Jedson longer than anyone I know of. On top of that he's a great gossip. I sat next to him at a garden party and the sweet old thing told me all sorts of tidbits - who was sleeping with whom, faculty dirt and the like.'
'They let him get away with it?'
'He's close to ninety, rolling in family money, un married with no heirs. They're just waiting for him to croak and leave it all to their college. He's been emeritus from way back. Keeps an office on campus, sequesters himself there pretending to write books. I wouldn't be surprised if he sleeps there. He knows more about Jedson than anybody.'
'Do you think he'd talk to me?'
'If he was in the right mood. In fact I thought of him when you told me over the phone that you wanted to find out about illustrious alumni. But I figured it was too risky leaving him alone with a reporter. You never know what he's going to do or say.'
She giggled, enjoying the old man's ability to rebel from a position of power.
'Of course now that I know what you want,' she continued, 'he'd be perfect. You'd need some kind of story about why you wanted to talk about Towle, but I don't imagine that would be very difficult for someone as artful as you.'
'How about this: I'm a reporter for Medical World News. Call me Bill Roberts. Dr. Towle's been elected President of the Academy of Pediatrics and I'm doing a background story on him.'
'Sounds good. I'll call him now.'
She reached for the phone and I took another look at Towle's alumnus card. The only information she hadn't covered was a column of dated entries under the heading $ - donations to Jedson, I assumed. They averaged ten thousand dollars a year. Towle was a faithful son.
'Professor Van der Graaf,' she was saying, 'this is Margaret Dopplemeier from Public Relations. I've been fine, thank you, and yourself? Very good - oh, I'm sure we can work that out, Professor.' She covered the receiver with her hand and winked at me, mouthing the words 'good mood.' 'I didn't know you liked pizza, Professor. No. No, I don't like anchovies either. Yes, I do like Duesenbergs. I know you do… Yes, I know. The rain was coming down in sheets, Professor. Yes, I would. Yes, when the weather clears up. With the top down. I'll bring the pizza.'
She flirted with Van der Graaf for five more minutes and finally broached the subject of my visit. She listened, gave me the okay sign with thumb and forefinger and went back to flirting. I picked up Kruger's card.
He was the fifth member of his family to attend Jedson and his degree was listed as having been granted five years previously. There was no mention of current position - the family was recorded as being active in stl, slip, and rl - est. No mention of matrimony was present, nor had he donated money to the school. There was however an interesting cross - reference. Under REL - F: it said Towle. Finally, the three letters DLT were written in large, block characters at the bottom of the card.
Margaret got off the phone.
'He'll see you. As long as I come along, and quote: Give me a brisk massage, young lady. You'll be prolonging the years of a living fossil, unquote. The old lecher,' she added affectionately.
I asked her about Towle's name on Kruger's card.
'REL - F - related family. Apparently your two subjects are cousins of some sort.'
'Why isn't that listed on Towle's card as well?'
'The heading was probably added after he graduated. Rather than go back and mark each card they simply used it on the new ones. DLT, though, is more interesting. He's been deleted from the file.'
'Why's that?'
'I don't know. It doesn't say. It never would.
Some transgression. With his family background it had to be something big. Something that made the school want to wash its hands of him.' She looked up at me. 'This is getting interesting, isn't it?'
'Very.'
She put the cards back in the envelope and locked it in her desk.
'I'll take you to Van der Graaf now.'
22
A gilded cage of an elevator took us to the fifth floor of a domed building on the west side of the campus. It relaxed its jaws and let us out into a silent rotunda, wainscoted in marble and veneered with dust. The ceiling was concave plaster upon which a now faded mural of cherubs blowing bugles had been painted: we were inside the shell of the dome. The walls were stone and gave off an odor of rotting paper. A stationary diamond - paned window separated two oak doors. One was labeled MAP ROOM and looked as if it hadn't been opened in generations. The other was blank.
Margaret knocked on the unadorned door and, when no answer was forthcoming, pushed it open. The room it revealed was highceilinged and spacious, with cathedral windows that afforded a view of the harbor. Every free inch of wall space was taken up by bookshelves crammed haphazardly with ragged volumes. Those books that hadn't found a resting place in the shelves sat in precariously balanced stacks on the floor. In the center of the room was a trestle table piled high with manuscripts and still more books. A globe on a wheeled stand and an ancient claw - footed desk were pushed in a corner. A McDonald's take - out box and a couple of crumpled, greasy napkins sat atop the desk.
'Professor?' said Margaret. To me: 'I wonder where he's gone.'
'Peek - a - boo!' The sound came from somewhere behind the trestle table.
Margaret jumped and her purse flew out of her hands. The contents spilled on the floor.
A gnarled head peeked around the curled edges of a pile of yellowed paper.
'Sorry to startle you, dear.' The head came into view, thrown back in silent laughter.
'Professor,' said Margaret, 'shame on you.' She bent to retrieve the scattered debris.
He came out from behind the table looking sheepish. Until that point I'd thought he was sitting. But when the head didn't rise in my sight I realized he'd been standing all along.
He was four feet and a few inches tall. His body was of conventional size but it was bent at the waist, the spine twisted in an S, the deformed back burdened with a hump the size of a tightly packed knapsack. His head seemed too large for his frame, a wrinkled egg topped by a fringe of wispy white hair. When he moved he resembled a drowsy scorpion.
He wore an expression of mock contrition but the twinkle in the rheumy blue eyes said far more than did the downturned, lipless mouth.
'Can I help you, dear?' His voice was dry and cultured.
Margaret gathered the last personal effects from the floor and put them in her purse.
'No, thank you, Professor. I've got it all.' She caught her breath and tried to look composed.
'Will you still come with me on our pizza picnic?'
'Only if you behave yourself.'
He put his hands together, as if in prayer.
'I promise, dear,' he said.
'All right. Professor, this is Bill Roberts, the journalist I spoke to you about. Bill, Professor Garth Van der Graaf.' /
'Hello, Professor.'
He looked up at me from under sleepy lids.
'You don't look like Clark Kent,' he said.
'I beg your pardon.'
'Aren't newspaper reporters supposed to look like Clark Kent?'
'I wasn't aware of that specific union regulation.'
'I was interviewed by a reporter after the War - the big one. Number two - pardon the scatological entendre. He wanted to know what place the war would have in history. He looked like Clark Kent.' He ran one hand over his liver - spotted scalp. 'Don't you have a pair of glasses or something young man?'
