After dinner on the gloomy Tuesday after the rather strange luncheon in the college medical laboratory I got another whiff of what might be going on with John Watson and our Erica. We had all gathered in the parlor for our customary after dinner tea and cookies. After no more than ten minutes of cookies and small talk, John rose and walked to the cloakroom. He came out with his overcoat. Putting it on, he announced rather formally, "I have an experiment in progress in the lab that requires my presence for several hours. I beg to be excused. If all goes well I should be back by eleven at the latest."
His announcement was unexpected, although he had done this one or two times before. This was the first time I had not been warned in advance. I noticed this time that he looked directly at Erica as he spoke. I glanced at Erica myself and noticed that she was looking at him. "Something is going on with those two." I thought, "But what?"
I looked once more at Erica, trying not to be obvious. She looked briefly around the room, then seemed focused on the clock on the mantle. After about a minute, which might have been exactly a minute, she said, "I believe I will go for a walk. I haven't been out all day."
I thought of reminding her that lock-up time was 10:30 and that she should be back by that time or request the spare latch key if she intended to be later than that. I also thought of informing her that it was raining or almost raining. But I have never been in favor of reminding people of things, it isn't my style and doesn't contribute to the atmosphere I wish to create at Begley House. She would most certainly be reminded if she had to ring the buzzer to wake me up to let her in after lock-up time. But, by her own words at least, only going for a walk and therefore would undoubtedly be back by 10:30.
So I watched without comment as she went into the cloak room and emerged a moment later in a large dark grey cape with a hood. She left without a word to any of the others, pulling the hood over her head as she went through the parlor doorway.
We had not yet completed the exodus. Immediately afterward, it was Constance Claire's turn to excuse herself. Her eyes unblinking in the direction of Louis with a determined look on her very pretty face, she said firmly, "I'm afraid Louis and I have work to do in the college library and will have to leave now. I wonder if we might borrow the spare latch key? The library doesn't close until eleven and we might miss the 10:30 lockup."
I gave her the spare latchkey from my concierge keyring. "Please leave the key on the little table beside the door when you come in."
Her story was possible, if not very probable. This would be her first night visit to the library that I was aware of, however.
From the look on his face, I guessed that Louis was quite surprised at hearing that he too had business in the library, but he retrieved his topcoat from the cloakroom and followed Constance Claire out of the parlor without comment.
The gathering in the parlor thus dissolved, what remained of my tenants went their own way up the stairs. Thankfully, no one else had the need to go out in the rain that evening.
As I cleared up the tea things, I wondered about all of this.
I knew that John Watson sometimes has experiments going on in his laboratory on campus that required his presence in the evening, and occasionally into the very late evening. I had given him a latch key at the beginning of term that the others didn't know about. He could let himself in to Begley House after lock-up time at 10:30.
At least, I supposed the others didn't know about John's latch key. I hoped I was right to have done that, but John seems so very unlikely to do anything disreputable, or in fact, much of anything at all at night. He goes largely unnoticed. Even when he is present, he is largely unnoticed. He can disappear in a crowd of one.
But that only explained John. Now I had to consider Erica. Could she be following John to his laboratory in the dead of night? Had the sandwich luncheon of the previous Sunday started a romance? He had looked at her just now, I had seen that. Was he the reason for her taking a walk in the rain? Still waters run deep, I thought, but this was a little sudden on both their parts. True, she had had a wild affair with one of her fellow students while spending her year in Germany.
But John Watson? How could he compare with the dashing young revolutionary, now deceased, that she had taken up with in Germany? He couldn't. Whatever he was, it was neither dashing nor revolutionary.
And what of Constance Claire insisting that she and Louis suddenly and quite implausibly had to go to the school library? Where were they going so suddenly? And why, for goodness sake? Whatever was transpiring, it must have something to do with John Watson.
Strange things were happening, and the most disconcerting part of it all was that I didn't know what they were.
For just an instant, my imagination went to a scene of the four of them huddled around a bubbling beaker with looks of wonder and astonishment on their faces. I put that thought resolutely out of my mind and gave up.
Resolutely at 10:30 I put the front door on the latch, firmly refusing to check on the presence of Erica. If she were late, and had to buzz to be let in and I could ask for an explanation with right on my side. And I most assuredly would do exactly that.
Immediately after locking up, though, I was drawn by some unseen force upstairs, to the third floor. I entered one of the two store rooms which face the side street marking the boundary of the campus and Begley House. I carefully closed the door behind me, switched off the single lamp in the ceiling fixture, and pulled one of the curtain panels to the side just far enough to see the street.
"What am I doing up here spying out of my own store room window into the rain in the middle of the night?" I asked myself. "I'm not spying," I responded, although I knew I most certainly was, "I'm, looking out for Erica. And I'm curious about what she and John are up to. And what has Constance Claire and her unwitting escort to do with whatever it is. Has she enlisted his aid? Or are they the assassination squad? I wonder what Erica is really doing in the dark and mist."
I learned part of the answer after a short wait. I saw two figures coming down the sidewalk from my right towards Begley House. There being two of them, I assumed Constance Claire and Louis, although it could have been John and Erica. The pair disappeared behind some bushes on the other side of the street. I waited some minutes more.
I could no longer see anything of the people in the mist, but I did see the match flare up, then go out leaving an orange glow behind. The small light was coming from behind a decorative hedge on the campus side of the street. Then a second flare erupted very near the first, leaving its orange glow behind in the same way when it disappeared.
Constance Claire and Louis were enjoying an illicit cigarette. I smiled, wondering if there would be more cigarette smoking or less cigarette smoking if it were not prohibited by college rules, social rules, and my rules.
Next on the scene, arriving stage left, was John Watson, walking purposefully towards Begley House from the campus. He was unaccompanied, and coming from the direction of the school laboratory a few blocks away. I heard noises downstairs as he let himself in then sounds on the stairs. He must have gone to his room down the hallway from the storeroom.
I waited another 10 minutes. I saw a cloaked and hooded figure walking head down out of the mist from the right along the sidewalk in front of Begley House. I could see its outline in the faint light from the street light behind it, but could not see anything of a face. From the size and the hooded cloak, I presumed it must be Erica. Whomever it was stopped almost in front of my window and stared up at the building for a full minute. When she did that, I saw that it was indeed Erica, but what was she looking at?
At first I thought she was looking at me, but that seemed impossible. She seemed rather to be looking at the floor below me. Was she perhaps looking into her own window? In any case, after a long look she turned and continued walking very slowly towards the corner of the street, turned left, and walked out of my view. I assumed she went up the steps to the door. I hoped I would hear the buzzer from up here if she had to request entry.
I heard instead the front door open. She had let herself in. But how? She had no latchkey. I heard noises on the stairs, but I was surprised to hear them on the third floor, where I was not spying on my charges. I froze in fear as the tiny noises continued for a few seconds, then went away, back down the stairs. I suppose she went to the second floor and her room. But why visit the third floor? And if you are going to visit the men's floor, why for only a few seconds?
Having absolutely no answer for that one, I looked through the hedge across the street, but saw no cigarettes glowing. I didn't see anything at all of the other two escapees, and wondered if I would be called to the door to let them in, or if they, too, had mysterious ways of entering my house without benefit of latch key.
Then I remembered that Constance Claire had requested the spare key and could let them both in. In any case, I did not wish to be found spying, so I had better make my way downstairs as quickly and silently as possible. Hopefully, I could soon go to bed. The puzzles in my mind had rearranged themselves slightly, but had surely not been resolved.