making grades not to appreciate that... and not to worry about
Charlie Gereson's health and well-being from time to time.
'I would have told him, if he hadn't been so busy,' the janitor said,
and offered his tentative little smile again. 'Also, I kinda wanted to
show you myself.'
'What's that?' Dex asked. He felt a little impatient. It was chess
night with Henry; he wanted to get this taken care of and still have
time for a leisurely meal at the Hancock House.
'Well, maybe it's nothin,' the janitor said. 'But... well, this buildin
is some old, and we keep turnin things up, don't we?'
Dex knew. It was like moving out of a house that has been lived in
for generations. Halley, the bright young assistant professor who
had been here for three years now, had found half a dozen antique
clips with small brass balls on the ends. She'd had no idea what the
clips, which looked a little bit like spring-loaded wishbones, could
be. Dex had been able to tell her. Not so many years after the Civil
War, those clips had been used to hold the heads of white mice,
who were then operated on without anesthetic. Young Halley, with
her Berkeley education and her bright spill of Farrah Fawcett-
Majors golden hair, had looked quite revolted. 'No anti-
vivisectionists in those days,' Dex had told her jovially. 'At least
not around here.' And Halley had responded with a blank look that
probably disguised disgust or maybe even loathing. Dex had put
his foot in it again. He had a positive talent for that, it seemed.
They had found sixty boxes of The American Zoologist in a
crawlspace, and the attic had been a maze of old equipment and
mouldering reports. Some of the impedimenta no one--not even
Dexter Stanley--could identify.
In the closet of the old animal pens at the back of the building,
Professor Viney had found a complicated gerbil-run with exquisite
glass panels. It had been accepted for display at the Musuem of
Natural Science in Washington.
But the finds had been tapering off this summer, and Dex thought
Amberson Hall had given up the last of its secrets.'What have you
found?' he asked the janitor.
'A crate. I found it tucked right under the basement stairs. I didn't
open it. It's been nailed shut, anyway.'
Stanly couldn't believe that anything very interesting could have
escaped notice for long, just by being tucked under the stairs. Tens
of thousands of people went up and down them every week during
the academic year. Most likely the janitor's crate was full of
department records dating back twenty-five years. Or even more
prosaic, a box of National Geographics.
'I hardly think--'
'It's a real crate,' the janitor broke in earnestly. 'I mean, my father
was a carpenter, and this crate is built tile way he was buildin 'em
back in the twenties. And he learned from his father.'
'I really doubt if--'
'Also, it's got about four inches of dust on it. I wiped some off and
