Harvard Has a Homicide

by Timothy Fuller

  “Yes, I have a man looking for him now; he may be the key to all this. If he is, there’s no point in bothering a lot of other people. I don’t suppose you can think of any reason why he’d kill Singer?” Jupiter felt that the Sergeant was hitting his stride; he was getting organized. Why should Hadley kill Singer? God knows, but whoever did must have had a good reason. Why did anyone kill anyone else? Revenge, money, hate, a woman? Lots of reasons, but they had to be powerful motives. Was Hadley capable of a really intense passion? Jupiter knew the college gossip about the men — the usual thing, petty jealousies whispered about in the library, in the Museum, in classes. Hadley was the elder, been teaching for years, still an assistant professor; then Singer the brilliant, the forceful, came along, advanced rapidly, got the appointments. But wasn’t there something more? There had been something about a book. Oh yes, Hadley had started a short treatise on Giorgione, the attributions of his paintings, an interesting and well-known subject, but with some good ideas. Then Singer had come out with his book covering the whole Venetian School and including most of Hadley’s theories. It had eclipsed Hadley’s thesis and done much to win Singer his full professorship. The plagiarism had been overlooked by everyone except Hadley, who had almost resigned. But still that had been years ago, and hardly a reason for murder. And Hadley himself! He barely had the courage to call his hat his own, let alone his soul.

  “No, Inspector, 1’m afraid I can’t pin a motive on Hadley. You’ll have to try.”

  The Sergeant held out a pad of paper. “Here’s another abbreviation. Do you know what it means?”

  The pad was marked at the top, “TO-DAY,” and underneath, in Singer’s writing but not in his usual neat, scroll-like script, were the words, “IMP: CON + MAD.”

  “ ‘IMP’ — that must mean important; ‘CON plus MAD’ — that’s a tough one. ‘Con’ and ‘Mad’ . . . maybe C-O-N and M-A-D — who knows? . . . The writing’s funny, too — printed in large letters. It must have been important for him to go to all that trouble.”

  “It probably doesn’t mean a damn thing, but I wish to God he didn’t write everything in code.”

  “It’s getting fictional,” smiled Jupiter; “but maybe the Slade will know what it means.”

  “We can’t do much more until she gets here or we find Hadley. I suppose I might as well see those reporters.”

  “Expect an arrest within twenty-four hours,” whispered Jupiter. “Here’s an idea, Inspector; why don’t you herd them into my room? It’s right next door. Then you can keep this room clear for your little chats with embryonic witnesses.”

  The Sergeant looked up and smiled. “Would that be all right? It’s a good idea to keep in good with the press.”

  Jupiter wondered vaguely if there was ever a policeman who had shunned publicity. ” We can open the fire door to my room, and then you can keep popping in and out with the latest news flashes.”

  “The fire door?”

  “Yes, all these rooms are connected by fire doors. When a group of friends get together in adjoining entries, they open the fire doors to make connecting rooms. You’re supposed to have the permission of the janitor to do it, but no one bothers about that. Have you got a knife?”

  Dubiously the Sergeant handed Jupiter his knife, and in a moment the glass and red cardboard were removed from the lock and the door opened.

  A light was on in the room, and in a chair sat a small Negro, smoking a cigarette.

  Rankin managed: “Good God!”

  Jupiter said, “Hello, Sylvester!”

  The Negro arose. “Ah thought yo’ might need me, Mr. Jones.”

  Sylvester was very black with a touch of indigo. His head, a big head, was shaved and polished like a number-eight ball and on his nose he wore a pair of gold-rimmed spectacles. In his junior year Jupiter had won Sylvester in a crap game: that is, he had won his wages from another student for three months. When the three months were up, Jupiter had been unable to get along minus Sylvester, so he had kept him ever since. There are many Negroes around Cambridge employed as valets for students living outside the House Plan in rooming houses. They polish shoes, press clothes, run errands, and have become one of Harvard’s little-known institutions. Although frowned on by House authorities, Jupiter kept Sylvester for these purposes. To him, Sylvester was indispensable; he had become a nurse, a confidant, and even a friend. When he woke after a strenuous evening, the sight of Sylvester gliding rhythmically about the room was a sedative strong enough to conquer a medium hangover.

