Death of the Rat

by William McMurray

CHAPTER SIX

  Sunday was yet another damp day. On a fine Sunday morning Janet would be up and about; on a grey dismal-looking one such as this she normally would have rolled over. But the drizzle had stopped and a brightening in the sky foretold better things ahead. Besides, she argued with herself, with all her recent candle-burning, as Kay described the frenetic events of the past week or two, Janet had been remiss in her regular jogging routine. By now she was long overdue for a run, she reflected as she pulled on her track-suit, then quietly let herself out the side door.

  A pearly mist was lifting from the river as she ran along the bank. A few drips fell from the trees overhead spattering the already wet earth of the packed trail. In places were a few puddles or stretches of softish mud which she had to circumvent in the low-lying sections of the trail. She wove in and out of the clumps of willow carefully, picking up the pace as she reached the higher and drier portions of the river-bank. Janet was making rather good time, settling into the steady rhythm of her stride and breathing when it happened.

  An incautious plant of her foot upon a greasy patch of clay, a feeling of dismay as her shoe skidded out sideways, and the next instant she found herself slipping helplessly to the edge of the bank. She grabbed desperately, came up with more oozy clay then finally found an exposed root and just managed to keep herself from dropping the twenty feet to the river below.

  “And I'm doing this supposedly in aid of my health!” she said aloud when she had stopped shaking. With heart still pounding fiercely, and giggling semi-hysterically, she slowly lowered herself down to the swirling water and rinsed off as much of the mud as she could. Then after a moment's breather to collect her frazzled wits she jogged somewhat more slowly back along the path.

  "I thought you’d be taking a bit of extra rest this morning," chided Kay as she spied Janet trying to sneak into the house. "My glory, look at the mess of you!" For an instant Janet felt transported back in time, at the point of return from some forbidden venture into her mother's kitchen. Kay was scrambling eggs with sausages in the large iron skillet. The warmth and aroma from the stove, and the concerned tone of her landlady’s voice enveloped Janet like a protective blanket. She hurried up to the bath, emerging a few minutes later as a cleaner but chastened person.

  "No serious damage?" asked Kay as they carted the brunch out to the porch. Janet shook her head.

  "Less serious than happened to our Acting-Principal," she replied cheerily, then related the substance of her conversation with Archie on the subject. "The man probably shoudn’t be involved in any of these competitive events. I have some appreciation of how he feels about winning, but at some point in your life surely it's wiser to drop out of the race.”

  "Such as the race for the Principality, or whatever you term the office."

  "Quite apart from the fact that Mr. Nicholas has mainly a business-executive cum political view of the groves of academe, we just have no way of determining whether his health makes him a reasonable contender for the job of Principal. There haven’t been any crashing disasters while he has been in the acting role so far as I can tell, but the whole University is rather in a state of limbo -- no clear leadership and no enunciation of future goals."

  "Your new committee meets soon to consider all this?"

  "Tomorrow morning. I guess our new chairman isn't about to let any grass grow under our feet!"

  In her eagerness not to be tardy for the first meeting, Janet found herself at the Board Room of Morton Hall before any of the other members. Mr. Lewis Sinclair, Secretary to the Board of Regents, was setting up the meeting room, and introduced himself to Janet as he admitted her .

  "I hope you lot make more headway than the last," he grumbled setting out the agendas and copies of previous correspondence. "There's both coffee and tea," he observed, gesturing toward a side-table. Janet was looking over the agenda when John Antwhistle entered with the man whom Janet had seen visiting his office earlier .

  "Alan Goldsack -- Janet Gordon," said the Professor by way of introduction. "Alan is among our more enlightened members of the Board of Regents," he went on.

  "Professor Antwhistle means that he believes that he has succeeded in educating me in the Byzantine wonders of faculty politics," chuckled Alan.

  "He has been trying the same with me," said Janet ruefully. "I don't know if I shall ever pass the course. The main lesson I've learned, and probably too late, is to avoid public utterances, or else stand the risk of getting elected to bodies such as this."

  "Well, I saw your commentary in the Review, and I must say it made some sense to me," said Alan.

  "Just so," said the Professor loudly, "And it seemed to provide some useful, non-incendiary fuel for our debate on faculty representation. You'll get a better perspective of how the academics view this appointment." He turned toward Alan confidentially while the other members of the committee filed in and took their seats. "Though not always a consensus by any means," he cautioned.

  "You may very well find the same among members from our group," Alan said to Janet as the chairman brought the meeting to order.

