Chapter Eight

but we, at haphazard

And unseasonably, are brought face to face

By ones, Clio, with your silence. . . .

your silence already is there.

Between us and any magical center

Where things are taken in hand.

The next morning Kate was able to reach on the telephone a young man presently teaching at the College whose dissertation she was directing. He had been a member of her Victorian Seminar several years back and had, after one-and-a-half semesters of the soundest work on the Corn Laws, Reform Bill, Carlyle, and John Stuart Mill, developed a frivolous and unaccountable passion for Max Beerbohm: not his life, nor his times, nor even his works as such, but his sentences. Since it is impossible to study all of a writer’s sentences in the ordinary way without a century of time, the young man (whose name was Higgenbothom, but whom Kate always thought of as Enoch Soames) had soon entangled himself with computers. With something between relief and dismay, Kate had handed him over to a stylistics expert, though she had remained on the dissertation committee. Higgenbothom agreed to come and see her at four, relieved and mystified to learn that his dissertation would not be the subject under discussion.

Having arranged that matter, Kate settled down to the reading of some student papers, and was soon lost in wonder at the inability of highly intelligent students properly to construct a sentence. It occurred to her to wonder if computers might be enlisted in her constant struggle against wobbly syntax and sociological jargon. “Being a young writer, the novel was filled with fresh ideas,” was typical of sentences which greeted Kate’s wondering eyes. Nor was this the worst. She read with horror of the subdued dynamics of Ruskin’s interpersonal relations and could not at once hit upon a comment for the margin which was both succinct and mentionable in a scholarly ambience. Thinking of Max Beerbohm and then of her bright, reform-minded young students, Kate marveled not for the first time at the inverse correlation between moral outrage and sentence structure: apparently one could be radical or syntactical but not both; a disturbing thought. And where, Kate thought, her mind dwelling on interpersonal relations, would Reed have got in his investigations?

Reed, at that moment, was vamping the secretary of the College English Department, a pitifully easy thing to do. He had been considering, on the subway, alternate possible approaches to a subject which, simply stated, was a demand to be told when Cudlipp received the bottle of pills, and where and how and what he did with them. The question was how to counter the inevitable “Who are you and why do you want to know?” which, while easily answered in a way, would immediately put the lady on her guard and negate the possibility of always-useful gossip. As it turned out, he need not have concerned himself. Miss Elton was a type with which he was agonizingly familiar. She appeared to have been born with a smirk on her face; she was one of those whose chief reward in life lies in snubbing others, particularly women. But let any male treat her in a truly manly fashion—that is, combining the worst features of a spoiled teenager and an aging roué—and she would bat her eyelashes as readily as their great load of mascara allowed, and succumb. Before you could say Blazes Boylan, Reed was sitting on the edge of her desk discussing bottles of pills. Auden of course. Reed thought, had got it perfectly:

So pocket your fifty sonnets, Bud;

tell Her a myth

Of unpunishable gods and all the girls

they interfered with.

“He and his wife had separated,” Miss Elton confided. “I know because I filled out the application for him to the University housing office; he wanted a small apartment for just him, with a room for the kids to stay once in a while. But the pills were delivered as usual to his regular apartment, and his wife dropped them off here the morning he died. I took them into his office, and he said ‘Thank God, I just took the last two,’ and he showed me that little gidget he always carried them in was empty. He began opening the bottle, which always made him swear because it was sealed—like whiskey you know—and then he started telling me all the things I had to do while he filled the tube with the pills.”

“What things?”

“Well, I’d made the appointments the day before with those jerks from the University College—Cudlipp couldn’t stand them, but for some reason he decided to see them; we all supposed Clemance had talked him into it. I heard Cudlipp talking to Clemance recently when they walked out of here and Cudlipp said, ‘All right, I’ll see those students, but if one of them tries to pressure me, I’ll throw him out.’ He used to, you know.”

Reed raised his eyebrows provocatively.

“Throw people out,” she said, giggling. “He would open the door and yell ‘Get out!’ and if they didn’t, he’d put his hands on their chests and push. With men of course. He didn’t see women much in his office.”

“Was there any chance he would have considered hiring women teachers in the College?” Reed asked, remembering what Emilia Airhart had told Kate.

