The Theban Mysteries

by Amanda Cross

  “Oh, yes, it was really quite unanimous. The students objected to the fact that their parents were dishonest and pressuring about their values. That is, they might say they wouldn’t put pressure on the girl to get good marks and go to a good college, but it was perfectly clear to the girls that that’s just what the parents were doing. They said they didn’t care about material things, but did, and so forth. The girl’s hairdo mattered more than her ideas. Hypocrisy, in a word. The parents, on the other hand, objected that they could never do anything right. That no matter how they tried to get on with their adolescent children, and meet them halfway, everything, everything they did was always wrong, even if they did exactly opposite things on two days running. The discussion cleared the air, and we all concluded that, while parents could stand corrected, children were bound to find their parents lacking, and there was nothing for it but to bear parenthood with what fortitude God gives.”

  “Or avoid it.”

  “Well, rather late in the day for that in the case of Theban parents. Being a parent is rather harder these days; there are so many more things to say ‘no’ to where the society isn’t helping you at all, and the dangers, such as drugs, syphilis, and car accidents and rapes are even more frightening than ever they were. So much for ethics. What else do you want to know?”

  “Just give me a bit about the family backgrounds, where they live, values, all that.”

  “Freemond Oliver is absolutely top drawer, though if you quote me I shall deny ever having used the phrase. We’ve had four Olivers at the Theban, and there are a couple of boys besides. They live in a duplex on lower Park Avenue and Freemond …”

  “O.K. Betsy Stark I know best of the girls, but not what sort of family she comes from.”

  “I take it money is what you want to hear about.”

  “Not to put too fine a point on it, yes; that and any indications of excessive, or excessively limited, freedom.”

  “The Starks have money from the mother’s side of the family. The grandmother pays for the children’s education. The family lives on East Seventy-something, I forget just where, one of those big, spacious, prewar apartments which went co-op.”

  “And the mother is homely but vivacious and bright, and she thinks her husband married her for her money, and so does Betsy.”

  “You seem to know more about them than I do.”

  “I don’t know anything. I’m surmising and I’m probably wrong. Isn’t it funny how people with money are never certain they’re loved for themselves, but people with beauty are always sure of it?”

  “That’s either very profound or doesn’t make any sense at all.”

  “Like most of my remarks. And Alice Kirkland?”

  “Ah, a problem that one. It’s always so annoying when rebelliousness takes the form of pure rudeness. The youngest of the family, and at home with parents who indulge her ridiculously, not even requiring the bare modicum of courtesy. We recommended boarding school very strongly, but Alice wasn’t having any. Of course, we never insist. Money. Oh, lots. Mr. Kirkland recently gave us a check for fifty thousand dollars. He said he had made it in a phone call that took thirty seconds, and he was anxious not to be a philistine.”

  “Did you take it?”

  “Naturally, my dear, though not without pointing to the story of the plumber who charged fifty dollars and fifty cents for fixing the furnace: fifty cents for tapping, and fifty dollars for knowing where to tap. Who else have you got?”

  “Elizabeth McCarthy and Irene Rexton.”

  “Ah, yes. Elizabeth was at school with the Mesdames, of course, until this year. We don’t usually take girls for the last year, but her school recommendations were impeccable, and she came with letters not only from three sets of Theban parents, but from the Cardinal himself.”

  “I see. And Irene? Lovely to look at, delightful to know, as Reed would say.”

  “And heaven to kiss, I’m sure all the men would agree. She’s the adopted child of a pair of Columbia anthropologists—both dark as the natives they are always wandering off to live among, and with views toward adolescent independence that would do credit to the Samoans. She was the only student with no complaints to make about her parents.”

  “She’s such a shatteringly conventional child, always defending Ismene and simple womanhood.”

  “I know. The bringing-up of children is a total enigma. Though perhaps if one looks like that, one must be conventional or die.”

  “They live around Columbia, I suppose?”

