pupils of his eyes, put his ear on the Dean’s chest. Then he said the Dean was dead! And he wouldn’t let any of us leave!”
“A sensible young man,” said Carmine.
“Maybe so,” said Terence Arrowsmith grimly, “but it sure destroyed a day of classes! The ambulance guys called the cops, and the next thing we knew, everybody was talking poison. Bill Partridge said it was cyanide.”
“Did he, indeed? Upon what did he base that assumption, Mr. Arrowsmith?”
“A smell of almonds. But I didn’t smell any almonds, and neither did Charlie Tindale. Two did, two didn’t. Not good enough,” said Mr. Arrowsmith.
“Did Dean Denbigh say anything from the moment he began sipping his tea until he died?”
“He
“What about the paper packet enclosing the tea bag? You said the Dean dropped it on the cart. Did anyone go near it?”
“Not while I was in the study, sir, and I didn’t leave until the criminal pathology technicians came in.”
“Did he simply drop it, or did he crumple it up?”
“He ripped it open to get the tea bag, then dropped it.”
Which marked the end of Terence Arrowsmith’s useful information. And, as it turned out, of the usefulness of all four students. Even Mr. William Partridge, the scientific one, could add nothing to Terence Arrowsmith’s admirably sedate description of events. All Partridge was concerned about was cyanide. So when Carmine was done with them, he breathed a sigh of relief and headed around the corner to the Dean’s wife’s study.
She too was senior in the college; he had found that much out sitting at his desk in County Services. What he wasn’t prepared for was her absolute detachment. A tall woman whom a great many men would call extremely attractive, she had a mass of red-gold hair pulled into a soft bun on her neck, a creamily flawless skin that didn’t show her age, chiseled features that reminded Carmine of a Grace Kelly without the vulnerability, and a pair of yellow eyes. A lioness, if ever he had seen one.
Her handclasp was firm and dry; she put Carmine into a comfortable chair and seated herself in what he assumed was “her” chair when she wasn’t behind her desk.
“My condolences for your loss, Dr. Denbigh,” he said.
She blinked slowly, considering his statement. “Yes, I suppose it is a loss,” she said in a light, clipped voice, “but luckily I have tenure, so John’s death doesn’t affect my career. Of course I’ll have to move out of the Dean’s apartment, but until Lysistrata College is finished in 1970-I’m in the running for Dean-I’ll live in a room upstairs among the girls.”
“Won’t you find that confining?” Carmine asked, fascinated at where she was leading their conversation.
“Not really,” she answered, composure unruffled. “John took up four-fifths of the space in our apartment. Most of my living is done here, in this room.”
A twin of the Dean’s, and no less spacious. He gazed at the rows of books, which seemed to be mostly in German. “I believe you’re a great authority on the poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke, Dr. Denbigh,” he said.
She looked surprised, as if policemen townies were not supposed to know that name. “Yes, as a matter of fact, I am.”
“Under different circumstances it would be a pleasure to have a chat with you, as I’m a Rilke fan, but I’m afraid it’s the death of your husband that concerns me today.” He frowned. “From your manner, Dr. Denbigh, I might be pardoned for thinking that your marriage was a rather distant one?”
“Yes, it was,” said she. “I see no point in dissimulation. If you talk to any of the faculty attached to Dante, they’ll tell you the same. John and I had a marriage of convenience. To be dean, a man has to be married, and the possession of a scholar for a wife is an advantage. Put plainly, I am frigid. John was prepared to overlook that. His own sexual tastes ran to young girls, though he was always very careful. He had to be! His ambition was to be president of an Ivy League university, and he had all the prerequisites, including an ancestor off the
“Was there anything different about him yesterday morning?”
“No, not really. If anything, his mood was somewhat sunnier than usual. I remarked on it to him over breakfast-we ate in the dining hall-and he laughed, said he’d had good news.”
“Did he tell you what this good news was?”
The yellow eyes widened. “
“How did you feel when you were told what had happened?”
“Stunned. Yes, I think that’s the most accurate word to describe my feelings. John just wasn’t the kind of man to be murdered-at least, not in this way, and inside his own study. Nor by such a subtle method, if one may call a brief agony subtle.”
“What kind of murder wouldn’t have left you so stunned?”
“Oh, something violent. Shot-beaten to death-stabbed. No matter how careful one might be, it’s dangerous to philander with young girls. They have fathers, big brothers, boyfriends. I never remember his being afraid of the consequences, because of his special genius, and it was genius! Any one affair lasted from three to six months, depending upon the girl’s sexuality allied to her intellectual stupidity-he didn’t choose them for their brains. But the moment he began to tire of a girl, he became carping, critical, unpleasant. It usually took two weeks for her to break off the relationship, convinced that the grievances were all hers.”
“He satisfied her self-esteem, you mean.”
“Precisely. And he did have a genius for it, Captain! He played those silly young things like a virtuoso plays a violin. And when she broke it off, the girl would be terrified of being found out, since she was leaving it behind her.”
“Did he foul his own nest, Dr. Denbigh?”
“Never. A Dante girl-this is the first year we’ve had girls, of course-was absolutely safe. He picked up his prey in Joey’s Pancake Diner on Cedar Street. I gather that’s a haunt for kids from East Holloman State College and the Beckworth Secretarial College. He rented a little apartment in Mulvery Street, just a walk from the diner, and went by the name of Gary Hopkins, which he said had a plebeian ring. To the best of my knowledge, he was never found out.”
“Sooner or later he would have been.”
“Then I’m profoundly glad about whoever put the cyanide in his tea, Captain.”
Wow! thought Carmine, leaving Dante College some time later. Dean John Kirkbride Denbigh was quite a guy. Until his murder, luck had smiled on him. With a patricianly beautiful wife whose scholarship matched his own and whose frigidity allowed him to indulge a perilous penchant for undergraduate girls, he couldn’t lose. That is, if what his wife said was accurate. And there was no reason for her to lie; dead or alive, Dean Denbigh had ensured that her career would prosper. Still, rarely had he encountered such a cold fish. Had her husband been equally detached? No, probably not. He at least had appetites above and beyond scholarship. How old was he? Thirty-six. Plenty of time left to scramble up the academic ladder, not toward a full professorship in his field, but toward university administration. M.M., who was President of Chubb, still had a full ten years in the job, but the Secretary of Chubb, Henry Howard, was due to retire in four years. Odd that Mawson MacIntosh was always known as M.M., whereas Hank Howard had never managed to become H.H.
Midafternoon: time to return to County Services and see what his men had learned.
Abe and Corey shared an office, but when Carmine walked in, only Abe was there, head bent over sheaves of paper.
“How goes it, Abe?” he asked.
“Skeps’s murder is one not short on suspects,” Abe said. “By tomorrow I ought to have a paper trail a mile long for you.”
“Fantastic,” said Carmine, going out the opposite door.
A quick visit to Patrick revealed no further progress, so he went down to the basement parking lot, climbed back into his Ford Fairlane while its engine was still cooling down, and drove out to the Cartwright residence, himself behind the wheel. He just wasn’t in the mood to hang around waiting for a driver, and he had Delia for his paperwork anyway.
