"Well, a little while ago, she threw an hysterical fit in Mrs. Carr's
office. Claimed that you had seduced her. Mrs. Carr immediately dumped
the whole business in my lap."
"Well?" said Norman.
Gunnison frowned and cocked an eye at him. "Things like this sometimes
really happen," he muttered.
"Sure," Norman replied. "But not this time."
"Of course. I had to ask."
"Sure. There _was_ opportunity though. We worked late several
nights over at Morton, editing stuff."
Gunnison reached for a folder. "On a chance, I got out her neurotic
index. She ranks way up near the top. A regular bundle of complexes.
We'll just have to handle it smoothly."
"I'll want to hear her accuse me," said Norman. "Soon as possible."
"Of course. I've arranged for a meeting at Mrs. Carr's office. Four
o'clock this afternoon. Meantime she's seeing the college physician.
That should sober her up."
"Four o'clock," repeated Norman, standing up. "You'll be there?"
"Certainly. I'm sorry about this whole business, Norm. Frankly, I think
Mrs. Carr botched it. Got panicky. She's a pretty old lady."
In the outer office he stopped to glance at a small display case of
items concerned with Gunnison's work in physical chemistry. The present
display was of Prince Rupert drops and other high-tension oddities. It
occurred to him that Hempnell was something like a Prince Rupert drop.
Hit the main body with a hammer and you only jarred your hand. But
flick with a fingernail the delicate filament in which the drop ended,
and it would explode in your face.
Fanciful.
He glanced at the other objects, among them a tiny mirror, which, the
legend explained, would fly to powder at the slightest scratch or
sudden change in temperature.
Yet it wasn't so fanciful, when you got to thinking about it. Any
highly organized, complex, somewhat artificial institution, such as a
college, tends to develop dangerous weaknesses. And the same would be
true of a person or a career. Flick the delicate spot in the mind of
a neurotic girl, and she would explode with wild accusations. Or take
a saner person, like himself. Suppose someone should be studying him
secretly, looking for the vulnerable filament, finger casually poised
to flick--
But that was really getting fanciful.
* * * * *
Coming out of their eleven-o'clock classes, Hervey Sawtelle buttonholed
him.
Hervey Sawtelle resembled an unfriendly caricature of a college
professor. Sometimes he carried two brief cases, and he was usually on
his way to a committee meeting. Routine worries chased themselves up
and down his nervous face.
But at the moment he was in the grip of one of his petty excitements.
"Say, Norman, the most interesting thing! I was down in the stacks this
morning, and I happened to pull out an old doctor's thesis--1930--by
someone I never heard of--with the title 'Superstition and Neurosis.'"
He produced a bound, typewritten manuscript that looked as if it had
aged without ever being opened. "Almost the same as your 'Parallelisms
in Superstition and Neurosis.' An odd coincidence, eh? I'm going to
look it over tonight."
They were hurrying together toward the dining hall down a walk flooded
with jabbering, laughing students. Norman studied Sawtelle's face
covertly. Surely the fool must remember that his "Parallelisms" had
been published in 1931, giving an ugly suggestion of plagiarism. But
Sawtelle's nervous, toothy grin was without guile.
He had the impulse to pull Sawtelle aside and tell him that there
was something odder than a coincidence involved, and that it did not
reflect in any way on his own integrity of scholarship. But this seemed
hardly the place.
Yet there was no denying the incident bothered him a trifle. Why,
it was years since he had even thought of that stupid business of
Cunningham's thesis. It had lain buried and forgotten in the past--a
hidden vulnerability, waiting for the flick of the fingernail.
Asinine fancifulness! It could all be very well explained, to Sawtelle
or anyone else, at a more suitable time.
Sawtelle's mind was back to routine worries. "You know, we should
be having our conference on the social-science program for next
year. On the other hand, I suppose we should wait until--" He paused
embarrassedly.
"Until it's decided whether you or I get the chairmanship of the
department?" Norman finished for him. "I don't see why. We'll be
working together in any case."
"Yes, of course. I didn't mean to suggest that--"
They were joined by some other faculty members on the steps of the
dining hall. The deafening clatter of trays from the student section
was subdued to a faint din as they entered the faculty sanctum.
Conversation revolved among the old familiar topics, with an
undercurrent of speculation as to what reorganizations and curtailments
of staff the new war year might bring to Hempnell. There was some
reference to the political ambitions of President Pollard--it was
rumored that he might be persuaded to run for governor or senator;
discreet silences here and there around the table substituted for
adverse criticisms on this possibility. Sawtelle's Adam's apple
twitched convulsively at a chance reference to the vacant chairmanship
in sociology.
