Free The Black Door by Collin Wilcox Page B

president of Farnsworth University. Did you know that?”
    I shook my head.
    “Just think of it,” Campion said, waving his cigarette in a short, animated arc. “Just think how it could’ve happened: Randall’s secretly in love with the girl, see? Desperately. And all this time she’s been giving him the shaft, and gradually it’s gotten to him. Let’s say she’s been seeing this musician for months, which your plump friend’s statement seems to confirm. So it’s been gradually eating on Randall, see? So last night, there they are, drinking in the publications office, and doing some heavy necking, at least. Maybe they’re even in separate rooms, for all we know. So then, with Randall all in a lather, they get into some kind of an argument. Or maybe she just announces, coolly, that it’s time for her to go, that she’s got a late date. It sounds like something she might do. So off she goes. And off goes Randall—off his rocker. He follows her secretly, and maybe he keeps on drinking. So then—” Campion paused, drawing hastily on his cigarette, his eyes bright with the pleasure of invention. “So then, he breaks in on them. And he—”
    “And he murders them with his bare hands, without making a sound,” I interrupted. “Like any red-blooded American boy would do in the same situation.”
    “Why do you say ‘bare hands’?” Campion quickly asked. “You haven’t been withholding information, have you, old buddy?”
    “I’m being facetious.”
    “You could be facetious and also right, though. The girl was strangled; that much’s for certain. And the man looked like his neck was broken. It could be that—” Lost in thought, his voice trailed off.
    “We didn’t see Pastor’s front side,” I reminded him. “He could’ve been stabbed.”
    “He could have. But there wasn’t any blood. And not only that, but—”
    An inside door opened, and Henry Johnson, the dean of students, entered the room, unaccompanied. Some of us rose, some of us half rose, and some of us merely muttered. About to sit down, Johnson noticed our cigarettes. He went to a nearby cupboard and took out a stack of small crystal ash trays. One of the TV men distributed the ash trays as Johnson, nodding his thanks, took a seat at the head of the table.
    “I’m sorry to’ve kept you waiting, gentlemen. I had, ah, an unexpected chore to perform.”
    “May we start by asking the nature of the chore?” someone asked.
    Johnson glanced at the questioner with quick eyes, completely unclouded by his sixty-odd years. Then he smiled, taking a brief, thoughtful moment to survey us before he spoke.
    “I was talking to the police, as a matter of fact.” His eyes flicked among us, appraisingly. He was plainly deciding he might enjoy this game.
    “I have a few preliminary remarks to make,” he said. “They won’t take more than two or three minutes. And then you’re welcome to ask all the questions you like.” He paused. “This murder, as you can imagine, has been a profound shock to all of us here at Bransten.” The eyes dimmed with a genuine sorrow, but the voice was steady. “As some of you might know, Bransten College has been established for more than eighty years, and nothing like this has ever happened. Nothing even remotely like this.” He cleared his throat, and for a moment seemed sunk in reverie. Then his voice became crisper. “Roberta Grinnel came to Bransten College almost four years ago, and would have graduated this spring. She majored in fine arts, and was a good student with considerable talent, some of it as yet undeveloped.” He considered, and apparently decided not to elaborate the point. It was a near-flawless beginning, I thought, candid yet discreet. The main event, of course, lay ahead—the questions and the answers.
    “It is not the function of this college,” Johnson was saying, “to in any sense investigate the movements of Miss Grinnel as they pertain to the tragic events of last night. And,