“And then vanished into thin air, leaving not a wrack behind,” remarked Charles, pushing out his thick lips. “So what do we do next?”
“Obviously we ask the Master,” said Nigel. “Josiah may have got leave of absence for a few days, for private reasons.”
But Zeke had received no such request from the professor—indeed, had not set eyes on him since the night of the party.
At this stage, however, though mildly mystified, neither he nor Nigel was worried. . . .
Cabot University, albeit a civilized place, preserved a few faint traces of the ferocious ordeals through which freshmen used to be put in the bad old days. One such in Hawthorne House, its secret jealously guarded by the sophomores who managed it—and known to every Faculty member from the Master downward—was the “spooky treasure hunt.” The freshman was instructed to proceed at dead of night to some cryptically indicated point, usually in the capacious bowels of the House, where he would find an object which must be conveyed at breakfast next morning to the sophomore committee. The object, whatever else it might be, was always a bizarre and sometimes a revolting one.
Dennis Goach knew this from an older brother who had been in the House, and was prepared for the worst. At midnight on Monday he was stealing cautiously, torch in hand, through the dark basement passages. An intelligent youth, he had correctly interpreted the clue as directing him first to a disused locker room. He had, by the exercise of considerable guile, overcome the first hurdle, which was to “borrow” the key of this locker room from the Superintendent’s office.
Arrived now at its door, he inserted the key and turned. The door would not open. He turned it back and tried the handle again. This time the door did open—with a faint screech of hinges: it had never been locked. Dennis threw the torchlight round the room. Tall, vertical lockers lined it all the way round, faded names marked on some in white chalk. The lad stood still for a moment, holding his breath, half expecting some spooky manifestation, but no bloodcurdling howl from the ordeal-mongers rent the air. He was about to direct the torch back upon the piece of paper containing the clues when he became aware of a curious smell in the room.
Now Dennis had been expecting the “treasure” he was seeking to be something repellent—a dead rat, maybe. So he followed his nose round the lockers till he came to one where the stench was most noticeable. He seized its knob, thinking he might well find it locked, in which case he would have to break it open somehow. But he encountered no such difficulty. The locker opened easily, and a large dummy fell out of it, accompanied by a gust of atrociously foul air. At least, he assumed it to be a dummy, until he shone the torch at what lay on the wooden floor, and perceived it to be Professor Ahlberg, with a neat round hole in his temple.
Whereupon Dennis Goach went into a light faint. Coming to consciousness after a minute, he got onto hands and knees beside the carrion thing, and was violently sick. . . .
A few minutes later the Master, on his way upstairs to bed, heard a loud hammering on the front door of his lodgings. He hurried down and opened, to find a white-faced undergraduate there.
“Dennis? What in heaven’s name—?”
“It’s Mr. Ahlberg!” (Dennis was not so sick as to forget the Cabot tradition that all professors are called “Mister.”) “He’s dead. In the locker room. I found him.”
“Good grief! Here, Dennis, you look all in. You must have some brandy.”
“But—”
“Take it easy. Are you sure he’s dead? Okay, then, the poor fellow can keep for a minute.”
“He hasn’t kept very well, sir,” blurted Dennis rather hysterically, and was at once appalled by the bad taste of his observation. “I’m sorry—”
“Hold it! Drink this.”
Dennis did so. When the brandy had brought a litttle color into his cheeks, the Master asked, “What on earth were you doing down in the locker room at this time of night? We don’t use it any more—didn’t you know that?”
“Well,” Dennis replied uncomfortably. “It was a sort of—” He broke off, remembering his vows of secrecy.
“A sort of—? Oh, a sort of ordeal? That tomfool treasure hunt. Well, forget it. I want you to go and rouse the Superintendent. Send him to the locker room. Tell him to switch on all the basement lights. Wait a minute—and rouse up Mr. Strangeways too. D. 32. Hustle!”
When Nigel arrived there with Dennis, the lights were blazing in the locker room. The Master and stocky Mr. Gross, the Super-intendent, were standing at some distance from the object on the floor, gazing helplessly down at it. Nigel went up and gave one glance at the drilled, blackened forehead, the corner of the mouth twisted in that familiar snarl.
