Scholar's Plot (21 page)

Dobbs looked a bit uneasy, but his gaze was steady. “Yes? I took out walls on several floors. Did a good job, 
if I say so myself, particularly with the decorative plaster that covers up the scars. Do you need walls removed?”

“No,” I said. “We need to know the name of the board member who demanded you give him free labor be-
fore he’d hire you. And whether or not he paid Hotchkiss’ blackmail. You refused, didn’t you?” I let sympathy and admiration ooze into that last sentence, but 
the man still hunched his shoulders like an angry bull.

“Cursed straight I didn’t pay him! Why should I? Yeah, I had to do a bit of extra work, show my skills to get the job. But I did good work in that library, for fair pay. You got any complaints about my brickwork? Is the plaster falling off? Then you got nothing. If I didn’t pay him, I’ll be hanged if I pay you!”

Dobbs’ accent was more carpenter than contractor now. And I liked his attitude.

“We don’t want anything,” I said. “Except the board member’s name. Because while you didn’t pay Master Hotchkiss, I’m afraid he did.”

The bunched shoulder muscles relaxed, but his eyes were wary. “I heard Hotchkiss was killed. They said a burglar did him.”

“’Tis not likely,” said Michael. “Given that the man was a blackmailer.”

Dobbs sighed and sank back in his chair. “Can’t say I’m surprised. Or very sorry, either. But I never paid a fract, so I’ve no motive to kill him. And the Liege Guard can check my accounts to confirm that.”

“They don’t need to,” I said, trusting he wouldn’t go to them and suggest it. “We found Hotchkiss’ records. But the board member did pay, the one who demanded that you bribe him for the job. And Hotchkiss only wrote down his initial, A.”

“Huh. There’s a thing. I don’t see why I should shield that cheap bastard, either,” said Dobbs, making up his mind. “It didn’t bother me much. It wasn’t a big job, and he said it gave him a chance to see my work, see it was worth the price. I put in a brick walkway at board member Arnoll’s house,” he finished. “You should look at it when you’re there. It’s good work.”

He had no problem with giving us directions.

Michael said Professor Stint’s lodging was nearer, just on the other side of the university, and we should go there next. But Master Arnoll and the amorous Professor Nilcomb lived in the same area, no farther from where we were now than Stint’s lodging.

Michael, who can be curst stubborn about getting what he wants, said that by the time we reached the other end of town we’d have a much longer walk back to Stint’s place, and that he’d let me take us to Dobb’s work yard first.

I pointed out that we’d have to walk the same distance from Stint’s to the west end of town as we would from the west end of town to Stint’s, and reminded him that this time
I
was in charge.

Michael shut up rather abruptly, but the walk to the richer neighborhood that lay between the river and 
the Crown City road was long enough that after a while we had to start discussing what to do next. The best houses in that neighborhood, Dobbs had told us, had gardens that backed down to the riverbank and often had their own docks — and professional boatmen to 
ferry them about, because despite the name, Slowbend, the current here was strong and swift. Master 
Arnoll’s house, brick instead of the local stone, didn’t back onto the river … but the houses across the street from him probably did.

As we’d discussed it, I’d made up my mind not to confront Master Arnoll with the evidence that 
he’d paid blackmail — he might be able to get us kicked off the campus for keeps. Instead, I’d tell him what we’d discovered among Hotchkiss’ papers and give 
him the fake play script, which Michael was carrying. Then I could ask, sympathetically, how a nice man like him had come to be paying Hotchkiss, why he thought the killer might have done it, and any other questions I could work in before we asked, tactfully, where he’d been on the evening of the lecture.

Michael, rather stiffly, approved this approach … so it was a considerable letdown to be told by the housemaid who answered our knock that Master Arnoll had gone into the country for a hunting party, and wouldn’t be back for several days. Though she’d be glad to give him a message, if we cared to leave one.

Jack used to say that the death of one plan hatched the next — a metaphor that made no sense, even knowing as little about birds as I did. But I knew how to bring it off.

“How long has he been at this hunting party?” I asked. “How far out of town is it?”

“He left yesterday.” Her voice sounded a bit less polite. “And his friend’s estate is half a day’s journey. If you’d like to leave a message?”

That last was said in a way that made it clear the door was about to close.

“We’re keeping you from your work.” I offered her an apologetic smile. I also let the coins jingle as I dug into my purse. “Here’s a tin ha’ for your trouble. It’s too bad Master Arnoll’s not here, to answer my questions.”

I handed her the ha’ as I spoke. A silver roundel, likely a week’s pay for a housemaid, remained in my hand, flashing as I turned it.

The door didn’t close.

“I don’t know if I can help you. Master Arnoll’s an important man with the university. I couldn’t talk about his business, even if I knew it. And I probably don’t.”

Ah, she suspected academic skullduggery, which meant she’d overheard some of it going on.

“It’s nothing like that,” I said, regretfully. Academic blackmail appeared to be profitable. “I just want to know where Master Arnoll was last Skinday evening. Do you know if he attended that big lecture?”

Nothing more harmless than a board member going to an open lecture at his own university, but her eyes fell to the silver coin and her lips compressed. A silver roundel was too much to pay for anything “harmless.”

But it was enough to get results.

“No, he was home. He hosted a meeting of the staffing committee, over dinner. And I can’t tell you what they decided. I wasn’t paying attention,” she added firmly.

Which meant she’d remember exactly what was said, if a few more roundels showed up.

