The offices were downstairs, the Dean’s and Bursar’s apartments upstairs. The foyer was relatively large and quite deserted at this dinner hour; the open counter where a clerk worked during office hours was unmanned, and the offices clearly visible through glass walls were equally empty.
Resuming his descent, Carmine stopped short of the counter and debated how he was going to locate the Dean. A cheerful buzz emanated from the opposite side of the nucleus, where the dining room and common rooms were located. Sighing, Carmine girded his loins for a sortie into the midst of four hundred eating young men, but it never happened. A short, fussy man in a three-piece suit emerged from the dining side entrance, took Carmine in at a glance, and walked toward him. He had the gait of a duck, though he wasn’t overweight. Just knock-kneed. His face was round and ruddy, his brown hair scant but assiduously brushed to hide as much scalp as possible, and his dark brown eyes held a flash that told Carmine he was capable of cowing most of Paracelsus’s inmates. No one could have called him handsome.
“Dean Highman,” said Carmine, shaking hands. Good, firm grip.
“Come upstairs to my apartment,” the Dean said, lifting the flap of the counter and unlocking a glass door. Once through that, they ascended to the second floor in a tiny elevator, a smoother ride than tiny elevators usually gave.
“Dean Dawkins—Paracelsus’s first dean and my predecessor—was a paraplegic,” Highman explained as they floated upward, “but his qualifications outweighed both his handicap and the cost of installing this.” A soft chuckle. “Princeton thought it had him.”
“Eat your heart out, Princeton,” said Carmine, grinning.
“Are you a Chubber, Captain?”
“Yes, Class of Forty-eight.”
“Ah! Then you were one of the young men who defended our beloved country. But you must have started before the war.”
“Yes, in September of 1939. I enlisted straight after Pearl Harbor, so I lost my credits for the fall of 1941. Not that I cared. The Japs and the Nazis came first.”
“Married?”
“Yes.”
“Children?”
“A girl by a previous marriage, Sophia, now sixteen, and a son five months old,” said Carmine, wondering who was conducting this interrogation.
“His name?”
“Still undecided.”
“Oh, dear! Is that a serious marital contretemps?”
“No, more an ongoing, good-natured argument.”
“She’ll win, Captain, she’ll win! They always do.”
Dean Highman settled his guest in a leather chair and went to the bar cart. “Sherry? Scotch? Whiskey?”
“You didn’t offer me gin, Dean.”
“You don’t look or act like a gin man.”
“How right you are! Whiskey will do fine, thanks. Soda and ice, and drown it.”
“Still on duty, eh?” The Dean sat down with his own generous glass of sherry. “Ask away, Captain.”
“I gather from Mr. Pugh’s roommate, Mr. Wilkinson, that the college is deserted during class hours?”
“Absolutely. Any student found wandering the corridors during class hours is certain to be queried. Not that it happens often. Paracelsus was built and endowed specifically for pre-med students by the Parson Foundation.”
Carmine pulled a face. “Oh, that bunch!”
“You speak as one who knows them.”
“I was involved in a case the year before last that had to do with one of their endowed facilities.”
“Yes, the Hug,” said Dean Highman, nodding wisely. “I do sincerely trust that the murder of Mr. Pugh does not embroil Paracelsus in that kind of disaster.”
“I doubt it, Dean, beyond what leaks to the press and other media about the circumstances of Mr. Pugh’s death. Rest assured that we’ll be trying to tone down our releases.”
The Dean leaned forward, his sherry forgotten. “I am smitten with fear, Captain. How did Mr. Pugh die?”
“Between the teeth of a bear trap rigged in his closet.”
The ruddy face paled, and the sherry stood in danger of slopping until the Dean lifted the glass to his lips and drank it off in a gulp. “Ye gods! Christ almighty! Here? In Paracelsus?”
“Yes, I’m afraid so.”
“But—but—what can we do? I swear no one saw anything odd today! I’ve asked, I do assure you!” the Dean bleated.
“I understand that, but tomorrow there will be detectives back to ask a lot more questions on the subject, Dr. Highman. For which reason, I’d like to make sure that every single member of your staff, including janitors, trash collectors, gardeners, maids and other nonfaculty be present all day. They’ll all have to answer questions. No one will be treated harshly, but every last one will be seen individually,” said Carmine, voice steely.