The Devil's Cook

17

The building was constructed of old gray stone, held in the intricate embrace of vines turned brown in the November cold. Inside, at the end of a long hall, was a large central room, with four smaller rooms adjoining. These were accessible, a pair on each of opposite sides, by means of high and narrow doors. A desk stood near the door to each of the four smaller rooms, each desk littered with books and papers. Above each door, fastened with thumb tacks to the jamb, was a small sign identifying the occupant of the room. One of the signs, with a contempt for academic rank, read MR. MILES. The desk outside this door was occupied by a young woman who wore a pair of harlequin glasses. She was diligently attacking a stack of papers with a blue pencil. There was no one else in the room, and Bartholdi was forced to clear his throat in order to attract her attention.

“I beg your pardon,” he said, “but is Professor Miles in his office?”

As Bartholdi had anticipated, she shook her head. She had dark brown hair severely arranged, but Bartholdi’s Gallic perception, in spite of the hairdo and the glasses, gave her due credit for hidden goodies.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “Professor Miles called to say that he won’t be in today. I’m Freda Page, his student assistant. Can I help you?”

Bartholdi considered. He said suddenly, “Maybe you can, Miss Page. My name is Captain Bartholdi. I’m a police officer.”

Was there, for an instant, a flicker behind the lenses?

“Yes?” she said.

“I’m going to be frank with you, Miss Page. I’ve got to rely on your discretion—”

“I don’t carry tales, if that’s what you mean.”

“Good. Professor Miles’s wife is missing. She’s been gone since Friday afternoon.”

“I know.” Freda Page studied her blue pencil for a moment, then laid it carefully between the stacks of marked and unmarked papers. “He told me when he phoned this morning.”

“Oh? What else did he tell you?”

“Nothing. Just that Terry left home Friday and hasn’t been seen since.”

“Did he say that he’d been to the police?”

“He did.”

“Then you must have been expecting a police officer.”

“Not necessarily. I can’t see what you hope to learn by coming here.”

“I noticed that you called Mrs. Miles Terry. Do you know her well?”

“Well enough.”

This terse remark, Bartholdi thought, although uttered without emphasis, was susceptible to analysis. Did it imply that even a little of Terry was enough? And was the color a little higher in Freda Page’s cheeks? It was an interesting speculation. Loyalty was not always a virtue. Nor was love, for that matter, at least in a police investigation.

“Can you suggest any reason why she left home?” he asked.

“None whatever. No, that isn’t so. I could suggest one, but it would be slanderous if not true, and I can’t prove that it is.”

“I asked for a suggestion, not proof. Do you mean that she’s probably off with some man?”

“I mean that she’s wanton and faithless.” Freda Page’s cheeks were now hot.

“How do you know? Hearsay?”

“More directly than that. Professor Miles seems to respect my judgment and discretion. He sometimes confides in me.”

“Why don’t you call him Jay? That’s what you call him privately, isn’t it?”

If he had hoped for confusion, he was disappointed. She smiled defiantly, adjusting her glasses on her nose.

“Very well, then. Jay.”

“That’s better. More comfortable for both of us. I take it you think a lot of Professor Miles.”

“I do. Personally and professionally. He deserves a better wife.”

Like Freda Page? Bartholdi wondered. Or was theirs the kind of student-teacher relationship that breeds on every campus, not to be taken seriously? Freda Page, however, must surely be a graduate student of some standing. She was not, at any rate, a child.

“Does he think so?”

“I wouldn’t presume to say. Why don’t you ask him?”

“Mrs. Miles apparently had an appointment Friday afternoon. Did you know that?”

“Of course not. Why should I?”

“I thought she might have come here.”

“To the office? I don’t think so. Not to my knowledge, anyhow.”

“Not here necessarily. To the university. Did you see her on campus?”

“I didn’t see her at all, on campus or anywhere else.”

“Was Professor Miles in the office here that afternoon?”

“Yes, for a few minutes after lunch. He also came back for fifteen or twenty minutes after his last class of the day.”

“What time was that?”

“Two-thirty.”

“Does the class meet in this building?”

