By the time I’d turned over the cash box key,
sent Dad to guide the lawyer, given Mother my regrets, admired a
small rodent skull that Eric had found, and allowed Sammy to ink
and print my fingers, another dozen small crises had piled up, and
I thought I’d never have a chance to continue what Michael called
my snooping. Then I noticed a particular face appear in the circle
surrounding me. Professor Schmidt. Just the person I wanted to talk
to, although it looked as if I might have to solve a dozen other
people’s problems before I got the chance.
“Dad,” I said, when he reappeared from
his conversation with the lawyer. See if you can help some of these
people. I’ll see what I can do for Professor Schmidt; he’s been
waiting a long time.”
Schmidt didn’t even thank me for
letting him jump ahead of the others who had, technically, been
waiting longer than he had.
“Someone has blocked my car in!” he
exclaimed.
“Okay,” I said. “Do you have the make
and model and license plate number?”
He frowned.
“It’s an SUV,” he said. “Black. Or
maybe dark blue.”
“Show me.”
He turned and headed toward the road,
and I followed. I resisted the urge to say how idiotic it was,
coming to complain about the SUV blocking him in without bringing
full information. After all, it gave me a chance to get him away
from the crowd and extract some information.
“So, the police finally let you go?” I
said, with deliberate casualness.
“Finally let me go?” he said, starting.
“What do you mean by that?”
“I didn’t mean anything by it,” I said.
I tried to look innocent, though I knew that wasn’t my forte. “I
just assumed they’d question you pretty closely.”
“Me?” he said, looking even more
alarmed. “Why?”
“I thought you were Giles’s competitor
for the rare book Gordon found. Isn’t that why you were in the
barn, talking to him?”
“Good heavens no,” he said, with an
exaggerated wince. “From what I heard, it was a mystery book. I’m a professor of literature!”
His tone reminded me of my great-aunt
Hester, whose complete lack of firsthand knowledge about
pornography hadn’t diminished her passion for condemning it. As far
as the family could tell, a Wonder Woman
comic and a few mildly titillating historical romances were the
closest things she’d ever seen to an obscene book. I wondered if
Professor Schmidt’s knowledge of mysteries was equally
sparse.
“That’s odd,” I said. “I overheard that
you were trying to buy a book from Gordon.”
“Papers, not books,” he
said.
“Papers, then,” I said. “And they had
nothing to do with Giles’s mysteries?”
“It was about Mrs. Pruitt,” he said,
with injured dignity.
“Mrs. Pruitt,” I repeated, trying to
sound both encouraging and noncommittal while racking my brain to
think who Mrs. Pruitt might be.
“Mrs. Ginevra Brakenridge Pruitt,” he
said, in a withering tone.
“Oh, that Mrs. Pruitt,” I said. “I
thought you meant someone living.”
“I am the world’s leading scholar of
Mrs. Pruitt’s oeuvre,” he said, sounding slightly
offended.
Ginevra Brakenridge Pruitt was a
late-nineteenth-century poet whose name had been largely (and
justifiably) forgotten outside her hometown of Caerphilly. She’d
probably have been forgotten here as well if she hadn’t inherited a
whacking great fortune from her robber baron father and doled out
large portions of it to the college over the years in return for
naming buildings after her and various members of her
family.
“I heard a rumor that Gordon had
acquired a cache of Mrs. Pruitt’s papers,” Schmidt went on. “I
wanted to find out if it was true.”
“And was it?”
“I still don’t know for sure,” he said.
“I went into the barn to talk to him privately, but it was a waste
of time. He was noncommittal. I suspect if he had the papers, he
was probably putting out feelers to find out where he could get top
dollar for them.”
“Didn’t that make you mad?” I
asked.
“Irritated, perhaps,” he said. “But, of
course, I knew he’d have to come back to me
eventually.”
“When he figured out there was nowhere
else he could sell them,” I said, nodding. “Not if he wanted to get
top dollar for them,” I added, hastily, seeing the offended look on
his face. “I mean, he should have known that no
one could possibly match your dedication and commitment to Mrs.
Pruitt’s legacy.”
“Yes,” Schmidt said. “We did some
verbal sparring—he refused to admit he had any papers, and at the
same time, kept asking me to estimate what they’d be worth if he
did have them. As if I could put a value on something I’d never
seen. I lost patience and left. Not a very good atmosphere for a
negotiation anyway. He was clearly itching to get back to the yard
sale. I thought I’d talk to him later.”
“Too bad,” I said. “Guess you’ll have
quite a wait now.”
“Why?” he asked, frowning.
“The police won’t release anything of
Gordon’s until they’ve solved his murder, will they?” I said. “It
could be weeks, even months. To say nothing of the delay until the
estate goes through probate and you can start dealing with whoever
inherits.”
Schmidt smiled.
“Mrs. Pruitt has been dead nearly a
century,” he said, in a lofty tone. “I think I can wait a few more
months to find out about these papers. If there are any papers to
begin with. That’s just the sort of rumor Gordon would have loved
starting.”
“And the murderer’s done you a favor,
too, hasn’t he?” I said.
Schmidt looked startled
again.
“Favor?” he said.
“Hard to think of anyone who wouldn’t
be easier to deal with than Gordon, isn’t it?” I
asked.
“Quite,” he said, with a dry chuckle.
“Now, about my car …”
I took down the SUV’s license plate—as
it happened it was neither black nor blue, but a dark green Ford
Expedition—and returned to make a few announcements
to the crowd. I offered Schmidt a glass of lemonade, on the house,
while he waited, but he declined. He seemed relieved to see me walk
away.
He was anxious about something. Or
hiding something. I’d made him visibly nervous a couple of times,
but he’d recovered, which probably meant I wasn’t asking the right
questions. I made a mental note to see what Michael knew about him.
Could there be some juicy departmental scandal involving Arnold
Schmidt that would crack the whole case wide open?