40

Diana sat in Lida’s chair, the list on her lap, the phone laid over it, receiver pressed tight against her ear. She waited for the atonal intrigue of chimes and beeps and circuit static to end, the transferring to begin, humans taking up where machinery left off. The Murdoch College switchboard differed from its counterpart at Brady State only in the substitution of a twang for semi-Southern slur.

Finally, an abrupt announcement was made: “Riley.”

Diana hesitated. She’d met Riley. Good manners dictated that she acknowledge him. But, “I’m calling Professor Dilworth,” she said, mustering a voice that Lida would have called “prissy,” a voice that might have suited Jane Austen herself, a voice that defended against men like Paul Riley.

“Sure, babe,” he replied. “He’s on this extension. I’ll just go down the hall and get him.”

The phone dropped with rude clatter onto Riley’s desktop. Diana heard him trudge away, the way he’d trudged away at the luncheon. She sat tapping her finger against the dial.

An extension was lifted and Diana heard Allen clear his throat. “This is Professor Dilworth,” he said.

“Allen”—she was talking too loud—“it’s Diana.”

“Diana! How wonderful! I was just about to call you.”

“Allen, listen,” she said, “I want to talk to you about Wendolyn. About the …” She stopped just short of “murder.”

“Wendolyn? Come on, just say you want to talk to me. God knows, I want to talk to you.” He seemed amused. He thought it a ruse, a woman’s trick.

“Allen,” she said, “please.”

He laughed. “All right. Of course we’ll talk—but in person. That’s why I was about to call.”

“About Wendolyn?” her voice went shrill.

“I was calling to say that I’m coming down there tomorrow, and that I’d like to see you.”

“Are you sure he’s dead, Allen, are you?”

He sounded wary. “Wendolyn? Of course. What’s wrong? Tell me what it is.”

Diana made no reply.

“Won’t you tell me?” A cajoling voice. As though he were talking to someone on a ledge. Someone about to jump.

There was a lull, filled with the shuffle of Riley reentering his own office. They both waited, but the line remained open. Diana took a deep breath. It was then that the phone was replaced in its cradle.

“I know I sound crazy,” she said. “Maybe I am. I don’t know where to start. But, look, you needn’t come down. That seems, well, excessive.”

“Nonsense. The college is paying my way. I wasn’t sure they’d go for it, because it is stretching it a bit. But I’ve managed to talk them into sending me down for research purposes.”

Research. Travel vouchers. It was all so sane. So reassuringly sane. It calmed her. “Where?” she asked. “At the Library of Congress?”

“A lot more lively than that. Some former members of the New York Pro Musica are giving a performance of The Play of Herod down there. It isn’t performed very often, and—”

“Herod,” she shouted, “as in King Herod?”

“Diana, what is the matter with you?” He listened. “You aren’t crying, are you? Has something happened?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “Something might.”

“I have my flight number and all that right here somewhere. Just a moment.”

She heard papers riffling. Then he was back. She blurted into the phone before he could speak, “Allen, he’s alive. Wendolyn is alive.”

A weighty pause. The connection grew hollow, suddenly, appropriately. “How do you know?” he asked.

Diana did cry then, but quietly, so that he couldn’t tell. “It’s a friend of mine. You know, I told you about her. Lida. The one who—”

“Yes, I remember. But what—?”

“Allen, I’m so afraid he’ll murder her, too.”

“But how? Why?”

She worked very hard at her voice. “I’ll explain when you get here,” she said. “I’ll tell you all of it.”

“I hope so.”

“Shall I meet your plane?”

“Flight 739 from Boston,” he said. “It arrives at four-thirty-two in the afternoon at, let me see, Baltimore-Washington International. Is that handy to you?”

“Yes. I’ll be there.”

“Diana. Under the circumstances. That is, even under the circumstances, it will be good to see you.”

“Yes,” she said, remembering, warming. “Oh, yes.”