Dark Tunnel (13 page)

“She knew. I confirmed what she knew.” After a pause Rasmussen said, “Well, I can trust you gentlemen to see that she gets home safely. I might as well toddle home for a snooze. I think I’ll have a delivery before morning.”

“O.K., doctor, good night,” Cross said. Rasmussen picked up his bag and waved his hand and went downstairs.

“Is that Judd’s office?” Cross asked as we passed the open door.

“Yes.”

“Hey, Lieutenant,” said Sale, “the glass in the door is broken.”

“I think Miss Madden broke it. I heard the crash after Judd fell.”

“I get it,” Cross said. “You might as well stay here and look around, Sale. I’ll be right back.”

I took Cross to my office and he called the Detective-Sergeant. When he had finished, I picked up the receiver.

“Going to make a call?” Cross looked as if he felt he should be suspicious of me but couldn’t quite make the grade. His broad, weather-reddened face was set in unimpressive creases of earnestness and his blue eyes were puzzled.

“I’m going to call President Galloway,” I said. “He’s got to know about this.”

“I guess that’s right,” Cross agreed. “Stick around, though, will you? The detective’ll probably want to ask you some more questions.”

“I’ll stay in the building.”

Cross went out the door and I dialed President Galloway’s number. He lived in the presidential mansion, which was a university building on the opposite side of the campus from McKinley Hall.

While the phone rang, I looked at my watch. It was just after 12:30. How long ago had Alec died? It was midnight when I left my apartment. It must have taken me about five minutes to get here. Perhaps six. Alec had been dead about twenty-five minutes. In another twenty-five minutes, I hoped to have his murderer. But first I had to talk to Galloway.

On the fourth ring, a maid answered the phone. “President Galloway’s residence.”

“This is Robert Branch, professor of English. May I speak to the President?”

“It’s very late. Could I have him call you in the morning, or take a message?”

“Tell him it’s important university business. If he’s in bed, you’ll have to wake him up.”

“One moment, please.”

I waited a number of moments. Then I heard the President’s voice say, “Galloway speaking,” with the exaggerated briskness of a man still half asleep.

“Robert Branch speaking. Alec Judd has been killed.”

“Judd killed! Good heavens. How did it happen?”

“He jumped, or was pushed, from the window of his office in McKinley Hall. I think he was pushed and I think I know who pushed him.”

“You do?”

I decided to hold it till he came over. “I’d prefer not to tell you over the phone. Can you come here now, sir?”

“Of course, Robert, of course. Where are you?”

“In my office in McKinley Hall. I can’t leave here because the police want to question me. Fifth floor.”

“You’ve called the police?”

“I called them as soon as it happened. I saw Alec fall.”

“It must have been a terrible shock. You were close friends, weren’t you? You called the local police, of course?”

“That’s right.”

“I’ll be right over,” Galloway said, and hung up.

I replaced the receiver and leaned back in my swivel-chair and looked at the telephone. I thought of the receiver dangling from the shelf beside Alec’s window. Had he been phoning when he was attacked? If so, whom had he been phoning?

My mind jumped like a shot deer. He was phoning me! The line was cut off while I was writing ‘taillour’ on the envelope. I stiffened up and the chair tilted me forward.

Then I relaxed again and blew air out of my lungs. The deer had been missed by a mile after all. It couldn’t have been much after 11:30 when he phoned me. Besides, he said that he was phoning from the Dictionary office on the fourth floor. What was he doing in the Dictionary office?

A sharp-nosed man in plain clothes with a beady eye and a clipped black moustache put his head in at the door. “I’m Haggerty,” he said, “Detective-Sergeant Haggerty. Are you Professor Branch?”

“Yes. I believe you want to ask me some questions.”

“Can you wait a few minutes? I want to examine this office down the line first.”

“O.K., Sergeant,” I said, and he took his nose away with him.

I went on sitting in my chair. There was no sign of Galloway yet. The dangling receiver still bothered me. Suddenly it occurred to me that I could do something.

I dialed ‘O’ and the night operator answered, “University operator speaking.”

