“What records office?” the student asked.
“Where they keep the records.”
“Records of what? You mean the registrar?”
“We mean records of past students.”
“Alumni, you mean?”
“Well, we’re not sure this student ever graduated.”
“Matriculated students, do you mean? Or nonmatriculated?”
“We’re not sure,” Carella said.
“Day session or night?” the student asked.
“Well, we’re not sure.”
“Which college, would you know that?”
“No,” Carella said.
The student looked at him curiously. “I’m late for class,” he said at last, and wandered off.
“We get an F,” Meyer said. “We came to school unprepared.”
“Let’s talk to the dean,” Carella said.
“Which dean?” Meyer asked, peering at Carella as the student had done. “Dean of admissions? Dean of men? Dean of women? Dean Martin?”
“Dean I see you someplace before?” Carella said, and Meyer said, “Ouch!”
The dean of admissions was a nice lady in her early sixties who wore a starched ruffled blouse and a pencil in her hair. Her name was Dean Agnes Moriarty, and when the detectives said they were from the police, she immediately quipped, “Moriarty, meet Holmes and Watson.”
“Carella and Meyer,” Carella said, smiling.
“What can I do for you, gentlemen?”
“We’re interested in whatever information we can get about a woman who was once a student here.”
“When?” Miss Moriarty asked.
“We don’t know. Sometime before the war, we believe.”
“When before the war? This university was founded in 1842, gentlemen.”
“The girl was forty-one years old when she died,” Meyer said. “We can assume…”
“Died?” Miss Moriarty asked, and she raised her eyebrows slightly.
“Yes, ma’am,” Meyer said. “She was killed last night.”
“Oh,” Miss Moriarty nodded. “Then this is serious, isn’t it?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Oh. Well, now, let’s see. If she was forty-one years old—most of our students begin at eighteen, which would make this twenty-three years ago. Do you have any idea which college she was enrolled in?”
“No, I’m afraid we haven’t.”
“Shall we try the school of liberal arts?”
“We’re entirely in your hands, Miss Moriarty,” Carella said.
“Well, then, let’s see what we can find out, shall we?”
They found out that Blanche Ruth Lettiger had indeed enrolled in the Liberal Arts College of Ramsey University as a speech and dramatics major in 1940; that she had given her age as eighteen at the time, and her home address as Jonesboro, Indiana, a town with a population of 1,973, close to Kokomo. She had listed her temporary address at 1107 Horsely Road, in the Quarter. She had remained at the school for one term only, a matter of less than five months, and had then dropped out. Her withdrawal was somewhat mysterious, since she was an honor student with a 3.8 index, close to the perfect 4.0. Miss Moriarty had no idea where Blanche Lettiger had gone after her dropout. She had never returned to the school, and had never attempted to contact them in any way.
Carella asked Miss Moriarty if there was anyone at the school now who might remember Blanche Lettiger as a student, and Miss Moriarty promptly took the detectives to Professor Richardson in the speech and dramatics department. Richardson was a thin old man with the manner and bearing of a Shakespearean actor. His voice rolled from his mouth in golden, rounded tones. He spoke forcefully, as though he were trying to give the second balcony its money’s worth. Carella was certain every word he projected was heard all the way uptown in the squadroom.
“Blanche Lettiger?” he said. “Blanche Lettiger?”
He put one slender hand to his leonine head, closing the thumb and forefinger over the bridge of his nose, lost in silent thought. Then he nodded once, looked up and said, “Yes.”
“You remember her?” Carella asked.
“Yes.” Richardson turned to Miss Moriarty. “Do you recall the Wig and Buskin Society?”
“I do,” she said.
“Then you must also remember The Long Voyage Home.”
“I’m afraid I missed that one,” Miss Moriarty said tactfully. “The school’s drama groups do so many shows.”
“Mmm, yes, well,” Richardson said. He turned back to Carella. “I was faculty adviser of the group for four successive years. Blanche worked with us in that play.”
“The Long Voyage Home?”
“Yes. A very nice girl. I remember her very well. And the play, too. It was the first production we did in the round. Blanche Lettiger, yes, that’s right. She played one of the…ah…ladies of easy virtue.”
“What do you mean?” Carella said.
“Well…” Richardson paused, glanced at Miss Moriarty, and then said, “One of the prostitutes.”
Carella glanced at Meyer, but neither of the detectives said anything.
“She was a very nice child,” Richardson said. “Rather intense, somewhat brooding, but nice nonetheless. And a very good actress. The play is set in a London waterfront dive, you know, and the girl Blanche played spoke with a cockney dialect. Blanche mastered the tones and accent almost immediately. A remarkable feat, very. She had an excellent memory, too. She had memorized all of her sides”—Richardson paused here to see whether or not anyone had caught his use of the professional term “sides,” and then, getting no reaction, continued—”in the first two nights of rehearsal. She had quite the largest female part in the play, you know. Freda. The girl who has the long talk with Olson and then is instrumental in drugging him before he’s shanghaied. We did the play in the round, the first time anything of the sort had been tried at this school. We used the school theater, of course, but we banked rows of rented bleachers on the stage, and the performers worked in the center of it. Very exciting. In one scene, if you recall the play…”
“Mr. Richardson, I wonder if…”
“…one of the sailors, Driscoll, is supposed to throw the beer in his glass into the face of Ivan, the drunken Russian sailor. Well, when…”
“Mr. Richardson, do you know if…?”
“…the actor hurled the contents of his glass, he spattered half a dozen people sitting in the first row. The immediacy of playing in the round is difficult to…”
“Mr. Richardson,” Carella said firmly, “did Blanche Lettiger…?”
“…imagine unless you’ve done it. Blanche was excellent at it. She had a very expressive face, you see. In the scene with Olson, she was required to do a lot of listening, a task even professional actresses find difficult. It was especially difficult here because we were working in the round, where every nuance of expression is clearly visible to the audience. But Blanche carried it off beautifully, a remarkable performance, very.”
“Did she want to…?”
“The play isn’t one of my particular favorites, you know,” Richardson said. “Of the Glencairn series, I much prefer The Moon of the Caribbees, or even In the Zone. But Moon of the Caribbees has four women, who are all West Indian Negresses, which would rather have limited our female casting; there are, after all, white students to consider, too. In the Zone, of course, has an all-male…”