Come to Dust Read online

  Once to every man and nation,

  Comes the moment to decide.

  This ancient hymn, unsingable and virtually unmusical, is for reasons known only to initiates the staple of college chapels throughout New England. Thatcher took refuge in a craven sustained note and admired his psalter mate. Without a quiver Lucy raised a firm no nonsense baritone and intimidated surrounding pews.

  The chapel was a simple beautiful structure in which Dartmouth had worshipped God since 1814. It was as Todd predicted filled to overflowing. Many worshippers, Thatcher was forced to conclude from the confused search for the morning psalms, were not devout churchgoers. On the other hand, he fair-mindedly admitted to himself there was something admirable about them. Despite the excesses of the night before, a goodly number of Old Grads had brought circled eyes, pallid complexions, and twitching fingers to chapel.

  The Sloan was holding its own. George was himself: well turned out, healthy, radiating the slightly impatient intelligence that is the hallmark of the high level executive. Lucy was Lucy, enough to cause heart burning wherever she went. He himself had rarely felt better.

  “Let us pray,” said the cleric.

  This signaled a lecture to the Almighty about the socio economic problems of our time. John felt that piety required him to withdraw his attention and let it roam. Two pews over he sighted Ralph, heavy lidded, but otherwise holding his own quite well. Perhaps it was not the Sloan but New York in general that deserved congratulations.

  Idly he tried to locate the rest of the Committee. Marsden was nowhere to be seen. Without censure John recalled that he had been last seen dead drunk at Franklin House. It was probably technically impossible for him to present himself in the tabernacles of the anointed.

  Since Todd had already informed his guests that the cleric — Give us O Lord — the power to discern inequities and the strength to combat injustice — was married to a Miss Rockefeller and since Lucy was gracing the scene, John could only conclude that Marsden had been booby trapped by Demon Run.

  The Dunlops were also among those absent.

  The cleric was now strongly counseling God to force his creatures to examine their hearts for seed of antisocial bias. John decided that age might be the critical factor. He looked over the student body. No it was not age. A large number of undergrads were present.

  Some of them, he realized, had simply ignored yesterday’s bacchanalia. Thin and intense, they prayed with a fervor that underlined the absence of incense and candles. This group had probably spent yesterday in the library.

  Then there were the boys from Groton and its ilk. With the accuracy of experience, John singled out their vacant faces. This Christianity was muscular. He suspected that these stalwarts had not been to bed. But Dartmouth being Dartmouth, and Groton being Groton, standards were maintained; all attire was correct in an extreme.

  The first rows of the student sections had been reserved for the 35 visitors from New York. Even making due allowance for Roman Catholics, Jews, agnostics, and other bonafide absentees, the turnout was meager. The Assistant Dean in charge looked quite wild, even during prayer.

  Several of the young visitors John recalled from Todd’s summary were still AWOL.

  “Let us, therefore, O Lord, praise Thy ways while working to bring Thy Kingdom to pass on earth. Amen.”

  There was a confused shuffle as Miss Rockefeller’s husband came to an end. The anthem returned them to normality.

  His blood red banner streams afar.

  Who follows in His train?

  As they left, John was relieved to discover that the proconsular presence of the public Lyman Todd was to be removed. Todd had gone into one of his fluent apologies about official duties and had pressed on. John watched him hurry off, stopping to greet someone, smiling anonymously into the crowd, and simultaneously exhibiting warm appreciation of people and a preoccupation with larger issues. He did it very well. John only wished he could admire him for it.

  “And now,” he asked Lucy as they moved slowly through the crowd to the famous Dartmouth Green with the motto, “Lest we forget thy Green, O Dartmouth, Lest we forget thy sheltering pines.”

  “Goodness knows, John,” said Lucy smiling brilliantly at a dim suburban matron.

  George disentangled himself from a group of friends and supplied the requisite information. Lunch at the Inn.

