23

“I’m really sorry I brought this Wendolyn business up. It doesn’t fit in with …” Allen looked at Diana, wondering which word to choose. An easy word. “With this,” he said, putting his hand atop hers.

“Monster!” Diana tossed her napkin at him. “You’ve got my curiosity aroused.”

“Only that?” he said in mock dismay. Then he grew serious. “None of it matters anyway,” he said. “As Riley has so often reminded me, it was long before I came. None of my business, really. And Wendolyn is dead. If he weren’t dead, I wouldn’t be here.”

“What are you talking about? Did you replace him on the staff? Are you equally infamous? What on earth is all this about?”

“I see before me”—he raised his hand to his brow in the standard communing-with-the-spirits pose—“a reader of John Dickson Carr, of Michael Innes. Maybe even,” he lowered his voice, playing sinister, “Duvivier.”

“Tell me, Allen,” she persisted. “Leave out the gory parts if you have to, but tell me.”

“Ah, if I leave those out,” he said, “there will be no story to tell.” Then he pursed his lips, grew pensive. “Perhaps there isn’t much of one as it is. It’s been hard to piece it together, since everyone who had a hand in it—except for Riley, of course—has moved on.”

“How did Riley have a hand in it, whatever it is?”

“He knew the victim. And he knew the murderer as well.”

“The victim,” Diana said. “Christine Rivers!”

“Yes.”

“And the murderer!” She gestured around the room. “What’s-his-name!”

“Ronald Wendolyn. Yes. I’m frankly surprised, from what I’ve learned, that no one did him in. Rumor has it he was roundly hated, a man that no one could stand. Lord knows, Riley goes purple at the mention of his name. Even now.”

“Well”—Diana was matter-of-fact—“if Wendolyn murdered Riley’s girlfriend, I can see that he might.”

Allen looked up abruptly. “Ah, but Riley doesn’t know. Only I know. The murder, officially, was unsolved.”

“But …”

“Wendolyn was never a suspect. He stayed on here in perfect safety for some years. And then he died—an auto accident.”

“But …”

“He left some evidence behind, here, in Wendolyn House. That, too, went undiscovered. Until I came along.”

“And the police never revealed it?”

“Police? I never told them. I’ve told no one. Except you”—he laughed—“just now.”

“But why not?”

He looked at Diana, considering. “I suppose I should be honest?”

She nodded yes. “Of course.”

“I …” He was wary.

“Tell me,” Diana said.

Allen sat as though taking the witness box. “As academic slots go,” he began, “this one is a plum. Lots of money. And, of course, this house. Ronald Wendolyn, you see, left quite a bundle behind. All of that money—and the money that comes in still—goes to endow the renowned Wendolyn professorship.”

“And if Wendolyn were exposed as a murderer …”

“Quite so. The position, with all of its attendant pomp and privilege, would be abolished.”

Diana stared at the floor. “But didn’t anyone else ever suspect?”

“No one. Not until I came across the evidence one day, here, when I was dusting the mantel. That mantel in there. Think of it! Dusting off the mantel! Like a detective story. Until then, no dark deed was ever pinned on him. There aren’t even rumors, except for the rumor that no one could stand the man.”

“Well, if no one suspected him of killing Christine Rivers, why did everyone hate him?”

“I think he was just arrogant. I heard that, after that Renaissance stagecraft thing was published, he went around saying he’d tossed it off in a couple weekends. It drove the drones crazy, of course. Half of the people around here closet themselves away with what they call their ‘life’s work.’ You know, the classic academics.”

“You don’t mean you aren’t doing your life’s work?”

“Ah, but I am.” He feigned offense. “Mine is the seduction of Jane Austen scholars. Lady scholars, of course. Nothing queer about me.”

“And was Ronald Wendolyn queer?”

“Worse than that! I don’t know if I can bring myself to tell you.”

“Tell me.” Diana moved toward him, affecting menace.

“Well, at faculty meetings, Wendolyn is said to have … No, I can’t tell you.”

“I know,” Diana said, “he snored.”

“Worse.”

“He whispered!”

“Far worse.” He put his arms around her.

“I know,” she said, rubbing her forehead against the stubble on his chin. But then she forgot whatever it was she’d meant to say.

An ease was rising around them, the way dough rises: steadily, immensely. An ease that was domesticity, the sort that Lida would—Diana thought fleetingly—have jangled in upon with an offhand “Isn’t this cozy?” It was what Diana gave, and, therefore, what she got.