'That isn't much, I'm afraid. Just why is Mr. Stoll interested in him?'
'He came back to town a couple of months ago, under an assumed name.'
'Has he done something wrong?'
'He's wanted on suspicion of assault,' I said, toning it down. 'We're trying to establish his identity.'
'I'm glad to co-operate with Mr. Stoll - he uses a lot of our boys - but I may not be too much help. Cervantes could be an assumed name, too.'
'But don't your students have to present records, of birth and education and so on, before you let them in?'
'They're supposed to. But Cervantes didn't.'
Martin peered down at the contents of the folder. 'There's a note here to the effect that he claimed to be a transfer student from L.A. State. We admitted him provisionally on the understanding that his transcripts would reach us by the first of October. By that time he'd already left us, and if the transcripts ever arrived we sent them back.'
'Where did he go?'
He shrugged, retracting his bald head tortoise-like between his shoulders. 'We don't keep track of our dropouts. Actually he never was our student.'
He had no transcript, Martin seemed to be saying, therefore he didn't exist. 'You might try his old address here, in case he left a forwarding address. It's care of Mrs. Grantham, on Shore Drive, number 148. She has quite a few apartments which she rents to students.'
I made a note of the address. 'What courses was Cervantes taking?'
'I don't have a record of that. He didn't stay long enough to have his grades posted, and that's all we're interested in. I suppose you could try the Dean's office, if it's important. He's in this building.'
I walked around the outside of the building to the Dean's office. His secretary was a large-busted brunette of uncertain age who handled herself with a kind of stylized precision. She typed Cervantes's name on a piece of paper and took it into a filing room, emerging with the written information that he had registered in French Language and Literature, on the senior level, and upper-division Modern European History.
I vas certain for the first time that Feliz Cervantes and Francis Martel were the same man. I felt a certain humiliation for him. He had taken a big leap and found a toehold. Now he was falling.
'Who taught him French Language and Literature?'
'Professor Tappinger. He's still teaching the course.'
'I was hoping it would be Professor Tappinger.'
'Oh? Do you know him?'
'Slightly. Is he on campus now?'
'He is, yes, but I'm afraid he's in class.'
The woman glanced at the electric clock on the wall. 'It's twenty minutes to twelve. He'll finish his lecture at twelve exactly. He always does.'
She seemed to take a certain pride in this.
'Do you know where everybody on campus is all the time.'
'Just some of them,' she said. 'Professor Tappinger is one of our institutions.'
'He doesn't look much like an institution.'
'He is, though. He's one of our most brilliant scholars.'
As if she was an institution herself, she added: 'We consider ourselves very fortunate to have attracted him and kept him. I was worried he'd leave when he didn't get his promotion.'
'Why didn't he?'
'You want the truth?'
'I couldn't live without it.'
She leaned toward me and lowered her voice, as if the Dean might have the place bugged. 'Professor Tappinger is too dedicated to his work. He can't be bothered with departmental politics. And frankly his wife is no help.'
'I thought she was cute.'
'I suppose she's cute enough, but she's a flibbertigibbet. If Professor Tappinger had a mature partner ' The sentence faded out. For a moment her efficient eyes were fixed on dreamland. It wasn't hard to guess the identity of the mature partner she had in mind for Tappinger.
She directed me in a rather proprietary way to his office in the Arts Building and assured me he always returned there with his lecture notes before he went home for lunch. She wasn't wrong. At one minute after twelve, the professor came marching down the corridor, flushed and bright-eyed, as if he had had a good class.
He did a double take when he saw me. 'Why, it's Mr. Archer. I'm always surprised when I see somebody from the real world in these purlieus.'
'This isn't real?'
'Not really real. It hasn't been here long enough, for one thing.'
'I have.'
Tappinger laughed. Away from his wife and family, he seemed to be much more cheerful. 'We've both been around long enough to know who we are. But don't let me keep you standing out here.'
He unlocked the door of his office and urged me inside. Two walls of shelves were filled with books, many of them unbound French volumes and sets. 'I suppose you've come to report the results of the test?'
'Partly. It was a success, from Martel's point of view. He answered every question correctly.'
'Even the pineal gland?'
'Even that.'
'I'm amazed, frankly amazed.'
'It may be a sort of compliment to you. Martel seems to be a former student of yours. You had him for a week or two, anyway, seven years ago.'
He gave me a startled look. 'How can that be?'
'I don't know. But it can't be pure coincidence.'
I got out Martel's picture and handed it to him. He nodded his head over it. 'I remember the boy. He was a brilliant student, one of the most brilliant I've ever had. Unaccountably he dropped out, without a word to me.'
His cheerfulness had evaporated. Now he was shaking his head from side to side. 'What happened to him?'
'I don't know. Except that he turned up here seven years later with a wad of money and a new identity. Do you recall the name he used in your class?'
'You don't forget a student like that. He called himself Feliz Cervantes.'
He looked down at the picture again. 'Who are these other people?'
'Guests at the Tennis Club. Cervantes held a job there for a couple of weeks in September of '59. He was a part-time cleanup help.'
Tappinger made a clucking sound. 'I remember he seemed to be in need of money. The one time I entertained him in my house, he ate up virtually everything in sight. But you say he has money now?'
'At least a hundred thousand dollars. In cash.'
He whistled. 'That's just about ten years salary for me. Where did he get it?'
'He says it's family money, but I'm pretty sure he's lying.'
He studied the picture some more, as if he was still a little confused by Martel's double identity. 'I'm sure he had no family background to speak of.'
'Do you have any idea where he came from?'
'I assumed he was a Spanish-American, probably a first generation Mexican. He spoke with quite an accent. As a matter of fact, his French was better than his English.'
'Perhaps he is a Frenchman after all.'
'With a name like Feliz Cervantes?'
'We don't know that that's his real name, either.'
'His transcripts would show his real name,' Tappinger said.
'But they're not on file here. He was supposed to have gone to L.A. State College before he came here. Maybe they can help us.'
