possibly be talking about Dorothy. She couldn't have been found yet. Why would anyone enter her room? They would think she wanted to sleep late. He was counting on her not being found for several hours; he held his breath until the girls' whispering erupted into laughter.
No, it was unlikely that she would be found before one o'clock or so. 'Dorothy Kingship wasn't at breakfast and she wasn't at lunch either'-then they would knock on her door and get no answer. They'd most likely have to get the house mother or someone with a key. Or it might not even happen then. Many of the dorm girls slept through breakfast, and some of them ate lunch out occasionally. Dorrie hadn't any close friends who would miss her right away. No, if his luck held, they might not find her until Ellen's phone call came.
The night before, after saying good-by to Dorothy on the telephone, he had returned to the dorm. In the mailbox on the corner he had posted the envelope addressed to Ellen Kingship, the envelope containing Dorothy's suicide note. The first mail collection of the morning was at six; Caldwell was only a hundred miles away and so the letter would be delivered this afternoon. If Dorothy were found in the morning, Ellen, notified by her father, might leave Caldwell for Blue River before the letter arrived, which would mean that an investigation of some sort would almost certainly be launched, because the suicide note would not be found until Ellen returned to Caldwell. It was the only risk, but it was a small one and unavoidable; it had been impossible for him to sneak into the Girl's Dormitory to plant the note in Dorothy's room, and impractical to secrete it in the pocket of her coat or in one of her books prior to giving her the pills, in which case there would have been the far greater risk of Dorothy finding the note and throwing it away or, still worse, putting two and two together.
He had decided upon noon as the safety mark. H Dorothy were found under twelve, Ellen would have received the note by the time the school authorities contacted Leo Kingship and Kingship in turn contacted her. If his luck realty held, Dorothy would not be discovered until late afternoon, a frantic phone call from Ellen leading to the discovery. Then everything would be neat and in its proper order.
There would be an autopsy, of course. It would reveal the presence of a great deal of arsenic and a two- month embryo-the way and the why of her suicide. That and the note would more than satisfy the police. Oh, they would make a perfunctory check of the local drugstores, but it would net them only a fat zero. They might even consider the Pharmacy supply room. They would ask the students, 'Did you see this girl in the supply room or anywhere in the Pharmacy Building?'-displaying photograph of the deceased. Which would produce another zero. It would be a mystery, but hardly an important one; even if they couldn't be sure of the source of arsenic, her death would still be an indisputable suicide.
Would they look for the man in the case, the lover? He considered that unlikely. For all they knew she was as promiscuous as a bunny. That was hardly their concern. But what about Kingship? Would outraged morality inaugurate a private inquiry? 'Find the man who ruined my daughter!' Although, from the description of her father that Dorothy had painted, Kingship would be more likely to think 'Aha, she was ruined all along. Like mother, like daughter.' Still, there might be an inquiry...
He would certainly be dragged into that. They had been seen together, though not as frequently as might be expected. In the beginning, when success with Dorothy had been in question, he had not taken her to popular places; there had been that other rich girl last year, and if Dorothy didn't work out as he planned there would be others in the future; he didn't want the reputation of a money-chaser. Then, when Dorothy did work out, they had gone to movies, to his room, and to quiet places like Gideon's. Meeting at the bench rather than in the dorm lounge had become a custom.
He would be involved in any inquiry all right, but Dorothy hadn't told anyone they were going steady, so other men would be involved too. There was the red-headed one she'd been chatting with outside the classroom the day he first saw her and noticed the copper-stamped Kingship on her matches, and the one she'd started knitting argyle socks for, and every man she'd dated once or twice,-they would all be brought into it, and then it would be anybody's guess as to who had 'ruined' her because all would deny it. And as thorough as the investigation might be, Kingship could never be certain that he hadn't completely overlooked the 'guilty' party. There would be suspicion directed at all the men, proof against none.
