One Coffee With

Tell me about tenure. How is it awarded here?'

Nauman answered that question and the ones that followed factually and tried not to let himself see where they were leading.

19

SCHEDULES seemed to be meaningless today, thought Sandy. All morning she had been aware of the police presence in the department-Lieutenant Harald and Detective Tildon asking questions, probing, adding data to the case they were building. Professor Nauman had looked at her oddly once or twice after his short conference with the policewoman but had revealed nothing of their talk.

It was eleven before she could go downstairs for coffee. Quinn's classes were canceled, of course; but his students, excited by the recent sensational events, had shown up anyhow and now milled about the halls, embellishing every conjecture and rumor that reached their avid ears.

'I've always wondered what it would take to get perfect attendance,' Leyden told Nauman sourly.

The elevator was jammed when Sandy returned from the snack bar, and she had to juggle the tray of beverages as she pushed through the hallway. To her surprise she found everyone assembled in the big outer office. Lieutenant Harald had co-opted her desk again.

'One minute please, Miss Keppler,' said Detective Tildon and took the tray from her unprotesting hands. He carried it across the room and set it on her desk. Everyone watched curiously as he and Lieutenant Harald seemed to give the cups lids special scrutiny.

'You didn't stop in at my print shop on the way back upstairs, did you, Sandy?' asked Lemuel Vance in an attempt to lighten the suddenly tense atmosphere.

'Knock it off!' David Wade said tightly from the corner table, and Sandy 's eyes widened as she saw him for the first time. He shrugged to show he was just as puzzled as she to find himself summoned to this gathering.

Detective Tildon returned the tray without a word. Yesterday's fear tightened around Sandy 's heart, and her hand trembled as she gave tea to Andrea Ross and Albert Simpson, hot chocolate to Lemuel Vance and Piers Leyden, and coffee with sugar to Oscar Nauman and Jake Saxer. She took her own black coffee to an empty chair next to Professor Simpson. Her hands shook so that when she removed the lid the old classicist kindly handed her his immaculate handkerchief to blot up the spill from her blue plaid slacks.

'Shouldn't young Harris also be here?' Simpson asked, refolding his handkerchief.

'Or is Leyden 's primitive still hiding in the jungle?' sneered Vance.

Jake Saxer laughed nervously, then smoothed his yellow beard in embarrassment.

'We've spoken to him, and he had nothing of value to add to this inquiry,' Sigrid said calmly in her school-marm manner. 'For the record I'd like to hear your opinions on whether it would have made a difference if Professor Nauman had got the cup with potassium dichromate instead of Professor Quinn.'

'It might to Oscar,' suggested Leyden. Nauman shrugged; everyone else looked blank.

'I think she means cui bono?' said Simpson. 'Who profits by his death?'

'Correct,' said Sigrid. 'Well, let's start with what happens now that Quinn's dead. You, Professor Simpson, will become deputy chairman, which means promotion and a larger salary?'

'If the majority of the department approve. I am senior historian.'

'Do you need the extra money, Professor?'

'I have no family and my wants are few, Lieutenant, but you may examine my bank records if you feel it necessary.'

'A full professor gets a bigger pension,' Vance observed from his chair near the bookcase.

'So he does,' Simpson agreed equably. 'I hadn't thought of that.'

'Of course, there are other rewards,' said Sigrid turning to Jake Saxer. 'How much is it worth to be listed as coauthor of an authoritative book rather than an insignificant contributor acknowledged briefly in the preface?'

The historian's pale face flushed. 'I earned it! I've done ninety per cent of the work for that book. He promised me co-authorship before we ever began work!'

'Did you get it in writing?' asked Andrea Ross. 'Riley Quinn wouldn't have shared authorship of a grocery list.'

'Frigid bitch! You're just jealous because he passed you over.'

'Surely you could invent a more crushing line, Jake,' Professor Ross smiled icily. With her crisp curls and feminine clothes she looked like a porcelain doll; but beneath her artful makeup her face was pale. 'You may have done ninety per cent, but that's just the donkey-work. Much as I despised Quinn, I have to admit he was a brilliant historian. His ten per cent will bring it all together, make the book a success. Maybe you can stick your name on his work, but none of his brilliance will rub off on you. My advice is to enjoy it while it lasts. Just don't try to write another book all by yourself, Jake, or Lieutenant Harald might have to arrest you for indecent mental exposure!'

Saxer sprang to his feet and for a moment actually seemed about to slap her, but Nauman grabbed his wrist with an unexpectedly strong grip and straight-armed him back into his chair with an ease that belied the force he had used.

'Andrea's right, so just sit down and stop being tiresome,' he said. 'Continue, Lieutenant.'

Their eyes locked, then Sigrid referred to her notes again. 'Professor Leyden, I understand that Quinn had planned a thorough hatchet job on you. I believe he called your work the 'pap of Polaroid pop.''

'Riley was incapable of appreciating neo-realism,' Leyden said airily, 'and he didn't like my friendship with his wife. We were the best of enemies. You know, I'll probably even miss him.'

'So what he planned to write didn't bother you?'

'Don't be naive, Lieutenant-of course it did! The gallery-trotting, picture-buying public is smart enough to read but dumb enough to be influenced by self-proclaimed savants; so I'm very lucky that Doris Quinn is going to accidentally burn some of his notes to that particular chapter.'

There was a wicked gleam in Leyden 's dark eyes, and Nauman shook his head at the artist's audacity. 'So now you'll get to dictate your own version, and Doris 'll get the pleasure of your company until the book's safely published.'

Except for Detective Tildon everyone in the room knew Doris Quinn, and an undercurrent of ribald laughter swirled through the office.

'Just don't burn yourself out.' Vance cautioned.

Sigrid looked at Andrea Ross. 'With Quinn dead and Professor Simpson promoted, there's another associate professorship available now?'

Andrea Ross carefully tapped her cigarette ash into her empty cup and nodded.

'And you've admitted bitterness at being passed over the first time?'

Again the woman nodded, and Vance said, 'Better remember that, Oscar.'

Sigrid rounded on him sharply, 'You keep acting as if this were all a big joke, Professor Vance. You were in and out of this office all morning, and you were here just before Professor Quinn picked up his cup and took it inside with him.'

'And where's my motive?' taunted the stocky printmaker. 'I wasn't in his book, I'm not sleeping with his wife, and he didn't cut me out of a promotion!'

'But if the poison had been meant for Professor Nauman?' she asked softly. 'It's my understanding that if the chairman's an artist, the deputy must be a historian and vice versa. If Professor Nauman had taken that cup, Riley Quinn would have become chairman. So who's the artist who would get promoted to full professorship and be made deputy chairman?'

'Now just a minute,' cried Vance. 'No offense Oscar, but if I'd meant to kill you, you'd be dead now-not Riley. Besides,' he said to Sigrid, 'I'm no shoo-in. There're at least ten members of this department who hate my guts, and who would enjoy voting against me.'

He said this proudly, and Sigrid noted wryly that he seemed to rate his standing as an artist by the number and caliber of his enemies.