“Did you find it?” said Professor Casti.
“Find what?”
“The manuscript. I had the same idea. I thought the thief might have shoved it in some such place as this till the hue and cry was over. But it isn’t here.”
“You seem worried.”
“Worried! Of course I’m worried! I was planning to use a phonetic technique on that manuscript, a technique I’ve developed myself. It would have caused a tremendous sensation. It would have made my reputation forever!”
“Well, there are other things you can use your technique on.”
“Yes, but there are other things I’m worried about.”
“What?”
“Haven’t you read the papers? Don’t you know that every paper in the country is running headlines: Greek Prof Strangled in Library Treasure-Room—Priceless Manuscript Missing? And then a description of the manuscript, and a statement that it was being studied by Belknap, Parry, and I—me, I mean. Right away we’re under suspicion. It’s all right for Belknap and Parry, because they’re full professors, and have tenure, but I don’t. Everybody in the M.L.A. will remember this, and when my name is mentioned they’ll say: ‘Casti? He’s done some good work, but wasn’t he mixed up in a theft and murder case once?’ Accidente!”
Casti craned his neck sideways, and Gilda had the feeling that he barely restrained himself from spitting on the floor.
Strike while the iron is hot, thought Gilda. Or strike while the assistant professor is hot. When they are hot they throw off sparks.
“Who do you think did it?” she said.
“I’ll tell you who I think did it. I’ll tell the world. I ain’t scared!”
“Who?”
“Belknap!”
Gilda was silent.
“Belknap! That scrawny old windbag, who goes around here like he was the guy who invented scholarship!”
“But why should Belknap—”
“I’ll tell you something. Night before last, when I was taking a walk around about ten o’clock or so, I saw someone looked like Belknap standing outside the Library. Tall and scrawny like Belknap. I’m pretty sure it was him—he.”
“You aren’t quite sure, then?”
“Well, I wouldn’t absolutely swear to it. I didn’t see his face, and I wasn’t paying much attention anyhow, because I was thinking about something else.”
“I thought you told the Lieutenant you didn’t see anybody on your walk.”
“When I told him that I didn’t remember. It was only afterwards, when I got to thinking about it, that I seemed to recall seeing someone who looked like Belknap.”
Professor Casti’s anger had passed. He sat grumpily in his chair.
“Maybe you ought to tell this to Lieutenant Kennedy. Someone from the police was to be in Dr. Sandys’s office this morning.”
“I have told him. I was just up there.”
“What did he say?”
“Well, he acted as if he didn’t believe me. Said if I wasn’t willing to swear it was Belknap it wouldn’t do him any good. He seemed to think I was making it all up.”
A face peered through the glass door of the seminary. It was Professor Belknap.
A key turned in the lock, and the professor entered.
“Good morning, Miss Gorham. Good morning, Casti. I was looking for you.”
“Well, you found me.”
Professor Belknap stood, cavernous and compelling, fingering his Phi Beta Kappa key.
“I hear you told Lieutenant Kennedy that you saw me outside the Library on Thursday night.”
“Well, what if I did?”
“You’re perfectly sure that you recognized me?”
“Of course. I wouldn’t have mentioned it otherwise.”
“But I was in my room at the time, as I had previously told Lieutenant Kennedy. You were therefore mistaken. What clothes was this person wearing whom you mistook for me?”
“I didn’t pay any attention to the clothes.”
“Was this person wearing a hat?”
“I—didn’t notice.”
“In short, you were deceived by some fancied resemblance. Unless your imagination has created the incident out of whole cloth.”
“Are you calling me a liar?”
“I am suggesting that you were mistaken.” Professor Belknap smiled. “I thought it my duty to tell Lieutenant Kennedy of your curious eagerness to get the Filius Getronis into your own hands, in violation of all the University rules, and, in fact, of all common sense. Lieutenant Kennedy seemed much impressed.”
Professor Belknap walked with measured steps toward Professor Casti. Casti pushed back his chair and sprang to his feet. His face was twisted with rage.
“Are you threatening me?” he cried.
He pulled from his pocket a knife of the Boy Scout type, flashed it open, and stood in an attitude of defense, the knife held low with the blade’s cutting edge up.
Professor Belknap continued to smile.
“I’m not threatening you. But I am warning you against making unjustified and unjustifiable accusations. The training of a scholar should have taught you, above all things, caution.”
He bowed slightly to Gilda, turned, and walked, unhurried, from the room. Casti still stood with his knife at the guard.
(Strike while the iron is hot.)
“Mr. Casti,” said Gilda, “is that the knife you used to pry open Lucie Coindreau’s drawer?”
The knife fell clattering to the floor.
“What—I—you mean—what?”
“On the night that Lucie Coindreau died, you were seen prying at her drawer in that seminary table. What were you looking for?”
Casti sank into the chair.
“Have you told the police?”
“Not yet. The matter didn’t come up at the inquest on Lucie, and the question of her death has not been reopened.”
“What are you telling me this for?”
“I thought you had better know that you were observed. Knowing that, you might think it wise to tell me the whole story.”
Casti reflected for a moment.
