Professor Singer’s body was found at eight o’clock on a cold, wet, March night. The police arrived at eight-fifteen. The undergraduates arrived at eight-sixteen. They continued to arrive, gape, and depart, until the police left.
The word went around: —
“Hey! There’s been a murder!”
“There always is.”
“No, I mean here — a professor!”
“Really!”
“Who?”
“Don’t know. In Hallowell House.”
“Let’s go over.”
“O. K.”
“I hear someone was murdered.”
“Who was it?”
“Dunno.”
“Someone in Fine Arts.”
“Singer, I think.”
“Never heard of him.”
“I had a course with him last year. A bastard.”
“Murder!”
“Singer.”
“Murder.”
Mr. Swayle edged his way through the crowd of undergraduates that had formed outside Hallowell House. Many of them knew him and stopped him to ask questions.
“Yes, Professor Singer was killed — with his own knife — that’s all I can tell you.” He said the same thing to everyone, as if he knew a lot more, too important to tell.
The House Master’s Lodgings, as they are called, are a separate building, connected to the main House on the opposite side from Singer’s room. It’s possible, thought Mr. Swayle, that he hasn’t heard anything.
He rang the bell and the door was opened by Professor Sampson himself.
“Oh, it’s you, Swayle. What’s the trouble?”
“Well, sir, it’s — it’s — ” He wasn’t at all sure that he should have taken it upon himself to tell the authorities. “It’s about Professor Singer — he’s—”
“What about him?”
“He’s been — he’s dead — he’s been murdered.” It was out.
“Murdered? You’re quite sure?”
“Yes, sir, the police are there now in his room.”
“Good Lord! I’ll come right over.”
“The police said you’d better tell the President, sir.”
“Yes, of course, of course. Thank you, Swayle. This is horrible!”
“Yes, sir,” said Mr. Swayle, departing.
Professor Sampson closed the door and leaned back against it, spreading out his hands at his sides. Tall and thin, a narrow face, a beaked nose and lined mouth, he justified his name of “The Eagle of Economics.” His hands moved slowly up and down the cool paneling of the door, then he called: —
“Ruth! Ruth!”
His wife appeared at the top of the stairs; the light hanging in the hall shone on her face. Subconsciously he noticed she was paler than usual.
“Yes?” She had started slowly down the stairs.
“Albert — Albert Singer has been murdered.”
She stopped. One hand twisted the sleeve of her dress into a ball. “Oh!” It was little better than a moan. “Oh!”
“I’ll have to go over there — the police,” he spoke softly.
“Yes, of course. Go over there — you must.” She hadn’t moved. “Of course.”
If I don’t telephone, thought Miss Slade, if I just sit here and don’t telephone —
“I’ve got to stop thinking,” she said definitely, getting up. She went into the kitchen, poured some milk into a saucepan, and put it on the floor for the cat. Idly she watched the animal stretch herself toward it, her front legs bent, back legs out straight.
For twenty-three years Miss Slade had been at Harvard; before that she had taught school in a small town in New Hampshire. Twenty-three years as an underpaid, overworked secretary at Harvard. It was a long time, nearly six generations of students. And fifteen of those years as secretary to Albert Singer. That, too, was a long time. She was Miss Slade of the Fogg Museum; outside that, she had no identity. It being Wednesday, she wore a black dress with lace collar and cuffs. This was her Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday dress; on Monday, Tuesday, and Saturday she wore a flowered print. Jupiter had once remarked that he would like to take off her clothes to see if she had any breasts. It was one of the few personal remarks ever made about her. Every Friday night she went to the movies at the Loew’s State Theatre in Boston; there weren’t two people in Cambridge who knew this.
The cat had finished the milk. She picked up the dish, rinsed it in the sink, and went back to the other room. She lay down on the sofa and read three pages in a book called Youthful Folly, then she closed the book. She pressed both hands to her forehead and sighed. If I don’t telephone, if I don’t telephone — I should get up and wash those stockings, but if I don’t telephone —
She got up, took a nickel from her purse, and went out to the hall telephone.
The warm soapy water playing over his hands and through his fingers sent a luxurious glow through his body. He looked at his pale, oversensitive face in the mirror and said aloud: —
“I am a true being; I recognize myself in me.”
Peter Appleton had had a private tutor before he came to college. Thus he had escaped the rigors, companionships, and dullness of a preparatory school education. In Harvard, where the standing of your school makes 90 per cent of your friends for you in your freshman year, he had lapsed into the comparative anonymity which that institution affords. But not for long. Inevitably he had joined one of the many too-intelligent-for-Harvard groups and had flourished. These dilettante, overrich gatherings of pseudo-thinkers have given Harvard in some places a name that it doesn’t bother to live down. You don’t