  “I reserved a table,” George said. “Just the three of us. Then we can get going back to New York.” What volumes that spoke reflected John.

  The Dartmouth Inn was a typical blend of colonial quaintness spiced with a liquor license. The influx of churchgoers introduced a genteel din, punctuated by hearty hails from Old Grads. In the dining room, late risers were finishing even later breakfasts, despite the sullenness around them. The staff, like all New England dining room personnel, was devoted to the setting up of tables and indifferent to food and comfort. Large bowls of foliage flanked the fireplace; there were innumerable conversations filled with promises to keep in touch, with plans to get together. It was busy, colorful, cheerful, and exuberant.

  And abruptly it was shattered. From somewhere upstairs came a long drawn out scream. For one frozen moment, the Dartmouth Inn was paralyzed.

  Then John and the Lancers involuntarily swiveled to look up at the balcony, the first shrill keening crescendoed. There were shouts, the pounding of feet, and wild cries.

  “Goodness,” Lucy said, clutching George’s arm, “What can …”

  “Shh.”

  A red faced man, his shirt still unbuttoned, had appeared at the balcony railing. Blindly he stared down into a sea of shocked upturned faces. “She opened the door …” he began.

  The lobby was still. He took a deep breath. “The maid opened the door. And there’s a body on the bed.”

  Before anyone could respond he gulped and went on: There’s a knife sticking out of his back.”

  Chapter 15

  Student Body

  It was Carter Sprague who lay dead on a bed, skewered through the heart with a carving knife.

  But it took 10 minutes before this information became generally known. In the first stampede a bottleneck formed in the doorway of the bedroom, composed of two men supporting the gasping maid who still clutched her passkey in one hand and clean towels in the other. Behind them pressed the latecomers. Only the nearest and tallest could see anything but their observations eddied along the corridor and down the stairs.

  The manager did what he could, sending a clerk to the phone, summoning the housekeeper to console the maid, and pleading with the guests to remove themselves. But the real order was not restored until the arrival of Ed Webster. He instantly ordered everyone downstairs, sent word to the town authorities, and posted himself before the locked door.

  Thatcher and the Lancers, who had removed to the sunlit dining room, listened to the first flurry of shocked comment:

  “It’s only a kid up there. Can you believe it?”

  “There’s blood everywhere. The whole bed is soaked in it.”

  “Murder with a knife for goodness sake.”

  But as those upstairs were hustled into the dining room, the news became more specific.

  “It’s that kid who was at the Dekes last might. You know, the one still in high school,” announced a burly man with ex-football player written all over him. He had been the first to reach the maid’s side.

  John and George stared at each other in consternation. “You don’t think he can possibly mean Sprague, do you,” George was almost whispering.

  Thatcher tried to summon up details of the night before. “I don’t remember anyone else his age at the Dekes. In fact, I seem to remember Sprague saying that he played hooky from the high school group.”

  “That poor boy,” Lucy said.

  Her husband was startled. Then he flushed. “I should be ashamed of myself. It’s a tragedy, a boy that age. And all I can think of is that he was such a miserable little twerp.”

  “Somebody seems to hav
e rated his nuisance value a good deal higher than that,” John said tartly. He appreciated Lucy’s distress, but if her husband was going to be required to rally to Dartmouth’s support, and it seemed all too likely, then he should know how badly that support would be needed.

  George took the point instantly. “Goodness, you don’t think this has anything to do with Patterson?”

  “I don’t know,” John admitted, “but I do know that a lot of people are going to leap to that conclusion.”

  As usual, Lucy’s good sense was to the fore. She pushed aside her plate. “I don’t want to be a defeatist George but remember someone said they saw Patterson here last night.”

  George scowled irritably. “For heaven’s sake Lucy, that was some sort of crazy rumor. And it was probably inevitable with all the publicity about Patterson. But I don’t believe it for one minute.”