  “Yes, I think so, let me check.” Miss Tyringham leafed through a loose-leaf notebook. “Here we are, Morningside Drive. That’s the lot, including the Jablons, whom I gather you know all about.”

  “Or will do my best to find out about.”

  “You must tell me someday what all this is in aid of.”

  “I promise to tell you, even if it turns out, as it probably will, not to be in aid of anything. I’ll just jot down the addresses, and ask one more question, though a sticky one. No, I’ve two more. Do you mind if Mr. Jablon knows that Reed discovered the dogs unlikely to have missed Miss Jablon, had she been there? He’s mighty anxious for the information, and I’d like to find out why.”

  “I can’t see why he shouldn’t know. At the moment I’ve adopted the policy of straightforwardness, which causes a lot less trouble in the end and anyhow comes to me naturally.”

  “Well, try to be straightforward about this. Suppose one of the faculty at the Theban, or one of the parents, was in any way involved with Mrs. Jablon’s death and presence here—I don’t mean killed her, of course; she wasn’t killed, as you know. Would you be inclined to be tolerant about it?”

  “It would depend. No, I’m not fudging, it would. A parent is hardly my business. A teacher is. The whole question would be whether in the light of this new information I still considered her able to do her work properly.”

  “Which is not very straightforward.”

  “No it’s not. But then, neither is your question. You’re asking me whether or not you are free to tell me the name of a teacher who is involved, since if I am likely to fire her, you are not free. It is only possible to find straightforward answers to straightforward questions, if then.”

  “Fair enough. Anyway, it’s only the merest suspicion, so don’t worry about it. I’m also wondering if I should stop right here, but somehow I know I mustn’t. Not if we want to get to the cave in time.”

  “The cave?”

  “Where Angelica is. The cave of guilt, perhaps.”

  “Oh dear, oh dear.”

  “I’m also interested in Grandpa, oddly enough. And in the Theban. Will you keep on the dogs regardless?”

  “Oh, yes. They’re still the cheapest and best protection we could have, and now that they’re so famous, they’ll be even better. And since their infallibility has been so decisively proved.”

  “I wonder, though, at your hiring such a misogynist to protect a girls’ school.”

  “My dear, it is always those who fear women who are most assiduous to protect them for their own good, provided of course they aren’t sexual maniacs, and Mr. O’Hara is not only past it, he comes with the best recommendations from the Pentagon on down.”

  “Guaranteed above reproach.”

  “And beneath contempt, you suggest. He’s an excellent watchman all the same. I’m old enough to prefer that to his agreeing to every opinion I hold. Rose and Lily, fortunately, have no opinions whatever.”

  “Are you answering my sticky question? Yes, oh dear, I see that you are,” Kate said, and came away.

  She stopped in the lobby and imposed upon Miss Strikeland long enough to call Mr. Jablon. Kate was aware that Reed had managed to call her on the previous evening from a nearby phone booth, but not even this knowledge could alter her conviction that no telephone in New York City was in operating condition. Usually their receivers hung straight down in a forlorn state of impotence—if one was lucky, that is. Otherwise, one dropped dimes in to
be rewarded neither by a dial tone nor the return of one’s money. Like most people who continue not only to survive in New York but to love the city, Kate had learned to avoid the most obvious sources of frustration and anger: taxis at rush hour, phone booths at any time. Miss Strikeland connected her with commendable efficiency.

  But Mr. Jablon was not at home; he had already left for the office. Kate was surprised to discover that an elderly man who could devote days to observing school lobbies should have an office, but she asked for and was given the telephone number and succeeded, with more help from Miss Strikeland, in reaching Mr. Jablon there. He said he would be glad to see her in his office as soon as she could get there. With a wave of thanks to Miss Strikeland, Kate continued what was clearly going to be an exceedingly peripatetic day.

