“No. There isn’t any need to bother him. Thank you for your help.”
“You’re welcome, sir.” The boy turned and continued quickly toward the building the other students were entering on the opposite side of the square. Although they hurried, they managed to look like gentlemen.
“He’ll be a credit to Washington insiders,” Pittman said.
He and Jill walked in the direction the young man had indicated, reached a brick building with the number 4 above its entrance, and left the noon’s intense sunlight, entering a cool, well-lit stairwell that smelled sweetly of wax. Steps led down and up.
The building was eerily silent.
“I doubt very much that a library would be in the basement,” Jill said. “Too much danger of moisture getting into the books.”
Nodding in agreement, his footsteps echoing, Pittman went up to the first floor. A hallway had several doors on each side. Many of the doors were open. In one, study desks were equipped with computers. In another, the desks had tape players and earphones, probably for language study.
As Pittman approached a third door, an elderly man came out, holding a key, about to close the door. He wore the same uniform that the students had been wearing. Short and somewhat heavy, he looked to be about sixty, with a salt-and-pepper mustache and receding gray hair.
He peered over his glasses toward Pittman and Jill. “I was just going to lunch. May I help you?”
“We were told that the library is in this building.”
“That’s correct.” The man cleared his throat.
“Is that where you keep old yearbooks, things like that?” Pittman asked.
“They would be in our archival section.” The man squinted. “I don’t believe I’ve met you before. Why exactly would you need to know?”
“My name is Peter Logan. I’m a freelance journalist, and I’ve decided to write the book I always promised myself I would.”
“Book?”
“About Grollier Academy. A great many distinguished public servants have graduated from this school.”
“You could say that we’ve had more than our share. But I strongly suspect that they wouldn’t want their privacy invaded.”
“That isn’t what I had in mind. Grollier Academy itself, that would be my emphasis. I thought it would be an example to other schools if I wrote about the superior methods of this one. This country’s in a crisis. If our educational system isn’t changed… I’m worried about our future. We need a model, and I can’t think of a better one than Grollier.”
The man scrunched his eyebrows together and nodded. “There is no better preparatory education in America. What sort of research did you intend to do?”
“Well, for starters, Mr….?”
“Caradine. I’m chief librarian.”
“Naturally I’ll devote a considerable portion of the book to Grollier’s educational theory. But I’ll also need to supply a historical perspective. When the academy was founded. By whom. How it grew. The famous students who passed through here. So, for starters, I thought that a general immersion in your archives would be helpful. The yearbooks, for example. Their photographs will show how the campus changed over the years. And I might discover that Grollier had many more famous graduates than I was aware of. I want to skim the surface, so to speak, before I plunge into the depths.”
“A sensible method. The archives are…” Caradine glanced at his watch. “I’m sorry. I have a lunch meeting with the library committee, and I’m already late. I’m afraid I can’t show you through the archives. If you come back at one o’clock… The head of the refectory will, I’m sure, be pleased to provide you with lunch.”
“Thanks, Mr. Caradine, but my assistant and I had a late breakfast and… To tell the truth, I’m anxious to get started. Perhaps you could let us into the archives and we can familiarize ourselves with the research materials while you’re at your meeting. I had hoped not to inconvenience you. I’m sure you have better things to do than watch us read journals.”
Caradine glanced at his watch again. “I really have to be at… Very well. I don’t see the harm. The archives are on the next level. The first door on your right at the top of the stairs.”
“I appreciate this, Mr. Caradine. If you’ll unlock the door, we’ll do our best not to trouble you for a while.”
“Just go up.” Caradine started past them toward the stairs. “The door isn’t locked. Almost none of the doors at Grollier are locked. This is a school for gentlemen. We depend on the honor system. In its entire one-hundred-and-thirty-year history, there has never been an instance of thievery on this campus.”
“Exactly what I was getting at earlier. This school is a model. I’ll be sure to put what you just told me into my book.”
Caradine nodded, fidgeting with his hands, saying, “I’m terribly late.” He hurried down the stairs and left the building.
9
The door thunked shut. Pittman listened to its echo, turned to Jill, and gestured toward the stairs that led upward. “I hope he’s a slow eater.”
At the top of the stairs, the first door on the right had a frosted glass window. Pittman turned the knob, briefly worrying that Caradine had been mistaken about the door’s being unlocked, but the knob turned freely, and with relief, Pittman entered the room.
He faced an area that was larger than he had expected. Shelves lined all the walls and, in library fashion, filled the middle area. Various boxes, ledgers, and books were on the shelves. Several windows provided adequate light.
Jill shut the door and looked around. “Why don’t you check the shelves against that wall? I’ll check these.”
For the next five minutes, they searched.
“Here,” Jill said.
Pittman came over. Stooping toward where Jill pointed at lower shelves, he found several rows of thin oversized volumes, all bound in black leather, their spines stamped with gold numbers that indicated years, arranged chronologically, beginning with 1900.
“I thought Caradine said the school went back a hundred and thirty years,” Pittman said. “Where are the other yearbooks?”
“Maybe the school only started the tradition at the turn of the century.”
Pittman shrugged. “Maybe. Millgate was eighty. Assuming he graduated when he was eighteen, his last semester at Grollier would have been…”
“The spring of ’33,” Jill said.
“How on earth did you do that so fast?”
“I’ve always been good with numbers. All my money, you know,” Jill said, joking to break the tension. “Of course, Millgate might have graduated when he was seventeen.”
“And the other grand counselors aren’t all Millgate’s age. Let’s try a few years in each direction-1929 to 1936.”
“Fine with me,” Jill said. “I’ll take up to ’32. You take the rest.”
“There’s a table over here.”
Sitting opposite each other, they stacked the yearbooks and began to read.
“At least the students are presented in alphabetical order. That’ll save time,” Jill said.
Pittman turned a page. “We know that Millgate, Eustace Gable, and Anthony Lloyd went to school here. The other grand counselors are Winston Sloane and Victor Standish. But we also have to look for someone else.”
“Who?”
“Duncan. The way Millgate said the name… It had the same intensity as when he said ‘Grollier.’ I have to believe the two are connected. The trouble is, Duncan can be a first name as well as a last.”
“Which means we’ll have to check every student’s name in all these books.” Jill frowned toward the stack. “How large a student body did Professor Folsom say Grollier had? Three hundred at one time? We’ve got a lot of names to read.”
They turned pages intently.
“Dead,” Pittman murmured.
Jill looked at him, puzzled.
“Old photographs always give me a chill,” he said.
“I know what you mean. Most of these students are dead by now. But here they are, in their prime.”
Pittman thought of how he coveted every photograph of his dead son. His mouth felt dry.