“I hope not. What a dreary bunch they are, all brains and messy hair. The College boys wouldn’t go for that, believe me. If we ever get women working around here, I quit; I’d never work for a woman.”

“Did all the people Cudlipp had appointments with come to his office or did he go to theirs?”

“You a detective or something?”

“As a matter of fact, I am, but keep it secret, honey. It’ll be a real feather in my cap if I can clear things up—you know, universities don’t like hanky-panky.”

“You ever been a spy?”

“I go where the money is, so long as there’s plenty of it. So all of Cudlipp’s appointments came here?”

“Yeh. Here’s the appointment sheet, Mr. Bond. Though really, I ought to turn my back so you could steal the page underneath the one I wrote the appointments on—the one with the impressions of the writing.”

“I’d rather have the writing and impressions of you. Did they all show up on time?” Reed asked, reading the list.

“More or less. He’d allotted half an hour for those students, but he threw them out after fifteen minutes, so he saw Clemance and O’Toole earlier than is down there. I called them and said he was ready. So in they came and shouted a lot, but I couldn’t hear about what. Academic stuff, anyhow.”

“Do you mean he put his hands on the chests of the students and pushed?”

“One of the men. ‘Get out!’ he screamed, ‘and stay out. Go back to that half-baked school you come from.’ ”

“Some language from an English professor.”

“Yeh. Then he lowered his voice real low and said, ‘Miss Elton, tell Mr. Clemance I’m free now.’ ” Reed had heard Cudlipp only once, but the imitation seemed to him not bad.

“Who do you suppose will be in charge of things around here now?”

“Search me. Of course, there’s a new piece of inside dope every other minute, but I figure I’ll wait and see. If I don’t like the guy, I’ll split. There are plenty of jobs.”

“There must be lots of high-paying jobs for an efficient, attractive girl like you. Why work in a college where they pay less than a business does?”

“I like being around literary types—I like an intellectual atmosphere. And the young English professors are real brainy and cute.”

“Like Robert O’Toole?”

“He’s not young—he’s a full professor—and what a stuffed shirt! Thinks he’s a big deal. Mr. Know-it-all. Tries to imitate Clemance. Now there’s a nice old man, really dignified and cool. Always calls me Miss Elton. But he’s fading away.”

“Clemance? He can’t be that old, surely. Barely sixty.”

“That’s ancient. I feel sorry for the old coot. His days of greatness are behind him.”

“Sic transit etcetera. Tell me, Miss Elton . . .”

“Jennifer.”

“Jennifer. Did Cudlipp ever go to the men’s room, or to someone else’s office, and leave his tube of pills on his desk?”

“Look, sweetie, I’m the secretary here, not anyone’s valet. Your guess is as good as mine.”

“Well, thanks, Jennifer; see you around.”

“Anytime, poopsie. Take it easy.”

Reed waved to the other secretaries in the office who apparently typed for the lower ranks. It had been clear to him early on that Cudlipp and the other full professors in the English Department here were Jennifer Elton’s property and none of theirs, so he did not stop to question them. Well, Reed thought, consulting Cudlipp’s appointment sheet, here I go. And he headed across the campus to the building that housed the University College and Dean Frogmore.

To Reed’s mild surprise, Frogmore agreed to see him almost immediately. Apparently Castleman had cleared the ground.

“Come in, Mr. Amhearst. Please, don’t apologize. As a matter of fact, you give me the perfect excuse to get out of a rather boring meeting. I do hope we can settle this Cudlipp business—it’s very disturbing, you know.”

“Helpful, too, is it not, Dean Frogmore? Speaking frankly.”

“It could be very helpful, if we’re to be allowed to make use of it. Cudlipp had a great deal of direct power—and he liked to wield it. He was damn clever in the personal deals he made, and he was absolutely set on destroying University College; it was an obsession. Some of the students went to see him, you know, the same day I did, thinking to tell him how great this place is, and he literally threw them out of his office. Frankly, if I’d heard Peabody had hit Cudlipp over the head with a bat, I would have been grieved but not surprised. I’m sure I don’t need to mention that Peabody didn’t even know about this aspirin business.”

“Is there any chance I could talk to Peabody, do you think?”

