One Coffee With

feelings,' she said. 'Two days ago I learned that Professor Quinn had recommended Jake Saxer for promotion over me. You must have had similar experiences, Lieutenant.

How did they make you feel?'

When Sigrid didn't answer. Professor Ross shrugged insultingly and ripped the cellophane from the cigarette package, 'Or maybe you haven't. Maybe you're the Police Department's showcase model-the one they point to whenever rank-and-file women start complaining that they aren't getting the same breaks as the men.'

Sigrid continued to gaze at her with neutral gray eyes, and Andrea Ross flushed. Her own eyes wavered for a moment, and then she said, 'I have a Ph.D., seniority and better evaluations from my students; but I didn't cozy up to Riley Quinn, and I'm not a man, so Saxer gets my promotion. And yes, I'm pretty damn bitter about it. But I didn't slip poison into Quinn's coffee while Sandy had her back turned. Not downstairs and not here!'

She extracted a cigarette, lighted it and inhaled deeply. Saxer's thin lips had tightened at the implied insult, but he remained silent.

'And after you and Miss Keppler returned to this floor?'

'For what it's worth I was in the slide room preparing for my class when the ten-o'clock lectures finished,' said Ross. 'Professor Leyden was in his office when I first went past, but I'm not sure of the time.'

'Wish I could reciprocate,' Leyden said fliply. 'but I never saw you, kid. My back was to the door, and I just assumed all that in-and-outing was Jake.'

'Professor Simpson?'

'I'm sorry,' apologized the elderly historian. 'I was absorbed in a new book on Herculaneum, but I don't think anyone came past by desk except Miss Keppler. Of course, someone could have entered by the other door, and I wouldn't have seen him. The mail rack completely blocks my view of that door.'

'And you were in the inner office alone, Professor Saxer?'

The blond teacher glared at her haughtily. 'I had telephone calls to make, Lieutenant. There are only two telephones on this whole floor: the one inside and Sandy's. And you've seen what a crossroads of the western world this outer office is.'

'He's right,' said Sandy in answer to Sigrid's inquiring gaze. 'Everyone phones from the inner office if it's empty. It's more private.'

'Anyhow,' said Saxer. ' Sandy hadn't brought the coffee up before I went inside, and she and that Harris kid were both here when I finished.'

'But you and the coffee were here alone while Sandy was in with me!' Vance chortled. 'You could be the winner, Jake!'

Saxer's pale face grew even paler with suppressed fury, but he managed a tight smile beneath his yellow beard. 'And where were you when Sandy went tripping down the hall to wash her hands?'

He turned back to Sigrid. 'All this talk about who could have done it is pointless. Any of us could have – even Sandy – but what about the one person we know was hanging over that bookcase? Why aren't you questioning Leyden 's protege?'

'Who's that?' she asked, sorting through Tillie's notes and wondering who was missing.

'Harley Harris, that's who!'

'You gotta be kidding,' said Vance. 'That kid's too incompetent to be a poisoner. You ever see him open a tube of paint?'

Sigrid's faith in Tillie was restored as she found his comments on the absent graduate student, his last peevish remarks and his failure. She read through them and squelched Vance's impromptu imitation of the boy by saying, 'We'll certainly want to talk with him, but in the meantime-'

'As long as you're on who's missing, there's someone else,' observed Andrea Ross. 'That Mike What's-his- name, Karoly's nephew.'

'Mike Szabo?' asked Leyden. 'That was a lot earlier, wasn't it? And downstairs. Mike wasn't-'

'Yes, he was,' Sandy interrupted. 'He came up on the elevator with Andrea and me to get that chair Phil and Jaime broke last week.'

'He even carried the tray,' Andrea reminded her. 'Remember when it got so crowded? We had our back to him for the last three floors?'

'Could he have put something in a cup with just one hand?' Sandy asked. 'Anyhow, how would he have known which was Professor Quinn's cup? There were four coffees and Lem's hot chocolate?'

Professor Simpson cleared his throat.

'Didn't he carry the tray into your office alone?'

'Mike wouldn't have poisoned Riley,' Leyden objected. 'Hit him over the head with a baseball bat, yes; nag him to death, yes; but poison?'

'Who is Mike Szabo?' asked Sigrid, knowing this must be their first mention of the man as a possible suspect since his name did not appear in Tillie's notes.

Several started to answer, but Oscar Nauman's deep voice carried. 'He's a Hungarian refugee employed by Buildings and Grounds and the son of Janos Karoly's only sister.'

It was clear the name meant nothing to Sigrid.

'Janos Karoly was an abstract artist who came to prominence here in the fifties, Lieutenant,' explained Jake Saxer, the hint of a sneer in his voice, implying he thought her an ignorant philistine. 'He died in the early sixties and left all his paintings to Riley Quinn. His reputation is still growing, and the paintings become more valuable every year. Mike Szabo thinks they should have gone to him-he was still in Hungary at the time, hadn't corresponded with Karoly or anything in his whole life, but he still thought Professor Quinn somehow cheated him out of an inheritance.'

'Did he?' asked Sigrid.

'Of course not! It was all perfectly legal.'

'Yeah? Then why wouldn't Riley let Mike see Karoly's notebooks?' asked Leyden.

'Why should he?'

'The question is, why shouldn't he?' gibed the neo-realist. 'Riley could read Karoly's French, but I'll bet you two wooden nickels and a pug dog he was afraid of what those Hungarian passages had in them. We've all heard about how he covered those up whenever he let anyone look at the notebooks.'

Saxer shrugged. 'I wouldn't know. I don't read Hungarian.'

'Neither did anyone else in Riley's pocket,' taunted Leyden. 'That's why he was afraid to let Mike see them.'

'That illiterate peasant! Do you think he cares about his uncle's genius? All he wants with the paintings is the money.'

'And what the hell did Quinn want?' chimed in Lemuel Vance. 'The way he kept pushing up Karoly's reputation with those articles in The Loaded Brush and Arts Today. You think that didn't jack up the price every time he put one of the paintings on the market?'

Jake Saxer bit off a sharp retort as all three men suddenly remembered why Sigrid was following their exchange so intently. They subsided with sheepish faces.

'Thank you, gentlemen,' she said dryly and turned to Sandy again. 'To recapitulate: this Mike Szaba, who seems to have had a grudge against Professor Quinn, carried in the tray for you and was alone with it for a few minutes?'

'Well, yes,' said Sandy, 'but really he barely had time to set it down and pick up the broken chair before he was back out again.'

'And am I correct in assuming that you always left two cups, with sugar clearly marked, in a tray on that book- case every morning?'

'Just Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Professor Nauman isn't here on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and Professor Quinn has-had- third period free then, so I'd just take it on in to him at his desk those two days.'

'But the two cups would be there by ten-forty the other three days?'

Sandy nodded. 'By ten-forty-five, anyhow. I got back a little early today.'

'Wait a minute!' cried Vance, springing up from his chair and rushing over to the bookcase. 'There were two cups sitting here, both exactly alike, right? So how could anyone be sure which one