“So?”
“So when Ben started taking public issue with the way Adele’s money was being thrown around, Bob must have got worried. You see, Ben also knew that while Adele had, as advertised, come into her parents’ fortune, being rich in Patsville, Ohio, doesn’t necessarily mean quite the same thing as being rich in Dallas or Palm Beach. Since he’d almost married into the family, Ben had a pretty shrewd idea of how much she actually inherited, and of course he signed Bob’s pay checks. It was obvious to him that the Dysarts’ total income simply was not big enough to sustain their flamboyant life style for any extended time. The logical inferences were either that Bob was getting additional funds from some undisclosed source or that he intended to blow every cent he could milk from Adele’s estate and then ditch her for somebody else. Since both surmises happened to be true, and since Ben was in a position of real power at the college, I expect Dysart considered him far the greater threat.”
“Still, if Professor Dysart was planning to elope with Heidi Hayhoe, why did he not just go and not kill these good people?”
“Oh, I don’t think he intended to clear out so soon. He’d spun that yarn about Ben’s getting poisoned coffee intended for him, and then got his girl friend to torch the power plant in order to support the idea that he was being persecuted by saboteurs. I expect he thought he could keep it going until he’d finished plundering the Buggins Collection. He’s an imaginative chap, you know. He must have enjoyed himself a great deal, ripping off a fortune from under Porble’s nose and having an affair with a student in defiance of the college’s strictest rule.”
“You know,” Helen mused, “it’s conceivable that by forcing Professor Dysart’s hand, we may have saved that girl’s life. Do you think he ever really meant to take her with him?”
“That’s a good question,” said Shandy. “He wouldn’t dare leave her behind alive, of course, and I’m not at all sure what he meant to do with her once they got away. The police found a ransom note in his pocket, that he’d evidently written in the car while she drove and meant to post from wherever they were going. I don’t know if he actually thought he could get the college and Heidi’s wealthy relatives to pay a large ransom to imaginary kidnapers, or if he was just setting the stage to kill the girl and do a vanishing act himself so he’d be presumed dead and left free to enjoy his loot. The man was absolutely dumbfounded when they arrested him, you know. I don’t believe it had ever once entered his head that he couldn’t outsmart the whole world.”
“He outsmarted me, at any rate,” Porble muttered. “I’m not going to offer any excuses, President. I was derelict in my duty, and I’m resigning here and now.”
“You’ll resign when I say so,” roared Svenson.
“That is wise, Thorkjeld,” his wife approved. “Dr. Porble was right to concentrate on the work that means most to the college. Miss Marsh will help us get back some of the stolen books, and as for the rest, why should we regret losing what we never knew we had? The money at least will not be lost.”
“How?” demanded the president.
“There will be much publicity when the wicked Dysart and his young strumpet come to trial. This will be unpleasant for us, but we shall take a vigorous stand on the side of good and right and you will be dignified and majestic for the photographers and next year many more thousands of people will come to our Illumination and thus we gain back the money.”
“Hoist with my own petard!” Shandy groaned.
“And you, Peter Shandy,” Sieglinde went on unheeding, “will let the ladies of the committee select your decorations. You are not to be trusted. Thorkjeld, we must go.”
Professor Shandy shook his head. “I can’t believe this nightmare is over. I suppose as the last—er—item on the docket, one of us ought to go over and explain to Adele Dysart that her husband’s spent all her money, killed two of her neighbors, and tried to elope with an oversexed undergraduate. President, you—”
“Not me! I delegated you to clean up this mess. Shandy, and by Jesus, you’re still delegated. Go.”
“Just one minute, Dr. Svenson,” cried Helen Marsh. “If you think you’re going to send this innocent man into that—that vampire’s nest—”
“I do.”
“Then,” she sighed, “I suppose I’ll have to go with him.”
“To hold the hammer?” Shandy asked in the tone of a man who will brook no further shilly-shallying.
“Yes, Peter,” she replied. “To hold the hammer.”
“What the hell are they talking about?” demanded the president.
“Never mind,” Sieglinde told him. “He knows and she knows. You do not need to know. Come, Thorkjeld, if is past your bedtime.”
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
copyright © 1978 by Charlotte MacLeod
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