“Did the meeting run through the time of the lecture?” I flipped the coin, casually. “It lasted pretty late, you know.”

“The committee meeting ended before the lecture started. A couple of members were going to attend, and they were worried about missing the beginning. But Master Arnoll and three of the others, they went into his office and went on talking for several hours after that. I’ve no idea what they said,” she finished regretfully. “They took the wine with them, and served themselves.”

She could probably be persuaded to tell me what had been said at the staffing meeting, but I already knew they were interviewing people to take Benton’s place. 
I tossed her the roundel, which she caught neatly, and I also declined a final offer to leave a message — making certain that even if she wanted to tell her boss she’d been bribed to reveal his whereabouts, which 
wasn’t likely, she wouldn’t be able to say who’d paid her. Not that it mattered.

“It seems Master Arnoll is even more thoroughly alibied than Professor Bollinger, whom Benton saw at the lecture,” Michael remarked. “What will you do if all your suspects have alibis?”

“Either find new suspects or break the alibis,” I said. “We’re just assuming that Halprin and Mabry aren’t 
in town. And Bollinger is only alibied for the lecture, and Hotchkiss was killed before that. Besides, there’s still Professor Nilcomb, who was paying the most, 
anyway.”

But I actually thought that if Halprin or Mabry were in town, the efficient Peebles would probably know about it. And if Bollinger was cold-blooded enough to murder a man, and then go and sit through a lecture without giving anything away, even Benton-the-oblivious should have wondered about him before now. Which meant my likely suspects were down to one man.

Professor Nilcomb’s house didn’t back onto the river either, but it was grander than Master Arnoll’s. I approached his door ready to bribe whoever answered, because I figured this time of day he’d be teaching. So of course the manservant who answered the door said the professor was in his study, and he’d given instructions for his scholars to be admitted.

It was useful to be of student age, even though we weren’t wearing the school colors. The man led us into a marble-tiled entry, down a corridor covered with fine rugs, and into a pleasantly masculine study, where a pleasantly handsome man in his late thirties looked up at us with a pleasant smile … which promptly vanished.

“You’re not my scholars.” He looked at his servant, who looked blank, then increasingly unhappy.

“We’re not scholars,” I said, before the conversation could disintegrate. “We’re … associates of Master Hotchkiss.”

He didn’t gasp or turn white, but a distressed expression dawned on Professor Nilcomb’s face.

“I’ll see them, John. That will be all.”

He waited till the door had closed and the servant’s steps had retreated before he spoke. “Terrible, what happened to Master Hotchkiss. I was horrified when I heard. Horrified.”

“I bet you were,” I said, sinking into a chair. “We were investigating his death when we found these.”

I nodded at Michael, who took out the love letters and laid them on the desk. Nilcomb stared as if they were a nest of writhing snakes.

“I’ll pay you. I’ll pay you the same amount I paid him, and I was regular, very regular with my payments. He can tell you…”

The professor then realized that Hotchkiss couldn’t tell us, and stumbled to a stop.

“How did Hotchkiss get these letters?” I figured I’d better go for a softer tone, or the man might melt from fear right in front of us.

“I don’t know, but I assume Jessalyn must have… She was angry when I … when we … that is…”

“She got mad when you dumped her,” I supplied, trying not to sound judgmental.

Kathy was right about the ick. I remembered her laughter at the terrible metaphors, her indignation over the moral failing that lay beneath. But Nilcomb was talking again.

“I got more cautious after that. I read my letters, my poems, aloud to my inspirations. Then we burn them, together, so no other eyes will look upon the words.”

From the man who’d written the letters I’d seen, that was actually credible.

“You must understand,” he went on. “My wife’s family didn’t approve of our marriage.”

And they’d been so right.

“They wouldn’t understand.
She
wouldn’t understand, but a writer, we need our inspirations.”

“I don’t care about that.” In fact, I preferred to avoid hearing more. “I just want to know where you were on the evening of the lecture, four days ago.”

Now he did turn pale, a sickly shade his current “moonbeam” probably wouldn’t appreciate.

“I meant to attend. I really did. I may have sat toward the back. Yes, I came in late and sat in the back.”

“No, you didn’t,” I said, confidently. “We talked to the pass checkers, and they hadn’t seen you.”

“They must have forgotten. Like I’ve forgotten who I sat beside. In the back.”

“Professor.” Michael’s voice was more gentle than I could manage. “Where were you that evening? You
weren’t
at the lecture.”

Nilcomb searched for a bit of spine, and to my surprise he found it. “I won’t tell you where I was. I’ve already said I’d pay, and I will, but the rest is none of your business.”

“You mean, it’s not our business who you were with,” I said.

“I deny that. I completely deny that and you have no proof. And indeed, I might be able to pay just a bit more?”

Ick
. I was out of even pretense-sympathy, so I gestured for Michael to take over.

“We don’t want your money, Professor. In fact, you may keep these letters, and as far as I know there are no copies. But you should consider,” he went on, “that if you go on sleeping with your scholars, sooner or later your wife and her family are bound to learn of it. It seems…” He waved a hand, to indicate the luxurious room. “…a high price to pay for ‘inspiration.’”

It was some time after we left the house before I started feeling clean again.

“I swear, the jeweler’s less creepy than that man.”

“I think that’s a fair comparison,” Michael said soberly. “’Tis an illness with him, whatever he tells himself. For whatever pleasure he gains, he risks losing wife, wealth, reputation, and being blackmailed. He’s pitiable.”