“I’ll do the best I can for you; hold on a minute.” Frogmore went over and stuck his head out the door: “Miss Philips, would you see if you can locate John Peabody? And let me know when you do. It’s rather important. Thank you.” He shut the door and returned to his desk. Academic secretaries. Reed observed, were cherished; they were not issued orders over the telephone.

“Had you heard,” Reed asked, “that Cudlipp had attended the University College during his own undergraduate days?”

“I had heard, and it’s quite true, interestingly enough. This place was called the extension school then, and it had even less prestige, university-wise, than it has now.” (Reed wondered if Frogmore had used “university-wise” to Kate, who hated the word formation. “Do you know what the mama owl said to the papa owl?” Kate would ask; “How’s the baby wisewise?” The only harsh criticism she had ever been known to make of Auden had been on this score: “something odd was happening soundwise,” he had, unforgivably, written in a poem.) “I guess it’s the typical syndrome,” Frogmore said, blissfully unaware of his offense. “Cudlipp, we now know, was simply incapable of any objectivity on the question of University College. And, of course, he managed to carry the College faculty and alumni with him.”

“Of course. Snobbism transforms itself into intelligent discrimina-tion when practiced by ordinarily rational people.”

“That’s nice, Mr. Amhearst. I like that. You’ve heard that we began by trying to convince them that we were good—and then one day at luncheon Professors Castleman and Klein, whom you’ve met, told us we had to begin to attack politically. We did begin—with the Graduate English Department; and we were doing very well when this happened. “Don’t misunderstand me, Mr. Amhearst. With Cudlipp out of the way we have a much better chance. But O’Toole and some others have convinced the University that the whole issue can’t come before the Administrative Council while there’s any question about Cudlipp’s death. So, if there’s anything I can do to help you . . .”

“You’re certain in your own mind then that no one connected with the University College could have given him the aspirin?”

“Yes. That sort of thing just doesn’t occur to academic people, Mr. Amhearst.”

“You’d be surprised what occurs to academic people these days, Dean Frogmore, Let me tell you something about the D.A.’s Office that has changed since your now historical events last spring. It used to be if a college kid got into trouble, if anyone connected with the academic world got into trouble, the lawyer would come to the D.A.’s Office and say ‘Look, he’s a college kid, you don’t want to press charges.’ And we didn’t press charges. If you were connected with a university or college it was assumed you were probably straight; certainly you got the benefit of the doubt and then some. Now? All the D.A.’s Office has to hear is it’s a college kid, and they’re pressing charges so fast the lawyer can’t even follow the handwriting. As troublemakers, the members of the academic world have lost their amateur standing. The question here is: did you know about Cudlipp’s allergy to aspirin?”

“I did know, though I’d forgotten I knew. Bill McQuire reminded me. A while back he said something about Cudlipp being so tensed up he was living on those British pills of his. I thought Bill was referring to birth-control pills, actually, which is what the word ‘pill’ seems to mean these days, and I said I didn’t get it. Then Bill told me about Cudlipp’s headaches and how he couldn’t take ordinary aspirin. But believe it or not, Mr. Amhearst, the news just didn’t sink in; it wasn’t of interest.”

“Do you think the students knew of it?”

“I can’t imagine how. But my experience with students like Peabody is that they know everything there is to know, and a lot that hasn’t been thought up yet. I wonder if Miss Philips was able . . .”

“Dean Frogmore, what did you feel about Cudlipp personally? I mean, did you have the sense he was not a bad guy underneath, did you think he would give in in the end, had you become fond of him for all his prejudice and churlishness, or did you dislike him rather intensely? I’m not looking for a motive, sir. The motive is screaming itself all over the place. I’d just like a sense of the sort of feelings Cudlipp aroused in someone outside the English Department.”

“I hated him, and so did all of those in the inner circle of old-timers here. There’s no sense side-stepping that. I think the man was demented, if you want to know the truth, and so beside himself with vengeance and rage that he was perfectly capable of not knowing aspirin from peppermint Life Savers. I realize there is a lot of pressure from the College alumni, and I know the University is hard-up for funds right now—student disruption hardly stimulates giving—and that our alumni don’t fork it over the way the College alumni do, but none of that explains his animus. I don’t mind admitting that if I could have got Cudlipp an unrefusable offer from somewhere a thousand miles away, I would have grabbed at the chance; but that’s a long way from murder.”

