The Glendower Legacy (7 page)

“Is it true, Professor Chandler, that you were the last person at Harvard to see Bill Davis alive?”

“No, that is patently untrue, Miss Bishop, as I have just taken some pains to tell you. Bill came to my office on the afternoon of the day he was killed—I wasn’t there and he went away.”

“Do you know why he wanted so desperately to see you? Why he left word with the secretary that you should call him as soon as you came in?”

“The desperation is entirely yours, Miss Bishop. So far as I know there was nothing desperate about the message he left—he simply wanted me to call him. Many people leave messages for me and are not subsequently murdered … I surely would have called him had he been alive when I got the message.”

A small crowd of students paused to watch, pointing, smirking. Chandler didn’t blame them. Two men stood uncomfortably beneath a bare-limbed tree, rain blowing against them. They looked curiously out of place and out of date, particularly the shorter one wearing a checked raincoat and matching porkpie hat.

He barely heard what she was saying: his anger and frustration at her handling of the situation helped blot out her voice. The students lost interest, moved on. The two men stomped their feet, acted embarrassed at being so attentive to the television antics. Chandler’s eyes moved across the Yard, dreading the thought of any of his colleagues stumbling across this ridiculous charade. Two more men were standing on the stoop of Matthews Hall where Chandler had lived as a freshman. They weren’t watching him, fortunately; inexplicably they seemed to be watching the two men beneath the tree. An image registered in Chandler’s mind: a bald man, with a ruffle of gray hair over his ears, wiping his dome with a white handkerchief.

“And so,” she was saying, her voice dramatic in the easy way of those who deal with a new horror each day, “the mystery of Bill Davis’s murder deepens and the question which lingers and which must eventually be answered is—what was so important about his seeing Professor Chandler? It’s not much to go on but right now it’s all any of us has got …” A weighty pause, Chandler heard his own teeth grinding. “Polly Bishop for Channel Three News in Harvard Yard.”

The lights went off. She unhooked her arm from his. She handed the microphone back to the man who’d given it to her and patted away the rain on her face. She smiled at Chandler as if nothing had happened.

“Miss Bishop, in the last two minutes you have made me see what a reasonable act murder can be …” He felt his jaw clenching involuntarily.

“Well, that’s show business, Professor. Quick, strong, entertaining … not necessarily intelligent or thoughtful or valid. You should be very pleased with yourself and your little theory.” She picked up her Vuitton bag, slipped tight brown leather gloves over elegant, long-fingered hands devoid of rings, and looked him rather wickedly in the eye. “But the fact of my life is this—we’re the number one news station in Boston. We are reporters, not talking heads … we go out and find out what’s going on. And we don’t just report on murders in this town, or corruption, or scandal, or the mob—we try to
do
something about it. In this case we’re going to find out who killed Bill Davis!” She was at the bottom of the steps looking up, the softness in her eyes replaced by an angry glitter. “Here, take your stupid umbrella.”

He took it, drew even with her: “Well, at least we agree about my television theory. You really are something, Miss Bishop, number one in Boston … I don’t doubt it for a moment, whatever it’s worth.” He pulled away, clutching his umbrella and briefcase. There was rain spattering his glasses.

“Thank you for your time, Professor. Really.” She had the most remarkable ability to switch her attitude, ignoring the previous instant. He’d never encountered anything like it. “And if you think of anything important about Bill Davis, if anything occurs to you, if anything
happens—and
believe me, things are always happening in murder cases …” She was following him again. “Get hold of me, at home or at the station.” She handed him her card and reflexively he took it, stood staring at the small white rectangle.

“If I were you, Miss Bishop, I wouldn’t count on me as a source.”

She smiled, unperturbed: “Well, thanks anyway. And, you know, don’t carry a grudge. It’ll wreck your stomach and you’ll wind up with an ulcer, like me.” She waved whimsically, turned back to the crew. Beyond the gates to Mass Avenue he saw a station wagon, green and brown, a 3 on the front door. The motor was running, wiper blades clicking.

Frustrated, he crumpled the small card and dropped it at his feet. Turning abruptly he brushed past the man in the porkpie hat and got out of her range as quickly as possible. God, what an irritating creature! But she was right: everything he’d said about television was proven.

