Doug Allyn - Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 104, No. 4 & 5. Whole No. 633 & 634, October 1994

“Okay,” Winona Kelly said. “Let’s get at them.” She chewed gum.

The recent files were in good order, Hilde Melton would have seen to that, but Dr. Pryor had been lax in his oversight, or had had inept help in archives. Ellen was sitting on the floor scanning one paper after another from a cardboard carton, laying them aside one by one. Winona Kelly was at a file cabinet pulling personnel files. Ellen glanced up to see Lieutenant Haliday in the doorway.

“How’s it coming?”

“Slowly,” Ellen said.

“Well, let’s break for lunch,” he said. “I thought that down here in the catacombs, you might not realize what time it’s getting to be.” He said to Winona Kelly, “You can go over to the cafeteria, no one’s going to pester you with questions. And you,” he said to Ellen, “can come up to the conference room with me. I’m having stuff sent in. They’re lying in wait for you, I’m afraid. Reporters.”

She saw what he meant as soon as they emerged from the library building. A clump of strangers rushed forward, along with Beverly Kirchner. A few flashbulbs flared. “Hey, Ms. Blair, what are you looking for down there?” “Did he really teach witchcraft?” “Are the files intact?”

Haliday took her arm firmly and walked through them.

“Is she a suspect?”

His hand tightened and his pace quickened as they moved along the path toward the administration building. She was out of breath when they reached the building and went inside. An officer at the door barred the reporters.

“See what I mean?” Haliday said cheerfully. “You’ll want to wash up a bit. See you upstairs.”

Hilde Melton appeared at her door. “Come use my washroom, Ellen.” She moved aside to let Ellen pass.

Ellen thought Hilde was going to question her again, and steeled herself, but all Hilde said was, “We’ve brought in security to keep them out of the buildings and away from the dorms, but we can’t keep them off the grounds altogether.” She looked very tired. Her phone was ringing. “It’s been like that all morning,” she said, going to pick it up. “Parents.”

Rita would be shunting other calls to other departments, Ellen knew, but only Hilde could deal with upset parents. She nodded sympathetically and went into the washroom.

When Ellen got to the conference room, Haliday was eating a sandwich. He waved toward a tray with more sandwiches, a carton of milk with glasses, and fruit. She helped herself to a sandwich and sat down opposite him.

They ate in silence. He poured milk, poured for her when she nodded, and then he said, “Problem here is there’s just too much coming and going. Take a corporation now; people get hired and they stay put. But here you’ve got a couple hundred new students year after year, couple hundred old ones hitting the road, gone. Besides those who drop out. And the teachers drifting in and out on one- or two-year contracts. Makes for a real problem.” He looked at her appraisingly. “I take it the files are another problem.”

“The old ones are,” she said. “And the old temporary-instructor files are jammed into boxes every which way. I don’t think they were sorted at all.”

“When you come across his student lists, think you’ll recognize names of locals?”

“Maybe. Some of them anyway. But I’d have to double-check. Thirteen years is a long time; most of them have left the area. Besides, I don’t really know everyone from around here.”

“Dr. Melton seems to think you do,” he commented. “She thinks pretty highly of you. Grooming you to take her place when she retires?”

Ellen felt her face grow hot. “No, of course not. I’m nothing more than her gofer.”

“Isn’t that what she was for the last president?”

“It’s not the same. She had a doctorate already, and I have a bachelor’s degree. She was more like a vice president.”

“So how’d you land your job here?”

Ellen curbed her exasperation. “I happened to be in the right place at the right time. She mentioned in the store one day that she was looking for an assistant. I had just lost my job, and I was available. She hired me. Since it’s a private school they don’t have to go through the procedures the public universities do. It was that simple.”

He held up his hand, grinning. “Peace, Blair. I’m making polite conversation like they taught me in charm school. Not looking for sore toes to step on.”

Unexpectedly she laughed. “I think you must have flunked the course.” Then she watched as he reached into his pocket and took out a dollar and transferred it to a different pocket. “What are you doing?”

“Made a bet with myself that I’d get a laugh out of you before you went back to work.” He bit into an apple. “What do you think about the hitchhiker theory?”

He was working all the time, she told herself. She had to remember that, no matter how much fooling around he did. She said slowly, “I don’t see any other way to account for the missing van.”

“Yeah, that’s the problem. The goddam van. But you see, it compounds the other problem. The missing personal stuff. And the fortune in gold. Tell me, would a hitchhiker go to his apartment and steal a manuscript and private letters, and leave that gold behind?” He shook his head. Then he asked, “What’s it like around graduation? What’s the usual schedule?”

She told him. Finals week, senior dance, parties, the commencement exercises on Wednesday.

“And they take off right after Wednesday?”

“Most of them. All the parties are the week before, then the parents show up, and they leave.”

“How about the teachers?”

“They have their celebration on the Friday night after commencement. A dinner dance. Some of the trustees attend. It’s a big formal event.”

He nodded. “Yeah, that’s what I keep hearing. So Seymour was at the party Friday night, and no one ever saw him again. And no one gave it a thought that they didn’t see him again. Does that make sense?”

“I think so,” she said. “He would have cleaned out his office, ready to leave any time. The permanent staff hang around another week or so usually, or even year-round, but the temporaries just take off.” She frowned. “But you’d think someone would have noticed if he didn’t tell them goodbye.”

“Exactly,” Haliday said approvingly. “Dr. Melton says she and her husband went to the coast early Saturday, and when she got back on Thursday or Friday, he was gone. So she didn’t even think about a goodbye. Pryor and his wife went to Hawaii on Saturday, stayed three weeks. So far that’s all I’ve been hearing; they took off for a little vacation, or went fishing or something. So no one told him so long and no one thought it was strange.”

There was a tap on the door. He called out, “Come on in.” Winona Kelly and a uniformed officer entered. Haliday glanced at his watch and stood up. “Back to the grind,” he said. “See you later, Blair.”

She walked back to the library between the uniformed officer and Winona Kelly, with reporters shouting questions every step of the way. She felt like a prisoner.

That afternoon Winona Kelly delivered several packets of copied files to the lieutenant, and Ellen began to feel that perhaps the job was not as hopeless as it had appeared.

When they quit for the day the archivist, Mr. Rosenthal, was waiting for Ellen. “He questioned me,” he said. He sounded quite happy. He had been on the spot here when the first brick was laid, Ellen thought; of course he would be questioned. “Not that I had anything to contribute,” Mr. Rosenthal said. “Frankly, I don’t even remember the man.” He started to walk away, then stopped. “Oh, the reason I interrupted you. Dr. Melton sent word for you to report to her office. That’s it.”