I made another telephone call, and paid a visit to the University. The spring semester had ended, and Summer School not yet begun, so the campus was bare of students. But most of the faculty were on the job. The acting head of the Speech Department, a man named Schilling, was in his office.
Schilling wasn’t a typical professor. Under the flesh which covered his face with a middle-aging mask, he had the profile of a juvenile lead. He was dressed like an actor in a very sharp gabardine suit and an open-throated sports shirt. The wavy brown hair which undulated back from his widow’s peak was very carefully arranged. I wondered if it was dyed. I said:
“It’s nice of you to give me your time, doctor.”
“Not at all. Sit down, Mr. Archer.” He sat at his desk by the window, where the light could make the most of his features. “When I spoke to you on the telephone, you expressed an interest in one of the members – one of the ex-members of our faculty family.” He enunciated his words with great distinctness, listening to the rich tones of his voice. They seemed to please him.
“Leonard Lister.” I sat down in a straight chair at the end of the paper-strewn desk.
“Exactly what kind of information do you wish? And what use would you put it to? We have our little professional secrets, too, you know, even in this sheltered world of ours.”
“I want to know if he’s honest. That’s the main thing. He seems to have married into a fairly wealthy family. They don’t know much about him.” Which was putting it mildly.
“And they’ve employed you to investigate him?”
“That’s the idea. Certain members of the family think he may be crooked.”
“Oh no, I wouldn’t say that.”
“Why did you fire him?”
“We didn’t fire him, exactly. Leonard didn’t have tenure, he was only a Special Lecturer in the Department. And we simply failed to renew his contract at the end of the fall semester.”
“You had a reason, though, and it wasn’t incompetence?”
“Certainly not incompetence. Leonard knows the theatre. He’s been in it for twenty years, in New York and on the Continent as well as here. And he was quite a figure in the movies at one time. He made a mint while it lasted, and he had a country house and a yacht and even an actress wife, I believe. Then he lost it. This was years ago. I don’t know all that happened to him in the interim, but he was glad to accept my offer of a teaching job.”
“What did he teach?”
“We used him mostly for Extension work, directing plays for various groups and lecturing on the drama. He was well liked by his students.”
“Then what was the matter with him?”
He hesitated. “I suppose I should say the matter was ethical. He’s quite a fellow in his way – I’ve always liked him personally – but he simply didn’t subscribe to the code of the teaching profession. Leonard spent some time in France, you know, in the old expatriate days, and a good deal of the Left Bank rubbed off on him. He drank too much, he liked women too much, he couldn’t face up to the realities of his position. He’s an enormous man – I don’t know whether you know him–”
“I know him.”
“–but he’s not really very grownup. Out of touch, you might say, almost manic at times.”
“Could you be more specific, doctor?”
He looked away from me, out the window, and ran his hand carefully over his hair. “I hate to blacken another man’s reputation. And after all, the name of the University is involved. It’s a very delicate matter.”
“I realize that. I’ll keep it confidential. All this is simply for my own information.”
“Well.” He turned back to me. All he’d needed was a little coaxing. “Leonard had a habit of messing with his women students, with one of them in particular. Rumors got around, as they always do, and I cautioned Leonard. I gave him fair warning. He failed to profit by it, so I kept a close eye on him. This Department is precarious enough without a major scandal on top of everything else. Fortunately, I caught him personally, and kept it quiet.”
Schilling was lighting up with a theatrical glow. Apparently he was reenacting his big moment. “Along towards the end of the fall semester, on an afternoon in December, I saw them go into his office together – it’s just down the hall from mine. You should have seen the look on her face, the cowlike adoration. Well, I secured a master key from the maintenance department and after a suitable interval, I went in. There they were, in flagrante, if you understand me.”
“Was she a young girl?”
“No. It could have been worse. As a matter of fact, she was a married woman. Quite a few of our students are young married women with – ah – theatrical ambitions. But even as it was, the situation was too bad to be allowed to continue. I put an end to it, and Leonard left us. I haven’t seen him since.”
“What happened to the woman?”
“She dropped out of her course. She showed no promise, anyway, and I for one was happy to see her go. You should have heard the names she called me that afternoon, when after all I was only doing my duty. I told Leonard he was playing with dynamite. Why, the woman was a hellcat.” With the forefinger of his left hand, he traced his profile from hairline to chin, and smiled to himself. “I’m afraid that’s all the information I have.”
“One more thing. You said he was honest.”
“Except in that little matter of women, yes.”
“Honest in money matters?”
“So far as I know. Leonard never cared for money. He cares so little for it, in fact, that he’s financially irresponsible. Well, now that he’s married into wealth, I suppose he’ll be settling down. I hope for his sake he can. And I very much hope I haven’t said anything that will damage his standing with the family.”
“Not if he’s dropped the other woman. What was her name, by the way?”
“Dolphine. Stella Dolphine. Quite an unusual name.” He spelled it for me.
I looked it up in Shilling’s telephone directory. There was only one Dolphine listed: a Jack Dolphine who lived at the same address as Leonard Lister.
In full daylight, the stucco house in Santa Monica had an abandoned look. The blinds were drawn on all the windows, upstairs and down. The dying lawn, the unkempt flowerbeds strangling in crab grass, seemed to reflect the lives of people bound and paralyzed by their unhappiness. I noticed, though, that the lawn had recently been hosed, and a few drying puddles lay on the uneven concrete of the driveway.
I climbed the outside stairs to Lister’s apartment. Nobody answered my knock. I turned the knob. The door was locked. I went down and lifted the overhead door of the garage. It was empty.
I pressed the bellpush beside the front door and waited. Shuffling footsteps dragged through the house. The gray-haired man in the Hawaiian shirt opened the door and peered out into the sun. He had had a bad night. His eyes were blurred by alcohol and grief, his mouth was raw and defenseless. The slack flesh of his face hung like melting plasticine on the bones. So did his body. He was a soft-boiled egg without a shell.
He didn’t seem to recognize me.
“Mr. Dolphine?”
“Yeah.” He recognized my voice. “Say, what’s the pitch? You were here last night; you said you were a cop.”
“It was your idea. I’m a private cop. Name’s Archer.”
“Whaddaya know, I was a private cop myself – plant guard at Douglas. But I retired when my investments started to pay off. I own six houses and an apartment court. Maybe you wouldn’t think it to look at me.”
“Good for you. What happened to the tenants in your apartment?”
“Lister, you mean? You tell me. He moved out.”