  Not a Southern Negro by birth, Sylvester had acquired an almost theatrical Southern accent, for which Jupiter was thankful. There is one colored man in Cambridge with a Harvard accent that would make a Middle-Western freshman give up in despair. However, Sylvester’s greatest glory, that which set him high above any other, was his ability to quote Shakespeare — never aptly, to be sure, but quote it, nevertheless. Where he learned it Jupiter was unable to tell, but on tracing most of the quotations to their source he found that they came exclusively from The Rape of Lucrece. Once, at a cocktail party, an English professor had stopped drinking for a month when he heard Sylvester, mixing more drinks, say: “If eber man were mov’d wid wimman’s moans, be moved wid mah tears, mah sighs, mah gwoans.” Sylvester was, in his own words, a “jule.”

  “According to the latest reports, Inspector,” said Jupiter, “reporters are still drinking — in fact, I need one myself; so go ahead, Sylvester, slide into your white coat.”

  “Yassir,” said Sylvester.

  Illinois appeared in the fire door, looking scared. “I couldn’t find you, Chief.” He seemed relieved. “There’s a guy outside that’s been trying to see you. He says it’s important.”

  “Who is it?”

  “His name’s Fitzgerald — you know, the painter.”

  CHAPTER IV

  “HARVARD indifference” is a household word around Boston. It has become so mainly through the efforts of the Boston Evening Transcript and other papers which have seized on this as a method to explain any untoward action on the part of a student or group of students. It is difficult — no, impossible — to generalize about Harvard. That is not a new thought. But if only thirty-six undergraduates turn out to see East Providence High School beat the Harvard Varsity Basketball Team 45-8, there is a good chance that “Harvard indifference” will crop up in the morning papers. As a matter of fact, only about 15 per cent of the entire university will know that a game has been played. The point is that Harvard, like anyone else, is indifferent to things that do not interest it. On the other hand, if ten students start throwing water at each other out of windows on a warm spring evening and a policeman is foolish enough to blow his whistle, 75 per cent of the student body will be there in twenty minutes. This sounds impossible, but it has happened.

  Professor Singer’s body was found at eight o’clock on a cold, wet, March night. The police arrived at eight-fifteen. The undergraduates arrived at eight-sixteen. They continued to arrive, gape, and depart, until the police left.

  The word went around: —

  “Hey! There’s been a murder!”

  “There always is.”

  “No, I mean here — a professor!”

  “Really!”

  “Who?”

  “Don’t know. In Hallowell House.”

  “Let’s go over.”

  “O. K.”

  “I hear someone was murdered.”

  “Who was it?”

  “Dunno.”

  “Someone in Fine Arts.”

  “Singer, I think.”

  “Never heard of him.”

  “I had a course with him last year. A bastard.”

  “Murder!”

  “Singer.”

  “Murder.”

  Mr. Swayle edged his way through the crowd of undergraduates that had formed outside Hallowell House. Many of them knew him and stopped him to ask questions.

  “Yes, Professor Singer was killed — with his own knife — that’s al
l I can tell you.” He said the same thing to everyone, as if he knew a lot more, too important to tell.

  The House Master’s Lodgings, as they are called, are a separate building, connected to the main House on the opposite side from Singer’s room. It’s possible, thought Mr. Swayle, that he hasn’t heard anything.

  He rang the bell and the door was opened by Professor Sampson himself.

  “Oh, it’s you, Swayle. What’s the trouble?”

  “Well, sir, it’s — it’s — ” He wasn’t at all sure that he should have taken it upon himself to tell the authorities. “It’s about Professor Singer — he’s—”

  “What about him?”

  “He’s been — he’s dead — he’s been murdered.” It was out.

  “Murdered? You’re quite sure?”

  “Yes, sir, the police are there now in his room.”

  “Good Lord! I’ll come right over.”

