“Well, well,” she said, “if Harvard isn’t a pretty little nest of sedition! Are you sure you haven’t left anything out? There must have been a chorus girl or two somewhere in the background. Gosh, I can almost hear the Borgias turning in their graves.”
“A delightful tale, the kind of thing the Watch and Ward Society holds meetings over.”
“About Appleton,” she mused. “I’m young and innocent, but I don’t quite see how it would work out.”
He frowned. “I can’t figure it, either. The answer must be that he was making what is commonly called a play for Singer. I imagine he was unsuccessful, because, despite his many faults, I don’t believe the professor went in for that kind of ‘thing. Forget about it. How has Singer been acting lately?”
She pondered prettily, wrinkling her forehead. Miss Mahan’s face had been the subject of many technical discussions by undergraduate experts, who generally conceded that, next to her smile, her expression while musing became her most. She was not unaware of this.
“I’d say offhand that he’s been his usual smug self. Of course, I only see him darting in and out of his office, but Miss Slade has been acting queerly, if it’s possible to say that she acts at all.”
“Very good. Now about Father Hadley. Has he been on the scene this morning?”
“Oh, yes, bright and early. He’s trying unsuccessfully to hide his joy under a mantle of gloom. I’ve often suspected him of harboring illusions of grandeur.”
“That’s good, too, but don’t let your prose style get out of hand.” He patted her head, getting up. “Where shall I be apt to find him?”
“He’s showing a Personage around the Museum; you’ll probably find him in the galleries. Thanks so much, Mr. Jones, for your confidences.”
“Not at all. I think the situation calls for a celebration of some kind. How about dinner tonight regardless of whether the culprit has been apprehended or not?”
“Love it,” she smiled.
“Fine. If I don’t see you before, I’ll pick you up at six-thirty. Keep your eye on Miss Slade.”
The Fogg Museum has a fine collection of paintings. But the small galleries are usually devoid of pedestrians except before exams, when they are filled with anxious undergraduates trying frantically to learn all the pictures by heart on the off chance that they will be questioned about them. Knowledge and appreciation by fear of failure — a pity, but nevertheless inevitable, opined Jupiter.
He found Hadley in a gallery on the second floor. He was with an exquisite little man with wavy hair. Exquisite little men with wavy hair are not an oddity in the Fogg Museum, or in any museum, for that matter, so Jupiter was not surprised. He must be the Personage. Professor Hadley was discoursing on the merits of a Giotto — the Giotto, to be perfectly frank, thought Jupiter. His reason for hunting up Hadley was to find how that gentleman was taking Singer’s death. It was purely an academic interest. From the hall he watched Hadley’s short gestures as he remarked on the skill of the artist. God, thought Jupiter, you’d never imagine that he’d heard there’d been a murder. When Hadley saw Jupiter his whole expression changed; the memory of the tragedy came back to him. It was like the reverse process of a man awaking from a nightmare.
“Ah, Jones, good morning. Come in. I was just showing Mr. Renier about the Museum. He has come all the way from Paris to see our collection. He has — er — come, it seems, at a — er — rather unfortunate time.” He was struggling. “Mr. Renier, this is Mr. Jones, who — er — found Professor Singer’s body last evening.”
There it goes again, groaned Jupiter.
“Oh yes, I recognize Mr. Jones from the newspaper— the photograph, it was a good likeness.” He spoke with what is often called a charming French accent.
Jupiter bowed. He could think of nothing to say.
Hadley filled the gap, “Mr. Renier is an art dealer. His office is in Paris.”
Suddenly Jupiter remembered where he had heard the man’s name before. He was going to Mrs. Fairchild’s musicale.
“Oh yes, of course; I’ve heard of you,” said Jupiter. You could lay it on thick with these people; they ate it up. “As a matter of fact, aren’t you going to Mrs. Fairchild’s musicale tonight?”
Monsieur Renier looked startled. “Ah, oui! I believe Monsieur Burnhart of the Boston Museum asked me to go with him.”
Hadley broke in: “But Mrs. Fairchild telephoned me this morning and said she was going to cancel it. It is very unfortunate. They are always delightful.”
This was the first Jupiter had heard of it. Actually he had forgotten about it when he asked Betty to have dinner with him. Perhaps it is better to call it off, he mused, but it would have been an amazing gathering; I’d have given a lot to see the Sampsons, Hadley, Fitzgerald, and the Fairchilds in one room to-night.
Renier was chattering. “But I cannot understand your American newspapers. In France when one is murdered the press is full of details — his mistresses, his enemies, all are mentioned. But here, pouf! There is nothing!”
If you only knew, thought Jupiter.
Renier continued: “He was stabbed, I read. Now to me that would suggest a woman. . . .”
Somewhere in the back of Jupiter’s mind something clicked. Stabbed! That was the word, the one word that brought back the point he had missed the night before.
He whooped. The mouths of Hadley and the Frenchman dropped open.
“Excuse me,” said Jupiter, “but what you’ve just said, Mr. Renier, may help a lot. I can’t tell. Glad to have seen you.”
He rushed out. They stared after him.
“That young man is perhaps mad?” Renier asked incredulously.
Hadley was mute.
As Jupiter tore down the stairs he laughed at his own stupidity.
“To think,” he muttered, “that a light-weight Frenchman would be the one to make me remember this! Of course, things happened pretty swiftly last night, but I bet the Inspector would have