“From all I’ve heard, part of Cudlipp’s dementia was his devotion to the College. Apparently neither he nor Clemance would ever consider going anywhere else. And of course, Dean Frogmore,” Reed said, rising, “whoever gave Cudlipp the aspirin wasn’t necessarily planning murder; aspirin allergies are dangerous, but rarely fatal.” Reed had planned to exit on that line, but there came a knock at the door. Miss Philips stuck her head in. “John Peabody is here, Dean Frogmore.”

Frogmore introduced them: “John, this is Mr. Amhearst.”

“Hi,” John Peabody said. “How about some lunch?” Clearly, informality was going to be Mr. Peabody’s keynote.

“Fine,” Reed said. “Thank you, Dean Frogmore. I may be back with more questions, if you’ll allow me, but I can’t think of any more at the moment.”

“Any time, any time,” Frogmore said. “Glad to have you aboard.”

“You must really be Some-Body,” Peabody said as they walked out, making it two words. “You the D.A. or just his brother?”

“Has something noteworthy occurred?”

“Frogmore never called you by your first name. Man, he must really be impressed.”

“I never told him my first name.”

“He picks up first names the way radar picks up moving objects. Regular bar and grill O.K. by you? We might even have a beer.”

“Suits me,” Reed said. He found himself amused by John Peabody, who looked not only as though he had slept in his clothes, but as though he had spent his whole honeymoon in them. Why wear a tie when it is not tied, a shirt when it is not buttoned. Reed wondered? Still, his tie is not psychedelic and he does not wear beads; there is always much to be thankful for.

The ‘regular bar and grill’ turned out to be a largish restaurant with beer on draught, and Reed settled comfortably into a booth with John Peabody, who fetched them each a stein. “Here’s to it,” Peabody said. “I didn’t bump Cudlipp off, but, brother, I sure would have, given the chance. Man, we used to have fantasies—me and the other guys at U.C. Maybe we’d kidnap his kids and say, ‘O.K., mac, you get them back when you lay off old U.C We dreamed about holding him prisoner in a cellar and beating him with wet ropes until he begged for mercy, and then we planned to say: ‘After you call the Acting President, mac, and make it O.K. about old U.C.’ So help me, if I’d known of this aspirin dodge, I’d have forced them down his stinking throat myself. He actually pushed me out of his office. I know he’s old enough to be my father, which would have made it one great big pleasure to lay him out flat, but he closed the door, and the other guys held onto me.” Peabody concluded with a few up-to-date epithets. Odd, Reed thought: When we were young we mouthed niceties and thought nastily. Mr. Peabody sounds like a horror and it’s perfectly obvious he’s nice as pie underneath. At least, so I assume.

“I thought two of the students with you were women?”

“Sure. And Randy Selkirk. All good guys.”

“I see. What happened exactly?”

“You want a sandwich? I’ll be glad to get us each one, if you’ve got what it takes. I’m stony.”

Solemnly Reed handed over some money. “Ham and cheese on rye for me,” he said.

Peabody returned in short order—clearly he was known here and got immediate service—with two sandwiches and two more steins of beer and a pack of cigarettes. “You need cigarettes?” he asked Reed.

“I gather,” Reed said, “that you are fresh out.”

“Man, you learn fast,” Peabody said. “We like your bird.”

“I’m lost again,” Reed said. “I thought it was ham and cheese.”

“Professor Fansler, man. She’s your bird. Fun and games in the Graduate English Office, when Cudlipp took the wrong pills. She’s real sexy on the Victorian novel.”

“Sexy?”

“Good, man, good.”

“Yes,” Reed said. “Thank you. Now—about your meeting with Cudlipp. Could you give it to me slowly and in something approximating standard English?”

“There’s nothing to give. We went there, the four of us, armed with our stories. We’re used to giving them—we did that bit for your bi—for Professor Fansler. The point is to give someone an idea of how great U.C. is. What it’s meant to us. We’re all different types, but all kind of impressive, if you follow me. But I hadn’t even finished my piece—I sort of M.C. the show—when Cudlipp lost his cool; man, he flipped. I found out why after: I’d said something about U.C. not just being a place to take some courses and wile away the time—I always say that—and of course he’d been bounced from The College a hundred years ago, when he was a lad, and had taken courses at U.C, then called extension, to wile away the time till he could get back in with the upperclass lads.”

