Ellery Queen
Calendar of Crime
The Adventure of The Inner Circle
If you are an Eastern alumnus who has not been to New York since last year’s All-University Dinner, you will be astounded to learn that the famous pickled-pine door directly opposite the elevators on the thirteenth floor of your Alumni Club in Murray Hill is now inscribed: LINEN ROOM.
Visit The Alumni Club on your next trip to Manhattan and see for yourself. On the door now consigned to napery, in the area where the stainless steel medallion of Janus glistened for so long, you will detect a ghostly circumference some nine inches in diameter—all that is left of The Januarians. Your first thought will of course be that they have removed to more splendid quarters. Undeceive yourself. You may search from cellar to sundeck and you will find no crumb’s trace of either Janus or his disciples.
Hasten to the Steward for an explanation and he will give you one as plausible as it will be false.
And you will do no better elsewhere.
The fact is, only a very few share the secret of The Januarians’ obliteration, and these have taken a vow of silence. And why? Because Eastern is a young—a very young—temple of learning; and there are calamities only age can weather. There is more to it than even that. The cataclysm of events struck at the handiwork of the Architects themselves, that legendary band who builded the tabernacle and created the holy canons. So Eastern’s shame is kept steadfastly covered with silence; and if we uncover its bloody stones here, it is only because the very first word on the great seal of Eastern University is: Veritas.
To a Harvard man, “Harvard ’13” means little more than “Harvard ’06” or “Harvard ’79,” unless “Harvard ’13” happens to be his own graduating class. But to an Eastern man, of whatever vintage, “Eastern ’13” is sui generis. Their names bite deep into the strong marble of The Alumni Club lobby. A member of the Class is traditionally The Honorable Mr. Honorary President of The Eastern Alumni Association. To the last man they carry gold, lifetime, non-cancelable passes to Eastern football games. At the All-University Dinner, Eastern ’13 shares the Chancellor’s parsley-decked table. The twined-elbow Rite of the Original Libation, drunk in foaming beer (the second most sacred canon), is dedicated to that Class and no other.
One may well ask why this exaltation of Eastern ’13 as against, for example, Eastern ’12, or Eastern ’98? The answer is that there was no Eastern ’12, and Eastern ’98 never existed. For Eastern U. was not incorporated under the laws of the State of New York until A.D. 1909, from which it solemnly follows that Eastern ’13 was the university’s very first graduating class.
It was Charlie Mason who said they must be gods, and it was Charlie Mason who gave them Janus. Charlie was destined to forge a chain of one hundred and twenty-three movie houses which bring Abbott and Costello to millions; but in those days Charlie was a lean weaver of dreams, the Class Poet, an antiquarian with a passion for classical allusion. Eastern ’13 met on the eve of graduation in the Private Party Room of McElvy’s Brauhaus in Riverdale, and the air was boiling with pipe smoke, malt fumes, and motions when Charlie rose to make his historic speech.
“Mr. Chairman,” he said to Bill Updike, who occupied the Temporary Chair. “Fellows,” he said to the nine others. And he paused.
Then he said: “We are the First Alumni.”
He paused again.
“The eyes of the future are on us.” (Stan Jones was taking notes, as Recording Secretary of the Evening, and we have Charlie’s address verbatim. You have seen it in The Alumni Club lobby, under glass. Brace yourself: It, too, has vanished.)
“What we do here tonight, therefore, will initiate a whole codex of Eastern tradition.”
And now, the Record records, there was nothing to be heard in that smoky room but the whizz of the electric fan over the lithograph of Woodrow Wilson.
“I have no hesitation in saying—out loud! — that we men in this room, tonight... that we’re... Significant. Not as individuals! But as the Class of ’13.” And then Charlie drew himself up and said quietly: “They will remember us and we must give them something to remember” (the third sacred canon).
“Such as?” said Morry Green, who was to die in a French ditch five years later.
“A sign,” said Charlie. “A symbol, Morry—a symbol of our Firstness.”
Eddie Temple, who was graduating eleventh in the Class, exhibited his tongue and blew a coarse, fluttery blast.
“That may be the sign you want to be remembered by, Ed,” began Charlie crossly...
“Shut up, Temple!” growled Vern Hamisher.
“Read that bird out of the party!” yelled Ziss Brown, who was suspected of holding radical views because his father had stumped for Teddy Roosevelt in ’12.
“Sounds good,” said Bill Updike, scowling. “Go on, Charlie.”
“What sign?” demanded Rod Black.
“Anything specific in mind?” called Johnnie Cudwise.
Charlie said one word.
“Janus.”
And he paused.
“Janus,” they muttered, considering him.
“Yes, Janus,” said Charlie. “The god of good beginnings—”
“Well, we’re beginning,” said Morry Green.
“Guaranteed to result in good endings—”
“It certainly applies,” nodded Bill Updike.
“Yeah,” said Bob Smith. “Eastern’s sure on its way to big things.”
“Janus of the two faces,” cried Charlie Mason mystically. “I wish to point out that he looks in opposite directions!”
“Say, that’s right—”
“The past and the future—”
“Smart stuff—”
“Go on, Charlie!”
“Janus,” cried Charlie — “Janus, who was invoked by the Romans before any other god at the beginning of an important undertaking!”
“Wow!”
“This is certainly important!”
“The beginning of the day, month, and year were sacred to him! Janus was the god of doorways!”
“JANUS!” they shouted, leaping to their feet; and they raised their tankards and drank deep.
And so from that night forward the annual meeting of the Class of ’13 was held on Janus’s Day, the first day of January; and the Class of ’13 adopted, by unanimous vote, the praenomen of The Januarians. Thus the double-visaged god became patron of Eastern’s posterity, and that is why until recently Eastern official stationery was impressed with his two-bearded profiles. It is also why the phrase “to be two-faced,” when uttered by Columbia or N.Y.U. men, usually means “to be a student at, or a graduate of, Eastern U.” — a development unfortunately not contemplated by Charlie Mason on that historic eve; at least, not consciously.
But let us leave the profounder explorations to psychiatry. Here it is sufficient to record that something more than thirty years later the phrase suddenly took on a grim verisimilitude; and The Januarians thereupon laid it, so to speak, on the doorstep of one well acquainted with such changelings of chance.
For it was during Christmas week of last year that Bill Updike came—stealthily—to see Ellery. He did not come as young Billy who had presided at the beery board in the Private Party Room of McElvy’s Brauhaus on that June night in 1913. He came, bald, portly, and opulently engraved upon a card: Mr. William Updike, President of The Brokers National Bank of New York, residence Dike Hollow, Scarsdale; and he looked exactly as worried as bankers are supposed to look and rarely do.