“Shot. Small-caliber weapon. Quite effective, though, if fired close up, as this obviously was.”
“Now why in the Lord’s name should Josh want to shoot himself?” the Master asked.
“He didn’t. You found him in there, Mr. Goach, you said?”
Dennis nodded dumbly.
“Where’s the weapon? Not in that locker. Not on the floor. Oh, no, he was shot and put in there.”
“But, Nigel—” the Master almost bleated.
“When was this room last cleaned out, Mr. Gross?”
“In the vacation, sir.”
“So he was shot somewhere else. But of course he was, Zeke. Look! No blood on the floor, none in the locker. You’ve telephoned the police?”
“I did,” said Mr. Gross. “Before I came along here.”
“Good. We must leave it to them now. Try not to touch any surface here.”
“Shall we lock the door and wait for them upstairs?” asked Zeke.
“Could I say something?” asked Dennis.
Nigel glanced at the boy’s intelligent face. “Go ahead.”
“The door—the room door—was not locked when I came in. I—er—had a key, but it wasn’t needed.”
“You had the key?” said the Superintendent menacingly. “How—?”
“Never mind about that,” Nigel said. “Was the door usually kept locked?”
“I guess not. Nothing here to steal nowadays.”
“When did you last inspect the room?”
“Two—three weeks ago I looked in,” said Gross, looking disgruntled.
“But you expected to find it locked, Mr. Goach?”
“Well, I somehow assumed it would be.”
“You were instructed to pinch the key as part of the ordeal?” inquired the Master.
Dennis was saved from having to reply by the distant sound of a police-car siren. They hurried along the passages and up the stairs into the main gate lodge. . . .
“Grilled me? Sure, they grilled me,” Dennis was saying to a group of friends at breakfast next morning. “For an hour.”
“Right there in front of the cadaver?”
“Don’t be a dope. In the Master’s lodge.”
“So you’re the chief suspect.”
“I’m the man who is assisting the police in their investigations.”
“They say the third degree is very, very painful.”
“It’s the only degree Dennis’ll ever get.”
“Majoring in homicide. Boy, oh boy!”
“Aw, drop it, won’t you?” protested the much-tried youth. “Let’s call it a day.”
“Sic transit gloria mundi.”
“What’s this guy Strangeways doing, getting mixed up in it?”
“He’s a British private investigator, staying here incognito.”
“Going to save you from the chair, is he?”
“Al, you kill me.”
“What is your chief impression of the slaying, Mr. Goach? Off the record, of course.”
“The pong,” Dennis said.
“What’s that again?”
“Pong. British word for stench. ‘Thank God to get out of that pong,’ Strangeways said when we left the locker room.”
Al savored it. “Pong. A good word, professor. An excellent word. I like it. In future, let it
supersede all other synonyms.” . . .
“No, no, Zeke, I’m not getting mixed up in this affair.” Nigel was breakfasting with the Master, gummy-eyed with sleeplessness. “That lieutenant is a perfectly competent chap, so far as I could judge.”
“But, Nigel, you’ve already got yourself involved. All I’m asking you is to keep an eye on things, from the House’s angle—as my representative.”
“The whole place is seething with cops. I’m just not butting in on them. Not even for you.”
The Master shrugged, and addressed himself to his egg. Nigel was voraciously consuming toasted corn muffins, for which he had developed a passion.
“I suppose there’s no doubt he was shot in his office,” said Zeke presently.
“Not much. All those bloodstains they found under the mat. I presume the murderer shot him at or near his desk, and pulled the mat over the stains before carting him down to the basement.”
“Why not just leave the body in the office?”
“A cleaner—anyone with a key—might have come in. He wanted to gain time.” Nigel chewed thoughtfully. “But for Dennis’ carry-on, the body might have stayed in that locker for weeks or months.”
“What I can’t understand is how nobody in Josh’s entry heard the shot.”