  Mr. Jablon’s office turned out to be in a new and elegant building on Park Avenue in the fifties. He occupied a large office with a small entrance hall, the door to which he opened for Kate himself. He had fixed up his office as a rather comfortable living room, and Kate sat in one comfortable chair while he sat in another. Against one wall stood a large desk.

  “I do some work there,” Mr. Jablon said, following her glance; “investments and so forth. I call my broker, he calls me. I read various stock-market sheets, the Wall Street Journal, and the National Observer. I could do all that at home, but this is a place to leave home and come to. It gives a shape to the day.”

  Kate nodded. Before she had been asked to take the class at the Theban, she had coped, as all who work at home must cope, with a day not given a shape by the necessity of leaving for work at a specified time, and then returning. It was the old question of freedom and time flapping about one. Unless one structured the day very carefully, and observed schedules with a rigidity which would have done credit to a Trappis monastery, one wasted time and time wasted one.

  “You wanted to know the result of last night’s experiment with the dogs,” Kate said, “and Miss Tyringham has given me permission to tell you. The dogs immediately discovered Reed, who made some half-hearted attempts to conceal himself from them. He is convinced no one could hide in the building and remain undetected by the dogs.”

  “I see,” Mr. Jablon said. “Then I will have to change my story.”

  “I rather thought you might,” Kate said. “What was it going to be—that you had persuaded your daughter-in-law to come with you to the school, that you had lost track of her there and had gone home leaving her to be frightened by the dogs?”

  “Something like that. I was afraid, you see, that one of the children … but as it happened, the police suspected me of something, and they looked into my activities and discovered I had an alibi for the entire evening. I hope I am unique in trying to conceal the fact that I wasn’t on the scene of the crime, but nothing is new under the sun, is it?”

  “Where were you?” Kate asked. “I hope you don’t mind my forthright questions. I’m willing to attempt more circumlocutions if you prefer.”

  “I do as a rule,” Mr. Jablon admitted. “I like the social amenities, which oil the wheels of progress. But, under the circumstances, I concede the need for shortcuts. I was home for dinner, with Angelica, a friend of hers from school named Freemond Oliver, my grandson Patrick, and my daughter-in-law.”

  “Does Angelica often have friends for dinner?”

  “Lately she does. I discovered, not too long ago, that my daughter-in-law was discouraging this by claiming it made too great claims on her time and energy, but I pointed out that the servants were quite able to undertake any additional work, and that I thought children should have a home to which they could bring their friends. The truth of the matter is, however, that Angelica has only recently brought her friends, because she was ashamed of her home.”

  “Ashamed of it? I was under the impression …”

  “Not of the physical home, which is perfectly acceptable, but of her mother and me. Her mother was as likely as not, I’m afraid, to have some sort of hysterical scene, or embarrass Angelica in some way by some tactless remark, and she was ashamed of me because of my opinions, which she called conservative as though that word were an insult; I look upon it as a compliment. I try to conserve.”

  “I see,” Kate said. She felt inclined to credit Mrs. Banister and the encounter groups for Freemond’s presence. If you have shrieked out your hostilities and angers, and your friends know all about your mother and grandfather, there is no longer any point in concealing your home from them. Indeed, they, as impartial observers, can confirm your right to resentment.

  “After dinner,” he continued, “everyone disappeared, as they always do, and I went to my bridge club. I arrived there at nine, and returned home shortly before one. I was playing bridge the entire time. It is a private bridge club, men only; rubber bridge, not duplicate.”

  Kate thought of various detective stories she had long ago read in which the murderer had used bridge as an alibi. But careful questioning by the detective had revealed that, while dummy, the suspect had managed to race to wherever it was, kill whoever it was, and reappear in time for the new deal. It seemed unlikely here.

  “I was never out of sight of someone while there,” Mr. Jablon offered, dispensing with the bridge-playing murderer of Kate’s fancy. “I always stay around to see how a hand’s going to come out. And once it’s over we discuss it.”

