dovan looked for the man. He never found a trace.”
“Hotchkiss hid their friendship,” Michael said. “Mayhap at first ’twas from embarrassment, fear of mockery if he befriended someone as odd as Seymour. Or mayhap he befriended him in the first place because he recognized that this odd, awkward youth had hit on something valuable … and he didn’t want anyone to suspect the truth when he stole it.”
From what I knew of Hotchkiss, I’d bet on the latter. In fact, I wouldn’t put it past him to have deliberately provoked the bright, unstable scholar. To have shattered that newfound trust as brutally as he could, hoping Seymour would be so traumatized, so incoherent, he’d be unable to present a convincing case that Hotchkiss had taken his work, instead of the other way around.
Though Seymour may have suspected something; Hotchkiss had clearly never been invited into this room, or seen the strange, brilliant scribbles on its walls.
As we walked back down the stairs to confront his mother, I found myself thinking that if he’d survived, Seymour Peebles might someday have acquired magic. Or maybe in time, with respect and the freedom to change the whole scholarly world with his numbers, he might have settled and become more normal.
Either way, Hotchkiss had made sure he’d never have the chance.
By the time we reached the front room, I was really hoping we’d find Nancy Peebles had run for it. I knew Kathy wouldn’t stop her, and I had a feeling the captain wouldn’t have pursued her very hard.
But she was waiting for us, seated on a very worn, upholstered chair. A matching chair, worn only a little, sat on the other side of a small table, and it took only a moment’s thought to understand why Kathy had chosen to sit on a footstool instead. None of the rest of us took that empty chair.
“Mistress Peebles,” Captain Chaldon said. “When did you first realize that Hotchkiss had stolen the alphanumeric system from your son?”
He was good. If he’d asked her if she’d killed the man, she might have lied. But that question was one she was dying — maybe literally — to answer. I wished, once again, that she’d run.
“Not for a very long time. I took that job with the university to look for the person who’d betrayed my son, you know.”
She spoke calmly, but her hands kept smoothing the skirt over her knees.
“Oh, I went to them, and said I’d lost my old job because I’d missed so much time after Seymour died. That much was true, and they gave me a job out of pity. But the reason I wanted to work there was to hunt for my son’s killer. Secretary to the admissions clerk, that’s where I started, and it was perfect. I studied the records of every schola
r who was here at the same time as Seymour, watched them when they came back to visit, kept track of their careers.
“But Hotchkiss was clever. He waited for more than three years after Seymour’s death before he even began talking about the system, and he spent several more years ‘developing it.’ Talking to professors and department heads about how to subdivide their subjects, bringing out the numbers one discipline at a time. There was no reason to doubt he was working it all out slowly, just as he claimed. And I was looking at the mathematicians, and some of the sciences that use a lot of math, not at historians.”
She gave Michael a rueful smile. “So maybe it’s fitting, that it was a historian who helped me see it. I was there at your brother’s hearing, taking notes of the proceedings. He was so angry, so helpless. It reminded me of Seymour, that day he came home and locked himself in his room.”
Her gaze fell to her hands, clenched on her knees, and she released them self-consciously.
“I had no idea what he was going to do. What he’d done. He never let anyone into his room for fear they’d disturb his papers — that’s why there was a lock on his door. I was still pounding on it, begging him to tell me what was wrong, when the neighbors came. I only glanced into his room once after the guard had inspected it. Seeing all his neat piles of paper tossed about… I said I couldn’t bear to clean it, but the truth is he’d been so adamant about keeping everyone out, I felt like he’d know. Like he still cared, somehow. But after Professor Sevenson was betrayed as well, I dug out the key and went into my son’s room. I’d been using that library, using the alphanumeric system, for almost fifteen years. I knew then, who’d betrayed my son. And your brother, and who knows how many other people. Years I’d spent, looking in the wrong place, while that man walked around the campus collecting fame for Seymour’s genius. I searched his house, you know. I hoped there’d be some evidence that the system was Seymour’s work. I thought I could leave it on his desk or a shelf, that someone would find it...”
Her voice had begun to shake, but her eyes were dry.
“Why didn’t you go to Headman Portner, and the board?” Kathy asked. “Surely they’d have listened.”
“They probably would,” Mistress Peebles admitted. “He’d have been fired, and disgraced … and once he worked off his debt to the university, he’d have gone right on with his life. My son is dead. It wasn’t enough, it wasn’t justice. I’m glad you came tonight,” she went on, to my surprise. “I did my best to give Professor Sevenson an alibi. After that hearing, I knew he’d be suspected. And I was horrified when you fell under suspicion, and did all I could to help you clear yourselves. If you’d found someone else to accuse… When I made my decision, I promised myself that if someone else was about to be convicted for my crime I’d come forward. I’m glad I won’t have to take that test. I’d hate fail it.”
“So you confess to killing Master Hotchkiss?” Captain Chaldon asked.
“Why deny it? I have the university’s master keys, so it was easy to sneak in and mix the drug into his tea. He could barely stagger when he came down those stairs. Going for help, I suppose.”
The indifference in her voice was chilling.
“But he saw me coming. He knew why he died. And the truth will come out. That’s justice enough.” Her hands were relaxed now.
“Mistress Peebles, I must place you under arrest for the willful murder of Winton Hotchkiss.” The captain sounded regretful. “Would you like to pack some things, before you go with me?”
“I suppose I’d better.” Her expression was still calm, but when she rose I saw her waver and realized her knees were shaking.
