“My son fenced a little with Dr. Branch to-night, and appears to have frightened him. Later, when I was driving Dr. Branch home, my car got out of control and plunged over the cliff near my home. I can understand that Dr. Branch may have been unsettled by the experience – I was shaken myself and barely escaped with my life – but it is certainly irrational to accuse me of trying to kill us both.
“Above all, I know nothing of espionage or of the death of Professor Judd. His death has come as a deep personal blow to me. Perhaps it has affected Dr. Branch even more deeply. But you must not condemn me, untried, on the word of one young man, a young man whose judgment has perhaps been unsettled by a series of harrowing experiences.”
Schneider sat down wearily in his chair.
“Have you any evidence, Branch?” Jackson said curtly. He was leaning forward across the table, the lines in his face drawn deep by earnestness.
“I have what happened to me, what Alec told me, and what happened to Alec. And a word he told me to write down when he called me from the Dictionary office before midnight. ‘Taillour,’ Middle English for ‘tailor.’”
“And Old French,” Hunter said.
“Schneider means ‘tailor’ in German,” I said, realizing how feeble it sounded.
“Did he explain it that way?” Hunter said.
“He was cut off before he could say anything more. I believe he may have been attacked then.”
Hunter said, “I know how you feel about Alec and all that. But tell me: if Alec had given you the word ‘chasseur’ – ‘hunter’ – would you be suspicious of me?”
“There’s more to it than that. You’re not a German, for one thing.”
“You don’t like Germans, I know,” Hunter said. “But your logic seems pretty tenuous, and I can’t follow it.”
Schneider was looking less strained by the minute, and I felt that things were slipping out from under me.
“Did you make a copy of the War Board report which Alec gave you, Dr. Schneider?” I asked.
“Yes, I did,” he said coolly.
“May I ask why.”
“Though you have no legal right to question me, there is no reason why I should not answer. I made a copy for further study, a copy which I intended to destroy when I had mastered its contents. Surely, it is not criminal to take a serious interest in one’s duties.”
“Judd specifically instructed you not to make a copy.”
“Your tone is not wholly tolerable, Dr. Branch. I do not recall that any such instructions were given me. If they had been, my making of a copy would have been, at worst, an indiscretion.”
“Have you anything more to say, Dr. Branch?” Galloway said. His voice was like dry ice, and the faces in the room were becoming hostile to me. I felt a surging desire to jolt them out of their stupid preconception that a respected scholar could do no wrong.
“I should like to ask Dr. Schneider another question.”
“Ask your question,” Galloway said, looking at me without great interest.
“Dr. Schneider, can you account for the movements of your son and yourself at the time that Alec Judd was killed?”
He meshed his hands over his belly and began to twiddle his thumbs. After a pause he said, “Of course I can, Dr. Branch. May I ask if you can account for yours? You must have some reason for this unusual attack on me, and I should like to find out what it is.”
“Where were you at midnight?”
“I was at home. My son Peter was with me.”
“Have you any way of proving it? Was Miss Esch present?”
“No, she has taken quarters in a hotel. But a policeman was there. He had come, rather tardily, to inquire after the details of our accident.” Red lights flickered in his brown eyes like small triumphal torches.
“What was the policeman’s name?”
“Moran, I believe. He is a motorcycle policeman.”
There was a buzz of voices in the room. The meeting was on the point of spontaneous disintegration, and once that happened things would be where they had been.
I turned to Galloway. “I should like to check on Dr. Schneider’s story. May I step over to my office and phone the police?”
“I’m willing to accept Dr. Schneider’s word,” Galloway said. Jackson said, “And I.”
They’re liberals and sportsmen of the old school, I thought, the kind of liberals and sportsmen that the Nazis have hornswoggled in every nation in Europe: I’d rather be a son of a bitch and have a chance in the rough-and-tumble.
I said, “I’m going to phone.” Galloway raised his eyebrows and looked with interest at the bare wall.
I went out the door leaving a silence like a vacuum which tugged at my coattails, and went upstairs to my office. I dialed police headquarters and Cross’s voice answered the phone.
“Branch speaking. Is there a motorcycle officer named Moran there? I’d like to speak to him.”
“Just a minute,” Cross said, and in a minute Moran came to the phone and said, “Yes?”
“Did you interview Dr. Herman Schneider to-night?”
“Yessir. I got there late because there was a bad hit-run case on the other side of town.”
“What time did you get there?”
“About twenty to twelve. Just a minute, I’ll look at my book. Yeah, twenty to twelve. I called him up about an hour before and told him I couldn’t make it till then and he said he’d wait up for me.”
“Was Dr. Schneider there at twenty to twelve?”
“Yessir.”
“Was his son Peter there? A blonde young man.”
“Not when I got there. He came in a few minutes later.”
“Did he get there before twelve or after?”
“Before twelve. I left right after twelve – I heard the tower clock. He was there for a while before I left.”
“Was anybody else there?”
“Nope. The old man said he’d give me a cup of coffee, only his housekeeper was in bed. So no coffee.”
“Thanks very much, officer.” Thanks for a feeling of frustration.
“Nodatall, professor. Good night.”
“Good night.” I slammed down the receiver and went out into the hall.
As I passed the Ladies’ Room, the door opened and Haggerty came out grinning like a laboratory rat who has mastered the maze.
“Hello, professor,” he said. “Are they still down there?”
“Yes.”
“Have you solved the mystery?”
“No.”
“Maybe there is no mystery. They’d better hear what Miss Madden has to tell them.”
He moved aside and Helen Madden came up to the lighted doorway. She was so pale her skin seemed translucent, but her mouth was set and her eyes were dry.
“How are you, Helen?”
“I’m all right, Bob. I’ll feel worse to-morrow and the day after.”
“Are you willing to tell Galloway and the others what you saw? Sergeant Haggerty seems to think it’s important.”
“What others?”
“Jackson and Hunter and an F.B.I. man. And Herman Schneider.”
“Where are they?”
“In the seminar room on the fourth floor.”
“Yes,” she said. “I’ll tell them what I saw.”
We went down to the seminar room with Haggerty trailing behind. Her legs moved stiffly like a sleepwalker’s, and I took her arm on the stairs. Her muscles were tense under the sleeve.
When we entered the room, the men there looked at her as if she herself had been dead, and got to their feet. I said, “Sergeant Haggerty wants Miss Madden to tell you what she saw.”
Galloway came and took her arm and led her to a chair.
Jackson said, “Sit down, Haggerty,” and turned to me. “Did you speak to Moran?”
“Dr. Schneider’s statement is correct,” I said.
“Is that all you have to say?” Galloway asked.
“That’s all I have to say.” I sat down.
Galloway said, “Miss Madden, you are very kind to come here at all. Please confine yourself to the relevant circumstances of Professor Judd’s death as you know them.”