Free 2 Murder Most Fowl by Morgana Best Page B

demise.”
    The other professor snorted, trying to muffle his laughter.
    “See, I told you it was a good idea to come here,” Mr. Buttons said. “We’ll overhear a lot of good gossip like that; you mark my words.”
    I nodded and looked down at the sheet of paper in my hands. The first item was the Welcome Address. “We have to sit through the boring seminar first,” I said.
    A woman came forward to the microphone, and after the usual microphone adjustments and accompanying screeching sounds, introduced herself as Dean Judith Wreath. “First we will have a minute’s silence for our departed colleagues, Martin Bosworth and Colin Palmer,” she said. “All please stand.”
    The two elderly ladies sitting to my left grumbled and complained about having to stand, and simply remained seated. The minute of silence seemed to stretch on to two, or even three minutes, and I wondered who, if anyone, was timing it. Finally, it came to an end, and we were able to sit down.
    The Dean introduced a Professor Edwin Boring. “Professor Boring will read Professor Bosworth’s lecture notes to you today,” the Dean droned.
    “Boring by name, boring by nature, I’ll bet,” I whispered to Mr. Buttons.
    It turned out I was right.
    Professor Boring did not introduce himself, but simply stepped up to the microphone, smoothed his outrageous comb-over, and began to read from sheets of paper which he held up in front of his face. “There is no purely biographical account of Socrates; we know him only through his influence on other people,” he said in a monotone. “There are three contemporary sources of information: Plato, Xenophon, and Aristophanes. As different as the Socrates of Xenophon and Plato are, there is general agreement. Plato is absorbed with the theoretical side of Socrates’ mind, while Xenophon reveals the practical side.”
    At this point, I leaned over to Mr. Buttons. “Oh really, who gives a-”
    “Sibyl!” Mr. Buttons pursed his lips. “Your cockatoo is clearly a bad influence on you.”
    I shut my mouth and felt my cheeks flush red, so turned back to be bored by Professor Boring.
    I’m not sure at which point I fell asleep, and the last words I heard were something about Socrates admiring Sparta. I woke up on the shoulder of the elderly lady beside me. She elbowed me hard, and then said in a sweet voice, “Dear, you fell asleep.”
    I mumbled my apologies, and turned to Mr. Buttons. “Is the talk almost over?” I asked hopefully.
    “Only ten minutes or so in,” he said, shaking his head.
    I sighed, and looked around the lecture hall. No one else appeared to be asleep. I yawned twice in succession and then stretched out my arms in front of me. I yawned again, and then noticed the detectives in one of the rows on the far right, near the front. At least, the back of their heads looked like the detectives. Clearly, Mr. Buttons and I were not the only ones who thought that there was some information to be gleaned at the Pubic Lecture.
    That brightened me up somewhat, and I scanned the room. Blake was sitting several seats behind the detectives. To my delight, he was sitting next to a man. Still, that didn’t mean that Blake didn’t have a girlfriend; it just meant that he didn’t have a girlfriend who was silly enough to come to a public lecture on Socrates.
    I shook my head to clear it from thoughts of Blake, and tried to focus on the murder case – or, more accurately, cases. Two philosophers from the same university, even the same academic department, had been murdered, so it was obvious that there was a connection. Yet what? And why was Professor Bosworth murdered with such painstaking irony, whereas Colin Palmer was simply pushed down the stairs? I knew there had to be a clue in that. The logical explanation was that the murder of Martin Bosworth had been planned, possibly for some time, whereas the murder of Colin Palmer was more spur of the moment. Yet that still didn’t help. What was I