I understood, now, why she hadn’t run — and her son would get the recognition he deserved. But I wished Hotchkiss hadn’t been the vicious worm he was, or that her son had been stronger. I wished there was something I could say…
It was Michael who found it.
“Mistress Peebles,” he said, as she turned toward the stairs. “You should know, your son, he didn’t think love was nothing. He put it before everything else in the universe. Zero, zero, zero: love. And the love he put first, zero, zero, one, was the love of a child for a parent.”
She knew the alphanumeric system. She knew what that meant.
When Captain Chaldon took her up to pack her bag, her face was wet with tears.
“’Twas as if he told her he loved her from beyond the grave,” Kathy said. “That poor woman. I don’t blame her in the least for killing that monster! Surely the judicars won’t hang her. If there was ever a case for which someone should go unredeemed…”
Having gone to bed only hours before dawn, we’d all slept past noon, then slowly gathered around … could you still call it the breakfast table? But Kathy was right, cases like this were exactly what the legal status “unredeemed” had been created for.
“I think Captain Chaldon will push for it,” I told her. “If the university agrees, the judicars might well choose to be lenient. Hotchkiss may not have pushed her son out that window, but he was still responsible for Seymour’s death. And ’tis not as if she’s likely to kill again.”
“Will the university argue for leniency?” Kathy aimed the question at Benton, who’d heard our account of the previous night with shock, then pity. He’d gone to join the townsfolk on the bucket lines, been seen by some of his old students, and was quite surprised at how they welcomed him. Indeed, he’d sat up talking with Scholar Flynn — he still blushed saying her name — till nearly dawn, and reached his bed even later than the rest of us.
“I don’t know.” Benton looked troubled. “They might sympathize, I think. But she did choose to commit murder, when she could have gone to them for justice. And even if you put the legal aspects aside, having two senior members of the staff turn out to be homicidal villains… When you add in the things Hotchkiss did, it’s going to be a huge scandal. I mean, what parent would send their child to a school where the staff are blackmailing and murdering each other? Portner may feel he has to respond with severity. I can’t blame him, really.”
“I can,” said Fisk. “And if he’s thinking along those lines, we’d better change his mind before he makes some public statement he can’t back out of. Come along, Michael.”
Thus we found ourselves outside Headman Portner’s office a few hours after midday. We weren’t the only ones who’d been up late, either. Portner’s secretary declined to admit us.
“You’ll understand, what with the fire and the arres — ah, the other matters, the Headman is very busy. Perhaps you could come back tomorrow?”
’Twas a reasonable request, so I understood why his brows flew up when Fisk said, “No. We need to see the Headman now. He wants to see us, too, because I have an idea that might block one of the lawsuits that are heading his way. Or rather, heading the university’s way.”
Ten minutes later we were admitted to Portner’s office. ’Twas a room fit for his rank, with leather-padded chairs, a great maple-wood desk, and shelf after shelf of books. Portner suited the room, with a lean face and a high, intellectual forehead. But his arms were thick with muscle, and his broad hands would have looked at home wielding a pick or a shovel.
Those hands bore blisters today, and there was a reddened burn across his nose and down one cheek. He’d been fighting the fire last night, not standing back and observing — or worse, trying to supervise, and getting in the fire marshal’s way. I began to see why Benton respected this man … so ’twas somewhat discouraging that he regarded Fisk and me with the look you might turn on a moldy sandwich.
“I don’t know what you think you’re doing here,” he said. “But no lawsuit will stop me from doing what’s right for this university, and the scholars in it. I’m busy today, so say what you have to, quickly, then get out of my office.”
“I don’t know what your subject was.” Fisk took a chair as he spoke, defying the Headman’s disapproval. “But I expect you have enough math to know what happens when you multiply two negative nu
mbers?”
“Get out of my office. I don’t have time for games.” He looked angry, but beneath the anger I saw weariness and grief. He hadn’t the heart for games either, and despite his scowl my hopes began to rise.
“All right,” said Fisk. “Though I think it’s an interesting analogy. But as a man of the world, I’m sure you’ve seen that when two scandals arise at the same time, the greater extinguishes the lesser.”
Portner had started to rise, probably to throw us out, but at that he sank back into his chair.
“It’s a terrible scandal,” Fisk went on, “for a professor — suddenly seized with madness, say — to have corrupted the Heir’s project, and then tried to destroy the evidence. But it’s a much worse scandal to hang a woman, for killing the man who stole her son’s work and drove him to his death. A man who used that stolen work to become a famous scholar, on the staff of your own university. If word of that tragic tale spread — if the university itself pled the woman’s case, demanding that she be made unredeemed instead of hanging — I can’t imagine anyone would be interested in a tedious academic project that somehow went wrong.”
Portner was thinking furiously now, so I decided to give him more to chew on.
“Folk would have even less reason to think about that project, if someone who’d been wrongfully accused to keep him from suspecting what was happening was fully reinstated. Instead of having to sue the university over it.”
“Oh, I’d already decided to return Professor Sevenson’s degree — and his job, if he wants it,” Portner said. “We haven’t hired anyone else, so the only loss is that we paid for their travel, and… Well, there’s no difficulty there.”
“Doesn’t the board have to agree to it?” Fisk asked.
I’d not thought of that, having little knowledge of how universities function.
“The board will do what I tell them to, in this,” Portner said. “Or they’ll find themselves looking for a new Headman. I never liked that case against Professor Sevenson. The evidence seemed uncontestable, but there was something off… I didn’t suspect Monica Dayless, though. At all. Do you really think poor Peebles’ tragedy, and what his mother did because of it, could make people … overlook what Dayless did?”