“You.”
“Me?” Mervyn laughed. “I never thought you cared. Much less Mary.”
Susie leaned back in her chair, surveying Mervyn dispassionately. “One of your most appealing features, Mervyn, is your complete lack of vanity. You’re handsome enough to stop a clock, don’t you know that?”
Mervyn was embarrassed. “It’s never got me anything. In teaching it’s a positive handicap. Still, a battle between two love-crazed females—”
“Who said anything like that? With me it was a matter of principle. And Mary isn’t always aware of what she’s up to. Since she’s not a child any more, I thought it was time she learned.”
“I see. Well, what vanity I had is now shattered.”
Susie made a scornful noise. “I made a mistake. Your vanity is so absolutely colossal that it disappears. It’s a good gimmick. I’ll try it. And with Mary not around, I think I’ll try her techniques, too, maybe even improve on them.”
“Have mercy,” Mervyn said. “I’ve got worries enough.”
Susie rose with the faintest suggestion of a smile. “I must be going.”
Mervyn answered in a vague voice, “I’ve got things to do, too.”
Susie, still smiling, departed.
Mervyn sat in deep thought. Presently he signaled for another cup of coffee. And took out the envelope.
He turned it over. No return address. Gingerly he withdrew the enclosed letter, his fingertips tingling as if it were warm with life.
The hand-printing was square, neat, impersonal. The two words were:
Mervyn’s stomach contracted in a spasm of nausea.
Who could hate him so much?
And why?
Chapter 6
The letter was incomprehensible. The motivation for stealing his car and stuffing Mary into the trunk had been dismally clear — to implicate him in the murder. But why this?
The hand-printing conveyed nothing. A graphologist might read meaning into the carefully squared E, the flourishing S, the quiver in the final leg of the R. But as far as Mervyn was concerned, there was no clue to the identity of the sender.
Mervyn was swept by a gust of rage; it was followed by a swift retreat to cover. The threatening note changed nothing, except for the worse. If only he knew with whom he was dealing! He could then take counter-measures of some kind. According to Harriet Brill — not the most reliable evidence, but it was at least something to go on — Mary had arranged to meet “John.” There had doubtless been other Johns in Mary’s life, but the four most immediate Johns were John Boce, John Thompson, John Pilgrim and John Viviano. He might go to each of these and ask the direct question: “Where were you last Friday night?” Three of them would be puzzled, perhaps irritated; one would be put on his guard. Still, he might be able to check out one or two alibis, and at least narrow the field.
True, John Boce had told him to go to hell in answer to the question, and the others might well do the same. But nothing ventured, nothing gained.
Fired by resolve, Mervyn jumped to his feet, paid the cashier, and returned to the apartment house.
Noting his mint-green Chevrolet convertible, he stopped short. Today he had planned to sell it. But another day would not matter, unless someone stole the car again and loaded it with a new corpse. Depressed by the thought, Mervyn raised the hood and removed the rotor from the distributor.
He drove off in the Volkswagen, his objective John Thompson, stack superintendent at the university library. He had chosen Thompson first for several reasons. The library was close at hand. John Thompson had a mild disposition. And he could probably supply information about John Pilgrim.
Climbing the steps of the library, his doubts returned. More than likely his question would elicit merely the nasty counter-question: “What business is it of yours where I spent Friday night?”
Then what? Unless... unless he could goad the guilty John into betraying himself!
Easily said. But how to induce his suspects either to incriminate themselves or demonstrate their innocence through provable alibis?
Mervyn stopped in the library foyer to ponder. At last he hit upon a modus operandi. He continued up the marble stairs and came out into a vast hall crammed with catalogue files. The usual flotsam of students, at high tide two weeks before, was gone; the room seemed almost clean.
To one side an oak door warned: LIBRARY PERSONNEL ONLY. Through this door he had occasionally seen Mary pass; now he opened it and walked along a short corridor to where an elderly woman sat at a desk beside a time clock. She looked up inquiringly, and when he asked to speak with John Thompson she looked at him severely over her glasses and pressed a button at the side of her desk. A tubby girl in a dusty pink canvas apron appeared and was instructed to convey the gentleman to Mr. Thompson.
The girl led Mervyn down a steel spiral staircase and along a corridor behind the stacks to a large windowless room, where women sat at desks piled high with books, pamphlets and periodicals. The girl in the pink apron pushed open another of the oak doors, beckoned to Mervyn, yawned and departed.
John Thompson’s office was a cheerless cubicle with battleship linoleum on the floor, brown burlap-covered walls, and a single window overlooking a forlorn scrap of lawn. The librarian, lolling in a swivel chair behind a desk, looked up with no surprise at Mervyn’s entrance. He wore a tan corduroy suit, in great need of pressing, and a foully tobacco-hued knit tie.
“Hi there, Gray. Have a chair.” Thompson surveyed Mervyn with only mild interest.
Mervyn found himself clearing his throat. Finally he said, “I’m here about Mary Hazelwood.”
“You are?” said Thompson politely.
It did not seem an auspicious beginning. “Yes,” said Mervyn. “You see, Susie hasn’t heard from her, and I’m frankly worried. Mary and I... But maybe I’d better not go into that.” Not a bad touch, that, Mervyn thought.
The librarian nodded like a man of the world. “Say no more.”
Mervyn was encouraged. “You were at Oleg Malinski’s party, Thompson, so you know she went off with a man named John.”
“So I gathered.”
Mervyn cleared his throat again. “Look here. I’m trying to find out whom Mary went off with, and why. I don’t think I need go into my reasons. Can you help me, Thompson?”
“If you mean was I the ‘John,’” the librarian said, rocking in his swivel chair dreamily, “no such luck.”
“So you said at Malinski’s, and of course I don’t doubt your word. But just to make it crystal clear... could you tell me where you were Friday night?”
“Friday night? Last Friday?” John Thompson clasped his hands behind his head. “Good heavens, let’s see. I think I was home all evening in my apartment. Yes. Working on my book. All librarians write books.”
“Excuse me if I seem to belabor the point, but was anyone with you? I’d like to be able to cross you definitely off the list.”
Thompson shook his sleek head; he seemed amused. “Sorry, then I guess I stay on the list. I can’t help you.”
“Can’t? Or won’t?”
The librarian opened his eyes wide. “Does it make any difference? The result is the same.” He laughed. “I didn’t figure you for the jealous-suitor type, Gray. Any more than I am. The world’s full of girls. Although admittedly Mary is something special.”
Mervyn rose. “I see I’m wasting your time and mine.”
Thompson said, “Oh, sit down. Your best bet is John Pilgrim, who used to work here. It was an interesting thing to watch. I mean, Pilgrim trying to ignore Mary, Mary teasing him, using all her tricks. I enjoyed every minute of it.”