“I will tell you the truth, Miss Gorham. The fact is, I bought a car a month ago. A remarkable bargain. A Pierce-Arrow!”
“You’ve bought a car! But what on earth—”
“I won’t deny that Mademoiselle Coindreau and I had been—very good friends. But when I got my beginner’s driving permit, of course I had to drive with people who had operators’ licenses, and Mademoiselle Coindreau didn’t know how to drive. We had a terrible quarrel about it, and for a couple of weeks we didn’t speak to each other. I thought that was very awkward, our being in the same department, of course, so I tried to patch things up. It was Monday, the day she died. You remember, I tried to find her in the Library that day?”
“Yes.”
“I didn’t find her then, but I met her at the President’s reception. I apologized, and then she asked me to lend her my beginner’s driving permit, so she could learn to drive, too! I told her she was crazy; she could get one of her own easily enough, and they aren’t transferable. If she should get picked up driving with my license, we would both get into trouble. But poor Lucie, she would never believe that you could do things simply, in the regular way. She always thought there was some better, roundabout system. ‘Le système D,’ we say in French. Well, I refused. And then she left me, and I got to thinking that after all we had been very good friends, and there was no reason why I shouldn’t do her a little favor, because if she should have an accident I could always say that I didn’t know she was actually going to use my beginner’s permit. So I looked around for her at the reception, but I didn’t see her. Then I went out the front door and I thought I saw her skipping across the campus to the Library. So I went to the Library. I thought she’d be in here in the seminary, but she wasn’t. So I thought about it for a while, and then I just slipped the permit in the top of her drawer. That way I could always swear that I hadn’t actually given her the
permit. Then I came out just before closing-time, and I saw Parry going up to the Wilmerding, and all the lights were on there. And then you went up there, looking very sick, and I thought all of a sudden that something might have happened to Lucie. And when I found out, I got scared for fear they would find my permit in her drawer, and people might suspect there was something up between us. You’ve got to be careful in this business. So I came back here and pried with my knife and got the permit out. It hadn’t slipped down to the bottom of the drawer. And that’s all there is to it.”
A strange story, thought Gilda. But not too strange to be true. It fitted with everything she already knew: Casti’s search for Lucie at the President’s reception, his actions before and after her death, his revelation, on seeing her body, that he had known or suspected that she was in the Library. It all fitted. But that did not prove it true.
“Have you got the permit on you?” she said.
Casti looked in his pocket-book.
“Yes, I think so. No, it isn’t here. I must have left it at home, with my car-keys and things.”
He looked at Gilda curiously. “I suppose you wanted to see if there are any knife-marks on it.”
Gilda nodded. Well, she had spoiled that. If there weren’t any knife-marks on it now, there would be soon.
A key turned in the lock of the seminary door. A grim, spectacled graduate student entered, with a bulging brief-case. He nodded to Gilda and Professor Casti, and drew a couple of books from his brief-case. From the shelves he took the etymological dictionaries of Wartburg, Meyer-Luebke, and Koerting, a volume of Godefroy, and one of Ducange’s Glossarium Mediæ et Infimæ Latinitatis. He arranged them in an orderly rampart before him on the desk.
“How was the concert last night, Miss Gorham?” said Casti.
“Interesting. I found it interesting.”
The graduate student tapped sternly on the table with his pencil.
“Well, I must be going,” said Gilda. She left the room, followed by Professor Casti.
The graduate student drew from his brief-case a copy of the Saturday Evening Post, and settled down happily to a story about young love.
Gilda decided that she would stop in at Dr. Sandys’s office, to see if there was any news.
She found there Lieutenant Kennedy, Dr. Sandys, the Sergeant, and the young man from the District Attorney’s office.
“How are you getting along?” she said brightly from the doorway.
“Fine. We’re doing fine,” said the Lieutenant, tucking his gum in his cheek.
“Did you get any news about people who were in the Library night before last?”
“Nothing important. Prof Noble says he was talking to Doc Sandys in the entrance at ten twenty-five. And that Prof Casti was in, to say that he saw someone who looked like Prof Belknap outside the Library.”
“Do you think that’s a fact?”
“Naw. Imagination. Or else he wants to put the rap on Belknap. Maybe Casti’s sore at him for some reason.”
“Well, I’ll be going.”
“No. Come in here a minute, Miss Gorham. Something I want to show you.”
Gilda advanced uncertainly.
“Over here. On the desk.”
Lieutenant Kennedy reached out, and flipped away a newspaper, revealing a small blue morocco-bound volume.
“Djever see that before?”
“Why—why, it’s the Filius Getronis!” Gilda opened the book at random. “Yes, it’s the Filius Getronis. Where did you get it?”
“Came in by mail. Ordinary parcel post, addressed to the Library.”
“Was there any indication where it came from?”
“Mailed last night. Right here in town. Fake sender’s name and address. Here, look at the label.”
Kennedy showed her the wrapping, with a typed label pasted on.
“Do you know what typewriter that was written on?”
“Why—” gasped Gilda, “why, it looks like mine!”
Kennedy nodded solemnly.
“Yes,” he said. “That’s what we figured.”
