Five Smooth Stones (47 page)

"Why ask me? Offhand—Anderson and Cramer. And Terhune. Then Terhune got hurt in that car wreck on his way back from Chicago one weekend—whether Randy's been any active consolation, who the hell knows? Who gives a damn whether he made it with any of them?"

"We ought to," said Chuck. "I mean we ought to give a damn."

"He doesn't carry a gun," said Hunter. "Don't be so damned moral and Christian about it. It's their business. Tom didn't fall for it, did he?"

"Look," said Tom pleadingly. "Let's change the subject, huh? I'm sort of in shock. You know what I'm going to do? My folks are having an anniversary celebration this weekend. I'm going to give 'em a thrill and go home. Then I'm going to tell the old man about this and see what he has to say. He's an outsider, and it's a long way out of line, but you'd be surprised what he can come up with in the way of ideas. And there's something else I haven't told you. David say anything about the car—Sudsy's Yellow Peril?"

"No."

"Cozy took it away from David. Nehemiah Wilson told me."

"What?" Hunter was on his feet now.

Chuck ran a hand through his hair again. "You surprised I'm not. David needs that car. When Suds was here he could almost always borrow it to get to the city and back weekends. This way if he can't get a lift he's stuck with the walk to and from the bus. In bad weather that's rough. He's lame—I mean he can make it but—where you going, Hunter?"

"To see Nehemiah, get him out of bed, and get the real dope from him. You're going home to Chicago this weekend, Tom? I'm going to Boston. It happens that Sudsy's grandfather took care of my mother's family until he died, and then Sudsy's father took over. He put casts on me, stuck needles in me, warned me of the dangers of promiscuous sex—" He was belting his coat. "The name Sutherland packs weight in more than medical circles. If we can't lick it with our own troops, maybe we can bring up some reinforcements."

"I'll stay behind and mind the store," said Chuck.

CHAPTER 33

Dr. Karl Knudsen walked from garage to house in the glare of a floodlight beside the back door, operable from the garage. His gait was the slightly stiff-legged one of a terrier advancing on a hated foe, and Eve Knudsen, watching alone from the kitchen window, murmured, "Oh-oh. He's heard—" and hastily carried coffeepot and cups into the living room.

She was waiting there to greet him as he entered the room, a little apprehensive. He had been known to break things.

If he heard her greeting, he made no reply, glared at her a moment, then said, his accent thickened by anger, "Why was I not told?"

She was used to being expected to be a mind reader. "Because I only learned about it myself an hour ago. I assume that question concerns David?"

"Who else—and what else!" Suddenly the stiffness of his body relaxed and he walked over to her, kissed her quickly on the cheek. "You always understand. I did not mean to frighten you."

"Karl, my love, you couldn't. Where did you hear about it?"

"Andrus." Karl sighed. "Andrus has tried to educate me before. Tonight it was all very clear. He charges that what is happening to David is prejudice and that it is deliberate. And that this, or something similar, has happened to others before David. David is one of his favorite students. Favorite persons, would be a better phrase—" Knudsen was rattling on, and his wife did not interrupt him; it was doing him good. "He has had David in his office often, having tea and petrified cookies. God help the boy, I think they make Latin puns together. If I did not know the boy better I would think he was polishing the orange—"

"Apple, dear."

"Apple. Whatever you say." The expected change of mood came explosively. "Good God, Eve, what are we going to do? Where did you learn about it?"

"Sara, of course. She's upstairs in bed. Probably crying. I decided to say she was coming down with something and called the dormitory and lied."

"Good, good."

"Really, Karl—"

"Her roommate is thoroughly stupid. Better Sara should sleep in a snowbank than have to be with that female if she is upset." He took a swallow of coffee, then frowned at his wife. "Crying, did you say?"

"Very probably."

"It is like that, Eve?"

"Like that, Karl."

"Damnation." He spoke without heat. "That's about it, Karl. Damnation. We've got to help them—"

Karl Knudsen drew a deep breath and did not look toward his wife. Thank God, he thought, thank the good God for a wife who could say "them" under these circumstances. He would not have judged her harshly had her attitude been different; she was not a European with the universal standards of the European, but it was a warm pleasure that in this situation their minds and hearts would not be traveling separate roads.