Hugh Brennan hailed him as Chandler was passing alongside the dark-red brick pile that was Matthews Hall. Chandler looked up from the sidewalk which he’d been steadfastly regarding in the hope of passing out of the scene unnoticed. Brennan pulled even, a thickly constructed, rather short man whose physique matched his personality: there was something of the good-natured barnyard animal about him, a readiness to go passively along until the point when he rooted in, stood his ground, and prepared to fight to the death. He was a professor of English, specializing in the nineteenth-century novel, Trollope in particular. “What ho,” he said matter-of-factly, then flashed a quick grin which was very nearly a permanent feature of his round face. His reddish-blond hair, curly, was plastered against his head by the rain.

“You weren’t a witness to this television mockery, I hope.”

“Ah, but I was … There you were, bathed in light, a resolute though peevish look on your face, a veritable budding star—a Galbraith, an Arthur Schlesinger—and the girl! A looker.” He saw Chandler’s grimace. “So what the hell was it all about?” His chins overhung the heavy cableknit turtleneck, giving the impression that his head rested directly upon his shoulders. They fell into step, skulked out of the Yard into the Square. Drivers were turning headlamps on. The rain continued, steadily drizzling, blowing.

Chandler described the television interview, concluded: “She just disregarded what I’d told her, what she knew to be the truth, so she’d have a good question to start off with—was I the last one to see Bill Davis alive … Goddamn show business crap!”

Brennan’s grin faded, his eyes went flat, as gray as the sky: “Did you really know the kid?”

“No, not really, you know how it is … he struck me as bright, kind of an introvert. I talked to him a couple of times, briefly, but no, I didn’t know him.”

Brennan nodded: “Well, why did he come around to see you? The day he got killed?”

“Beats me. Said he had something to show me, never said what it was.”

“The cops did talk to you, though?”

“Sure, they found my name on him, they followed it up, but it was nothing, ten minutes of routine questions and thanks for my cooperation. Period.”

“So, don’t let it bother you. It’s over.”

“It’s that Bishop woman. She tricked me, she made it seem as if I’m somehow involved. She’s devious and she doesn’t give a damn, and tonight everybody in Boston’s going to see the goddamn interview and start wondering, why was the kid so desperate—her word
—desperate
to see me.” They crossed the Square, stopped for a moment in the shelter of the University Theatre marquee. Brennan stuck a cigarette in his mouth, lit it, puffed and coughed. “She’s a breaker,” Chandler went on, “a wrecker, some women just can’t avoid it … it’s their nature.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Brennan muttered impatiently, survivor of two marriages, one to an English actress, the other to a Charlottesville belle. “Did you see
Robin and Marian?”

“Audrey Hepburn,” Chandler said wearily. “I know, I know …”

“Well, I could take a lot of bullshit from that kind of woman—tough, independent, intelligent, beautiful—”

“Who says she’s intelligent?”

“It’s all over her, for God’s sake. She handles herself well—and she makes a good living! As my sainted Irish mother would have said … did say, in regard to my immortal first wife, Brenda the Star.” He punched Chandler in the arm. “Don’t let her get to you. Cheer up!”

Chandler shrugged impatiently.

“Look,” said Brennan, “let’s go have a drink and a dinner at Chez Dreyfus. Do you good—I’ll tell you a new joke!”

“No, I’m worn out, I’m just going to pig out at home, look at a stroke book and go to bed.” Chandler sighed, peering into the steady rain that was heavier now, as it grew darker. “As a matter of fact, I’ve taken to writing for stroke books—”

“Just so you don’t pose—”

“No, I’ve got that
Playboy
piece … ‘The Real American Revolution,’ that’s the latest title. Dubious scholarship among the tits and beavers.”

“I hate celebrity academics,” Brennan allowed. They turned the corner by the church and headed toward the restaurant, jockeying for position beneath the single umbrella.

“You know,” Chandler mused slowly, “I wish I had been there when he came to my office, I keep turning it over in my mind, wondering … he did say something to me, last week I think, but I can’t quite get hold of it—it was no big deal, no clue, but he just came up after the lecture, looking at me through the hippie glasses, said he had something he wanted to show me. He was shy about it, he said something … wait, I’ve got it, he said I wouldn’t believe it but I had to authenticate it!” He stopped and pinched his lower lip together: “That’s it, something he wanted me to authenticate! Hugh, that’s pretty damn strange … what the hell would a kid like that have that needed an authentication?”

