Death of the Magpie
Page 3
CHAPTER THREE
Meals at Wotanabe Lodge were one of the high points of the celebrated conference. As one of the regular attendees had remarked, it was essential to leave some of the afternoons free so the participants in the luncheon could either work or sleep off the effects of their bountiful repast. After the somewhat unorthodox occurrences of the preceding session the dining hall was virtually abuzz with bemused or scandalized conversation. Although it was a recognized feature of the conference that diners might over-indulge both in food and shop-talk at meal-times, the morning's events insured a brisk appetite for the delectable food as well as for the equally delectable scientific gossip .
Janet found herself in the buffet lineup behind a young man whom she recognized as one of the speakers from the morning session. She spent a profitable hour with him over the lunch-table comparing properties of his blood-cell growth factors. At a near by table she noted Karl engrossed in animated conversation with Mary Kay Jacobs. And not far off, the chairman of the morning session appeared to be trying to extract information from John Antwhistle. Blood from a stone, thought Janet, as she returned her attention to her companion, although Karl, she reflected, in his eagerness to impress his audience, would doubtless be more forthcoming. if he were indeed planning to make a transfer of her cytomitin work to a large, well-endowed group such as that of his present luncheon companion. This would be devastating for Janet. After the events of the morning she felt more assured about the priority of her work, but Karl still presented a threat that she could little afford to underestimate for the future.
The tennis-court was moderately crowded by the time that. Janet had changed and arrived at the sign-up table a little before two. Karl and his partner were already on the court having a warm-up singles rally but Doug was nowhere to be seen. Janet felt somewhat irritable about the situation. She had played little this summer and never before with Doug. It was typical of him to be late or unprepared. He invariably left messes in the lab, although admittedly he had a prodigious capacity for concentrated work once he got started. On the other hand there was nothing desultory about Karl in or out of the lab, she reflected, as she watched him vigorously trying to remove the cover from the tennis ball. He had a compulsive, almost obsessive attitude to his work, that carried over into his play and social life. Janet had always prided herself on a fine balance between science and extracurricular activities, with little importance attached to games now that she was no longer involved in competitive sports. But today she had to admit that she needed badly to win this match, and hoped grimly that her belated partner would be up to the challenge.
Doug's appearance a few minutes later did not greatly inspire her confidence. He arrived looking ragged in badly worn sneakers, cut-off jeans, and dragging an ancient wooden tennis racket borrowed from the office at the lodge. Amid the modern equipment and shiny whites of the other players he looked like a slum refugee. Karl made no attempt to conceal his disdain as he commenced the first service game.
The first three games went to the opposition, as Karl and Celia held serve and Doug was broken after several close deuce points. He redeemed himself in the next game making a couple of good volleys at net and Janet held her service game.
"Three serving one," announced Karl crisply as he started the fifth game, sighting his beady eyes along the racket frame as though it we're a gun-barrel. For some reason this portentous and arrogant gesture aroused Doug, who raised his level of play and belted back several strong returns for winners, taking them to break-point. Janet converted this to game in their favour with a cross-court return that Celia volleyed into the net, and they stayed on serve until the twelfth game with Janet serving at 5 - 6. In spite of some inconsistent serves owing to her lack of practice Janet fought off two set-points with the help of some brilliant stop-volley from Doug that took the sting out of Karl's heavy hitting and forced the tie-breaker. To her great surprise and Karl's obvious disgust, Janet prevailed taking the tie-breaker easily for the first set. Celia waved in congratulation, but Karl turned deliberately toward the back fence and prepared to open service for the second set.
It is a common tactic in competitive mixed doubles to force play deliberately to the female member of the team, with the supposition that she will be the weaker. In the present match-up this supposition was rather dubious at best. Janet was clearly a more advanced player than Doug, who made up for deficiencies in style or finesse however, with a dogged capacity to retrieve the ball from virtually any part of the court, and occasional bursts of brilliance. Across the net Celia was the steadier more graceful player with classic strokes and footwork, and although she hit few outright winners made few unforced errors. Karl, on the other hand, hit out at every ball, interspersing service aces and double faults, with hard placement shots either on the line or just out. Although Celia had no apparent tactic except to keep the ball in play, Karl was following the old adage of keeping the play in Janet's side of the court.
After Janet's boost of confidence from the first set Karl's strategy seemed doomed to failure as she started leaning into Karl’s drives and pounded them back at his feet, forcing him to hit up into easy volley put-aways or over the base-line. Sensing the situation Doug also concentrated on the reverse tactic of hitting every return to Karl, further increasing his level of frustration and ire which he released by berating his partner, questioning out-calls by his opponents, and eventually by trying to smash the ball directly at Janet. There was no question about the outcome of the second set which went to 5-2 with Janet serving. She chose to hold at the base-line, and as Karl charged to the net caught him twice with deep top-spin lobs that proved unchasable. By now a considerable crowd of spectators from the conference had gathered to Karl's obvious chagrin, as Janet served out the set at love. He turned from the court and stormed off without a word. As it turned out it was the last occasion that she might have had for communication of words with him.