"Tell me about it, Eve—"

She had been putting away dishes, tidying up the kitchen, when Sara came in without knocking. Eve insisted that wet outer clothing be stripped off, and held the red knit cap by its pompon, at arm's length, saying, "I-i-ick! I'll put it on the radiator in the dining room—"

When she came back, Sara was still standing. "Sit down, for goodness' sake. You look like damp death. I'll fix cocoa." She had seen Sara look like that once before, when she was very small and had learned that the aged family setter had been taken to the vet for merciful euthanasia. She wanted to do now what she had done then, put her arms around the child and try to comfort her; but as she had no idea why she would be offering comfort, she waited quietly, preparing cocoa, making Sara sit down to drink it.

The wait was not a long one. The cocoa, she thought, must have been the homey touch that unlocked Sara's emotions.

"Aunt Eve, people stink."

"Of course they do, dear. Every once in a while I look around and say the same thing. Then I think—Well, here you are, Eve Knudsen, right in the midst of them, and what can you do but hold your nose—"

"Please, Aunt Eve—"

"Sweetie, I'm not being facetious. Suppose you tell me specifically who stinks and why."

"It's about David—"

"Sara, he doesn't—"

"No, Aunt Eve, no! It's other people—" and slowly, with an occasional prod from Eve, the story came out. Eve already knew the incident of the Infirmary; she and Karl had discussed it and dismissed it as being unfortunate and probably calling for some discipline but of no real importance. Her first real interruption came when Sara haltingly told her of the rumor that was slowly creeping through the campus—

"Sara Kent! No one, but no one, in their right mind is going to believe any such nonsense. I'm ashamed of you for letting it upset you."

Sara nodded slowly. "Yes, they are. They—some of them are going to
enjoy
believing it. Maybe you just don't know how it is on a campus."

"I spent four years on one," said Eve a little tartly.

'Then you do know."

Eve did not answer. On second thought, of course she knew. "And—"

"Wait, dear. You seem to feel prejudice is involved in this."

Again Sara nodded. "Yes. And we've got a plan, only I can't tell you about it. And—and David—" She stood abruptly and carried her cocoa mug to the sink. There had been no hint in the straight back and resolutely squared shoulders of what Eve saw when Sara turned and faced her: a small, dead-white face, lip muscles stiffening with the effort at control, eyes brimming.

"Sara—dear—"

"David hates me. He's furious with me. I—I don't suppose he'll ever speak to me again—"

"Sara, you idiot—"

Eve held the small body close, let Sara cry it out against her shoulder, said, after a while, "I didn't really know, my dear—wasn't really sure—now, now." She put two fingers under Sara's chin. "Sara, it's not all that bad. David couldn't in a million years stay angry with you for very long. He couldn't possibly. You know that. So stop this." She held Sara away from her, shook her gently. "It's going to be all right, my dear. It has to be. For you and David. It's not the end of the world. Honestly, it isn't."

When Eve Knudsen finished her story to her husband, he was silent for a few moments, then rose and went into the hall. He reappeared in the doorway, struggling into his raincoat.

"Karl, where in the world—"

"Oscar Benford's—"

"At this hour?" She followed him back into the hallway. "He never goes to bed."

"Sits up all night working on theorems or whatever you mathematicians do work on in the silent hours?"

"No." He kissed her absent-mindedly and picked up his hat. "Mystery stories."

In Benford's living room a short time later, Knudsen spread his square, strong hands to a welcome blaze, walked to the table beside the chair Benford had been sitting in, and picked up a book. "I wish I could learn the secret of being diverted by these—"

"It's a big help," said Benford. "Although it's gone back on me at the moment. I was on page one twenty-nine last night. I was on one thirty-one when you came in, and weakening."

Knudsen gave a short bark of laughter.
"Ja.
I can well imagine. You know why I am here?"

"Of course, Actually, I think I was waiting for you."

"This is a bad thing. A vicious thing."

"Yes." 

"You seem damned calm about it, Benford."

"Would it help if I raved?"