“This is Professor Branch of the English Department. I’m investigating a certain matter for the President and I wonder if you can give me some information.”

“What about? It depends on what it is,” she said in the cagey way switchboard operators have.

“Is the line to Professor Judd’s office still open?”

“Yes, it is. I turned my key a few minutes ago and there was nobody on the line. I asked if the line was being used and a policeman came to the phone and told me to leave it open.”

“How long had the line been open? I mean, when was the call put in?”

“The original call from Professor Judd’s office? I don’t know, maybe an hour ago. I don’t remember exactly.”

“Did you hear anything that was said over the line?”

“Say, who is that talking? Are you really Professor Branch?” The false culture flaked off the surface of her voice like old fingernail polish. There is nothing like fear for a job to remove culture from a voice.

“Do you want me to quote some poetry to prove it?”

“No kidding, you’re not trying to put me on the spot, are you?”

“Of course not. I’m Branch and I don’t know or care who you are. Did you hear anything?”

“I’m not allowed to listen to conversation,” she said more calmly. “But when a line has been open for quite a while, we’re allowed to switch in and make sure it’s busy, that’s all.”

“Was Judd’s line busy?”

“Well, it was open for about twenty minutes or so, so I turned the key and somebody was talking all right and I switched out again.”

“About when was this?”

“I switched in about midnight, I think. No, it was just after midnight. The tower clock had just struck.”

“How long after midnight?”

“Two or three minutes, maybe. I don’t know.”

“You didn’t hear anything that was said?”

“We’re not supposed to listen and I couldn’t tell you anyway, Dr. Branch. It wasn’t anything, anyway. It sounded like a gag.”

“It was no gag. Can’t you tell me anything?”

She said: “Sorry I have to go now. The policeman in the office wants to talk to me.”

She clicked off.

I
HEARD QUICK, HEAVY
steps in the hall and got out of my chair. President Galloway came through the door with his head down as if he were butting his way in. He had on trousers and a shirt and a grey suede windbreaker. The shirt was open at the neck and I could see the matted grey hair on his chest. He had obviously come in a hurry and I wondered why he had taken so long.

“A terrible business, Branch.” His lined face was pale and needed shaving. I had never seen Galloway look perturbed or disheveled before. He was a former head of the department of psychology, a good judge of men and a smooth and subtle politician. Maybe statesman is a better word: he presided with considerable dignity and some wisdom over a university community as large and complex as an ancient city-state. But he was upset now.

“I’m glad I was able to get in touch with you, sir,” I said, “and that you could come over.”

“We’ve got to do what we can. Branch, do you think Judd’s death had anything to do with the War Board?”

“I’m sure it had.”

“I’ve been worried about the War Board,” Galloway said. “I heard indirectly at the time of the Detroit indictments that evidence was turned up which led in our direction.”

“Alec said something of the sort this afternoon.”

“It was evidently a blind alley,” Galloway went on, “but I called up one of the Federal men with the Detroit office who happens to be a friend of mine. Former student, in fact. I wanted to keep it unofficial. He came down here last week and we talked it over—off the record, of course.”

“It might be a good idea to make contact with him now. This is likely to be a Federal matter.”

“I called him before I left the house.” A tired smile twitched the sagging muscles of Galloway’s face. “As it happened he was at the Bomber Plant to-night and it took me some time to get in touch with him. But he should be here before long.”

Thank God for that, I thought. I had no great faith in the sly-faced sergeant.

I said: “The Bomber Plant? What’s the matter there?”

Galloway answered, “I don’t know,” and closed his face up like a fist. After a pause, as if to console me for the snub, he said: “A great boy, Chet Gordon. I had him in psychology seminar eight or nine years ago.”

I remembered the name from my undergraduate days. “Was he an intercollegiate swimmer?”

“That’s the man.” After another pause he said, “You had something to tell me, Branch.”

I gave it to him without trimmings: “Alec was murdered by Herman Schneider or his son, or both of them.”

“Jesus Christ, Branch! Do you know what you’re saying? Did you see them do it?”

“No.”

“What grounds have you for this—accusation?”