“Oh, that’s easy,” Nigel absently replied. “Do you have any more muffins?”
“Easy! What, for Pete’s sake, do you mean?” asked Zeke, ringing for a fresh supply.
“There are two points of time,” said Nigel, swinging into his dogmatic vein, “when anyone conversant with the routine of your House could feel quite safe about letting off a pistol.”
“Is that so?” said Zeke skeptically.
“It is. One, on Sunday when those goddam bells are ringing. Two, when the Food Man starts screaming the place down. Either would drown the noise of a pistol. I assume it to have been the latter, because Sunday morning is no time to be toting bodies around. The killer would be in Josiah’s office already, talking to him. When the Food Man starts bawling, he whips out his gun and fires.”
The Master stared at Nigel. “Say, does the Lieutenant realize this?”
“He’s only to ask anyone who lives here. Anyway, it doesn’t help all that much. We can guess the time of day, but we don’t know which day. And I doubt if the autopsy will be able to fix it with any certainty. Ah, here are the muffins. A little more butter would be in order.”
Zeke passed the butter. “Lieutenant Brady has an appointment with me in half an hour. I’d very much like you here to support me.”
“No fear,” said Nigel, his mouth full. “I’m going to bed when I’ve finished these. I can’t think without sleep.”
“You know, Nigel, I am very deeply distressed about poor Josiah.”
“I know.”
“I feel ashamed to be worrying about how this is going to upset the routine of the House, when—”
“‘Drive your cart and your plough over the bones of the dead’—it’s a harsh saying, but it’s the best we can do.” . . .
“Am I speaking to Bentham’s Hotel? . . . Will you put me through to Mr. Ahlberg’s room? Mr. Chester Ahlberg.” . . .
Mark lodged the receiver under his chin and lit a cigarette. The long-distance call to London had been expeditiously obtained.
“Chester? This is Mark. Look—I—I have some sad news for you. Can you hear me well? . . . Ches, listen, Josh has been found dead . . . Yes, dead. What’s that? . . . Well, I telephoned you as soon as I could, he was only found last night . . . Yes, around midnight. They didn’t tell me till five A.M. . . . In that old locker room in the basement . . . I know it’s crazy . . . He’d been shot and his body was stuffed into a locker . . . No, we don’t know, the police may by now . . . Yes, I’m trying to contact father, but he’s in Bermuda and I don’t have a number for him . . . You’ll fly back today if you can get a reservation? Okay. Good. Fine.”
Mark picked a strand of tobacco off his tongue, and dialed Sukie.
“Honey, it’s me. I can’t meet you for lunch, we’ve had a horrible thing happen. It’s Josiah. He was found dead last night. Shot . . . No, no, not suicide . . . Now take it easy, Sukie, don’t get so worked up about it; after all—he wasn’t your favorite, now, was he? You don’t have to—Okay, honey, I’ll be along just as soon as I can make it.”
Mark stared out unseeingly at the ivy crimsoning on the neo-Georgian buildings across the court. Death produced strange responses, he thought: both Sukie and Chester had reacted strongly, but not at all in the ways he would have expected. He himself seemed to feel no reactions at all. Maybe he was just callous—or in shock still. He found it curiously difficult to remember how he’d felt toward Josiah when he was alive. His face twitching a little, he reached for the day’s teaching schedules on his desk, then pushed them aside, realizing there was no chance of the usual routine’s operating today. Glancing out the window again, he saw the athletic figure of Lieutenant Brady striding toward the Master’s lodging, two bulky plainclothes men behind him. . . .
Aside from the inevitable tickets from traffic cops, Ezekiel Edwardes had had no brushes with policemen since certain discreditable episodes on Guy Fawkes night at Oxford. He was aware that the Master of a House at Cabot has not the almost godlike autonomy of the head of an Oxford college. So it was a relief to find that Lieutenant Brady behaved in a civilized, an almost respectful, way. He did not even chew gum or gnaw at an extinct cigar.
“They gave me this assignment,” said the Lieutenant, smiling faintly, “because they decided I’m less of a roughneck than some of my colleagues.”
