Scholar's Plot (33 page)

Her voice had begun to shake, but her eyes were dry.

“Why didn’t you go to Headman Portner, and the board?” Kathy asked. “Surely they’d have listened.”

“They probably would,” Mistress Peebles admitted. “He’d have been fired, and disgraced … and once he worked off his debt to the university, he’d have gone right on with his life. My son is dead. It wasn’t enough, it wasn’t
justice
. I’m glad you came tonight,” she went on, to my surprise. “I did my best to give Professor Sevenson an alibi. After that hearing, I knew he’d be suspected. And I was horrified when you fell under suspicion, and did all I could to help you clear yourselves. If you’d found someone else to accuse… When I made my decision, I promised myself that if someone else was about to be convicted for my crime I’d come forward. I’m glad I won’t have to take that test. I’d hate fail it.”

“So you confess to killing Master Hotchkiss?” Captain Chaldon asked.

“Why deny it? I have the university’s master keys, so it was easy to sneak in and mix the drug into his tea. He could barely stagger when he came down those stairs. Going for help, I suppose.”

The indifference in her voice was chilling.

“But he saw me coming. He knew why he died. And the truth will come out. That’s justice enough.” Her hands were relaxed now.

“Mistress Peebles, I must place you under arrest for the willful murder of Winton Hotchkiss.” The captain sounded regretful. “Would you like to pack some things, before you go with me?”

“I suppose I’d better.” Her expression was still calm, but when she rose I saw her waver and realized her knees were shaking.

I understood, now, why she hadn’t run — and her son would get the recognition he deserved. But I wished Hotchkiss hadn’t been the vicious worm he was, or that her son had been stronger. I wished there was something I could say…

It was Michael who found it.

“Mistress Peebles,” he said, as she turned toward the stairs. “You should know, your son, he didn’t think love was nothing. He put it before everything else in the universe. Zero, zero, zero: love. And the love he put first, zero, zero, one, was the love of a child for a parent.”

She knew the alphanumeric system. She knew what that meant.

When Captain Chaldon took her up to pack her bag, her face was wet with tears.

“’Twas as if he told her he loved her from beyond the grave,” Kathy said. “That poor woman. I don’t blame her in the least for killing that monster! Surely the judicars won’t hang her. If there was ever a case for which someone should go unredeemed…”

Having gone to bed only hours before dawn, we’d all slept past noon, then slowly gathered around … could you still call it the breakfast table? But Kathy was right, cases like this were exactly what the legal status “unredeemed” had been created for.

“I think Captain Chaldon will push for it,” I told her. “If the university agrees, the judicars might well choose to be lenient. Hotchkiss may not have pushed her son out that window, but he was still responsible for Seymour’s death. And ’tis not as if she’s likely to kill again.”

“Will the university argue for leniency?” Kathy aimed the question at Benton, who’d heard our account of the previous night with shock, then pity. He’d gone to join the townsfolk on the bucket lines, been seen by some of his old students, and was quite surprised at how 
they welcomed him. Indeed, he’d sat up talking with Scholar Flynn — he still blushed saying her name — till nearly dawn, and reached his bed even later than the rest of us.

“I don’t know.” Benton looked troubled. “They might sympathize, I think. But she did choose to commit murder, when she could have gone to them for justice. And even if you put the legal aspects aside, having two senior members of the staff turn out to be homicidal villains… When you add in the things Hotchkiss did, it’s going to be a huge scandal. I mean, what parent would send their child to a school where the staff are blackmailing and murdering each other? Portner may feel he has to respond with severity. I can’t blame him, really.”

“I can,” said Fisk. “And if he’s thinking along those lines, we’d better change his mind before he makes some public statement he can’t back out of. Come along, Michael.”

Thus we found ourselves outside Headman Portner’s office a few hours after midday. We weren’t the only ones who’d been up late, either. Portner’s secretary declined to admit us.

“You’ll understand, what with the fire and the arres — ah, the other matters, the Headman is very busy. Perhaps you could come back tomorrow?”