  “The police said you’d better tell the President, sir.”

  “Yes, of course, of course. Thank you, Swayle. This is horrible!”

  “Yes, sir,” said Mr. Swayle, departing.

  Professor Sampson closed the door and leaned back against it, spreading out his hands at his sides. Tall and thin, a narrow face, a beaked nose and lined mouth, he justified his name of “The Eagle of Economics.” His hands moved slowly up and down the cool paneling of the door, then he called: —

  “Ruth! Ruth!”

  His wife appeared at the top of the stairs; the light hanging in the hall shone on her face. Subconsciously he noticed she was paler than usual.

  “Yes?” She had started slowly down the stairs.

  “Albert — Albert Singer has been murdered.”

  She stopped. One hand twisted the sleeve of her dress into a ball. “Oh!” It was little better than a moan. “Oh!”

  “I’ll have to go over there — the police,” he spoke softly.

  “Yes, of course. Go over there — you must.” She hadn’t moved. “Of course.”

  If I don’t telephone, thought Miss Slade, if I just sit here and don’t telephone —

  “I’ve got to stop thinking,” she said definitely, getting up. She went into the kitchen, poured some milk into a saucepan, and put it on the floor for the cat. Idly she watched the animal stretch herself toward it, her front legs bent, back legs out straight.

  For twenty-three years Miss Slade had been at Harvard; before that she had taught school in a small town in New Hampshire. Twenty-three years as an underpaid, overworked secretary at Harvard. It was a long time, nearly six generations of students. And fifteen of those years as secretary to Albert Singer. That, too, was a long time. She was Miss Slade of the Fogg Museum; outside that, she had no identity. It being Wednesday, she wore a black dress with lace collar and cuffs. This was her Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday dress; on Monday, Tuesday, and Saturday she wore a flowered print. Jupiter had once remarked that he would like to take off her clothes to see if she had any breasts. It was one of the few personal remarks ever made about her. Every Friday night she went to the movies at the Loew’s State Theatre in Boston; there weren’t two people in Cambridge who knew this.

  The cat had finished the milk. She picked up the dish, rinsed it in the sink, and went back to the other room. She lay down on the sofa and read three pages in a book called Youthful Folly, then she closed the book. She pressed both hands to her forehead and sighed. If I don’t telephone, if I don’t telephone — I should get up and wash those stockings, but if I don’t telephone —

  She got up, took a nickel from her purse, and went out to the hall telephone.

  The warm soapy water playing over his hands and through his fingers sent a luxurious glow through his body. He looked at his pale, oversensitive face in the mirror and said aloud: —

  “I am a true being; I recognize myself in me.”

  Peter Appleton had had a private tutor before he came to college. Thus he had escaped the rigors, companionships, and dullness of a preparatory school education. In Harvard, where the standing of your school makes 90 per cent of your friends for you in your freshman year, he had lapsed into the comparative anonymity which that institution affords. But not for long. Inevitably he had joined one of the many too-intelligent-for-Harvard groups and had flourished. These dilettante, overrich gatherings of pseudo-thinkers have given Harvard in some places a name that it doesn’t bother to live down. You don’t have to look at Harvard to find them.

  If he hadn’t been pathetic, Peter Appleton would have been ludicrous. In fact, most undergraduates laughed at him — that is, when they weren’t disgusted. He was a sophomore and a poet. The year before he had been an artist. An oil painting hung over his desk: three whiskey bottles, and in the background a crucifix at a crazy angle. It was done in blue and gray. He laughed at it now, but he kept it there.