“Did anyone else say anything?”

“Didn’t have a chance. He went for me. The others had to help me—boy, I was powed. But that Barbara Campbell is a cool chick. After they all got me out, and before Cudlipp could slam the door, she turned to him—of course her clothes are by Dior out of Bergdorf—and said, ‘Professor Cudlipp, a man of your standing should have better control of himself.’ Just like that. He slammed the door so hard I thought its hinges would spring off. And that’s all there is to that story.”

“Not much help, I’m afraid,” Reed said. “You optimistic about the Administrative Council’s actions?”

“Well, we got to clear up this mess. What about the elevators, man, carrying on like that. Beer tastes better in a stein, don’t you think, and certainly better on draught. Want another?”

“No, thanks. What about the elevators?”

“What about them?”

“Didn’t you say . . .”

“Man, you better take it easy. You’re pushing too hard.”

“Right.” Reed pocketed his change. “It was a pleasure, Mr. Peabody.”

“Likewise. Take it . . .”

“I know,” Reed said. “I plan to.”

Reed had an appointment downtown; one cannot, after all, spend one’s entire day vamping and drinking beer with, undergraduates, but he dropped into Castleman’s office, just on the chance. Castleman was, Reed learned, at lunch at the Faculty Club. Reed said thanks and strolled toward the Faculty Club, not quite clear in his mind what he wanted to ask Castleman, but figuring he better have a look at the Club anyway, since that seemed to be where everybody spent all their time laying plans, nefarious or other. Entering the Club, he met Castleman coming out.

“Ah,” Castleman said, stepping aside with Reed. “Any progress?”

“Tell me,” Reed said, “is there somebody in the administration with whom I could discuss elevators?”

“Will I do? Or do you want the maintenance department?”

“I’m not sure what I want. I take it my question does not surprise you.”

“Not unbearably. Shall we sit down a minute? Have you had lunch?”

Reed nodded. “Let me just say ‘elevators’ and you tell me what comes into your mind.”

“The Acting President mentioned it to me this morning, as it happens. I never thought of there being a connection with the Cudlipp business—but of course he was caught in an elevator, wasn’t he?”

“Fatally, as it turned out. Or probably so.”

“I see. This has got to be strictly confidential, Mr. Amhearst. Not part of any report or officially noticed at all.”

“I have seldom found any use for information that isn’t off the record,” Reed said, “but if an actionable crime has been committed, I can’t blink it away.”

“No, naturally not. I was referring to the general University problem. But I know, who better, that you can’t ask someone to do a job and then bury him in caveats. The trouble with discretion in a university, I’ve been learning, is that if a man is discreet, it turns out his-friends are the only ones in the dark. Everyone else, of course, has been consulting like mad. The line between full consultation and decent discretion is finer than the razor’s edge. Well, elevators. The elevators in the University have always been a blasted nuisance, an irritating joke. They are much overused, and by a community of youngsters whose gentleness with feedback devices is not noticeable. Still, it was never a serious problem. What usually happens is that an elevator which you have ridden for what seems like millennia in order to reach the top floor would decide one floor from the top that it was going no higher, and deposit you back on the ground floor minus two. Like that game my kids keep playing where you land on the wrong square and return to go. Annoying, but all in a day’s work. Quite often the elevators going down would simply refuse to stop at all, but we always suspected they were secretly geared that way as a hint that we ought to walk down.”

“I lived once in a pension in Paris,” Reed said, “where you were only allowed to take the elevator up. I found it extremely annoying at times, particularly if one were descending with heavy packages.”

“It is annoying. But that was about the size of it until this fall. Then, elevators began stopping between floors, sometimes in one building and sometimes in another. There was a great rash of that, and then the elevators took to stopping only during special hours, days or evenings when there was a meeting in a building, or all the deans were on their way to see the President, or, for example, when the whole senior classics faculty was in the elevator. Occasionally an hysterical student would get stuck and have to be treated for shock. Only very recently did we officially begin to wonder if it was actually part of some subversive plan.”

“To what end?”

“Disruption. Confusion. One more inducement to lose confidence and believe in the general ineptness of universities. It’s a clever trick, really, better in its way than class disruption, because no one’s caught at it, no one organizes against it, and its effects are more subtle and therefore longer lasting.”