“Yes, on the second floor.”

“Then he must have left the office before three.”

“I suppose he did. Why? I don’t see how Jay’s time schedule will help you find his wife.”

“One more question, Miss Page. Did he say where he was going when he left here?”

“No.”

“He says he didn’t get home until about six.”

“He may have worked in the library. He often does that. I’m sorry I can’t be of more help.”

Bartholdi wondered if she was. He had a notion that Freda Page considered the disappearance of Terry Miles to be, at the worst, good riddance. He thanked the girl, and as he turned away she was already picking up the blue pencil to resume her work on the pile of unmarked papers.

Two hundred yards further along a curving concrete walk, swarming at the moment with between-class students, he found the administration building. At the foot of the wide shallow steps leading up to the entrance, he paused and looked back along the way he had come. The swarm of hurrying students was thinning rapidly in the final moments of intermission. He wondered if there was a perpetual competition among undergraduates nowadays to see which could devise the sloppiest costume. But then his student days were thirty-odd years in the past, and his recollections were probably distorted by nostalgia.

Inside, he sought out the registrar’s office. He identified himself to a female clerk behind a high counter and asked if he might see the registrar. He was invited behind the counter and into a private office, where he was greeted by a dehydrated little gray man who reminded him, for some reason, of a hungry sparrow. The registrar’s name was Wister, and he offered a dry gray hand.

“Sit down, Captain Bartholdi,” he said. “How can I serve you?”

“It’s a routine matter,” Bartholdi said, holding on to his hat and keeping his topcoat on, “which I would prefer not to explain just now.”

Registrar Wister made a tent of his fingers. “If you will just tell me what you wish to know...”

Bartholdi extended a page, torn from his notebook, on which he had written a list of names. “I’d appreciate it if I could see the records of these people.”

Wister read the names, listed one to a line in a vertical column:

Jay Miles.

Otis Bowers.

Ardis Bowers.

Farley Moran.

Benjamin Green.

Fanny Moran.

“Doctor Miles and “Doctor Bowers are, of course, members of our faculty,” Wister said. “So is Mrs. Bowers, in a lesser capacity. She is, I believe, a graduate instructor.”

“I know that.”

“You must realize that our records are limited in this office, Captain, especially with respect to the faculty. More detailed information would be available from the heads of the various departments.”

“That can come later, if necessary. I’m interested at the moment only in general background information.”

“Well, let’s see what we have.”

Wister disappeared in the outside office, taking Bartholdi’s list with him. He was back shortly with five manila folders. He placed them on the desk before Bartholdi.

“There is nothing on Fanny Moran,” the registrar said. “She is not a student in this institution.”

“I know. I just thought she once might have been.”

“There’s no record of her. If you’ll excuse me, there’s something I must see to.”

Wister went out, and Bartholdi hunched over the desk. He culled the five folders one by one. When he was finished he had acquired, besides the knowledge that Ben Green was a brilliant student and Farley Moran no better than fair, some information that, in effect, enlarged his prospects. Otis Bowers had been a student, before coming to Handclasp, at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. Ardis Bowers had been at C.I.T. with him, not then a student but already his wife. Ben Green, although he had done all his college work at Handclasp, was a legal resident of Glendale. Farley Moran was a transfer student from U.C.L.A. (Fanny Moran, who had no record, could be assumed tentatively to have come, before or after or with Farley, from the same area.) In brief, there seemed to be a California colony in Handclasp. More significantly, perhaps, at The Cornish Arms.

Wister returned after a while to find Bartholdi leaning back in his chair with eyes closed. He appeared to be sleeping: he was, in fact, far from it. The manila folders were stacked neatly in alphabetical order and pushed back on the registrar’s desk.

“Are you finished, Captain?” Wister asked.

“Yes, thank you.” Bartholdi opened his eyes and pushed his chair back.

“I’m sure you will respect the rights of these individuals—” Wister indicated the manila stack “—to all possible privacy.”

“Of course.”

Bartholdi took the registrar’s dry hand, gave it up, and left. Outside he walked slowly along the curving concrete walk in the direction of the library, his topcoat flapping about his legs.