’Twas a reasonable request, so I understood why his brows flew up when Fisk said, “No. We need to see the Headman now. He wants to see us, too, because I have an idea that might block one of the lawsuits that are heading his way. Or rather, heading the university’s way.”

Ten minutes later we were admitted to Portner’s office. ’Twas a room fit for his rank, with leather-padded chairs, a great maple-wood desk, and shelf after shelf of books. Portner suited the room, with a lean face and a high, intellectual forehead. But his arms were thick with muscle, and his broad hands would have looked at home wielding a pick or a shovel.

Those hands bore blisters today, and there was a reddened burn across his nose and down one cheek. He’d been fighting the fire last night, not standing back and observing — or worse, trying to supervise, and getting in the fire marshal’s way. I began to see why Benton respected this man … so ’twas somewhat discouraging that he regarded Fisk and me with the look you might turn on a moldy sandwich.

“I don’t know what you think you’re doing here,” he said. “But no lawsuit will stop me from doing what’s right for this university, and the scholars in it. I’m busy today, so say what you have to, quickly, then get out of my office.”

“I don’t know what your subject was.” Fisk took a chair as he spoke, defying the Headman’s disapproval. “But I expect you have enough math to know what happens when you multiply two negative numbers?”

“Get out of my office. I don’t have time for games.” He looked angry, but beneath the anger I saw weariness and grief. He hadn’t the heart for games either, and despite his scowl my hopes began to rise.

“All right,” said Fisk. “Though I think it’s an interesting analogy. But as a man of the world, I’m sure you’ve seen that when two scandals arise at the same time, 
the greater extinguishes the lesser.”

Portner had started to rise, probably to throw us out, but at that he sank back into his chair.

“It’s a terrible scandal,” Fisk went on, “for a professor — suddenly seized with madness, say — to have corrupted the Heir’s project, and then tried to destroy the evidence. But it’s a much worse scandal to hang a woman, for killing the man who stole her son’s work and drove him to his death. A man who used that stolen work to become a famous scholar, on the staff of your own university. If word of that tragic tale spread — if the university itself pled the woman’s case, demanding that she be made unredeemed instead of hanging — I can’t imagine anyone would be interested in a tedious academic project that somehow went wrong.”

Portner was thinking furiously now, so I decided to give him more to chew on.

“Folk would have even less reason to think about that project, if someone who’d been wrongfully accused to keep him from suspecting what was happening was fully reinstated. Instead of having to sue the university over it.”

“Oh, I’d already decided to return Professor Sevenson’s degree — and his job, if he wants it,” Portner said. “We haven’t hired anyone else, so the only loss is that we paid for their travel, and… Well, there’s no difficulty there.”

“Doesn’t the board have to agree to it?” Fisk asked.

I’d not thought of that, having little knowledge of how universities function.

“The board will do what I tell them to, in this,” Portner said. “Or they’ll find themselves looking for a new Headman. I never liked that case against Professor Sevenson. The evidence seemed uncontestable, but there was something off… I didn’t suspect Monica Dayless, though. At all. Do you really think poor Peebles’ tragedy, and what his mother did because of it, could make people … overlook what Dayless did?”

“Depends on how it’s played,” Fisk said frankly. 
“If the university tries to make amends for being fool-
ed by Hotchkiss, pleading for leniency toward Clerk 
Peebles…”

“You could even give her her job back, if she’s declared unredeemed,” I put in helpfully. “’Tis hard for someone outside the law to find a job.”

My voice may have been too fervent, for he looked at me oddly.

“I’ll admit, this is a bad time to be without our head clerk. And if people start flocking to withdraw their children it’ll get worse. But wouldn’t they be appalled, to find themselves dealing with the murderess herself when they did? And she did murder a man. Are we supposed to forget that?”

“She murdered the man who killed her son,” said Fisk. “They may be appalled at first, but once they meet her she can explain. I can’t promise they’ll leave their kid in your school, but they’ll understand why she did it. And they’ll be more likely to understand, and forgive, than they will if they
don’t
meet her.”