  If the odds for some degree of unanimity and a rapid resolution of their proceedings seemed poor, it was not evident from the conduct of their new chairman, the Chancellor of the University. George Atwood, a distinguished former jurist, was a spare, brisk man who attacked the agenda with energy, set up a biweekly schedule of meetings, and established a time-table for delivery of their recommendation. After some perfunctory discussions of protocol, solicitations of nominees, and a homily on the confidentiality of documents and proceedings, the committee adjourned until Thursday.

  "How do you think the revised committee is going to work?" asked Janet as they broke off and headed back across the campus.

  "Change and decay in all around I see," quoth the Professor. "Saving your presence, the increased numbers of faculty on the committee may prove more of a detriment than a blessing. Factions, plots, schisms!" he continued in a fine frenzy. "And our student representative -- what will that do to confidentiality? Might as well hold an open meeting, and send out invitations to the students' newspaper."

  Janet thought back grimly to her own indiscretion in revealing, however inadvertently, information to which she had been privy. She made herself a solemn vow that this time if there were leaks from the committee they would not come through her. One beneficial aspect of such self imposed silence she reflected brightening, would be that she would have a legitimate excuse for avoiding further involvement in debate over campus politics for a while.

  “You seem cheerful enough anyway,” said John Antwhistle.

  "More so than Frank Butler I should imagine," she chuckled. "He was not terribly jovial on Friday at least with the prospect of taking our class in Biology 333 this morning."

  "Ah well, he seemed the only plausible substitute at such short notice. I'm sure it did him and the students no permanent damage."

  "No. In fact I convinced him to speak about his pet subject, microfilaments, which I hadn’t covered as yet." She didn't provide details as to why it had not been covered. "So that should fill in a gap with minimal effort on Frank's part. Anyway, the problem won't arise again now that our meetings have been shifted to Tuesday-Thursday."

  "Quite so," sighed the Professor. "And accordingly my excuse for not teaching this part of the course flies out the window. “No, no,” he persisted, as Janet attempted to assure him that she could continue with the course as before. "No reason now that you should spell me off. Perhaps you could finish off the week, tidy up any points you left hanging, then we can sit and see what remnants are left from the syllabus, and I will resume a week from today."

  Janet gave up the effort to convince him that she was enjoying this assignment. She did have major commitments coming up soon in one of the graduate courses, and a seminar series to organize. Along with her laboratory work and efforts at grant-writing there was more than enough to keep her busy. She finally acquiesced to the Professor’s offer wi
th a sigh of relief, and bent her mind to organizing the final two sessions with her class.

  She had just finished her outline and was departing into the laboratory to check up on her experiment in progress, when the jangle of her telephone recalled her to her office.

  "How about that movie and some dinner?"

  "Archie! I thought you had just been making polite utterances to spare my feelings."

  "Not a chance. After the way you ended my journalistic career I have no intention of sparing your feelings. Anyway, there's a good film tonight at the Rep."

  "Let me check my frantic social calendar." There was a slight pause while Janet actually did look in her diary on the off-chance that she had forgotten some commitment. "No. No conflicts. I'd love to go and they arranged the time.

  When she emerged from the house after introducing Archie to Kay that evening Janet experienced a slight skip of the heart-beat. She was wearing a new dress that made the best of her figure and, looking at her handsome male companion, she suddenly felt unaccustomedly feminine. Good grief, she thought angrily, I’m in danger of talking myself into some ridiculous infatuation. So that by the time she sat down in the restaurant, her responses to Archie's efforts at conversation were strained to the point of becoming abrupt.

  "You certainly look well for all your outdoor activity," said Archie referring to the colour in her face. "Afraid I don't get enough exercise, particularly with the school year starting up, classes, committees. How do you do it?"

  "I get something of a workout I guess rallying with my tennis team. But I don't get out for a run as often as I would like." And Janet related her attempt at jogging on the weekend. Archie frowned as she reached the description of the washed-out section of the path on the river-bank.

  "I know that region. Nearly tripped on a root along there one day myself. It could be really hazardous when wet, and a long drop down. Caveat exerciser!" said Archie as he hoisted his martini glass. Now, down to the business of some serious eating!"

  One of the delightful features of Archie's personality, Janet reflected, was his irrepressible gusto. His one-time muscular frame was rather over-laid with the results from his obvious enthusiasm for food. Although she managed to consume almost as much in terms of quantity Janet noted that there was no comparison in the level of her appreciation with that shown so exuberantly by Archie as he tucked into an enormous meringue chantilly. Moreover, although for her this was an unusual and special occasion, she obtained the impression that her companion made a regular practice of dining and wining well.

  "Have you time for a cup of coffee or something?", asked Archie later when they emerged from the theatre.

  "I'll opt for the ‘or some thing’ if you will agree to come back to my place for it, "Janet replied. "Kay will be putting on the tea-kettle about now and she would be delighted to have another opportunity to delve into your sordid past."

