“She’s on her way to see Mrs. Kelly,” Susie gasped. “And the old lady’s sure to spill the beans—”
“Call her over here,” Mervyn said swiftly. “And play along with me, Susie!”
Susie leaned out the window. “Harriet!”
Harriet stopped dead in her tracks. But then she grinned all over, and hurried toward the Volkswagen with happy cries. “Mervyn! Susie! What are you two doing here?”
“We’ve just been kicked out of the hospital,” said Mervyn darkly. “Came to visit with Mrs. Kelly, and the head nurse made an awful row because it wasn’t visiting hours.”
“Oh, shoot,” said Harriet. “I thought the poor thing might like some fresh flowers.”
“Better not go up there, Harriet. That battle-ax of a nurse,” said Susie, “has blood in her eye.”
“Well...” said Harriet doubtfully.
“We were just leaving,” Mervyn said. “Jump in. I’ll drive you back.”
“Why, thank you,” said Harriet. “Aren’t you sweet!”
Susie squeezed forward to let Harriet get in the back, and Mervyn started the Volkswagen and drove down Grove Street.
Harriet suddenly said, “Why are we going this way?”
“Oh, I got a damn parking ticket,” Mervyn said. “I’ll only be a minute paying my fine,” and he parked at the Berkeley City Hall and jumped out and hurried toward the annex housing the Police Department.
“Any word from Mary?” Harriet asked casually. “Mervyn has been worried about her.”
“She’s probably having the time of her life in Ventura,” Susie answered, not trusting herself to turn around.
“Strange she hasn’t written.”
“Well,” said Susie in a strangled voice, “you know Mary.”
Conversation languished. Presently Harriet said, “Mervyn’s certainly taking a long time.”
“Here he comes now.”
“Who’s that handsome man with Mervyn?”
Mervyn leaned into the car. “This is Lieutenant Hart, ladies. Susie Hazelwood in front, lieutenant. In back — Harriet Brill.”
Lieutenant Hart nodded politely. “How do you do? Would you both mind coming inside for a minute?”
Susie got out of the car. Lieutenant Hart held the door open. “Miss Brill?”
“What do you want?” Harriet faltered.
“I want to ask a few questions. We’ll be more comfortable inside.”
Harriet got slowly out of the car. She turned toward Mervyn and Susie, who were standing a little aside. In their tense, accusing faces she suddenly read something terrible. She looked wildly around, but Lieutenant Hart took her firmly by the elbow.
“What have they been telling you?” Harriet cried. “Whatever it is, it’s a lie!”
“Then you won’t mind telling me the truth, Miss Brill,” said Lieutenant Hart courteously, “will you?”
Chapter 14
Professor Burton made a stabbing gesture toward a chair.
“Sit down, Gray.”
Mervyn sat down in the straight-backed oak chair. The interview was proceeding exactly as imagined. Professor Burton had commanded Mervyn to drop by on a matter “connected with” his work.
Professor Burton leaned back, placed the tips of his fingers together and inspected Mervyn with cold curiosity. Then he said in a disagreeable voice, “A most unsavory affair, Gray.”
Mervyn nodded warily.
The head of the English department cleared his throat, arranged some papers on his desk. “I’ve followed the case closely. Deplorable, deplorable. It’s a wonder to me you’re not in jail.”
“They spoke to me rather harshly,” Mervyn admitted.
“Please do not misunderstand me, Gray. Faced with the same incredible circumstances, who am I to say that I would act with more courage? This does not mean, of course, that I condone your conduct—”
“Of course,” said Mervyn humbly.
“...but merely that I hold with Crabbe: ‘That all men would be cowards if they dare,/Some men we know have courage to declare.’ Hrrm! Well! All this to one side. I trust you understand, Gray, that under the circumstances it is manifestly impossible for you to assume a schedule of classes this fall?”
Mervyn said nothing.
“Oh,” said Professor Burton, “after a year or two — perhaps three, or four — who knows? In Pope’s phrase, ‘The world forgetting, by the world forgot,’ haha! Well, let us hope for the fickleness of public memory, eh, Gray?” He glanced at Mervyn rather uneasily. “Do you have any plans?”
“Since you just gave me the ax, Dr. Burton,” Mervyn said with a sigh, “I’ve hardly had much time to think about the future.”
“Of course. Quite so.” Burton rapped on his desk with his long white fingers, regarding a bust of Shakespeare on the other side of the room. Suddenly he said, “Gray. Do you know the Castel Poldiche? Near Villefranche?”
“I beg your pardon?”
The professor repeated his question.
Mervyn shook his head. “I can’t say that I do.”
“One of the oldest inhabited structures of France. The great hall dates from the eleventh century. Well, a few weeks ago a crypt was opened, yielding among other treasures a coffer containing a number of twelth-century secular manuscripts. There are: six planhs, apparently the work of Bertran de Bon; an autobiographical poem by one Cleanthe de Marbolh; a long chanson de geste, signed merely ‘Blaye’ — quite probably Jaufre Rudel, Prince of Blaye, who is known to have frequented Castel Poldiche during the Guerre des Amantes — and a great deal of material less easily identified. Are you interested?”
“Very much so!”
Professor Burton beamed. “It so happens that the Searcy Foundation is willing to provide a research grant of seven thousand five hundred dollars — possibly as high as ten thousand — for the study of these manuscripts. Annotation, attribution, translation — the usual. A two-year grant. It seems to meet your requirements...”
Later, Mervyn sat in a quiet grove of laurel and oak, on a moldering marble bench, a gift to the university from the Class of 1903. Susie came up the path, waving a greeting. “Have you been waiting long?”
“Ten minutes or so.”
Susie seated herself. She was wearing a black skirt and a short-sleeved sweater the color of old ale. Never, thought Mervyn, had she seemed more precious and desirable, and more remote. In a calm voice she asked, “How did everything go?”
“I’m fired.”
Susie looked troubled at that. “Oh, well, it isn’t as if it came as a shock.”
“However, there’s something else.”
“Oh?”
He told her about the find in the south of France, and the handsome research grant. “It would mean living in France for a year or two. Perhaps at Castel Poldiche itself, where the manuscripts were discovered.”
“Sounds like fun! Oh, Mervyn, I’m so glad for you.”
Mervyn said abruptly, “Will you come with me, Susie?”
She sat for a moment or two looking off down a slope of lawn. “It wouldn’t work, Mervyn. There’s too much darkness between us. Whenever I looked at you I’d see Mary, and the river, and I’d hear the ghastly splash. And when you looked at me—”
Mervyn said, “Susie. It wouldn’t have to be that way—” But Susie shook her head. “Maybe not for you, Mervyn. But I’m a female.” She rose, smiling. “Summer’s over, fall’s coming on, new semester. I can’t stand sociology. I’m going to transfer into something more interesting. What, I don’t know.
“You’ll be in France doing just what you want to do, and you’ll forget all about me. You’ll devastate all those cute little French girls, and I’ll marry John Boce” — she said this with a crooked grin — “and we’ll all live happily ever after.”