Norman managed to get a fairly interesting conversation going. He was
glad that he would be busy with classes and conferences until four
o'clock. He knew he could work half again as hard as someone like
Sawtelle, but if he were compelled to do one quarter of the worrying
that man did--
* * * * *
Yet the four-o'clock meeting proved to be an anticlimax. He had no
sooner put his hand on the door leading to Mrs. Carr's office, when--as
if that had provided the necessary stimulus--a shrill, tearful voice
burst out with: "It's all a lie! I made it up."
Gunnison was sitting near the window, face a trifle averted, arms
folded, looking like a slightly bored, slightly embarrassed but very
stolid elephant. In a chair in the center of the room was huddled a
delicate, fair-haired, but rather homely girl, tears dribbling down her
cheeks and hysterical sobs racking her shoulders. Mrs. Carr was trying
to calm her in a fluttery way.
"I don't know why I did it," the girl bleated pitifully. "I was in love
with him, and he wouldn't even look at me. I was going to kill myself
last night, and then I thought I would do this instead, to hurt him,
or--"
"Now, Margaret, you must control yourself," Mrs. Carr admonished, her
hands hovering over the girl's shoulders.
"Just a minute," Norman cut in, "did you say last night?"
"There, there, dear. I think you better leave, Professor Saylor." Mrs.
Carr's eyes, magnified by thick glasses, looked fishlike. Her attitude
was hostile. "There's obviously no need of asking questions."
"I think I should be permitted at least one," said Norman. "Just
exactly at what time last night, Miss van Nice, did you get this idea?"
Gunnison registered puzzled but vague curiosity.
The tear-stained face looked up at Norman.
"It was just after one o'clock," she said. "I had been lying awake in
the dark for hours, planning to kill myself. And then, in a flash the
idea came to me." Suddenly she shook loose from Mrs. Carr and stood up,
facing Norman. "Oh, I hate you!" she screamed. "I hate you!"
Gunnison followed him out of the office. He yawned, shook his head, and
remarked, "Glad that's over."
"Never a dull moment," Norman responded, absently.
"Oh, by the way," Gunnison said, dragging a stiff white envelope out of
his inside pocket, "here's a note for Mrs. Saylor. Hulda asked me to
give it to you. I forgot about it before."
"I met her coming out of your office this morning," Norman said, his
thoughts still elsewhere.
* * * * *
Somewhat later, back at Morton, Norman tried to come to grips with
those thoughts, but found them remarkably slippery. The dragon on the
roof ridge of Estrey Hall lured away his attention. Funny about little
things like that. You never even noticed them for years, and then
they suddenly popped into focus. How many people could give you one
single definite fact about the architectural ornaments of buildings in
which they worked? Not one in ten, probably. Why, if you'd asked him
yesterday about that dragon, he wouldn't for his life have been able to
tell you even if there _was_ one or not.
He leaned on the window sill, looking at the lizardlike yet grotesquely
anthropoid form, bathed in the yellow sunset glow, which, his wandering
mind remembered, was supposed to symbolize the souls of the dead
passing into and out of the underworld. Below the dragon, jutting out
from under the cornice, was a sculptured head, one of a series of
famous scientists and mathematicians decorating the entablature. He
made out the name "Galileo," along with a brief inscription of some
sort.
When he turned back to answer the phone, it suddenly seemed very dark
in the office.
"Saylor? I just want to tell you that I'm going to give you until
tomorrow--"
"Listen, Jennings," Norman cut in sharply, "I hung up on you last night
because you kept shouting into the phone. This threatening line won't
do you any good."
The voice continued where it had broken off, growing dangerously high.
"--until tomorrow to withdraw your charges and have me reinstated at
Hempnell. If you don't--"
"I told you not to threaten. There were no charges. You just flunked
out. If you want to talk it over reasonably, come and see me."
The voice at the other end of the line broke into a screaming obscene
torrent of abuse, so loud that he could still hear it very plainly as
he was placing the receiver back in the cradle.
Paranoid--that was the way it sounded.
Then he suddenly sat very still.
At twenty past one last night he had burned a charm supposedly designed
to ward off evil influence from him. The last of Tansy's "hands."
At about the same time Margaret van Nice had decided to accuse him of
seducing her, and Marvin Jennings had decided to make him responsible
for an imaginary plot.