She walked back to where she had left the men. The campus was quiet and cold, lights on in the buildings but not many people about. Why should anybody be out? It was freezing. She should be at home herself, instead of begging the flu bugs to assault her.
The men returned from different directions in a couple of minutes.
“Every door locked,” said the older one.
She thought for a minute. “Do you think anybody’s even in there?” she asked.
The younger one said he’d seen a light on down in one of the window wells.
“A locker room,” she said.
She told them to wait and watch the building in case McPhee came out. She herself would return to the Homestead and call Felix Grayson, who had a pass key to the gym.
“If I had my tools, I could jimmy it,” said the older one.
“Why don’t we just kick it down?” said the younger one. She was tempted. She felt like kicking somebody’s tail. But then what would that headmaster say about the unnecessary damage to his facilities?
“No,” she said. “We just want to question the guy. It’s not as if we’ve got some emergency.”
SCENE 11
Coach McPhee had the knife out as he talked to Thomas.
“Angus and I used to drink some together,” he said. “Not a lot. Neither of us was much of a drinker. But we’d talk, you know, about basketball or about the school. Did you know he went deep-sea fishing in Cuba every summer before it went Communist? Said he never saw Hemingway. There was a lot to Angus.”
Thomas had been permitted to put on his shirt. It had not helped his trembling.
“One night he showed me an old hidden tunnel,” said McPhee. “It opened out the back of one of those closets in his lair. Made me swear I’d never tell anybody. This is the first moment I have violated that oath. I want you to know that.”
So there was a tunnel, Thomas thought. And with nauseating insight he realized that McPhee had told him because he would never have an opportunity to reveal the secret.
“I think Angus knew I was slipping,” said McPhee. “He’d encouraged me to resign before Thanksgiving. He was more observant than you’d think. That night of the mixer, he was over here hunting for me. He’d looked at me awfully funny when Russell Phillips died, and I think he figured maybe he could prevent any more trouble. Angus was tough, but he was no match for me physically.”
Thomas said, “I’m going to be sick.”
“Go ahead,” said McPhee. “It’s going to be messy enough in here in a minute anyway.”
That was when Thomas started to cry.
“Angus had been patrolling the building. I was hiding in the wrestling room when he came in and scared the hell out of Cynthia Warden,” said McPhee. “After she left, I found him downstairs and had it out with him. He was a tough old bastard, toughest neck muscles I’ve ever seen. I finally had to improvise a strangulation with my coach’s whistle. It’s horrible, isn’t it?”
“Let me go,” said Thomas.
“I’m not finished.” McPhee slid the blade of the knife across his left palm as if he were honing it. “I want you to hear all of this so you will know that I’m aware of just how awful a monster I am. Do you understand me?”
Thomas said he did.
“I dragged Angus’s body into the tunnel, thinking that it would just be there for a couple of hours, until I could drive it off campus in his car. You can see how I was thinking then—a fake automobile accident, an unfortunate fire. I’d have taken him off campus right away if it hadn’t been for all those people around for the mixer. Instead—I don’t know why I did this, really I don’t—I went back upstairs. I unlocked the weight room and thought maybe I’d work out in the dark up there. You know how physical exercise is good for releasing tension? And then I heard a couple of kids sneak in downstairs. I ducked over to the wrestling room. I didn’t want to go home. The wrestling room was nice and peaceful. And then Staines showed up. He took that girl straight to the room where I was hiding. I wonder what would have happened if his date hadn’t wanted to go to the bathroom. I should have killed her too, but I didn’t. I think part of me wanted to get caught. That’s why I saved all that evidence—the socks, the button, the ticket stub. The handkerchief I picked up in my own apartment in front of half a dozen people, and nobody noticed. I’ve given them so many opportunities to catch me, really, but I’ve been smart, too.”
He stopped moving the knife. “You see, I have a strong survival instinct as well.”
SCENE 12
Warden sat in the living room of the Homestead with Horace and Kathleen Somerville and told them about his telephone call earlier today from the chairman of the English department at Columbia University.
“He wants to hire me,” said Warden. He took a sip of his coffee. “I’d be writer-in-residence and teach one course per term.”
“That’s terrible,” said Horace Somerville. He had started his second scotch and water.
“Horace,” said Kathleen.
Somerville said it was terrible for Montpelier School. “It’s a fine personal opportunity, if that’s all you care about,” he said. Warden could see he was pleased.
Kathleen asked if this offer came unexpectedly.
“No,” said Warden. “He’d made me the offer before. I’ve been keeping secrets from you.” He told them that it had started a few weeks ago, when he was in New York over the Thanksgiving holidays. “I interviewed with him before the reading on Saturday. Then several of them had a party for me that night. It was flattering.”
Somerville asked him