  “Was everyone in when you got home?”

  “I certainly assumed so. In fact, as I now know, they were, except for my daughter-in-law. Angelica became hysterical on the following morning when the news of her mother’s death was received. I called the family physician, who told me candidly that she ought to be removed to a hospital, since he felt she was in danger of doing harm to herself. He also recommended psychiatric help, but this Angelica adamantly refused, so we did not insist. The one thing everyone seems to agree to about psychiatric help is that it does no good if the patient does not desire it.”

  “What about your grandson?”

  “Patrick has been in a strange and difficult mood for months; the experience with the dogs at the school did not help this. In his position, despising me for my despising him, I would have cleared out altogether and made my own way. That, however, does not seem the habit of today’s youth. They are perfectly willing to accept shelter and clothing and food from someone whom they consider little better than a criminal.”

  “Surely he never actually called you a criminal?”

  “He did, many times. For example, his discovery—that is, he asked me and I told him—that I owned stock in companies which made war materials gave him, in his opinion, the right to suspect my entire system of values. I pointed out that he had been educated and was now being fed by those same stocks, but that only added guilt to insurrection.”

  “Don’t you feel he had a point at all?”

  “No. I will not, for example, own stock in tobacco companies which manufacture cigarettes. I consider their advertising immoral, and the dangers of smoking more than adequately proved. Certainly I wouldn’t own stock in any company that trafficked in addictive drugs if any such were offered on the market. Patrick’s particular complaint was about Dow Chemical. He pleaded with me to sell the stock, since they made napalm, a burning jelly which is dropped on human beings and burns away their skin; it cannot be wiped off. Patrick could not understand how anyone could agree to make such a thing. He also discovered that we use Saran Wrap and various other Dow products and threw them out.”

  “But you didn’t sell the stock.”

  “I made up my mind to. After all, I object to some companies for reasons which may be as arbitrary. But just as I was about to sell the stock, Dow lost the government contract for napalm and Patrick agreed there was no longer any reason to sell, since Dow was no more militaristic than many other stocks in my portfolio.”

  “But at least you had agreed to something.…”

  “I was sorry later that I had. Not only was there a wrong principle involved, but I support this
country’s so-called military-industrial complex. Nothing about war is pretty, or humane. It is only necessary.”

  Kate found herself troubled in Mr. Jablon’s presence. She did not agree with him, that went without saying and she felt no special impulse to say it. She was too familiar with his attitudes to waste time upon them when other matters were more pressing. What troubled her was that she rather liked Mr. Jablon, whose personal judgments she suspected of being on the whole honorable and defensible. Like many of his generation and his experience, he had lost the connection between his personal morality and the national morality of his beloved country, on whose behalf he was willing to defend offensive practices on the grounds of national necessity that he would never for a moment have endorsed as personal actions. As Matthew Arnold had perceived a century earlier, the double standard had horribly damaged the quality of national life, robbing it of sweetness and light.

  “What do you think happened to your daughter-in-law, Mr. Jablon?”

  “I don’t know. I accept the word of the police doctors and of her private physician that she was killed by a shock which brought on a heart attack. She had heart trouble, though none of us took it seriously enough, I’m afraid. On the other hand, I read recently of a four-year-old child who died of fright in the dentist’s chair—too much adrenalin poured into her heart. I don’t know what frightened my daughter-in-law.”

  “Did the police say she was necessarily frightened, or was that just assumed because of the dogs?”

  “I don’t think they said ‘frightened,’ no. Her doctor said it might have been a frenzy. She was given, that is, inclined toward frenzies.”

  The understatement of the month, probably, Kate thought. She did not push Mr. Jablon on the point, admiring his discretion.

  “I am interested,” she said, “in discovering what did actually happen that night, and who is responsible for your daughter-in-law’s death. I’d like, in pursuit of the truth, to go to your home and talk to your grandson and granddaughter, if they are willing. Have you any objection?”