“The Schneiders tried to murder me to-night. Shortly before Alec was killed, he called me on the phone and told me he had found proof that Herman Schneider had copied confidential War Board information. There are other things.”

“Jehosophat.” Galloway was regaining control of his proper names. “What other things?”

I told him what I knew, leaving out my suspicions of Ruth Esch. If she was an innocent friend of the Schneiders, there was no point in ruining her university career before it began.

When I finished, Galloway said, “This is a big thing, Robert. I’m glad you called me before speaking to the police. A big thing. A scandal involving a man of Schneider’s standing in the university could do us a great deal of harm. We must move with circumspection.”

Circumspection was his favorite word: he had to consider the Board of Regents and the State Legislature and the national reputation of the university. I wanted to see Schneider in handcuffs. I said:

“You can’t hush up murder and you can’t hush up espionage.”

“Of course not, Robert, of course not,” Galloway said in the soothing accents he used when he was most unalterable. “But we cannot be impetuous. Murder has not been proved. Stronger men than Alec Judd have committed suicide.”

“I was with Alec an hour before it happened. He was in fine fettle.”

“Of course, of course,” which meant that he would move when he was ready. “Have you found this evidence against Schneider which you say he said he had?”

I didn’t like the ‘you say’ construction but wasted no more breath. “No.”

“Has a search been made for it?”

“I told the police nothing about it.”

“Good. We can handle this in our own way. We must have a talk with Schneider. At least we can find out if he could possibly have killed Alec.”

“Why not let the police handle it?” I said sharply. He had the temporizing brain without which few university presidents can last a year, and trying to co-operate with him was like shaking hands with an octopus while walking in quicksand.

“Chester Gordon will be here soon. He is a man of wider experience, and greater discretion, than I should judge the local police to be. Meanwhile, I should like to discuss this matter with one or two members of the War Board.”

“Don’t call Schneider, sir.”

“I shall call Herman Schneider,” Galloway said softly, “and ask him to come over. I think you may trust me to be discreet.” He looked at me out of blank, cold eyes over which the lids drooped slantwise.

I remembered that I was an Assistant Professor and said nothing. Galloway said, “May I use your phone?”

“Certainly. I’ll go down to Alec’s office and see if the police have found anything. The detective said he wants to question me.”

“Go ahead.” He sat down to phone.

When I opened the door, Haggerty was going through the drawers of Alec’s desk. He looked up at me with a nasty look in his small eye like a rat cornering another rat:

“I hear you were having a little conversation with the university operator a few minutes ago. A very highbrow little confab, I bet you. I’m not an intellectual myself, but I hear it was a very highbrow little confab.”

“That’s what you said,” I said with eighteenth-century courtesy. “I’m not a detective myself, but I thought I might learn something from her. It turned out I couldn’t.”

“Yeah, I know. But don’t you think it might be a wise plan, professor, to leave investigation to the proper authorities? We’re stupid, we’re slow, we’re dumb, but we’re trained to find out things. Isn’t that right, professor?”

“That’s right, Sergeant. I don’t want to butt in.” In the United States a college degree is a mystic symbol. There are a lot of men who have never been to college and can’t get over it. It pays to humor them.

“O.K., now we know where we stand. You leave investigation to me, I leave Shakespeare to you.” His thin lips smiled narrowly: he had taken the curse off one college degree. I hid my Phi Beta Kappa key in my watch pocket.

Sale, the officer with the sallow face, was watching us as if he were enjoying himself. “Where’s Cross?” I asked.

“He took the body to the morgue,” Haggerty said. “I told him to send over the fingerprint man. He’ll probably want your fingerprints, so he’ll know which are yours and which are somebody else’s, if there was somebody else.”

“Don’t forget Miss Madden’s fingerprints. The Lieutenant told you about her, didn’t he?”

“I’m not planning to forget anything, professor. I went down there a few minutes ago and she said she was ready to talk to me when I get through with you.”

“How is she?”

“She’s O.K. Now I want to know what you saw. Everything you can remember.” He sat down in the swivel-chair at the desk and I sat facing him in the chair I had sat in talking to Alec earlier in the evening.