No, everything would be perfect. There would be no quitting school, no shipping clerk's job, no oppressing wife and child, no vengeful Kingship. Only one tiny shadow... Suppose he were pointed out around campus as one of the men who'd gone with Dorothy. Suppose that the girl who had let him into the supply room should see him again, hear who he was, learn that he wasn't a Pharmacy student at all... But even that was unlikely, out of twelve thousand students... But suppose the very worst happened. Suppose she saw him, remembered, and went to the police. Even then, it would be no evidence. So he was in the supply room. He could make up some kind of excuse and they would have to believe him, because there would still be the note, the note in Dorothy's handwriting. How could they explain...
The door at the side of the room opened, creating a draft that lifted the pages of his notebook. He turned to see who it was. It was Dorothy.
Shock burst over him, hot as a wave of lava. He half-rose, blood pushing to his face, his chest a block of ice. Sweat dotted his body and crawled like a million insects. He knew it was written on his face in swollen eyes and burning cheeks, written for her to see, but he couldn't stop it She was looking at him wonderingly, the door closing behind her. Like any other day; books under her arm, green sweater, plaid skirt. Dorothy. Coming to him, made anxious by his face.
His notebook slapped to the floor. He bent down, seizing the momentary escape. He stayed with his face near the side of the seat, trying to breathe. What happened? Oh God! She didn't take the pills! She couldn't have! She lied! The bitch! The lying goddamned bitch! The note on its way to Ellen... Oh Jesus, Jesus!
He heard her sliding into her seat Her frightened whisper-'What's wrong? What's the matter?' He picked up the notebook and sat erect, feeling the blood drain from his face, from his entire body, leaving him dead cold with sweat drops moving. 'What's wrong?' He looked at her. Like any other day. There was a green ribbon in her hair. He tried to speak but it was as if he were empty inside with nothing to make a sound. 'What is it?' Students were turning to look. Finally he scraped out, 'Nothing... I'm all right...'
'You're sick! Your face is as gray as...'
'I'm all right. It's... it's this...'-touching his side where she knew he had the Army scar. 'It gives me a twinge once in a while...'
'God, I thought you were having a heart attack or something,' she whispered.
'No. I'm all right.' He kept looking at her, trying for one good breath, his hands clutching his knees in rigid restraint. Oh God, what could he do? The bitch! She had planned also, planned to get married!
He saw the anxiety for him melt from her face, a flushed tension replacing it. She ripped a page from her assignment pad, scribbled on it and passed it to him: The pills didn't work.
The liar! The goddamned liar! He crumpled the paper and squeezed it in his hand, fingernails biting into his palm. Think! Think! His danger was so enormous he couldn't grasp it all at once. Ellen would receive the note- when? Three o'clock? Four? -and call Dorothy-'What does this mean? Why did you write this?'-'Write what?'-then Ellen would read the note and Dorothy would recognize it... Would she come to him? What explanation could he invent? Or would she see the truth-blurt out the whole story to Ellen-call her father. If she had kept the pills-if she hadn't thrown them away, there would be proof 1 Attempted murder. Would she take them to a drugstore, have them analyzed? There was no figuring her now. She was an unknown quantity. He'd thought he could predict every little twitch of her goddamned brain, and now...
He could feel her looking at him, waiting for some kind of reaction to the words she'd written. He tore paper from his notebook and pulled open his pen. He shielded his hand so she couldn't see how it was shaking. He couldn't write. He had to print, digging the point of the pen so hard that it shredded the surface of the paper. Make it sound natural.
Okay. We tried, that's all. Now we get married as per schedule.
He handed it to her. She read it and turned to him, and her face was warm and radiant as the sunlight. He pressed a smile back at her, praying she wouldn't notice the stiffness of it.
It still wasn't too late. People wrote suicide notes and then stalled around before actually doing it. He looked at his watch; 9: 20. The earliest Ellen could get the note would be... three o'clock. Five hours and forty minutes. No step by step planning now. It would have to be quick, positive. No trickery that counted on her doing a certain thing at a certain time. No poison. How else do people kill themselves? In five hours and forty minutes she must be dead.
At ten o'clock they left the building arm in arm, going out into the crystalline air that rang with the shouts of