The final conference session of the day was held in the bar immediately following the evening’s formal presentations. Presenters of the talks assembled in small groups to compare notes and reply to comments from persistent questioners who had pursued them from the conference hall. Janet found herself seated in a corner of the lounge with one such group which included Mary Kay Jacobs. The latter turned her chair toward, Janet's and complimented her on her work and the delivery of her paper. Flattered by the attention of this star among women scientists, Janet could not help being impressed and attracted by the power of her intense personality. Within a few minutes of conversation about mutual research interests it became apparent that the two women were soul-mates Mary Kay proceeded to dispense some elder sisterly advice on the publication of Janet's findings, and the subject came around naturally to Karl.
"I think it magnanimous of you to agree to his proposal to bring the cytomitin problem to our laboratory."
For a moment Janet was too stunned to respond. Her small triumphs of the day, the accolades over her presentation, were reduced to insignificance by this revelation of the prospect she had dreaded. And her regard for the new-found friend in the next chair was being transformed quite rapidly into bitter resentment. Mary Kay regarded her soberly for a minute, raised an eye-brow, and started to laugh.
"So your collaborator has not sought your blessing in this enterprise? I hope I haven't shocked you unduly, but I wanted to be certain. No doubt he still harbours the misapprehension that I am dying to take over him and your problem. Dr. Elster is not the first of his type that I've had to deal with, though he's certainly the most transparent. Anyway, our group is maximally extended in studying the embryonic growth factors for the foreseeable future. Perhaps sometime later on we could work out an exchange to compare our factors with yours in the two systems. But I believe for both our sakes it will be best not to involve Dr. Elster. He is such a fast operator; by this time tomorrow he will probably have made arrangements to go to Dick Beadle’s lab. Spike his plans if you get the chance, before he robs yo
u blind!”
As she walked back alone to her room later that night Janet reflected on the advice she had received. She didn't want to fight the issue out with Karl. It was clear from her and Linda's earlier dealings with him that he would be unmoved by moral suasion. Perhaps she could prevail on, John Antwhistle to adjudicate the dispute. She might settle the matter of authorship on their joint papers, but how exactly could she 'spike his plans' to transport her problem to another laboratory? Her present thoughts matched the velvet blackness of the night. The only certain way she could think of to eliminate the threat was to eliminate Karl.
The second day of the conference dawned rosy and bright. Long fingers of sunlight cast misty shadows through the conifers as Janet set off along the forest path from the back of the lodge. Phantasmic dreams had made her sleep poorly after the tension and excitement of last evening's session. Yet, It had gone exceedingly well considering what had taken place beforehand. On reflection she realized that being first in the second session was infinitely preferable to Karl's position as ultimate speaker of the morning meeting. Instead of being sated, weary, and longing for the end, the audience was relaxed but attentive. It gave her an opportunity to deliver a brief, capsule introduction of the biological significance of the cell growth-promoting hormones. She took pains to name predecessors in the field and each of her co-workers, and paid tribute to their contributions. And she skipped over the methodology with whimsical references to the Old Testament of Beadle and Jacobs on cell culture techniques, together with the Revelations of Antwhistle, and the Apochrypha of Gordon and Elster, not yet sanctified by publication. By the time that she reached her key slide on the synergistic effect of A and B cytomitin fractions, and assured the audience that the peaks displayed were not counterfeit, she had her listeners eating out of her hand. The final slide on projected work and speculations re the mechanisms of cytomitin actions had elicited an enthusiastic barrage of questions, commentary and cross-fire among the senior scientists, Beadle, Jacobs and Antwhistle. She was proud and relieved to have done justice to her subject, and to have recovered some lost credit for her group from Karl's disastrous performance of the morning.
The sun was still behind the trees when she reached the cliff’s edge, and the river was quite obscured by the heavy mist. Janet set down her breakfast orange, towel, and running shoes, and dove confidently straight out to clear the rocks below. She could barely make out the shore line as she stroked upstream through the gray vapours. Somewhere in the channel she could hear the whisper of a feathered paddle as an unseen canoe slipped past. She reached the point, made her turn, and started to strike out downstream.
The sun was just clearing the tree-tops. From the water level the cliffs’s edge was vaguely visible, and through the swirling veil a glimpse of movement caught Janet's eye. A figure seemed to rise, pause for several seconds, then fall and vanish out of sight behind the mist. She could have been persuaded that it was but another phantasmic vision, until she heard the thump of an all too corporeal object slamming on to the river bank. Her heart beating furiously, Janet raced back to her departure point. She did not have a long or difficult search. At the base of the cliff a few feet from the water lay the crumpled remains of a twisted human shape upon the great rocks. There was no sign of life, no breathing, no pulse. With mouth agape the dark beady eyes stared upward at her with a look of surprise. It was Karl Elster. The magpie was dead.