  “You are probably right,” his wife said pacifically. “But that just bears John out. Everybody is thinking about Patterson. After all, you can scarcely blame them. And that means that whether he was her or not, when people hear about a murder they are going to think of him.”

  There was no need for anybody to dwell on the fact that Sprague had been the last person to see Patterson alive. In New York at any rate.

  Humanitarianism forgotten George stirred his coffee viciously. “Offhand I can think of 10 reasons for young Sprague to have gotten himself killed.”

  “I’m not sure I can,” said John.

  “John,” George exploded. “I know he’s dead. But you can’t claim that he was one of the world’s sunflowers.”

  “Certainly not.”

  “And there’s no telling what fun and games he was up to last night.”

  John knew there were times when real kindness takes the form of firmness.

  “Now George. He spent last night in a crowded room on public view. When we last saw him he wasn’t up to anything more than an extended session in a bathroom.”

  10 years ago, Lucy had been dealing with the physical well-being of teenage sons. “That’s right George.” She nodded. “That boy was very drunk.”

  John continued his lesson. “As soon as his murder hits the papers, one aspect is going to capture everyone’s attention. All the people from the first Dartmouth fiasco are present, possibly including the mysterious Patterson.”

  He wept an arm around the dining room in illustration. All the tables were crowded now, and at each of them, the name Sprague was freely used. There seemed to be no doubt. The body that lay upstairs on a blood soaked bed was Carter Sprague.

  “I see what you mean,” George muttered.

  At a large center table Ralph sat with six or seven classmates who were probably fraternity brothers as well. Heads were together in heated discussion. Were they talking about Deke House, John wondered?

  Over in the corner Jim Dunlop listened seriously to an older man. Even across the room it was apparent that he was feeling unwell. His companion, however, looked robust. Who was he? John wondered.

  A movement in the doorway attracted his attention. It was the manager looking ill himself. He relayed the police requests that everybody stay put, then scurried away.

  “George, you don’t think Patterson knifed that kid do you?” The speaker, an acquaintance of George’s, had left his own table to wander over.

  “Why should it be Patterson,” George demanded with a fine show of indignation.

  The acquaintance shrugged, “That’s what everybody’s saying. Of course I don’t believe it for a moment, probably a tramp or something. Still it’s odd. All this business about the New York Committee and Patterson, and now murder.”

  He drifted off before George could retort. Lucy’s repressive eye kept George from giving vent to his emotions and allowed John to muse aloud. “I wonder who has actually seen Patterson. Certainly everybody seems sure that someone has. But there’s a fine distinction isn’t there?”

  With conspicuous self-control George said that murder simply loosened a good many irresponsible tongues. “Of course it does George,” said Thatcher. “But it’s what they’re saying that interests me. And the police as well I suspect.”

  Fortunately, before George could reply, the dining room door was flung open again. This time it was a booted State Police officer. He quelled the first spate of questions with a raised arm. “Sorry, you’ll have to wait a little longer, folks. The Captain wants to talk to everyone, one by one. Just stay where you are and will Mr. Neil Marsden please step across the hall.”

  Involuntarily John’s eye raked the room. No, his first impression had been correct. Marsden was not there.

  John was not alone in his curiosity. As the trooper called his next witness, a Mr. Willoughby, who rose immediately and sped on his way with derisive encouragement, the endless talk took a new turn. Only fragments were intelligible.

  “The Tenth’s right here in the Inn and …”

  “Say Marsden is on the New York Committee isn’t he?”

  “Willoughby and Marsden didn’t see much of each other…”

  “Doesn’t look good for an undertaker does it?”

  George was too distracted to heed the gossip swirling about them. “You were right, John,” he groaned. “They’re going for the Committee, all right.”

  “Oh no they’re not,” said a grim voice.

  Startled they looked up to find Dunlop and his companion at their side. Without waiting for an invitation the two men sat down. Dunlop spoke in a doomed voice.

  “They are saying Sprague’s body is in Marsden’s room and has been for at least eight hours.”

