Kenneth Bulmer (8 page)

CHAPTER SEVEN

L
ately
P
eter
H
owland
had avoided the communal places of the
University. He experienced a reluctance to meet Helen Chase and was acute
enough to recognize that for cowardice; he couldn't face a scene with her,
wrangling over the Maxwell Fund. So it was that he took lunch at the Golden
Cockerel, one of the many small, cosy restaurants abounding outside the college
walls. Haffner could be safely left—for short periods.

He gave his order over the table telephone
and waited for the serving hatch to open with his meal. In that short pause a
man, looking casually and a little short-sightedly about the restaurant, came
over and sat down. He looked to be middle-aged, short, with a square, friendly
face without any remarkable features. His smile was disarming.

"Mind if I sit here, friend?"

"Please
do," said Howland. He had enough to occupy his own thoughts not to be
disturbed by a stranger.

But
the man wanted to talk. As they both ate he covered the weather, the latest
solar-system rocket races, various political issues agitating the galaxy and
the latest impudences of the rebels out beyond Roger's System. Howland had no
interest in any of them.

"Say,
friend, pardon me for mentioning it, but you seem mighty cut off from what's
going on. University?"

"Yes."

"That
explains it: You professors have to have your heads filled with scientific
data. No time for the ordinary affairs of the galaxy."

"I wouldn't say
that."

"Well, we've been sitting here and so
far we haven't mentioned the topic agitating everyone in Lewistead—"

"What's that?"

"You see?" The man laughed
good-naturedly. "I'm only kidding, of course. You must have seen the
papers or the video-channels—"

"I'm afraid I haven't.
Not this morning."

"Well
nowl You mean you haven't heard of the murder, right here in Lewistead?"

"Murder? At the
University?"

"Not
exactly at the good old U. But right here in town. Fellow stabbed in the back
in a sleazy down-town dump. Still, as you say, you're not interested in
murder." The man offered a cigar to Howland, who declined with a forced
smile. Lighting up, the man said, "I respect that, as coming from a man of
science."

"How
do you know I'm a man of science, as you so mel-lifluously phrase it?"
This common talk came with difficulty to Howland; he had hardly slept all night
and memory of that naked bulb reflecting in winking brilliance from a silver
dagger hilt haunted him.

"Just
a hunch. D'you happen to know a Professor Cheslin Randolph?"

"Yes. I do, as it
happens."

"So
do a lot of us. But I'll be ready to bet you know him better than most. Isn't
that right?"

Howland
made his mouth laugh lighdy. "No one knows Professor Randolph. He's too
wrapped up in his own thoughts for any outside intrusion."

"Yeah? Well, that figures, too. Doesn't
he have a nephew staying with him at this time?"

Howland
tossed his napkin onto the table. He did not like the trend of these questions;
they contained too direct a line of thought. "Look, just who are you?
You're in Lewistead because of this murder, I suppose. Well, what's Randolph to
do with that?"

The
man chuckled. "I'm Tim Warner, journalist—on the Daily Galaxy. I was kinda
hoping you'd give me a lead on this Mallow guy. You see, apparently he was the
last person to see the murdered man alive. Oh, he's got £ space-tight alibi,
there's no suggestion he did it. But I'm curious to know why- he, with his
connections, should have known the murdered man."

Howlarid was aware that Mallow's court
martial was not common property and he knew about it himself only through an
outburst of vehemence by Professor Randolph. There would be no real difficulty
for any one to find out if the need pressed—say a newspaperman after a story.
But How-land however much he disliked and distrusted Mallow could not
gratuitously do him that disservice.

"Oh,"
he said now, casually, rising and straightening his jacket. "He's probably
recently made his acquaintance in town. You know how it is."

"Yep,
I do. Maybe this Mallow was in luck."

"How
so?"

"Why, he might have been the next one to
have been dipped. Fingers Kirkup was quite an artist."

Howland found Mallow in the college library,
poring over old books piled on the mahogany desk and overflowing onto the
carpeted floor, a frown of intense concentration giving his handsome face a
look almost of nobility. Howland snook that fancy off very quickly. There was
left in Mallow not an ounce of nobility. Every cell of the man worked for one
thing and one
thing
only, the self-interest of Terence Mallow.

"So
Fingers is dead. So what of it?" "Did you do it, Mallow?"

Both men were whispering in fierce
undertones, the words lost and drowned in the stuffy opacity of the library. No
one else, fortunately, was within three bays of them.

"No, I damn well didn't! I've seen the
cops and they're satisfied. If they are, then you ought to be. I'm sick and
tired of your harping and criticizing all the time, Howland. We're in a man's
game now. There's no place for old women nowl"

"Not old, no. But you and Stella Ramsy
seem to see eye to eye—"

"You leave her out of itl What's between
Stella and me is our own business."

"And Colin Ramsy's, too? What'd he do,
d'you think, if he found out?"

"Why, you little . . ." Mallow's
face, mean and cruel now glared up from the scattered books, livid from the
snow reflections outside and the gende lights within. "Look here,
Howland. You leave me alone and do your job as you're paid for and
111
do the thinking for the lot of us. We're going to pull this job off and
you're damn well going to do as you're told."