“You mean objectless hostility builds up?”

“Exactly. Anger, or hostility if you prefer the term, is one of those forces modem society hasn’t devised any really good way of dealing with. Kicking an elevator you’re locked into, or an elevator door which shows no sign of opening, is humiliating and unsatisfactory—so one takes it out instead on the next student or colleague one meets. Yet stopping elevators isn’t really a major crime. Whoever does it probably isn’t even trespassing, according to the letter of the law, and they aren’t really causing any damage that can be laid directly to them. Always supposing we knew who ‘they’ are.”

“But how are the elevators stopped, do you know? It sounds a bit dangerous.”

“That’s what had puzzled us for so long. This whole business seemed to require a high degree of technical knowledge and timing. Then one day we nearly caught one of the culprits, or at least, Cartier thinks he nearly caught him. Cartier had dashed to the basement of the building once when he heard an elevator stop, just in time to see someone sneaking out. Cartier, who has more nerve than sense if you want to know, almost grabbed the guy, but not quite. Anyway, when he looked at the place where the miscreant had been standing he discovered the power box.”

“So they simply turned off the juice?”

“As simple as that. We couldn’t lock the damn thing; one has to be able to get at it in case of emergencies. The campus guards tried keeping an eye on the elevators, but, needless to say, they couldn’t be everywhere at once. No doubt someone was waiting to tamper with the elevator in Baldwin the night Cudlipp died, knowing there was something going on up there. Simple enough, when you figure it out.”

“Is this the sort of thing these radical groups go in for?”

“No, it isn’t. That’s the most surprising aspect of the whole thing. They want publicity, some big, showy gesture which embarrasses the greatest number of people in the most flamboyant possible way, and puts the authorities immediately on the spot.”

“The word is confrontation, isn’t it?”

“Exactly. Whereas confrontation is what one doesn’t have here. Just a rather diabolic scheme by someone who’s more interested in annoying the University than confronting it; someone with a twisted sense of humor; if you want my guess, it’ll turn out to be someone who got bounced out of here and is still simmering. The sort of people who used to sue the University for failing to fulfill its contract after they had flunked out, in the good old quiet days. But it’s anyone’s guess.”

“Well,” Reed said, rising, “it’s not a pretty mess, but I don’t suppose it’s got anything to do with the present investigations.”

“Let me know if I can be of help in any other way. There’s no question that time . . . Hi, Bill. I’d like you to meet Reed Amhearst from the D.A.’s Office; he’s looking into Cudlipp’s death. Bill McQuire.”

“If you’re walking to the subway, Mr. Amhearst, I’ll go with you and see if I can be of any help. My office is in that direction. You interest me.”

“Do I? Why?”

“Lots of reasons. Let’s say I think it’s going to be uphill work, finding out who slipped those aspirin into Cudlipp’s pocket supply. Let’s say, what I happen to believe, that the University killed him.”

“Now that’s an interesting idea. Why?”

“Because he was doing his best to kill the University. Oh, he thought he was saving it, of course. But he was pushing the College out of all proportion. I think he would have been willing to see the rest of the University go if he could have used the resources for The College. Even if you could find out how the aspirin got into Mrs. Murphy’s chowder, would it matter?”

“It seems it will matter to the University College quite a lot. The Administrative Council won’t move if this matter isn’t cleared up.”

Bill McQuire whistled. “That sounds like the work of our friend O’Toole. Well, it’s the last gasp. Do you know everyone Cudlipp saw? Someone must have done some hanky-panky with those pills of his.”

“I’ve got a pretty good line on most of them now. What do you think of Cartier?”

“He’s in the English Department; hated Cudlipp’s guts, but that hardly makes him even noticeable in that crowd. I’m an economist myself.”

“Someone suggested, in passing, that Cartier was perhaps somewhat hot-headed.”

“He is. He doesn’t talk much, but he’s always popping around and turning up in odd places. During the police bust last spring, he was hit on the head by a policeman and carried off in a paddy wagon and damn near charged before anyone identified him, and all because he got into an argument with a student about the indecency of calling any human beings, even policemen, pigs. When he got out the students said surely he’d changed his mind, but he said no, policemen were unnecessarily brutal, probably sadistic, and certainly ill-advised, but they weren’t pigs.”