"No. But you seem to treat it as though it was routine—"

"Isn't it, Doctor? Sit down, man—"

"Oscar—" It was the first time Knudsen had ever called his immediate subordinate by his first name. Benford's face still showed the slight smile, a smile Knudsen could not interpret; it was not an unpleasant smile, it was—Knudsen searched for a word, found it: disturbing. He forgot what he had started to say originally, and said the thing that had been in the back of his mind since leaving his house. "Quimby."

Benford's smile was replaced by a thoughtful frown. "If you want to do that, there is nothing to prevent it."

"I do not 'want to.' I merely present it as the only answer I can find."

"Karl." Without effort Benford swung from "Doctor" to "Karl." The time for title was long past. "We all know about that famous skunk at the picnic. That would be you if you go over the heads of all involved—the board, the president—to the power behind the throne. Remember, it's a power that's resented in some quarters."

"I know. And the quarter in which it is the most resented is the quarter from which this foul wind has sprung. This is a frame-up, pure and simple. I would swear to it."

"So would I. It was the surest weapon under the circumstances. Champlin is too well liked to make a more specific accusation stick."

"But there has to be an accuser! One cannot, even Goodhue cannot, act on suspicion alone. Certainly he is not going to say that David Champlin made advances to him!"

Benford laughed, the same surprisingly deep laugh David had heard the day before. "I'm glad you said that, Karl. I needed the laugh. Now—to be serious. Did you know that David Champlin knocked out a fellow student not long ago? Cold-cocked him, on a lonely spot in the road between here and Cincinnati, in the small hours of the morning? The victim of the knockout is not of the breed that takes kindly to liberties taken by Negroes. And I assume being knocked out would come under the heading of taking liberties."

"Probably. Probably. But David isn't the kind who goes about taking that particular kind of liberty with anyone! White or colored!"

"Wait. I had better add that, from something I've overheard, the aforesaid victim is not equally averse to taking liberties with Negroes. Certain kinds of liberties."

At last Knudsen sat, heavily and with a great gust of outgoing breath, in Benford's big chair.

"I had planned on telling you as soon as I had more to go on," said Benford. "I'm glad now I didn't wait."

"Was it Clevenger?"

"Yes. You're quick—"

"No. Just a hunch. He's a pet of Goodhue's. Would you tell Andrus?"

"Yes. If we—you and I—agree that I should."

"Can you dine with us tomorrow? With Andrus."

"Certainly. Do you still favor seeing Quimby?"

"Yes." Knudsen had forgotten his drink, finished it now.

Benford said, "You can see why I have never been to him. Even a man of Quimby's idealism could be forgiven for thinking that it would be special pleading. I've had to content myself with waiting until I saw an opportunity to move in, defending certain students before the board, and warning them when I saw storms ahead. I did manage on one occasion to completely exonerate a Quimby on a charge of cheating. Damn it, Karl!" For the first time Knudsen saw anger, red and violent, flare in Benford's eyes. "A man can fight a lynch mob. Or outright persecution. How in hell can he fight complacence? The damnable, intangible fog of liberal complacency that surrounds those who are so sure of their liberality they cannot see the festering sores within their own establishment! Liberal! Negroes do not love the word. It implies generosity, a giving of something that should be possessed by right."

"I do not know," said Knudsen slowly. "I do not know—about anything. Yet we dare to call ourselves learned. We dare—" He stood and walked to the table, poured himself a drink from the decanter. "Another drink, Oscar, for the walk home."

"Another drink, sure. But I'll drive you home."

"No. I shall walk. And think. And decide."

"Your job could be at stake if you go to Quimby, tenure or no—"

"I know that, and I will not say that I like knowing it." Then Knudsen laughed, and this time there was real mirth in the sound. "You have met my brother. Half again my weight, nearly a foot taller. David Champlin is the apple of his eye. But that is not why I would do it—although it would give any man pause. Can you see Professor Bjarne Knudsen if David Champlin is expelled on trumped-up charges and malicious innuendos?"

Benford laid a bony black hand on Knudsen's shoulder. "When you go to Quimby, I'll go with you. I think Andrus will also. We can all of us always make a living as tutors."

Dr. Sutherland stood back from the examining table on which Hunter lay clad only in his shorts, and turned to the basin to wash his hands. "Put your clothes on, Hunter, and come into the office."