Emily needed Marguerite as her ally in dealing with the plagiarism accusation, but she thought it would be better to discuss the matter away from campus and its possibly prying ears. She stopped by Marguerite’s office on the way out of the building.
‘Have you had lunch yet?’
‘Not yet. I was just going.’
‘Come to Baumgartner’s with me. We need to talk’ – she lowered her voice – ‘about Richard.’
Marguerite nodded sagely, and they set off. As they walked, Emily filled her friend in on the investigation, which they had not yet properly discussed.
‘Chérie, I know you are fond of Daniel, but do you not think all this evidence is convincing? I do not see how you can still insist on his innocence.’
‘If you’d been there when I talked to him in jail, you’d understand. He was genuinely clueless about the actual method of murder.’
‘But if he does not remember …’
‘He doesn’t, but he imagined it over and over beforehand, and he imagined it completely differently. He was going to strangle her.’
Marguerite shrugged. ‘That is suggestive, but – up against everything else, I do not think it is conclusive. All the actual evidence falls into line.’
‘Yes, don’t you see? It falls in too neatly. If it were genuine, it would be messier. I’m convinced it’s all been staged. Someone is setting Daniel up. I think it’s Goldstein.’
‘Even though Douglas was seen in her office that night?’
‘That does need to be accounted for, certainly. After that scene we overheard I could see him killing Taylor, but he would have no reason to implicate Daniel. Douglas as the murderer wouldn’t make sense of everything else – the statue, the blood, the appointment book, Daniel being seen in the building. But someone trying to frame Daniel could have arranged all of that. And Goldstein’s the only one with a motive to do it.’
‘Hmm. You may be right. Many people hated Taylor, but Daniel no one hates. Though I personally find him annoying. I do not care for that self-martyring type.’
‘But you have to admit, martyrs are rarely murderers.’
‘C’est vrai.’
They’d arrived at the restaurant, so they got their food and adjourned to a table. ‘Now, what shall we do about Richard?’ Marguerite asked as she forked up a bite of salad.
‘I guess the first thing to do is to talk to the student whose work he supposedly stole. What was his name again?’
‘Pacifique Morel. I know him. He has taken one or two French lit classes. He is an intelligent young man, a good writer, with original ideas. His work would be worth stealing.’
‘And he’s had classes with Richard?’
‘Bien sûr, he majors in English. Why, I do not know, when he could so easily do French, but …’ She gave an eloquent shrug.
‘Is he on campus for Paideia?’
‘Je ne sais pas. I have not seen him, but I do not frequent the student haunts as much as you do.’ Marguerite’s disdain for Commons food was well known. She would skip lunch if necessary rather than stoop so low.
‘And then we’ll also need a copy of the journal in which the article appeared.’
‘I believe there is one in the faculty lounge. Unless Richard has removed it.’
Emily put down her lox-topped bagel with a sigh. ‘I feel like I’m wallowing in a mud puddle. Just when we get out of having to prosecute Taylor, since she’s dead, now we have to deal with Richard. Thank God I’ve decided to retire.’
‘There is always the option of letting it go, of saying nothing. No one knows but us and Goldstein, and I do not think he cares as long as his precious Svetlana is not affected.’
Emily’s gorge rose at the thought of letting Richard of all people get away with such a heinous offense. ‘Pacifique Morel knows. He probably trusted Taylor to do something about it – more fool him. But he needs a faculty member to stand up for him, or it’ll go nowhere.’
‘C’est vrai. And to say the truth, chérie, one way and another, I have put up with Richard for as long as I care to. I will not be sorry to see him go when there is such a good reason to take him down.’
They went by the faculty lounge first to look for the issue of the Journal of Modern Literature in which Richard’s article had appeared. It was nowhere to be found.
‘That is suspicious in itself,’ Marguerite said. ‘No doubt Richard has removed it lest anyone else should suspect.’
‘Probably. But we should be able to find a copy in the library.’
They checked the library’s periodicals reading room, but that particular issue of the journal was missing from the shelf. Nor was it lying on any of the tables or abandoned under a chair. Journals could not be checked out. It was conceivable someone could have taken it to another part of the library and neglected to bring it back, but under the circumstances this absence was even more suspicious than the first.
‘Can we find the article online?’ Emily asked.
‘Bien sûr,’ Marguerite replied, leading the way to one of the library’s public computers. ‘Richard cannot hide the entire internet.’
Marguerite navigated to the website and downloaded the article, ‘The Idea of Order in Wallace Stevens’s Middle Period’. Writing credit was given solely to Richard McClintock, PhD. She printed the article on the library printer, and Emily skimmed it.
