Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine. Vol. 101, Nos. 3 & 4. Whole Nos. 610 & 611, March 1993

And he had appeared so unexpectedly. That was what puzzled her. If she alone had been responsible for his creation, this phantom, he should have arisen from the miasma of her own fears and guilt. Not on a day on which she felt so calm, a day of lazy sunshine and sensuous comfort.

“Perhaps someone you saw reminded you of Jerry Keller. You know, the way he moved. The way he carried his head,” Jane suggested.

“I hadn’t known him that well or that long,” she said. “I’d scarcely met him.”

“Well, Jerry it wasn’t. It couldn’t be,” Jane assured her. “Dead he very much is. Dental records don’t lie.” Her stepsister patted her arm and reached with the other to corral one of her brood.

Dana realized she knew almost nothing about Jerry Keller: what kind of teacher he was, what kind of music he liked, where he lived.

So she found the house where he had lived. It was a medium-sized house on a lovely tree-shaded street in the west of town near the foot of the mountain that reared itself there in a series of short sandstone cliffs. The house was painted white and had two large expanses of glass, one on each of its two stories, to look out, she supposed, on the mountain.

Impulsively she climbed the short flight of stairs to the upper entrance and knocked. She knew Keller had little family, only the one sister, but Jane said there was some student who also lived in the house.

Dana had had the student pointed out to her during a class change as he walked through the hall in the building that housed the English Department. Now he opened the door of Keller’s house.

“Yes?”

She could see the marks of grief on his face, the shadows beneath his eyes. She judged him to be about her own age, maybe a year or two younger. He was as fair as she was dark, with bright, coppery hair, clear skin, gray eyes, and a beautifully shaped mouth.

She hadn’t thought of what to say.

“I was a friend of Professor Keller’s,” she tried. “May I come in?” Her own boldness embarrassed her, and she was afraid he would refuse.

He stepped back automatically, but a little hesitantly, as if he were trying to think of some reason she should not come in.

She looked around a living room of white walls and pale carpet. The walls, she saw, were hung with modem paintings, and there were, of course, the books. Bookshelves ran from floor to ceiling, the length of one wall, flanking the fireplace of stone, which had also been painted white. There were boxes stacked in the center of the room and flowers withering on the hearth. From the funeral, she thought.

“I’m just starting to help his sister crate up his things. You just missed her, by the way. She’s gone out to get more boxes.”

She nodded. “You’re Geoffrey White. I’m Dana Greystoke. Like Tarzan,” she added, repeating the tired line.

“You’re the girl from Texas. Dr. Keller would have been your advisor.”

She decided not to offer her condolences. She didn’t know if it would be appropriate to do so.

“It must be quite a job.” She indicated the bookcase with a nod.

“I don’t mind. It’s the least I could do for her.” He frowned. “I don’t know who’ll be your advisor now. I suppose Bennett will appoint someone. He must have recovered from his fit of ecstasy over Jerry’s death by now and be flapping his way back here as fast as he can. He had just left for Italy, you know, for the summer.”

“You don’t like him?”

“Mason Bennett? He’s a complete jerk. It almost killed him when Jerry — Dr. Keller — was appointed chairman this spring, when old Haliburton retired. They tossed him the bone of Director of Graduate Studies, but it was the chair Bennett wanted. Everybody knew that. I suppose now he’ll get it. They’ve already made him acting chairman. They did that even before they tracked him down in Venice.”

She was looking at the books as he spoke and now felt a coolness touch the hairs on the back of her neck. “That’s the Chaucer.”

“Don’t touch it. It’s very old.”

There were one or two others she thought she also remembered. But there was no mistaking that particular edition of The Canterbury Tales.

“That’s impossible,” she whispered. “They should have been destroyed in the fire.”

“He hadn’t brought his books up to the cabin yet,” the boy explained. “I found them here, boxed and ready to be taken up. I guess he hadn’t gotten around to it.” He looked at her. “How do you know about his collection?”

“I’ve seen it before,” she said. “At the cabin. I was there that afternoon, the afternoon of the fire. He was unpacking these same books.”

The boy jammed his hands into his pants pockets. “You were there? Nobody told me that.”

She shrugged a little guiltily. “I didn’t tell anybody. It didn’t seem important at the time. But I know I saw these books there. I held The Canterbury Tales in my hands.”