Chapter 46 first quarter

The three scholars returned to Craigie's house, and they brought back four letters bearing the coat of arms of Harvard - which were written by Manning to Elisha Talbot, and a proof copy of the "Divine Comedy" translation - —The ones lost in the safe at the Riverside Press. "Talbot was their ideal man of letters," said Fields, "a clergyman respected by all Christians, a staunch critic of Catholicism, and an outsider at Harvard, so he could sweet-talk Harvard, and pretending to be detached, sharpened his pen to attack us." "I don't think we need to count like a fortune-teller in the high street to guess that Talbot's got a lot of money to get into trouble."

"A thousand dollars," Ray said. Longfellow nodded yes, and showed them the amount of remuneration clearly stated in the letter. "Let's keep it. A thousand dollars, various 'expenditures' for research and writing four articles. It cost Talbot his life." "So the murderer knew exactly how much money he could steal from Talbot's safe," Ray said. "He knew the details of the arrangement and the details of the letter." "'Hold on to your ill-gotten gains,'" Lowell recited, before adding: "A thousand dollars, for the head-hunting of Dante."

Sanity tells them where to find out more about Manning's plot: University Lecture Hall.But during the day, when the university lecture halls were full of colleagues, Lowell had no access to the Harvard Board of Trustees papers, and at night he had no way of doing so—due to a string of pranks and tampering. For the document incident, the school has already adopted a set of complicated methods such as locking and encrypting passwords to seal the files. It seemed hopeless to infiltrate the fort in secret, until Fields remembered someone, "Teel!" "Who, Fields?" Holmes asked.

"A guy who works the night shift at our firm. He once said he's doing odd jobs at Harvard during the day, except for a few night shifts a week on the corner." About eleven o'clock that night, the loyal clerk of Tickna Fields came out of the corner and was startled to find Fields waiting for him outside.In a few minutes the chap was in the publisher's carriage, and in the carriage Fields introduced him to another passenger—by God, it was Mr. Lowell!How many times had he imagined himself among men of high taste like Professor Lowell.Thiel didn't seem to know what to do with such a rare treat.He listened carefully to their demands.

Once in Cambridge, he led them through Harvard Square.He slowly turned his head and looked at it several times, as if he was a little worried that the two writers who were in the same car with him would suddenly disappear, just like they had suddenly appeared. "Come on, man. We're right behind you!" Lovell assured him. Lowell twirled the tip of his beard.What made him most nervous was not the fear that someone on campus would find them, but what they might find in the school board files.Dan Teal's childish face was clean-shaven, with big eyes, and a rather delicate mouth, a bit like a girl's cherry mouth, as if he was constantly chewing something.

"My dear Teal, you have nothing to worry about," Fields said, taking his arm and beginning to ascend the imposing stone staircase that led to the conference rooms and classrooms in the university's lecture hall. "We'll just go through some paperwork a little bit and then we'll leave, we're not going to mess things up. You're doing a good job." "I hope so, too," Teal said sincerely. "Good man." Fields said with a smile. Till tried a large bunch of keys entrusted to him to unlock the latches and locks.After entering the door, Lowell and Fields took out the spare candles in the box and lit them, and took the files out of the cabinet and put them on a long table.

By flickering candlelight, Fields and Lowell read through the minutes of the school board's biweekly meetings.They also stumbled across the accusations of Lowell's Dante seminar scattered throughout the tedious records of university affairs. "There's no mention of the nasty Simon Kemp. Manning must have hired him," Lowell said.There are some things that even the Harvard Regents are kept in the dark about. After sorting through endless minutes of meeting minutes, Fields found what they were looking for: Four of six school board members eagerly approved the hiring of Elisha Tull in October The Reverend Porter penned a critique of the idea of ​​a forthcoming translation of the Divine Comedy, leaving the matter of "compensation for the labor and time expended on it" to the discretion of the Finance Committee - that is, Augustus Manning.

Fields pulled out the records of the Harvard Board of Oversight.They found multiple references to Justice Healy, who had been a loyal member of the committee during his lifetime. In the School Board's campaign against the translation of Lowell's Dante Seminar and Longfellow's "Dante Club," members of the Board of Supervisors agreed that some defenders should be elected to speak on both sides of the matter. unbiased analysis, and elected Justice Healy as Advocate in favor of the above activities.Judge Healy was a meticulous researcher and gifted analyst who could judge the matter with impartiality.