Zeke felt himself blushing to have his thoughts so instantaneously put into words. Annoyed with himself, he sought refuge in his authority.
“I should be happy to know, Lieutenant, how your investigations are proceeding. Can you tell me yet when my students and instructors will be able to resume their normal avocations?”
“Certainly, Master. My men have to search every apartment for the weapon, and interview members of your House.” Brady explained that the search was radiating outward from the dead man’s office.
“Do you mind if these two fellows search your own lodgings now?”
Nonplused, Zeke agreed. “Though I wouldn’t care to say what my wife will think about it.”
“Thanks. Get it over with.” Brady grinned pleasantly. “Just where a killer would cache his gun. In detective novels. The unlikeliest place, huh?”
Brady asked the Master to have the students assembled in the dining hall after lunch: he would start a preliminary general inquiry from there. “It’s strange,” he said, frowning, “that nobody on Mr. Ahlberg’s staircase should have heard a shot.”
“Oh, that’s easily explained. Not my idea—Mr. Strangeways’,” Zeke added hurriedly, and put forward Nigel’s hypothesis.
“Sounds reasonable to me. Who is this guy Strangeways? Some sort of amateur criminologist?”
“Yes. But he doesn’t want to get mixed up with the police.”
“Who does?”
Who indeed, thought Zeke, miserably aware of the unnatural life which had broken out in his quiet House, all the homicide men swarming behind the ivy-covered walls. The—what was that line—“the consternation of the ant-hill”?
Seated in the dark-blue leather armchair, Brady eyed him patiently. “You’re wondering when I’m going to ask the ten-thousand-dollar question?”
“The—? I’m not with you.”
“What enemies did Mr. Ahlberg have? Was he a popular instructor?”
“Well, I wouldn’t quite say that, Lieutenant. A thoroughly respected one, though,” Zeke added hastily.
“By everyone? . . . You have something on your mind, Master. Anything happened recently you want to tell me? Did he get along with his colleagues?”
So the story of John Tate and the plagiarism was eased out of Ezekiel Edwardes. “But,” he concluded earnestly, “John’s no murderer, believe me. A bit anti-authority at times. But he�
��s a good lad at heart. I just couldn’t credit it that he’d creep back here with a gun and—he might have struck Josh, in a rage, when first—”
“Okay, okay, let’s not make a production of it. Do you have his present address, and a photograph maybe?”
“My secretary will give you his last known address. There’s a group photograph, but I daresay his sister would be more help to you.” Zeke pressed a button on his desk and gave the secretary instructions.
“Ahlberg have any woman trouble?”
The Master gave Brady a quelling look, which bounced off his hard, intelligent face. “Certainly not, so far as I’m aware. We think—we’ve always thought Mr. Ahlberg a confirmed bachelor.”
“How about the dough then? Who stands to get it?”
Zeke was beginning to revise his first opinion of the Lieutenant’s social graces. “You’ll have to ask Mr. Ahlberg’s lawyer about that,” he coldly replied.
“Oh, I will, I will, Master. He has two brothers in the university, right?”
“That is so.”
“No family ructions?”
“Not that I know of. You’d better ask Mark Ahlberg.” The Master’s eye was frosty. “Firsthand evidence is always, I find, the most valuable.”
“But not necessarily always true. What about the other one?”
“Chester? He’s been in Britain since Thursday last. Mark is telephoning him to return.”
“Well, I must be on my way. I’m grateful for your cooperation.” Lieutenant Brady gave his sudden, winning smile. “And I understand your reluctance to talk, Master. Nobody likes shooting off his mouth about his friends.”
When May came in five minutes later, Zeke was staring absently into a cup of cold coffee.
“What on earth are those men doing, tramping about upstairs?”
“Looking for the gun Josh was killed with.”
“Well, for mercy’s sake! Here?”
“Nothing is sacred to a homicide squad, my dear. Not even a master’s lodgings.”
“And any moment we’ll have the crime reporters down on us.”
The Morning After Death Page 4
