Dear Miss Demeanor

My sentry coughed nervously. Ordering myself back to business, I dug through the drawer, but found nothing else of any significance. I went out and told Sherwood I wanted to take a quick look at Bernice Dort’s desk.

He turned around, his face as garish as a Toulouse-Lautrec portrait in the spray of my flashlight. “One wonders if you’re the least concerned about the journalism ledgers and poor Miss Parchester,” he said softly. “Prima facie, one might think you’re searching for something else, something to do with the faculty’s private business. Now why would one arrive at that conclusion, my dear sleuth?”

I put my hand in my pocket. “I’m just checking things out, Sherwood. This is the first time I’ve been able to-to look around the office.”

“For what?” He came toward me, his eyes inky shadows and his voice disturbingly calm. “Were you looking for something that might incriminate one of us? A letter, perchance, about me? Did you overhear a conversation in the lounge while you were i

I edged around the counter, mentally cursing myself for the wonderful scheme that had landed me here-with him. I have an aversion to being menaced, particularly in a minty miasma. “I don’t know anything about that, Sherwood. I went in Pitts’s room out of curiosity, to see if there was any evidence that the rumors were true. I didn’t eavesdrop at the vile little hole.” Not much, anyway.

“Suggestio falsi, Ms. Malloy. I think you heard me discuss the distressful situation with Evelyn. That’s why you looked so guilty when I caught you outside the room, and that’s why you’re suddenly so nervous, so worried that you shouldn’t have come here with me, alone.”

Bingo with a capital B. “Don’t be absurd,” I whispered, trying for an irritated edge to my voice. “I have no idea what you’re talking about, and I don’t want to know. If I thought you’d murdered Weiss or Pitts, I wouldn’t have called you tonight.”

“I would hardly murder Weiss over that idiotic accusation, even if I were perturbed that vax audita perft litern scripta monet- the voice perishes but the written word remains.” He laughed, but it lacked a certain essence of mirth. “What’s that you’re clutching in your pocket?”

A diversion seemed timely, so I took out the packet and showed it to him. “I found this in Weiss’s drawer, which explains why the journalism mailbox was empty. Why do you think he’d take the letters and stash them in his desk?”

“You’ll have to figure that out on your own,” he said, this time chuckling with some degree of sincerity. “Evelyn and I have wondered how long it would take the others-and particularly someone with your reputation-to deduce what’s been happening.”

“So you also know about the blackmail scheme?” I said. Enough retreating. I slammed down the packet and came around the counter, fists clenched, eyes narrowed. “Why won’t Evelyn tell me the bare outline-if she’s so damn sure it has nothing to do with the murders? For that matter, why won’t you?”

“Because it’s irrelevant, and Evelyn’s determined not to encourage any gossip. She’s gripped with some dreadful malaise called integrity; I tried to convince her otherwise, but she refused to tell me any of the juicy details, such as the identities of Aphrodite and her boyfriend. But she persisted, to my regret. Now, I do think we ought to depart before we get caught, don’t you? I’d so hate to spend the night in the pokey.”

I was about to persevere with the questions when a door closed in the distance. Remembering my experiences a couple of days ago, with the music that led me to murder, I will admit I shivered-like a wet dog in a blizzard. “Did you hear that?”

My gallant sentry looked rather pale. “Someone in the building, obviously. A policeman?”

“Policemen don’t prowl around in the dark. Earlier I wondered if Miss Parchester might have taken refuge in the building, maybe hiding in empty classrooms or closets until the building empties in the afternoon. I think we ought to take a look.”

Ever so gallant, he gestured for me to precede him.

An hour later, we returned to the office. We’d been down every corridor, opened every door, peered into every nook (and there were a lot of them), and basically searched the entire building for the intruder. If Miss Parchester was determined to elude us, she was doing a fine job of it.

“Are you ready to leave?” Sherwood demanded, gallantry by now replaced with peevishness. “I have three sets of papers to grade, and we’ve wasted half the night. Tempus fugit when you’re having fun.”

I considered a lecture on the tedium of detection, but settled for a sigh. ‘Yes, let me get the Miss Demeanor letters and we’ll go. I left them on the counter in the office.”

The counter was bereft of packets. I checked my pockets and the floor. Sherwood swore he hadn’t taken it, and even emptied his pockets to prove his i

I was still irritated when I arrived home, both irritated at myself for carelessness and at the unknown thief for tactlessness, among other things. I decided it would not be wise to ask Caron to stake out the high school the rest of the night. I confirmed that she was asleep, then picked up the last issue of the Falcon Crier to ferret out the identity of the nasty author if it took all night. Tempus might not fugit.

Dear Miss Demeanor,

Why does everybody make such a big deal about dates, anyway? Two girls can have a better time, and not have to put up with a lot of yucky kissing and grappling from some Nauseating geek.

Dear Reader,

Hang tight-someone will ask you out one of these days, and you’ll discover the purpose of kissing and grappling, even with geeks.

After a deep breath and a moment of introspection as to my failure to provide adequate maternal guidance, I continued reading.

Dear Miss Demeanor,

How contagious is mono?

Dear Reader,

Contagious enough.

Dear Miss Demeanor,

If you were supposed to provide moral leadership to a bunch of people, and you had a choice between being divorced for adultery and bending a teensy little rule, which would you choose?

Dear Reader,

Miss Demeanor doesn’t bend teensy little rules, because she has journalistic integrity. She doesn’t stay awake at night worrying about being divorced for adultery, because (a) she’s not married, and therefore (b) she can’t commit adultery, even if she wants to. If driven to choose between such unpalatable options, she would probably climb in a closet and stay there. May I suggest the same for you?

I put down the newspaper and closed my eyes. It didn’t take too long for the obvious to open my eyes, and eventually shove me to the telephone. I called Evelyn, apologized for the lateness of the hour, and asked if Herbert Weiss had been entertaining Bernice Dort in the Xanadu Motel every Thursday.

It took longer for her to respond, but at last she said, “I knew you’d figure it out, Claire. I had suspected as much since the first letter appeared in the Miss Demeanor column, but I saw no reason to speculate about it in the teachers lounge. They’re both adults; they are entitled to behave however they desire-after school hours.”

“But you’re convinced of it now,” I said. “You’re not speculating any more. How can you be sure?”

“On the morning Weiss died, I was in the ladies room when they happened to come into the lounge. They discussed it rather loudly, I’m afraid. I would have preferred not to be there, but it was too late to show myself and pretend I didn’t hear them. In any case, their affair couldn’t have anything to do with his murder, so I chose not to mention it to the police or any of the faculty. Bernice wouldn’t poison her lover, and there’s no point in causing more grief to his family by exposing rather ordinary peccadilloes.”