Colleen McCullough - Too Many Murders

He’s meticulous, thought Carmine. He’ll give me the lot.

“I’m writing a paper on Boccaccio,” said Terence Arrowsmith, “and Dr. Denbigh liked my work. He held his sessions on a Monday, every second week. The worst of it was that he ignored the time, so those of us who had a class straight after coffee break were sometimes so late we weren’t let in. If the lecture was important, it was terribly frustrating, but he’d never let any of us leave until he was finished with whatever he was talking about. He expected give and take, so we knew it was useless to try to speed him up by letting him have the floor.”

“Was there anything different about yesterday’s session?”

“No, Captain, not that any of us noticed. In fact, the Dean was in a really good mood-he even told a joke! The routine was strict. We’d come in on the dot of ten and go straight to the cart, pour ourselves coffee and take one pastry. While we did that, the Dean went to a cupboard and got out the little box that held his jasmine tea packets. I remember that he was annoyed to find only one packet in the box-he said there should have been three. But I guess we all looked blank enough to pass inspection, because he didn’t blame one of us. As we were sitting down, he took his packet across to the cart, where there’s a special carafe of boiling water for him.” Arrowsmith shivered, started trembling again. “I was watching him-after the business about the missing tea, I think we all were. He tore the packet open, dropped it on the cart, and put the tea bag in his mug.”

“Is there any mistaking his mug?” Carmine asked.

“Not a chance. For one thing, it’s made of fine china-the rest are ordinary thick pottery mugs. And for another, it’s got ‘The Dean’ on both sides in German Gothic script. I guess the writing of fifteenth-century

Italy wasn’t florid enough, but his story was that his wife gave him the mug. He poured boiling water into the mug, carried it to his chair, and sat down. His smile was so-self-satisfied! We knew we were in for a long morning, that he’d found something fresh to discuss.

“Sure enough, ‘I’ve found out something extremely interesting I wish to share with you, gentlemen,’ he said, and stopped to blow on the surface of his tea. Funny, how vividly I remember that! He snorted and said something none of us really heard-about the tea, we all think in retrospect. Then he lifted the mug to his mouth and took a series of little sips-it had to have been scalding hot, but he made a real production of those sips, as if he was telling us we didn’t have the intestinal fortitude to drink such hot liquid. Next I think was the noise, though Bill Partridge says the change in his face came first. I don’t honestly think it matters much either way. He started to make a strangling, gurgling kind of noise, and his face went a bright red. He seemed to stretch out from the top of his head to his toes, stiff and straight as a board. Foam gushed out of his mouth, but he didn’t retch like a vomit. His hands flailed about, his feet drummed on the floor, the foam flew around as his movements grew wilder, and we-we just sat there paralyzed and looked! It must have been close to a minute before Bill Partridge-he’s the most scientific of us-suddenly jumped up and shouted that the Dean had had a seizure. Bill ran to the door and yelled for someone to call an ambulance, while the rest of us backed away. Bill came back and checked the Dean’s pulse, looked at the pupils of his eyes, put his ear on the Dean’s chest. Then he said the Dean was dead! And he wouldn’t let any of us leave!”

“A sensible young man,” said Carmine.

“Maybe so,” said Terence Arrowsmith grimly, “but it sure destroyed a day of classes! The ambulance guys called the cops, and the next thing we knew, everybody was talking poison. Bill Partridge said it was cyanide.”

“Did he, indeed? Upon what did he base that assumption, Mr. Arrowsmith?”

“A smell of almonds. But I didn’t smell any almonds, and neither did Charlie Tindale. Two did, two didn’t. Not good enough,” said Mr. Arrowsmith.

“Did Dean Denbigh say anything from the moment he began sipping his tea until he died?”

“He said nothing, he just made obscene noises.”

“What about the paper packet enclosing the tea bag? You said the Dean dropped it on the cart. Did anyone go near it?”

“Not while I was in the study, sir, and I didn’t leave until the criminal pathology technicians came in.”

“Did he simply drop it, or did he crumple it up?”

“He ripped it open to get the tea bag, then dropped it.”

Which marked the end of Terence Arrowsmith’s useful information. And, as it turned out, of the usefulness of all four students. Even Mr. William Partridge, the scientific one, could add nothing to Terence Arrowsmith’s admirably sedate description of events. All Partridge was concerned about was cyanide. So when Carmine was done with them, he breathed a sigh of relief and headed around the corner to the Dean’s wife’s study.

She too was senior in the college; he had found that much out sitting at his desk in County Services. What he wasn’t prepared for was her absolute detachment. A tall woman whom a great many men would call extremely attractive, she had a mass of red-gold hair pulled into a soft bun on her neck, a creamily flawless skin that didn’t show her age, chiseled features that reminded Carmine of a Grace Kelly without the vulnerability, and a pair of yellow eyes. A lioness, if ever he had seen one.

Her handclasp was firm and dry; she put Carmine into a comfortable chair and seated herself in what he assumed was “her” chair when she wasn’t behind her desk.

“My condolences for your loss, Dr. Denbigh,” he said.

She blinked slowly, considering his statement. “Yes, I suppose it is a loss,” she said in a light, clipped voice, “but luckily I have tenure, so John’s death doesn’t affect my career. Of course I’ll have to move out of the Dean’s apartment, but until Lysistrata College is finished in 1970-I’m in the running for Dean-I’ll live in a room upstairs among the girls.”

“Won’t you find that confining?” Carmine asked, fascinated at where she was leading their conversation.

“Not really,” she answered, composure unruffled. “John took up four-fifths of the space in our apartment. Most of my living is done here, in this room.”

A twin of the Dean’s, and no less spacious. He gazed at the rows of books, which seemed to be mostly in German. “I believe you’re a great authority on the poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke, Dr. Denbigh,” he said.

She looked surprised, as if policemen townies were not supposed to know that name. “Yes, as a matter of fact, I am.”

“Under different circumstances it would be a pleasure to have a chat with you, as I’m a Rilke fan, but I’m afraid it’s the death of your husband that concerns me today.” He frowned. “From your manner, Dr. Denbigh, I might be pardoned for thinking that your marriage was a rather distant one?”

“Yes, it was,” said she. “I see no point in dissimulation. If you talk to any of the faculty attached to Dante, they’ll tell you the same. John and I had a marriage of convenience. To be dean, a man has to be married, and the possession of a scholar for a wife is an advantage. Put plainly, I am frigid. John was prepared to overlook that. His own sexual tastes ran to young girls, though he was always very careful. He had to be! His ambition was to be president of an Ivy League university, and he had all the prerequisites, including an ancestor off the Mayflower . My own aspirations didn’t conflict with his in any way.” She let her thick, perfectly painted lids fall over those remarkable eyes. “We got on together extremely well, and I worried for him.”