  "Whence has my reputation preceded me to evoke such interest?"

  "She's just fascinated by every good-looking man, and her glimpse of you earlier wasn't enough to satisfy her."

  "Well, I hope I don't disillusion her under better lighting."

  "We'll probably wind up sitting on the back-porch," promised Janet, "where the lighting is practically non-existent!"

  It was soon evident that Kay had been intrigued by her first impression. Her curiosity was now extended to the subject of Archie's career and his department.

  "For," noted Kay, "I used to be employed there, once-upon-a-long-time-ago."

  Janet groaned inwardly. Never, she imagined could she trace all of Kay McKay's peregrinations through the halls of academe. She must have had several incarnations in order to encompass all of the venues and personalities that she seemed to know so intimately. Her phrase -- ‘I used to be employed there‘-- had appeared so frequently in her conversations that Janet had long since concluded that her landlady had been gleaning material for a sensational novel of the secret lives of Essex U. Certainly her anecdotes could be packaged readily into a highly marketable, if decidedly scandalous, chronicle of several decades in the history of the institution.

  "Of course, that was in the days of Professor Morgan," Kay went on. "I did the draft of his textbook.

  Archie was suitably impressed. The text on modern philosophy by R.C. Morgan was a much-cited classic.

  "Do you have a first edition?" he asked.

  "Should be two or three copies floating about. My copy at the lake is fairly dog-eared. That's when I had the most time to go over it and it's survived immersion when I dropped it from the canoe." Archie shuddered at this revelation.

  “Do you realize that the Department only has a single copy locked away? It seems that Professor Morgan loaned all of his first edition copies (it’s up to the sixth now I believe) to students and teaching assistants. One finally came back, returned by someone with a conscience. It's not the sort of thing to be collected by bibliophiles, yet, though I daresay one day they will be of considerable value."

  They continued to pursue associations within the philosophy area, and the University archives, with which Kay had also had some contacts. Janet was left in a corner sipping her tea, and learning more than she had been able to extract by herself about Archie and his working interests, though feeling as if she were superfluous to the conversation.

  After his departure, Kay delivered her verdict upon Dr. McManus. "A very pleasant, attractive young man. Bright too. But has he any substance I wonder?"

  "The way he relishes food I should imagine he’ll be very substantial as time goes by!"

  "He's a man of hearty appetites I’ve no doubt. Does he talk much about his work?"

  Janet had to admit that the topic of shop hadn't come up between them.

  "Except insofar as we have a mutual involvement in campus politics, there doesn’t seem to be much of common interest that we could discuss."

  "Well, you might be surprised. From my private investigations there may be more than you think."

  Janet looked up at her sharply, and noted the arch expression of triumph in Kay's face ,

  "It wasn't very difficult really. I just scanned the Philosophy Department's offerings in the current University catalogue. I found from the mast-head first of all that Dr. A. McManus is already an Associate Professor, though his Ph.D. from Yale is only five years old. That bespeaks a young man in a hurry! "

  “I gather that he took up his appointment here initially before he finished his dissertation. It's easier to do that in the Arts than in the Sciences. Another interesting facet is that Dr. McManus' appointment is not just in Arts," Kay continued. “He has a cross-appointment in the Science Faculty. There are two courses listed jointly under Philosophy and History of Sciences supervised by Dr. A. McManus: 210 - History of Scientific Thought." Here she read the entry from a turned-down page in the catalogue. It's called 'A survey of scientific ideas and the impact on society from antiquity to modern times’, and 410 - Philosophy of Science ‘Historical and contemporary problems of science as systems of knowledge'."

  "So now you presume that, in addition to the bribery motivation, he is interested in me as a 'system of knowledge' or for my 'impact on society'. I suppose it does explain his interest in the Ethics Committee, uses and abuses of science, etc.", Janet concluded soberly.

  "I wasn‘t trying to impute motives,” laughed Kay. "Only to point out that you two might have more intellectual common ground than you first assumed. It would be interesting to know what he may have published," she mused.

  Indeed it would thought Janet later as she prepared for bed. There were apparently multiple dimensions to the persona of Archie McManus. He could not have attained his early promotion, even at Essex U where grace and favour played the principal part, without some original scholarship in addition to his Ph.D. thesis. Janet was increasingly piqued by curiosity over the varied curriculum vitae of A. McManus, B.Sc., Ph.D., philosopher and historian of the sciences. She dozed off into an imaginary debate with him over the me
rits of the theories of Lamarck with respect to modern genetics and the modern views on acquired immunity. And would she herself acquire some immunity to his very apparent charms? she wondered dreamily. From the way that his image kept intruding upon her thoughts she rather doubted it.