Free The Bookman's Tale by Berry Fleming

Lieutenant.”
    â€œSnag!”
    â€œI can’t tell you any more right now—”
    â€œWhat do you mean, snag?”
    â€œI’ll call you in a day or two when I know something. Do I have your number? Yes, Paula says we have.”
    But the “people down there” had got the grant on the basis of the Ph.D. and they phoned him—the Chief’s assistant did—and most courteously asked about it. They needed some credentials to show the Foundation office; would really like to provide them with a copy of the certificate, “just as a matter of form. Let us have it as soon as you can, Doctor, it’s getting a little awkward for us.”
    The rest of it seemed to happen all at once, though of course it took hours, took all of a beautiful October Thursday—the early call from X, “Some not-good news, old fellow. Looks like a guy at Berkeley beat you to it,” waiting a minute, getting only a dead silence and going on, “same problem, same theory, practically the same demonstration. Happens all the time, of course. Two people, miles apart, never heard of each other, pop up one day with the same idea. Happens all the time. Darwin and What’s-his-name, you remember—”
    â€œYou mean—”
    â€œTrouble is the Journal ’s publishing this guy’s paper in the next—”
    â€œYou mean I don’t get my Doctor’s?”
    â€œNot at all, Oscar. You just don’t’ get it on the basis of this dissertation—”
    â€œI just start all over again!”
    â€œIt’s a lot simpler the second go-round, Oscar—”
    â€œWait a minute! Who is this guy? You know this guy?”
    â€œNot really. No.”
    â€œIsn’t Berkeley your school?”
    â€œNow wait a minute yourself, Oscar—”
    â€œYou didn’t steer him on to my idea?”
    â€œNow hold on, Lieutenant!”
    â€œNobody else knew, I haven’t told a living soul—”
    â€œThese things happen, I tell you. Happen all the time—”
    â€œYou gave him my idea—”
    â€œYou’re insane!” And the line went dead.
    X was crossing the yard to his car when Tuckwell tramped through a bed of late flowers at a corner of the house, bareheaded, unshaved, rumpled collar, service pistol heavy in his hand. X drew back rigid against the side of the car, so surprised he couldn’t find a directive of any sort, his mind like a jostled tray of tools; should he speak, say something, just to break the silence? caution the boy, warn him? Beg him? No words ready that seemed to fit, and no physical movement, no way open to escape with the car door against his back, a thought taking shape in his head that any move to duck and run, or even any spoken words would be enough to break some delicate balance in the air between them, trip some spring, all the choices seeming to cancel one another and leave him standing there, chest square to the front, staring at the pale young man ten feet away, and continuing to stare without moving, unable to move, as the young man put the pistol muzzle in his mouth like a fat cigar and pushed the trigger with his thumb.
    â€œYou mean this Professor X got jealous and—”
    I told him there was no reason he should go to Georgia for the funeral—he was badly shaken—but he wouldn’t listen, and I went with him, just the two of us. We kept out of the way, stood off among the trees, the oleanders, some white camellias, didn’t speak to anybody, sign any book. Saw Meg from a distance, blank, dazed as if a bright light had flashed into her eyes; didn’t speak to her (she wouldn’t have known it if we had), flew back that afternoon.
    â€œYou mean this Professor—”
    â€œI’ve told you all I know—except she married again, an Englishman trading in sugar with a plantation in Barbados. One reason I agreed to make the talks at the College. She’ll be