“Might he have been impulsive enough to pull the aspirin trick?”

“I can’t see it. He and I saw Cudlipp together the day he died.”

“I know.”

“Were you working up to asking me about it? Because I’ve got to make a class in a minute.” Reed nodded. “We tried to urge Cudlipp to soft-peddle it a bit, but he wasn’t having any. Cartier said . . .”

“Yes?”

“He said, ‘You’re asking for trouble, Cudlipp; violence and trouble.’ But I’m sure he was just speaking generally.”

“What did you say to Cudlipp?”

“I told him if he kept on the way he was going, someone would break his goddam neck for him. Well, let me know if I can help.”

Reed took the subway downtown and was so engrossed in the problem that he forgot to get off at Franklin Street.

Mr. Higgenbothom turned up promptly at four.

“And how,” Kate asked, “are the computers?”

“You must let me show you through the computer center one of these days.”

“I should like that,” Kate said. “If only I had a problem a computer could solve this very moment. But I gather computers can give you answers only if you give them all the relevant information and ask all the right questions. Alas, I haven’t either.”

Mr. Higgenbothom sat down and looked politely expectant.

“As you have no doubt heard,” Kate rather ponderously began, “Professor Cudlipp died at a party given in my honor the other evening.” Mr. Higgenbothom nodded. “His death was, of course, the result of several unfortunate accidents, but the University would like, if possible, to establish some of the facts surrounding the case. Which means, in English that cats and dogs can understand, that I want a worm’s-eye view of the College English Department—and what is nearer a worm than a teaching assistant?”

Mr. Higgenbothom grinned.

“And,” Kate went on, “if you say a word about discretion, I will throw something at you. I am willing to let you use a computer on Max Beerbohm, who couldn’t even stand the simpler inventions of the twentieth century, so you’ve got to be willing to let me have your impressions—at least, I hope you’ll be willing.”

”I could quote Max Beerbohm in connection with Professor Cudlipp,” Mr. Higgenbothom said. “If two people disagree about a third, the one who likes him is right, always.”

”I’m to gather that you liked Cudlipp?”

“Yes, very much. He was very nice to me indeed. He let me experiment with my freshman English group—I spent the whole year on linguistics and stylistics and the students actually liked it—but it took some believing in me on his part. And then, he was very devoted to the College, and so am I. He believed it could really be an exciting educational place, because we were all ready to experiment, and Robert O’Toole was going to be Dean and do the first exciting things to be brought off in education in the last forty years. I know Cudlipp didn’t think highly of the University College, and I understand that you believe in it, but he knew perfectly well that there had to be only one undergraduate school here, and that first-rate. I agreed with him, and still do. I think Cudlipp had courage and he worked for what he believed in. I admire that. So many men just let things slide.”

Kate leaned back in her chair and laughed. “Sorry,” she said to Mr. Higgenbothom when she had recovered herself. “I’m laughing at my getting so cocksure as to forget there are two sides to every question, and I damn well ought to remember that. Would you be willing to tell me who’s likely to be new head of the College English Department?”

“At the moment it seems to be a standoff. I hear there’s been some heated discussion.”

“Between whom, mainly?”

“You’re remembering, Professor Fansler, that this is a worm’s-eye view?”

“By all means. I would apologize for asking these forthright questions when you can scarcely avoid answering them, Mr. Higgenbothom, if there were the smallest point in apologizing for what one has every intention of doing.”

“The rumor is that Clemance wants us to think about it a bit, sort of struggle on for a few months and not put a Cudlipp man right in. He says he’s willing to take on some of the work for the rest of the term, and no one’s exactly prepared to argue with that. I’m sorry there are more ill feelings; we ought to be healing up the wounds. We’re getting together a memorial volume to Cudlipp, by the way. I hope, you’ll feel better about him by the time it comes out, which, given the schedules of scholars and university presses, should be in about three years.”

“I’m certain to feel better about him long before then. Thank you for coming, and good luck with Max’s sentences.”

In fact, it was one of Max’s sentences Kate quoted to Reed when he asked her how her day had gone. “ ‘To give an accurate and exhaustive account of that period would need a far less brilliant pen than mine,’ ” she wearily said.

“Likewise,” said Reed. It was uncertain what a computer would have made of that.