The committee has invited Healy to defend that position for several years.Apparently uncomfortable with taking a position somewhere outside the courtroom, the justices politely declined the committee's request. Healy's refusal occupies just two lines in the school board's file.After understanding the hidden truth of this matter, Lowell was the first to speak: "Healy gave up a very important position. He refused to speak on behalf of Dante, so the scene of Dante's exile was repeated." Fields glanced at Lovell over his gold-rimmed glasses. They heard the crackling sound of the thick ice breaking outside the university lecture hall, getting closer.

During these few hours, time seemed to be unimportant.Back at Craigie House, the scholars began to read Janison's most recent diary, which was written in a rather illegible handwriting.After the serendipitous discoveries surrounding Healy and Talbot, these Dante researchers are not at all surprised, intellectually, that the satanic "crime" suffered by Janison was inseparable from Dante .But Lowell couldn't believe that his friend of all these years would do such a thing, until the evidence dispelled his doubts. Throughout the lines of his diary, Janison expressed a burning desire to secure a seat on the Harvard Board of Trustees.The businessman figured that once he got the position, he would eventually be respected.Becoming a university trustee meant accepting him into a world he had never been able to enter.

Friendships are going to be distorted, or rather, sacrificed. During the last months, Janison visited the university lecture halls several times, probably privately begging the regents to stop certain university faculty members from teaching rubbish courses, such as Lowell's Dante seminar, to prevent Longfellow from disseminating those Stupid argument.Janison promised the core members of the supervisory committee that he could fully fund the reorganization of the modern languages ​​department.Reading the diaries, Lowell recalled painfully how Jannison had urged him to fight at a time when the school board was putting increasing pressure on his teaching job. Jenison's diary revealed that for more than a year he had been trying to get a seat vacated on one of Harvard's governing boards.Stirring a controversy among the Harvard administration might create some kind of personnel change, force someone to resign, and he could step in and fill the vacancy.When Justice Healy died, a businessman half his fortune and far less intellect filled the vacant seat on the Oversight Committee, and Janison was mad with resentment. Exactly when Janison learned that Dr. Manning was determined to free Harvard from its relationship with the Dante Research Program is unclear, but it is certain that upon hearing the news, Janison Finally found an opportunity to get a place in a university lecture hall. "We've never had any conflicts," Lowell said, looking very sad. "Jenison instigates you to fight the school board, and instigates the school board to suppress you. This fight is enough to exhaust Manning to death. No matter who wins or loses in the end, there will always be vacant seats, and Guang Shi Jenison, who has money to support the cause of the school, is about to be a hero. That's his goal all along." Longfellow said he managed to convince Lowell that it was not he who lost his friendship with Jenison. wrong. "I can't figure it out, Longfellow," said Lovell. "He pushed you to be split from the university, Lowell, and in turn he was split into pieces," Holmes said. "That's the law of retribution against him." Longfellow turned to their investigative journal, ready to write a new page.He dipped in the ink, but sat still, not writing, just staring ahead for a long, long time, until the ink on the tip of the pen was dry.He couldn't really write the conclusion, although it was logical: Satan punished for their sake - for the Dante Club. There was no wind, no clouds, and it didn't look like it was going to snow.High in the sky, there was a moon hanging, but the moon seemed to have been precisely cut in the middle by a knife that had just been sharpened, leaving only half hanging there. Finally, when the doorbell rang, Manning grunted, got up and opened the door to let the guests in. "Shall we go to the library?" Satisfied, Meade picked the most comfortable seat, and sat down in the middle of the Mannings' mole-fur-covered settee. "Thank you for agreeing to come from school to see me in the evening, Mr. Meade," said Manning. "Oh, I'm sorry, I'm late. Your secretary said in the message that your appointment is related to Professor Lowell. Could it be related to our Dante seminar?" Manning raised his hand to stroke the bare gully between the two locks of curly white hair. "That's true, Mr. Meade. Please tell me, have you talked to Mr. Kemp about the Dante Seminar?" "I think I've talked to him," said Meade, "for hours