Isaac Asimov - Asimov's Mysteries

We got the story out of Susan Morey in flat, toneless pieces.

Mrs. Nettler, the old Senior Librarian had taken off for the afternoon and had left the two girls in charge. That, apparently, was not unusual.

At two o'clock, give or take five minutes, Louella-Marie took herself into the back room behind the library desk. There, in addition to new books that awaited cataloguing, stacks of periodicals that awaited binding, reserved books that awaited their reservers, there was also a small hot-plate, a small kettle, and the fixings for weak tea.

Two o'clock tea was apparently usual, too.

I said, 'Did Louella-Marie prepare the tea every day?'

Susan looked at me out of her blank blue eyes. 'Sometimes Mrs. Nettler does, but usually Lou-Louella-Marie did.'

When the tea was ready, Louella-Marie emerged to say so and after a few moments the two retired.

'Both of you?' I asked sharply. 'Who took care of the library?'

Susan shrugged as though this were a minor point to worry about, and said, 'We can see out the door If anyone came to the desk, one of us could have gone out.'

'Did anyone come to the desk?'

'No one. It's intersession. Hardly anyone's around.'

By intersession she meant that the spring semester was over and the summer sessions had not yet started.

I learned quite a bit about college life that day.

What was left of the story was little enough. The tea bags were already out of the gently steaming cups and the sugar had been added.

I interrupted. 'You both take sugar?'

Susan said slowly, 'Yes. But mine didn't have any.'

'No?'

'She never forgot before. She knows I take it. I just took a sip or two and I was going to reach for the sugar and tell her, you know, when-'

When Louella-Marie gave a queer strangled cry, dropped the cup, and was dead in a minute. After that Susan screamed and eventually we came.

The routine passed smoothly enough. Photographs and fingerprints had been taken. The names and addresses of the men and women in the building were taken and they were sent home. Cause of death was obviously cyanide and the sugar bowl was the obvious villain. Samples were taken for official testing.

There had been six men in the library at the time of the murder. Five were students, who looked frightened, confused, or sick, depending, I suppose, on their personalities. The sixth was a middle-aged man, an outsider, who talked with a German accent and had no connection with the college at all. He looked frightened, confused, and sick, all three.

My sidekick, Hathaway, was leading them out of the library. The idea was to get them to the Co-educational Lounge and have them stay put till we could get to them in detail.

One of the students broke away and strode past me without a glance. Susan flew to meet him, clutching each sleeve above the elbow. 'Pete. Pete.'

Pete was built like a football player except that his profile looked as though he had never been within half a mile of the playing field. He was too good-looking for my taste, but then I get jealous easily.

Pete was looking past the girl, his face coming apart at the seams till its prettiness was drowned in uneasy horror. He said in a hoarse, choking way, 'How did Lolly come to…'

Susan gasped, 'I don't know. I don't know.' She kept trying to meet his eye.

Pete pulled away. He never looked at Susan once, kept staring over her shoulder. Then he responded to Hathaway's grip on his elbow and let himself be led away.

I said, 'Boyfriend?'

Susan tore her eyes from the departing student. 'What?'

'Is he your boy friend?'

She looked down at her twisting hands. 'We've been out on dates.'

'How serious?'

She whispered, 'Pretty serious.'

'Does he know the other girl, too? He called her Lolly?' Susan shrugged. 'Well…'

'Let's put it this way. Did he go out with her?'

'Sometimes.'

'Seriously.'

She snapped, 'How should I know?'

'Come on, now. Was she jealous of you?'

'What's all this about?'

'Someone put the cyanide in the sugar and put the mixture in only one cup. Suppose Louella-Marie was jealous enough of you to try to poison you and leave herself a clear field with our friend Pete. And suppose she took the wrong teacup herself by mistake.'

Susan said, That's crazy. Louella-Marie wouldn't do such a thing.'

But her lips were thin, her eyes sparkled, and I can tell hate in a voice when I hear it.

Professor Rodney came into the library. He was the first man I had met on entering the building and my feelings toward him had grown no warmer.

He had begun by informing me that as senior faculty member present, he was in charge.

I said, 'I'm in charge now, Professor.'

He said, 'Of the investigation perhaps, Inspector, but it is I who am responsible to the Dean and I propose to fulfill my responsibilities.'

And although he hadn't the figure of an aristocrat, more like a shopkeeper, if you follow me, he managed to look at me as though there were a microscope between as with himself on the large side.

Now he said, 'Mrs. Nettler is in my office. She heard the news bulletin, apparently, and came at once. She is quite agitated. You will see her?' He made it sound like an order.

'Bring her in. Professor.' I made it sound like permission.

Mrs. Nettler was in the usual quandary of the average old lady. She didn't know whether to be horrified or fascinated at the closeness with which death had struck. Horror won out after she looked into the inner office and noticed what was left of the tea things. The body was gone by then, of course.

She flopped into a chair and began crying. 'I had tea here myself,' she moaned. 'It might have been…'

I said as quietly and soothingly as I could manage, 'When did you drink tea here, Mrs. Nettler?'

She turned in her seat, looked up. 'Why-why, just after one, I think. I offered Professor Rodney a cup, I remember. It was just after one, Professor Rodney, wasn't it?'

A trace of annoyance crossed Rodney's plump face. He said to me, 'I was here a moment just after lunch to consult a reference. Mrs, Nettler did offer a cup. I was too busy, I'm afraid, to accept or to note the time exactly.'

I grunted and turned back to the old lady. 'Do you take sugar, Mrs. Nettler?'

'Yes, sir.'

'Did you take sugar?'

She nodded and started crying again.

I waited a bit. Then, 'Did you notice the condition of the sugar bowl?'

'It was-it was-' A sudden surprise at the question seemed to put her on her feet. 'It was empty and

I filled it myself. I used the two-pound box of granulated sugar and I remember saying to myself that whenever I wanted tea the sugar was gone and I wished the girls would-'

Maybe it was the mention of the girls in the plural. She broke out again.

I nodded to Hathaway to lead her away.

Between i and 2 p.m., obviously, someone had emptied the sugar bowl and then added just a bit of laced sugar- very neatly laced sugar.

Maybe it was Mrs. Nettler's appearance that pumped librarianship back into Susan, because when Hathaway came back and reached for one of his cigars-he already had the match lit-the girl said, 'No smoking in the library, sir.'

Hathaway was so surprised he blew the match out and replaced the cigar in his pocket.

Then the girl stepped briskly to one of the long tables and reached for a large volume that lay open on it. Hathaway was ahead of her. 'What are you going to do, Miss?'

Susan looked completely astonished. 'I'm just going to put it back on the shelves.'

'Why? What is it?' He looked down at the open page. I was there too, by then. I looked over his shoulder.

It was German. I can't read the language, but I can recognize it when I see it. The printing was small, and there were geometrical figures on the page with lines of letters attached at various places. I knew enough, too, to know those were chemical formulas.