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lovely carafe, though he poured Carmine’s coffee himself.
    “Professor, have you been down to the animal care room to see what’s been found?”
    The Prof blanched, shook his head emphatically. “No, no, of course not! Cecil called me to tell me what Otis found, and I called Commissioner Silvestri at once. I did remember to tell Cecil not to let anyone into animal care until the police came.”
    “And have you found Otis — Otis who?”
    “Green. Otis Green. It seems he has sustained a mild heart attack. At the moment he’s in the hospital. However, his cardiologist says it’s not a severe ictus, so he should be discharged in two or three days.”
    Carmine put down his coffee cup and leaned back in his chintz chair, hands folded in his lap. “Tell me about the dead animal refrigerator, Professor.”
    Smith looked a little confused, clearly had to summon up inner reserves of courage; maybe, thought Carmine, his brand of courage doesn’t run to coping with a murder crisis, just grant committees and awkward researchers. How many Chubb receptions have I stood through listening to those?
    “Well, every research institute has one. Or, if it isn’t a big unit, shares one with other laboratories nearby. We are researchers, and, given that ethically we cannot use human beings as experimental animals, we use animals lower on the evolutionary scale than ourselves. The kind of animal depends on the kind of research — guinea pigs for skin, rabbits for lungs, and so on. As we are interested in epilepsy and mental retardation and they are situated in the brain, our research animals go rat, cat and primate — here at the Hug, macaques. At the end of an experimental project, the creatures are sacrificed — with extreme care and kindness, I hasten to add. The carcasses are put into special bags and taken to the refrigerator, where they remain until about seven each weekday morning. At that hour Otis empties the contents of the refrigerator into a bin and wheels the bin through the tunnel to the Parkinson Pavilion, where the medical school’s main animal care facility is located. The incinerator that disposes of all animal carcasses is a part of P.P.’s animal care, but it also is available to the hospital, which sends amputated limbs and the like to it.”
    His speech patterns are so formal, thought Carmine, that he talks as if he’s dictating an important letter. “Did Cecil tell you how the human remains were discovered?” he asked.
    “Yes.” The Prof’s face was beginning to look pinched.
    “Who has access to the refrigerator?”
    “Anyone here in the Hug, though I doubt anyone from outside could use it. Our entrances are few, and barred.”
    “Why’s that?”
    “My dear Lieutenant, we are on the very end of the Oak Street medical school–hospital line! Beyond us is Eleventh Street and the Hollow. An unsavory neighborhood, as I’m sure you know.”
    “I notice that you call it the Hug too, Professor. Why?”
    The slightly tragic mouth twisted. “I blame Frank Watson,” he said through his teeth.
    “Who’s he?”
    “Professor of Neurology in the medical school. When the Hug was opened in 1950 he wanted to head it, but our benefactor, the late William Parson, was adamant that his Chair should go to a man experienced in epilepsy and mental retardation. As Watson’s field is demyelinating diseases, naturally he wasn’t suitable. I told Mr. Parson that he ought to have chosen an easier name than Hughlings Jackson, but he was determined. Oh, a very determined man, always! Of course one expects to see the name abbreviated, but I had thought it would be the Hughlings, or the Hugh. However, Frank Watson had a small revenge. He thought it terribly clever to call it the Hug, and the name stuck. Stuck!”
    “Exactly who was or is Hughlings Jackson, sir?”
    “A pioneer British neurologist, Lieutenant. His wife had a slow-growing tumor on the motor strip — the gyrus anterior to the fissure of Rolando that