Dark of the moon - Dr. Gideon Fell 22 Read Free Page B

to be accommodated by the bucket seat beside the driver, was his friend Dr. Gideon Fell
    The fate of Alan Grantham in his mid-thirties might have been envied by many. If Alan himself would not have agreed, it was because he fretted over much in his mind. In addition to the problem presented by the May-nards at James Island, there was the recurrent emotional crisis with Camilla Bruce. Camilla, night or day, was never out of his thoughts. But the enviability of his position had been stressed by Dr. Fell not long after the lat ter's arrival on Thursday afternoon.
    Alan had been on the platform when the big Eastern Airlines Whisperjet, non-stop Newark to Pearis, trundled in at Pearis-Athenstown Airport. Dr. Fell, wearing a shovel hat and a black cloak as big as a tent, came lumbering down the aircraft steps and rolled across on his crutch-headed stick. Pink face already steaming, bandit's moustache downturned and eyeglasses skew-wiff on the black ribbon, he shook hands heartily with a middle-sized, active young man in slacks and a sports-coat
    "Heh!" chuckled Dr. Fell. "Heh-heh-heh! Forgive me, my dear fellow; a blaze of sun has few elements of humor. Do you mind if I remove this incarnadined cloak?"
    "Mind? The temperature is 7. I'm wearing a coat only in deference to my alleged academic standing. It's early in the year, of course; the thermometer hasn't really started to rise."
    "It has risen far enough," Dr. Fell retorted sternly. "Archons of Athens! In England, as you are well aware, any temperature above 70 constitutes a paralyzing heatwave. Mightn't we... er... ?"
    "Drink? Of course. You don't want whisky, do you?"
    "The man who would drink whisky in this weather," boomed Dr. Fell, "would don flannel underwear in the tropics and call for hamburgers at a Lucullan feast. No, God forbid! Why do you ask?"
    "In this state, Magister, hard liquor mayn't be sold by the glass. We may—and do—buy all we want at liquor stores to guzzle at home. If you crave bourbon (in the South always bourbon, though Scotch is not unpopular either), we must wait till we get to my apartment If beer or wine will do . . ."
    "Beer, by all means! Forever beer! There is a place?"
    "Here at the airport. This way."
    Air-conditioning stroked marble beyond glass doors. In the dusky, pleasant cavern of the bar, with tall glasses of Alt Heidelberg on the table between them, Alan lit a cigarette and his guest an obese meerschaum pipe..
    "Nunc bibe ndum est!" rumbled Dr. Fell, lifting his glass and blowing out sparks like the Spirit of the Volcano. "I knew you in England, Alan, when you were at Simon Magus, Cambridge. One thing I don't know: it never occurred to me the matter was important enough for enquiry. But in this country, I have discovered, the first question every American asks another is where he comes from.. Let joy be unconfined; I bow to custom: where do you come from?"
    "Wilmington, Delaware, the shrine of the Du Ponts."
    "Now, then! This academic standing you mentioned: to what do you attribute it?"
    "I said 'alleged' academic standing, remember. None of my friends, believe me, can find it half as funny as I do."
    "A commendable attitude, but try to answer. To what do you attribute it?"
    "My M.A. Cantab," replied Alan. "A master's degree from Simon Magus seems to have powerfully stimulating effects."
    "What, precisely, are your duties here?"
    "At King's College, which celebrates its two hundredth anniversary in 1967 and whose name remained unchanged even when Richard Pearis, its first Tory backer, was chased out of town at the time of the Revolution, I have been delivering the Hughes Burwell Memorial Lectures in English Literature. Only twenty lectures need be given throughout the year; my stint is finished until just before commencement in June."
    "Oh, ah! Are you a good lecturer?"
    "I have enthusiasm, that's all. As a lecturer, I suppose, I can't be more than indifferent. Camilla would say . . ."
    "Camilla being Miss Bruce? The young lady you