about it. He wants to get all the things I can tell him about Dante. He says he's for you I just came to inquire." "Indeed. But since then he doesn't seem to want to see me. I want to know why." Mead wrinkled his nose and said, "Sir, now, may I know about you?" "Of course not, son. But I think that, despite all this, you can probably help me. I think we can combine the information we have, and we can work together to see what accidents he may have encountered that caused him to avoid it." and not to see." Meade stared at Manning indifferently, and realized that this meeting was not good for him, nor was it a pleasant thing.A box of cigars stood on the mantelpiece.The thought of smoking cigars by the fireside with members of the Harvard Board of Trustees made him happy. "These seem to be first-rate, Mr. Manning." Manning nodded happily and offered one to the guest. "Here, we don't have to smoke openly like we do on campus. We can also talk openly and freely, just like we smoke. There have been a few strange and unexpected things happening lately, Mr. Meade, I want to make sure A policeman came to see me, asked a few questions about your Dante seminar, then stopped talking. He looked like he had something important to tell me, but then changed his mind." Meade closed his eyes and took a puff of smoke, looking very enjoying it. Augustus Manning became impatient, "I want to know, do you know that your ranking in the class has dropped significantly." Meade shook like a grammar-school boy when his teacher hits him with the metal tip of his cane. "Dr. Manning, believe me, it's for no other reason..." He interrupted him: "I know, my dear boy. I know what happened. Professor Lowell's class last term--that's why. Your brothers have always been the same in their class." A good student of the first class, isn't he?" The student was clearly ashamed and angry about his ranking, and he looked away. "Maybe we can think about how to make some adjustments to improve your ranking so as not to damage your family's reputation." Meade's emerald green eyes lit up. "Really, sir?" "Now I want to smoke a cigarette." Manning grinned, stood up from his chair, and carefully inspected his beautiful cigar. Meade turned his mind quickly, wondering what kind of small calculations Manning might have after making such a suggestion.He revealed bit by bit how he and Simon Kemp met. Manning lit a match, then extinguished it, and said suddenly in a low voice, "Did you hear anything at the door?" Meade listened attentively and shook his head, "Is that Mrs. Manning, sir?" Manning curled her long, thin fingers to her lips and let out a "shh".He slipped silently from the living room into the hallway. After a while, he came back again. "My hallucination," he said, looking straight at Meade, "I just want to reassure you that nothing will get out of our conversation. In my heart, I feel that you have something important tonight. Tell me something about it, Mr. Meade." "Maybe that's true, Dr. Manning," he said with a smile, adjusting his strategy as Manning proved the secrecy to him.Dante is a damned murderer, Mr. Manning.Oh yes, I did mean to tell you something. "Let's talk about class rank first," said Meade, "and then we'll talk about Dante after that. Oh, Dr. Manning, what I have to say must be of great interest to you." Manning smiled happily, "Why don't I prepare some snacks and drinks? We can enjoy it while smoking." "Give me a glass of sherry, if you will." Manning brought a glass of wine that the guest asked for, and Mead took it and drank it all in one gulp, "How about another glass, dear Auggie? We can drink and have fun tonight." Augustus Manning went to the liquor cabinet to fill his drink, hoping that the student had something important to say.He heard a muffled bang, and he knew without looking that the boy had smashed a valuable.He turned his head angrily, and saw Meade slumped in the back chair, with his hands hanging limply by his sides, unconscious. Seeing this, Manning turned around quickly, and the bottle in his hand fell to the ground.The treasurer gazed into the face of a uniformed military man he had seen almost every day in the corridors of university lecture halls.The soldier stared at him intently, chewing his mouth from time to time; when his lips were opened, his tongue could be seen covered with tender white dots.He spat, and a white dot landed on the carpet.Manning couldn't help glancing at it; it looked like two wet letters printed on a scrap of paper. Manning rushed to the corner where a hunting rifle hung decoratively on the wall.He scrambled to the chair for the gun, and quickly stammered again, "No. No." Dan Teal snatched the gun from Manning's trembling hand, turned the butt of it effortlessly, and tapped him in the face.And then he stood there watching, watching, as the traitor, cruel to the bone, fell to the floor, his arms flailing wildly.