Read Majoring In Murder for Free Online Page B

Seth Hazlitt, who was fond of telling me that I had more natural curiosity than a dozen Maine coon cats, and would probably get in trouble because of it one day.
    I was poised to leave.
    Instead, I knocked.
    No answer. I knocked again. There was a pause and then the door swung open.
    President Needler looked surprised. No, bewildered was more apt. He stared at me. His coat was draped over one shoulder. There was some kind of grime on the back. It looked like cobwebs. He ran a large hand over the stubble on his chin. “Mrs. Fletcher,” he said in a hoarse voice.
    “I don’t mean to bother you, President Needler, but—”
    “I wasn’t expecting you,” he said. “Is there a problem? I trust everything’s going smoothly with your classes.”
    “Yes, quite smoothly.”
    He turned and wandered back into his office, his gait that of a man not sure where he was or where he was supposed to go. I followed. He turned suddenly, saw that I was right behind him, and said, “Won’t you come in? I’ve only just gotten in myself.”
    “I hope you don’t mind my intruding,” I said. “It’s just that—”
    “No, no intrusion at all,” he said, taking a hanger off the coat tree behind his desk. “Been a bit of a rough day, eh?”
    “Yes,” I said. “A tornado is a unique experience.”
    “Of course. You’re from back east. You don’t have such things there, I take it.” He waved in the direction of a chair. “Please sit down.” He hung up his coat and took a seat behind his desk. The answering machine on the credenza behind him was blinking. He eyed it warily.
    “Harriet Schoolman Bennett has been looking for you,” I said. “Have you seen her yet?”
    “No. No. Just got here, as you can see.” He glanced down at his hands, then popped up from his chair. “Excuse me a moment, won’t you?” He went to a door that led to a washroom, closed it halfway, turned on the faucet, and washed his hands.
    I looked around the room. The office was decorated in traditional academic style, with two walls lined in bookcases, a green leather sofa beneath a picture window, and a large mahogany desk and credenza against the fourth wall, on which were framed photos and certificates. Sets of leather-bound volumes filled most of the bookshelves. Some books with decaying bindings were laid on their sides. Here and there were mementos of trips or experiences: a pair of pewter tankards, a whittled wooden fisherman, a personalized gavel. Two green canisters, probably the ones Professor Constantine had found in the fallout shelter, stood side by side on a lower shelf.
    “That’s better,” he said, smiling and retaking his seat.
    I noticed that he had washed his face as well, and run a comb through his snowy hair.
    “You have an impressive book collection,” I said. “Some of them look quite delicate. Are they very old?”
    “First editions,” he said proudly, his face brightening, “just about every one of them. That tan book on its side, the one with the spine missing, is the first volume published of Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s poetry. I bought that when I was in college myself. That’s when I started my collection. Made a lot of mistakes in the beginning but I learned.”
    “What kind of mistakes did you make?”
    “Oh, nothing irreversible. Letting friends borrow them. Big mistake. People are careless with books, even ones that aren’t theirs. I learned well. I don’t lend them out anymore. That’s what a library is for. Go borrow books from there, I tell them.”
    “Did you lend someone the Browning book?”
    He went to the shelf and picked up the book in question. “No, I bought it like that. That was another mistake. It’s not worth very much because the condition is so poor, but I keep it in hopes of replacing it with a better one. A good one will go for almost five hundred dollars.” He stroked the cover and gently replaced the book on the shelf. “I may keep it anyway. It has sentimental value to me