“Document, maybe? Some kind of historical thingy, you mean?”

“Something old or something with a questionable pedigree … maybe a possible forgery? God, it’s weird, the way it just came back to me.”

“So Polly Bishop is no fool, my lad. She said you knew something and she was right—”

“But it couldn’t have anything to do with the murder—”

“Well, you never know, do you?”

In front of Chez Dreyfus, Brennan stopped him again.

“Let me lighten your day,” he said.

“A joke,” Chandler said grimly. “You’re going to tell me a joke …”

“An English professor is out on the town with three graduate students. Ahead of them they see a gathering of ladies of the night-hookers, to you. The professor sets a problem. If a gathering of geese is a gaggle, lions a pride, sheep a flock, then what is a congregation of hookers? Well, being bright lads and steeped in literary allusions, the answers were snappy. Number One shakes his head, strokes his chin, suggests … ‘a volume of trollops’! Which is pretty damn good. But Number Two tops him with ‘a jam of tarts’! Well, Number Three has his back to the wall and triumphantly comes up with … ‘a flourish of strumpets’! The professor has to give them credit, they’ve done well for old Harvard … but they’re all wrong. The correct answer, and as students of English literature they really should have known—the correct answer is—”

“An anthology of pros,” Chandler said, his spirits lifting. He couldn’t help laughing. Brennan’s face clouded.

“You’ve heard it … I’ve told you before …”

“No, no, it came to me as in a dream.”

“Don’t bullshit me, somebody told you …”

Moving on by himself Chandler came to the market on the corner of Brattle Street, nipped in for some coffee and Brie and fresh crusty bread. But what, he wondered, had Bill Davis wanted him to authenticate?

Even in the aftermath of a lousy day Chandler drew comfort and pleasure from an evening at home amid the clutter of his life, the bric-a-brac that in the end adds up to a life. He had made a fair amount of money from his books, one of which had been a main choice of the Book-of-the-Month Club, and his well-paid labors at Harvard. He had never taught anywhere else: in fact he was one of those rare birds who had entered at eighteen and never left Harvard. In some ways, he was well aware, it had been a sheltered life but it was the life he would have chosen for himself over any other. He had never married, though on a couple of occasions he’d come rather close. He had no views on marriage, rarely thought of it: he’d either
get
married or he wouldn’t. At the moment he had no serious lady friend and that didn’t bother him one way or the other. What would happen, would happen.

Feeling he deserved a treat for dinner he’d ordered in a pepperoni-and-mushroom-and-anchovy pizza which now lay in ruins on the coffee table before his deep, overstuffed armchair. The slipcovers were wearing out at the arm but unlikely to be refurbished in the foreseeable future. The book-packed library where he spent most of his time contained a black-and-white television set which dated from the Army-McCarthy hearings, some Boston ferns which had been dying for five years, a brick-fronted fireplace full of blackish ashes, and a large copy of Houdon’s bust of George Washington. Despite the clutter it was a clean room, as was the entire twelve-room, two-story house he’d bought fifteen years before.

Stretching mightily, he went to the spotless kitchen where he poured a fresh cup of coffee from his Chemex. When he made coffee, he ground his own beans. He went back to the library and sat down again. He picked up two empty cans of Carling Red Cap Ale and dropped them into a wastebasket. He liked his life: maybe he was a bachelor after all, had become one without really thinking about it.

He sipped the steaming coffee, unfortunately glanced at his watch. Damn! It was time for the late news … Having fought off the impulse to watch Polly Bishop at six, he now weakened, got up with a sigh and flicked on the set which knew nothing of transistors and color guns and took forever to warm up.

The blow-combed anchorman faded in, like a broken photograph coming back together, and smiled unctuously: “Next, our Polly Bishop talks with the Harvard historian who may have been the last person to see Bill Davis alive … after this word …”

A dogfood commercial used up a minute, then one for a bank shilling china, then one for a horror movie, then Polly Bishop was there, serious and competent, a very good media personality—he had to admit her effectiveness—going on about venerable old Harvard Yard and the well-known Harvard professor …