  There is no such person as a typical Harvard student; no more than there is a typical doctor or a typical gangster. But there are types of Harvard students; unfortunately, that cannot be avoided. There is the high-school type which learns, about the end of its freshman year, to take off its blue serge suit and black shoes and put on a tweed coat, gray flannels, and dirty white shoes. After this metamorphosis the type is still recognizable at fifty yards. There are the scholar and the athlete. They are not peculiar to Harvard. There is the clubman. If all that was ever written or said about the snobbishness at Harvard were put in one volume, it would be an understatement. And the personification of this is the clubman. He, too, is recognizable at fifty yards, and not only by the identifying necktie he happens to be wearing. The club system at Harvard is unbelievable, and it is interesting only because everyone, whether he will admit it or not, is a snob at heart. You are elected to a “final” club on the basis of your social standing, your school, and your friends, your money, and your ability to drink without breaking furniture. If your father or your uncle or your second cousin was a member of the club, you are that much farther ahead. Your intelligence counts a little more than two per cent. The Hasty Pudding Club is merely a stepping-stone to the other clubs. It elects about seventy-five sophomores every year and your chances of getting in are worthless unless you have some club behind you. Despite periodic uplift movements, it remains as politically rife as any ward machine. The Pudding’s outstanding benefit to its members is the right to wear a black and white striped tie. Which, around Boston, is like having a sign on your back reading, “Look at me. I am a member of the Élite.”

  Peter Appleton was not a member of the Hasty Pudding Club, but he was a type. He would be outraged if you told him so. He thought of himself as a genius. He wiped his hands, went back to his room, and sat down at his desk. In front of him was a poem written in flowing longhand and purple ink. It read: —

  MILLENNIUM

  (Dedicated to Albert Singer)

  I stand on the bank not thinking—

  I am a bird, a bright shining bird

  With a breast like a thousand tiny gems glistening

  Under water

  In my heart is a song that I cannot sing

  A sad song not sweet

  But bitter

  Bitter like a cold wind on a mountain

  Like marsh grass

  Like a shopgirl’s laughter

  And lonely too perhaps

  As lonely as lonely

  Like a child’s good-bye

  i am forlorn

  immitigable, hopeless

  and queerly happy

  for i know as i know a door

  or a tree or a word

  i know that i am

  you . . .

  When the extras came out at ten-thirty, Peter Appleton read about the murder.

  Mr. and Mrs. Fairchild were playing backgammon. They rolled the dice and moved the checkers conventionally, hardly bothering to double. Backgammon is a remarkable mask for thought. The radio was tuned to a symphony programme.

  Mrs. Arthur Fairchild, as Illinois had pointed out, was “the Society one.” She heade
d committees, attended luncheons and smart lectures, and entertained. Her Thursday evening buffet suppers and musicales were famous; they were The Thing. If she wasn’t mentioned three times a week in the Society columns, it was safe to say she was out of town. She wore tweeds and skied at Peckett’s. In time she would wear a “choker” and look down her nose at unsteady freshmen at the Brattle Hall dances. The Fairchilds had a son at Milton, a daughter at Winsor, and a house at Gloucester. Once a year they went to Bermuda.

  Arthur Fairchild had three subjects of conversation: the Roosevelt Administration, club life at Harvard, and yachting; but he had acquired sufficient wealth and looked very impressive in evening clothes.

  A voice interrupted the music on the radio: “. . . bring you a special announcement. Professor Albert Singer of Harvard was found murdered in his room in Hallowell House at eight o’clock this evening, by Edmund Jones, an undergraduate. He was noted as an authority on Italian Art and had written several books on the subject. The police are at work on the case. For further details see your local newspaper.”

  Mrs. Fairchild went completely limp and slipped sideways in her chair. She was on the floor before her husband could reach her.

  It was the first time she had ever fainted.

  Adam Rosen wrote: “Using his own design, Bramante began work on St. Peter’s in Rome in 1506. The plan called for a Greek cross with apsidal arms, the four angles occupied by domical chapels and loggias within a square outline. Owing to faulty construction, two arches supporting the dome collapsed and—”

  “Hey, Rosey! Singer’s been murdered!” It was someone at the door.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Just what I say. That crazy fool Jones found him about eight, stabbed with a paper cutter or something. Come on over — it’s lousy with cops.”

  Rosen was skeptical. “Are you kidding?”

  “No, dammit, it’s all over college. Come on!”

  “Murdered? God! he had a fine brain. Wait a minute!” He finished his sentence on the typewriter. . . work was delayed for a long period.”