  “Good God, what does Marsden have to say about it?” George exclaimed.

  “Marsden doesn’t seem to be around,” the young man said tightly. “The cops are talking to the people who had adjoining rooms. But I don’t think they’ll get anything. It was a madhouse here last night.”

  He sounded despondent and fell into bemused silence. His companion was forced to introduce himself.

  “I thought I recognized you, Mr. Barnett,” Lucy said graciously. “You’re running for election on the East Side, aren’t you?”

  “I was. I may be out of the race entirely by now.”

  John was taken aback by this pessimism. Barnett had received a good deal of PR for his modern campaign tactics. Data processing, image projection, and sociological surveys had played a prominent role in his strategy. So had avoidance of the issues.

  Dully Dunlop explained, “The fundraising was being handled by Patterson.”

  “That was bad enough,” Barnett amplified. “It is hard to get people to give in the first place. Once they get the idea they’re just contributing to a Brazilian vacation for someone it is impossible. Not that Gabe hasn’t been darn good at keeping this under wraps. Target has barely been mentioned in connection with Patterson’s disappearance.”

  Gabe’s done a great job,” George admitted sourly. “He’s left all the bad PR to Dartmouth.”

  “Well it was Dartmouth money Patterson took off with,” Barnett pointed out. “But keeping anything under wraps is impossible now. The press will have a field day. And just yesterday Gabe was saying we were over the hump.”

  Dunlop was emotionless. “What is Gabe doing here anyway? He’s not a grad. Maybe he had some kind of rendezvous with Patterson.”

  An odd suggestion Thatcher thought, particularly from an impressionable young man who had accompanied them to Rye.

  “I can tell you what he is doing,” said George, keeping to the subject. “Incredible as it seems he was trying to sell Todd on using professional fundraisers.”

  Barnett grinned but Dunlop was not listening.

  “I believe,” George continued austerely, “that his theory was that none of this mess would have happened if Patterson had been acting for Target.”

  “Well Gabe doesn’t seem to be around anymore,” Barnett said. No politician was going to waste comment on Gabe’s gall. “I was looking for him this morning and — “He bro
ke off as there was a stir from the doorway. For a moment the room tensed, expecting another summons from across the hall. But the trooper was admitting someone through the door he had earlier closed. Todd was joining the afflicted grads.

  In the carrying voice of a public speaker he addressed the room: “This tragic event is still too close to us to permit a formal statement. But I do want to thank you now for that fine public spirited cooperation which I know that Dartmouth and I can rely on.”

  A subdued congratulatory murmur followed and the president, with bowed head, strode toward the Lancer table. With one accord, Barnett and Dunlop left. Presumably neither felt capable of rising to the president’s conversational heights.

  George did not even try. In a whisper he tried to relay the latest developments. But Todd overrode him. “This is a sad occasion,” he announced. A sad occasion.”

  Which gave him, John reflected disagreeably, no marks for originality. But Todd if not a creative thinker was an organizer down to his fingertips.

  “I’ve been in touch with the Governor,” he reported in a lowered voice.” He says that Captain Nivelle is a first rate officer. And he’ll give us every consideration.

  Inconsequentially John wondered precisely what constituted consideration when the Dartmouth campus was littered with one bloody corpse, 78 disgruntled witnesses, and possibly one fine family man run amok.

  “Not that we can hope to escape disagreeableness, Todd acknowledged, letting his eyes roam briefly over the dining room filled with me who, so shortly before, could have been described as potential benefactors. “The police have to trace young Sprague’s movements last night.”

  Involuntarily John glanced at Lucy. Todd was probably the only man in the room who did not know that Sprague had spent a large part of Saturday at Dartmouth disgracefully drunk in a fraternity house. Oh well, he would learn soon enough.

  “Although they assured me that they will be very careful in questioning the boys from New York,” Todd continued. Lancer merely looked at him. The great uproar about misplaced SAT scores and $50,000 bonds seemed very far away.