Chapter XVIII
“SIT DOWN here, Miss Gorham,” said Lieutenant Kennedy. “I got a few little questions to ask you. Just—”
“Routine questions, no doubt,” said Gilda, taking the unofficial witness chair. Lieutenant Kennedy glared.
“How come you have that manuscript in your possession?”
“But I didn’t, Lieutenant!”
“Ho, you didn’t, hey?” He turned to the Sergeant. “Write down she denies that the manuscript was in her possession. Now, Miss Gorham, if you didn’t have that manuscript in your possession, how come you send it back?”
“I didn’t send it back.”
“Then how you happen to write out this label on your typewriter?”
“I didn’t.”
“Then who did?”
“I don’t know.”
“Anyone else have access to your typewriter?”
“Certainly. It’s on a movable typewriter stand beside my desk. Anyone could get at it. But I don’t remember anyone using it in my presence during the last few days. The members of the catalogue room staff wouldn’t be likely to use it, because there are other typewriters available for them. And if some outsider, say a professor, should come in and use my typewriter, it would be unusual enough so that the girls would probably notice it and remark about it.”
“How about after hours? Is the catalogue room locked?”
“The hall door is. But the door into the stacks is ordinarily left unlocked, so that anyone with a stack permit—that is, the faculty and graduate students—can consult the bibliographical works. So almost anyone could have gone in there after five o’clock, or between eight and nine in the morning.”
“Are the lights kept on there at night?”
“Not in theory. But the people who use the room are as likely as not to leave them on when they go.”
“Can your desk be seen from the doors?”
“No.”
“So almost anyone could have gone in there and sat down and typed off this here label without no one observing them?”
“That’s right.”
“Huh.”
“How about fingerprints?” said Gilda timidly.
“Aw, fingerprints my left foot!”
The Sergeant looked up inquiringly.
“Cut out ‘my left foot.’ ”
“Leave ‘fingerprints’?”
“Naw, cut out ‘fingerprints,’ too.”
The Sergeant obediently crossed out a line in his notebook.
Lieutenant Kennedy took a strip of chewing gum from his pocket and added it to his cud.
“Let me point out,” said Gilda, “that if I wanted to send back the manuscript anonymously, I wouldn’t address it on my own typewriter. It would therefore appear that whoever used my typewriter did so to divert suspicion from himself.”
“That’s psychology, is it?”
“Yes, I think so.”
“Well, it’s my experience that murderers don’t act according to psychology. Psychology!”
“And you suspect me of being the murderer?”
“Hell, no, I don’t suspect you. You can go if you want to.”
But he did suspect her, thought Gilda, as she made her way to the catalogue room. She had no alibi for the time of Mr. Hyett’s death. The Lieutenant might suppose that in her library work she had somehow obtained a duplicate key to the locked press, and had learned the combination of the safe. That she was interrupted in her theft by Mr. Hyett, and had strangled him in an access of desperate strength. That she had stolen the precious manuscript, and had returned it out of fear. And how about the death of Lucie? Why, that was still an accident, in the official view. Gilda would be tried for one murder, not for two. Lucie’s death would be left conveniently in the shadow. Or a prosecutor might make dark hints to the jury, suggesting a drama of jealousy, Gilda jealous of Lucie. Gilda had no alibi for the time of Lucie’s death, either.
This was very bad. It was high time she did something. She knew who had murdered Lucie and Mr. Hyett, and she knew, approximately, how and why. Should she go to Lieutenant Kennedy and tell what she knew?
The trouble was that her proof, while entirely satisfactory to her, was not legal proof. It would not satisfy a jury. Nor Lieutenant Kennedy. He would laugh at her. There was too much psychology in her argument.
Clearly, she must get legal proof.
How?
For some time she sat meditating, chin on hand.
“How’s the detective work going, Miss Gorham?”
It was Cameron, appearing suddenly and silently from the rear, as was his annoying habit.
“What? Oh, all right.”
“You couldn’t manage to pin the crime on Lieutenant Kennedy?”
“Look here, Cameron, there’s something I wanted to ask you.”
“Okay.”
“Let’s—ah—go down to the crypt, where we won’t be disturbed.”
“Okay. I have to check in at the delivery desk. I’ll be there in a couple of minutes.”
Cameron, a monster of tact, probably wished to arrange, for appearances’ sake, that the two would not be seen entering the crypt together.
A minute later Gilda was descending the circular stairs to the crypt. This was the Library’s grave, she thought. Here the dead books were buried. As long as one person opened a book and read a line, he communicated to it life. But these books no one ever opened; they were dead, and buried in this tomb, in the quiet and the cool. A gruesome fancy.
“Yes, Miss Gorham?”
Gilda had not heard Cameron descending the stairs.
“Cameron,” she said, “we were talking about that door to the ventilating apparatus.”
“Why, so we were, Miss Gorham.”
“And you said you were sure that no one had gone out that way on Thursday night.”
“That’s right. The screen was screwed in place when I looked at it early Friday morning.”
“I notice, however, that the screws are abraded on both sides of the groove. They have been screwed in and out apparently several times. Would that observation stimulate your recollection at all?”
The Widening Stain Page 17