Watching the man with a detached criticism
that surprised himself, Howland reluctandy decided that Mallow could have no
knowledge of that telephone call and of the visit to the murdered man's
apartment. That hoarse, rasping voice must have belonged to Fingers Kirkup,
then. Perhaps. Perhaps Mallow was far more devious than Howland allowed.

"Why was Kirkup
killed?"

"I didn't do it. Get that through your
thick head. And I know nothing about it, see? You seem to forget that I'm not
answerable to you for my actions." Mallow posed a problem to Howland,
right enough; always there clung to the ex-space navyman the suggestion that he
was acting up to a part, was deliberately trying to create a brand image of the
tough, devil-may-care spaceman.

"Maybe not, but
Kirkup—"

Howland's quiet words were chopped off.
"I can tell you this, Howland. He was going to chicken out. He was scared
at what happened to his buddy, Freddy Finks. Well, we're going to be_ a dam
sight more clever than a hundred Freddy Finks."

"So
you did have him killed!" The thought appalled Howland, bringing him
smack up against the fact that he had involved himself with a proposition that
had grown abruptly nasty. But could he go straight to the police?

"No,
Howland, I didn't. But this
111
also
tell you. You're being watched. If you do anything—silly—you might receive the
same treatment Kirkup got. Understand?"

Howland left the library, shaking.

He
wasn't absolutely sure if that trembling spasm was anger or fear. He felt
anger. And he was afraid—desperately afraid. In his life he had only once
before faced the direct possibility of his own violent death—and then he'd
found the courage and nerve to crawl from his friend's
falling
flier across to the other flier where a man
and woman, semi-drunken, cowered in fear after the collision. He'd got away
with it then. But now—now this was different and he felt bilious revulsion.

He had to live. He had work to do, important
work that would open up new paths for research in the galaxy. And, again, the
sweet scent of money tantalized him, he who had been a poor man all his life.
Ji
he went to the police they'd uncover the whole story. That would spell
finis.

No.
All he could do now was go along and shut his eyes to the facets of the job he
disliked. The galaxy would manage to scrape along without Fingers Kirkup. This
might be a weak and puerile line, true} but it was safe—wonderfully safe.

Walking out of the library doorway and down
the steps where the snow had been sucked away, he passed Duffy Briggs. Briggs
went on. bull-headed without a sign of recognition. That was as it should be.
The conspirators must not acknowledge one another—yet

But
Howland knew. He was being watched. From this morning on one of Mallow's men
would have him under constant surveillance.
J£
he stepped out of line they'd squash him flatter than a bug caught under
a wheel.

Sunk
in his own dejected thoughts he rounded the library corner fast, Collided with
a soft body, and looked up in time to see Helen Chase spreadeagle backwards
into a bank of freshly swept snow.

She
wore a brilliant blue sweater with roll top, black slacks, and high
magneclamped boots. She bounced back on her feet long before Howland had time
to reach down a helping hand. The hood, the same brilliant electric blue, lay
on the snpw. Her red hair shone wondrously, fluffed with soft
snow, and pats and dabs of the white
clinging stuff powdered her shoulders and back.

"I'm sorry, Helen—didn't see you—"

"That's
not strange, Peter. Why've you been avoiding me? Is it the Maxwell Fund?"

This direct attack disconcerted him. He took
out his handkerchief and handed it across to her.

"Might be that I've
been busy, just lately .
„.."

"So I've heard."

He
smiled at her,
a
trifle diffidendy; but nonetheless,
a
smile. "Been checking up, is that it?"

"Maybe.
Look, Peter. Come and have
a
coffee.
There are a few things we have to talk over."

"I don't really
think-''

"Oh,
come onl" She took his arm in a grip he knew at once meant business. They
walked off together, briskly cutting across lines of students, who turned to
stare and smile after them. Seated at
a
small
table in the area reserved for faculty in the college cafeteria, she said,
"I suppose you're sore at me, Peter?"

"No,
not really. Not any more. I was—fed up, if you like to put it that way, just
after I discovered what you meant"

"What I meant?"

"When
you were mysterious. You've got the Maxwell Fund. Bully for you. And just what
are you going to do with it all? One live theatre is
a
flea bite in comparison with the amount in the kitty."

"Surely
you know?" She put the coffee cup down and stared up at him. Her eyes
smiled up frankly and honestly and sincerely. She disturbed him. He had to
admit that he'd missed seeing her. "I'm going to bring off the biggest
coup the old U's seen in decades!"

"Oh, you mean all
those old papers—"

"All
these old papers! In your best sneering tone—do you mind! These are holograph manuscripts
by Shaw—using both his own name and the pseudonym of Wells. I've a few other
ideas cooking, too, and by the time I've finished my paper will rock the
academic galaxy. You'll see!"

Almost, almost but not quite, Howland started
to say that he would not be on Earth then, that he'd be working on Pochalin
Nine. But memory of Kirkup's murder and what Mallow had just told him reached
through in time. He shivered.