She was out of practice interpreting poetry and had always found Stevens obscure, but the arguments in the article seemed cogent and well expressed. ‘Yeah, I doubt Richard could write this well.’ She handed the pages off to Marguerite.
Marguerite read a few paragraphs and nodded. ‘Richard’s writing is invariably pedantic and abstruse. This is clear and easy to read. It is definitely not his own work.’
‘Right. Let’s go find Pacifique.’
A glance at the campus directory revealed that Pacifique had a room in MacNaughton, one of the three dorms built in sixties-modern style with no sensitivity to the stately dignity of the original college buildings, from which they were fortunately set some distance apart. The group of dorms was not-so-affectionately known as ‘God’s revenge on Tudor Gothic’, and being assigned a room there was often considered to be a punishment for some egregious wickedness in a former life.
Pacifique Morel proved to be in residence. His handsome if somewhat careworn face registered astonishment at seeing two professors at his door. ‘Bonjour, Pacifique,’ said Marguerite. ‘This is Professor Cavanaugh. May we have a few moments of your time?’
He glanced into the cluttered interior of the room, which contained but a single hard desk chair. ‘Of course, but … may we talk in the social room?’ His rich bass voice held a slight Caribbean lilt.
‘Certainement. But bring your laptop.’
Looking confused, Pacifique grabbed his computer, unplugged it, and led the way to the dorm’s social room. Following his tall, sculpted ebony form down the stairs, Emily could understand what Taylor had seen in him. But she would content herself with admiring him from a distance.
The three of them sat around a rickety table. ‘May I get you anything?’ he said, standing and looking blankly around. ‘Perhaps some tea?’
‘Thank you, no. We have just eaten.’
He sat back down. ‘What is this about? Am I in some sort of trouble?’
‘Pas du tout. But it has come to our attention that you have a grievance against another professor, and we have come to look into the matter.’ Marguerite produced the printed copy of the article and laid it in front of Pacifique.
He recoiled. ‘Oh. That.’ Then he looked up at them, baffled. ‘But how did you find out about it? I never told anyone except …’
‘Except Professor Curzon? We learned of it – indirectly from her. How exactly is not your concern. But we would like to know if it is true that this article is in fact your own work.’
‘Oh, yes, it is true. I told Tay— Professor Curzon, and I thought she was going to do something about it. But she never did.’ He stared at his folded hands. ‘Then she … moved on, and I did not want to bring it up again.’
‘Can you show us the original article on your computer?’ Emily spoke for the first time.
‘Of course.’ He opened a directory window and highlighted the file name. ‘Look – it says here, created eleven/fifteen/seventeen, last modified twelve/ten/seventeen. And that journal issue did not come out until October 2018. So I could not possibly have copied it.’ He opened the file. ‘Here. Read it for yourself.’
He turned the screen toward them. Emily compared the wording of the first few paragraphs with that of the printout. They were virtually identical, with only a word changed here and there – all changes for the worse, she noted.
‘Did you write this for McClintock’s class?’ she asked.
Pacifique nodded. ‘It was my final paper for Modern Poetry.’
‘May we take a copy of the file?’ Marguerite asked. ‘I have a flash drive. But first make sure the file properties show you as the author.’
Pacifique took the tiny device Marguerite handed him, which to Emily looked like a miniature cigarette lighter, and stuck it into a port in his laptop. A minute later he handed it back.
‘What will happen now?’
‘Now we will show these to the academic review board. They will take the matter from there.’
‘Will I have to … testify or something?’
‘Possibly. But it should not be necessary for you to confront Professor McClintock directly.’
‘Good,’ Pacifique said. ‘I do not know if I could control myself if I did. Do you know he had the gall to fail me in that class? He claimed I never turned in a final paper at all. Just wiped it out of existence. Until it turned up in that journal, that is.’
‘I think you may be sure that Professor McClintock will have his comeuppance now, Pacifique. And you should have a brilliant career ahead of you. It is a terrible thing to have one’s work plagiarized, of course – but it is a great compliment as well. Especially from professor to student.’
Pacifique allowed himself a small smile. ‘I do not know how you got involved in this, Professor Grenier, and I do not want to know. But thank you. Merci bien. Thank you both very much.’
As they walked back from MacNaughton toward Vollum, Emily said, ‘Revealing Richard’s plagiarism may be the only good thing Taylor ever unknowingly and unintentionally did.’
‘Oui, c’est ça. It goes to show that no life is wasted, non?’
They allowed themselves a small laugh over that.