“And Seymour Peebles was completely innocent,” Portner mused. “I could spread the word about how the university is trying to right that wrong, by officially renaming the alphanumeric system after its true creator. The Peebles system. Academics all over the Realm would be talking about that.”

“All evidence of what happened with the project was destroyed in the fire,” Fisk pointed out. “You can’t lie about it, but Professor Dayless can pay off her debt to the university in some non-professorial job.”

Being forced to work in a menial capacity for the university where she’d once taught — likely for years — would probably be more painful for the professor than going unredeemed. But
she’d
deserved it, and I found I felt little sympathy for her. Unlike Clerk Peebles, even though she’d succeeded in her murderous intent, and Dayless had failed. And if extenuating circumstances made so much difference in my consideration of these two women, should I not bring them into my consideration of how Fisk had let Jack Bannister go free?

“Simply working off a legal debt, in the usual way, will attract a lot less public attention than a mother/murderer saved from the gallows,” Fisk went on. “And while the rest of the Realm is entranced by all this drama, everybody else just goes back to work. You quietly return the Heir’s money—” The headman winced, but he nodded, too. “—and the case is closed. Hardly any fuss at all.”

“I take it back,” Portner said. “I’m glad you came by today. Though I’ll have to think more about what Nancy Peebles did before I agree. And since you’ve given me so much to think about, on top of everything else I have to deal with, you can save my staff some trouble and carry my letter to Professor Sevenson.”

He reached into a pile of papers that had been pushed aside and extracted it. The ink was still tacky, but it had been written before we arrived — so he might do the right thing by everyone else, as well.

I wanted to get this letter to Benton as soon as I could, and Fisk was eager to brag to Kathy about what 
he’d arranged. He deserved the bulk of the praise, though I’d assisted him ably. Just as last night, he’d 
so ably assisted me.

The truth was that we worked well together. It seemed a pity to dissolve such a team, even over a matter of principle. Particularly as it seemed that my former squire might become my brother-in-law. Assuming Father didn’t kill him.

Benton was overjoyed by Portner’s offer; full reinstatement of his degree, his job, and the university’s official apology. He promptly departed to share it with the friends he’d discovered last night.

Kathy was more concerned with the greater tragedy.

“Will he really argue for Mistress Peebles to be declared unredeemed, instead of hanging? It seems a lot to ask.”

“It’s to his own advantage,” said Fisk. “He’s an ethical man, but I don’t see there’s any justice to be had from hanging the helpful Peebles. And since it’s in the best interest of his university not to… With compassion 
and selfishness both on the side of letting her off? He’ll do it.”

“Captain Chaldon may argue for her as well,” I added. “And most of the judicars are probably parents. ’Tis no light thing, to be unredeemed,” I finished soberly. “But if she gets her old job back, surrounded by people who understand why she did it… She’ll be all right.”

“The alphanumeric system will become the Peebles system,” Fisk said. “Her son’s name, his genius, will be recognized as long as there are libraries. She’ll be better than all right.”

“And she has you to thank for that, squi — partner.”

I had hoped to catch him off guard, but of course I didn’t.

“Partner? I think I’m in charge. I was the one who persuaded Portner to let Benton off the hook. And I did it using Hotchkiss’ murder as my lever, which makes that the ‘pivotal’ crime.”

Even Kathy grimaced at that pun, and he grinned at her. But…

“Portner had written that letter before we got there. And ’twas Professor Dayless’ cheating that got Benton into trouble in the first place. And anyway, I’m the one who
solved
Hotchkiss’ murder. So if anyone is to be placed in charge, ’tis clearly—”

“But I’m the one who figured out what was going on with the project! It’s not much use for your theory to be right, if you never solve the crime. So I—”

“Men!” Kathy stamped her foot, a habit she must have picked up at court, for I’d never seen her make such a pettish gesture. Or mayhap Fisk had driven her to it.

“Can’t you simply admit you’re a team?” she went on. “Why does anyone have to be in charge?”

Only a woman could ask something so silly. Fisk and I both stared.

“Someone has to be in charge,” Fisk said. “Suppose we disagree about where to go? Or what to do? Someone has to make the final call.”