'Yes,' agreed Wolfe. 'It was indeed.'
'But useful? She said Jeremy told her nothing about his work. Bees and nuclear war? Swarm intelligence? Despite what she said about the Pentagon's interest, I still don't see how they connect.'
Wolfe frowned. 'Apparently Fletcher did. If we could get at his computer files, perhaps we would, too.'
Benjamin squinted over at Wolfe.
'Look, I'm certainly not telling you how to do your job, but it's just… well, you seem to be investigating this incident as though it was a murder, not a security leak.'
Wolfe looked at him without reaction. 'And?'
'And why do I get the feeling you don't really believe Jeremy leaked anything to anyone?'
Wolfe frowned at him. 'Oh, but he did,' he said. 'Just not yet.'
'Not yet?' The grotesque session with Mrs. Gadenhower had left him little patience for playing games. 'What does that mean?'
'Ah,' Wolfe observed, ignoring Benjamin's question and looking down the path. 'Here's someone who probably agrees with me.'
Benjamin turned, saw a figure approaching them on the path. The man was very tall, very solidly built, with closely cropped very blond hair. He was dressed in a dark suit and tie and wearing sunglasses. He strode purposefully but without hurry toward them.
'Samuel,' he said, extending his hand. Wolfe stood and took it and they shook hands somewhat abruptly. 'And this must be Benjamin.' Benjamin rose and shook his hand also. 'Eric Hauser,' he said. His grip was strong, brief. 'Campus security.'
'Campus?' Benjamin asked.
'That's what we call our little community, the campus,' said Hauser, smiling broadly.
'An ivy-covered retreat, far from the strife and worries of the civilian world,' added Wolfe. 'Out where a man can hear himself think.'
Hauser looked at him. 'That's what they're paid to do, Samuel.'
'And paid very well,' Wolfe answered. 'And, I assume, they carry full life insurance?'
'Look, Samuel,' Hauser glanced nervously at Benjamin, 'I know we've had our differences in the past. But I'm sure you understand why Dr. Fletcher's… untimely death, as tragic as it was, can't be allowed to tarnish the reputation of the Foundation. Why we need this all settled as quickly as possible.' Wolfe didn't respond. 'If there's anything I can do to help your inquiry along-'
'Now that you mention it,' Wolfe said, 'there is. We'd like to get a list of all the computer registration numbers on the… campus. Who has what shiny toys, that sort of thing.'
'Everyone?' asked Hauser. 'I don't see how that's possibly relevant.'
'Wouldn't you say a missing computer would be relevant? I know it would certainly worry other government beneficiaries.'
Hauser looked dubious. 'Dr. Fletcher's computer is missing?'
Wolfe smiled. 'How do we know what's missing until we know what everyone's supposed to have?'
Hauser stared at Wolfe, his friendly manner of earlier evaporated.
'I'll have to check with Arthur about that,' he said frostily.
'Fine,' said Wolfe. 'And tell him, every hour you're checking with him is an hour closer to our deadline. And his.'
Hauser seemed about to say something to Wolfe, but stopped himself. He smiled at Benjamin and said, 'Good to meet you, Mr. Wainwright,' and continued on down the pathway.
After he'd left, Benjamin turned to Wolfe.
'You two have a history?'
'In a manner of speaking,' Wolfe said, still looking after Hauser's retreating figure.
Benjamin lost his patience.
'Look, everyone we've met, everywhere you go here, there seems to be history. How can I help you sort something out when I don't even know what it is we're looking for? Or why they picked us to look for it.'
Wolfe looked at him, suddenly very serious.
'Not why us, Benjamin. Why me. '
Benjamin looked slightly hurt. Wolfe patted his arm.
'I'm sorry. Don't take me too seriously. Not until I tell you to, anyway.' He smiled that charming smile.
Benjamin suddenly felt quite fond of Samuel Wolfe; he also felt for the first time that he could trust Wolfe, completely.
'I need to check on a few things with Arthur,' said Wolfe. 'I'll meet you back in your room in, say, an hour?'
Benjamin nodded, and Wolfe walked off in the same direction Hauser had taken.
When he got back to his room, Benjamin was surprised to find a maid there. The bed was made, the room looked straightened up-but he wondered why the maid was there now, rather than in the morning. She had a vacuum cleaner out and was pushing the sweeper back and forth across the bare floor. She was just about to shove it under the bed when he entered.
'Excuse me,' he said.
She turned, frightened and caught off guard.
'I'm sorry,' he said, 'but could you do that later? I'd really like to take a nap.'
'Of course,' she said. She switched off the vacuum, rolled the cord up, and, with a 'Good afternoon, sir,' she left.
Benjamin retrieved his briefcase from the dresser, opened it. Inside was a thick, leather-bound journal. Its neatly ruled pages were filled with notes in a small, precise handwriting, and the journal itself was stuffed with sheets of paper, Xerox copies, pictures… it looked just like what it was: a fanatically methodical academic's scrapbook. Or, as his father had called it, his 'treasury.'
Benjamin took the journal, sat down in a chair at the small table, opened the cover.
Journal of Dr. Thomas Woodrow Wainwright was written there in the same precise hand.
The writing was so like his father: solid, staid, respectable. And slightly obsessive in its neatness.
Yet, for all his compulsiveness, there'd been nothing arrogant about his father. In fact, the two things he disliked most in others were arrogance and intolerance.
'They go hand in hand, Benjamin,' his father had said once. They'd been discussing one of his colleagues at Georgetown, an academic with a brilliant career-one built almost entirely by demolishing the careers of others. 'Believing you have the flawless answer,' he'd said, 'is perhaps the biggest flaw of all.'
Benjamin felt the usual twinge of regret that his father hadn't lived to see him complete his own degree, start his own career…
He shook off the sentiment. He began flipping through pages, looking for the copies of the few known letters of Harlan Bainbridge which he knew his father had copied verbatim into the notebook.
The first was a letter Harlan had written to his aunt soon after his group arrived on the land Coddington had purchased where they might begin their 'New Jerusalem,' their utopian Prayer Town, a place far beyond all other English settlements of the time. Above the letter his father had written Establishes claim to land; chronicles exodus from New Jersey, and then the text of the letter: Honor'd Aunte- -I've sent this with Elder Sassamon in greate haste, and he is trusted and that God's Speed did see him to you is my prayer-for the papers here be disposed as quickly as you mighte seeke a counsel with the Capetown Elders, that they may Recognise and Grante our Claime.
– Nosce teipsum reade the Scriptures, and this done, and trusting in the Wisdome of the Lord, so with my few and trusted people this Lent just passe'd fled much as Brother Bradford fled the Dutch truse with Spain, the Inquisition promising too near and hot a fire for his heels-and, passeing through the County of Mattekeesets and thought to abide meantimes in the Plantation of Providence, onely to find there no reall peace from Persecution and in feare of Salus Populi and againe, as the wandering Israelites, faceing West-so made discovery of this place by the Savages called Pettaquamscutt, but with the agreement of the whole community drawne as the Christian settlement of Bainbridge Plantation.
[an entire half page was illegible]
… but the Savages revere this place as welle, and their pagan gods be of a like not so tamne as weake, and
