The Campus Murders by Ellery Queen Read Free Book Online

when you saw her last—”
    â€œPanicky would be more like it Friday.”
    â€œYou’re sure she gave no reason why? No hint?”
    â€œIf she had a secret,” Nina said, “she hugged it to her like one of those Playboy Bunny costumes. Real uptight.”
    â€œI see. Well, thank you, Miss Hobart. Would you please put the portfolio back where you found it?”
    It was almost one o’clock, and McCall was hungry. There would be at least a cafeteria in the Student Union. Well, it was one hunger he could satisfy. The other, the one that was gnawing away inside his head, was apparently going to have to wait for a long time the way things were going. Or not going would be more like it.
    He crossed the campus under swelling trees. He found himself searching out the conventional students. The ones he saw were quiet, in a hurry, and seemed edgy.
    A well-larded man in a tan uniform and chinstrap helmet, wearing a badge, came toward him. A campus policeman. Middle-aged and no doubt wishing he were holding down a safe desk job somewhere.
    â€œPardon me, officer. Where’s the Student Union?”
    The man eyed him and gave him gruff instructions. As McCall walked away he heard a male voice say something about “three little pigs.” He turned. A lanky student in a red sweatshirt was jogging past, laughing. The campus cop flushed and turned heavily away. McCall noticed his hands; they made fists.
    In the Student Union cafeteria McCall took his tray with its freight of beef stew, French bread, apple pie, and coffee over to a table. Through the hum and clatter he began tucking it away. He ate as if the stew were tasty, keeping his eyes open, and his ears. He had expected to find the cafeteria bulging at this hour, but it was not. Students huddled, heads together, about tables, islands of conspiracy in empty space. There was an occasional outburst of angry talk. And no laughter at all.
    Two students were arguing nearby. One had red hair to his shoulders, wore a kafiyeh and a Victorian cameo on a long chain, and no shoes or socks. The other was sedately dressed—by contrast overdressed—in a conventional sports jacket, white shirt, quiet tie, and English brogans with clocked socks. While the neat one argued, the hippie shoveled spaghetti down his gullet. When the neat one stopped to eat his steak-and-kidney pie, the hippie yelped, “Square. You’re square enough to go into the base of a monument to Civic Virtue. Why don’t you dig it, man?”
    â€œWhy don’t you take a bath?” the square jeered.
    â€œCleanliness!” The hippie spat into his spaghetti. “It’s a put-on, man, don’t you know that? They’ve been feeding you that crap since they trusted you out of didies. What’s wrong with a good healthy mess?”
    And he picked up his platter and hurled it at the nearby wall of the cafeteria. The plate smashed mightily, sending spaghetti and tomato sauce showering over diners and painting a mobile abstract on the wall. The hippie student laughed, saluted, and ran from the cafeteria, pursued by a bellowing campus policeman. A sober-faced, thirtyish man, evidently a member of the faculty, hurried after the offender and his pursuer.
    Students were staring at the design on the wall. Others were wiping their clothes with paper napkins. Nobody seemed surprised or offended. A sort of good humor settled over the cafeteria. At one table a student held up a placard on a long pole: BUG THE BOARD . A fat young man hurried over to the wall carrying a poster. He hung it beside the spaghetti stains: HEADS — STAY OUT OF SIGHT ; grinning.
    Abruptly at another table five students jumped up.
    â€œReady—” one shouted.
    â€œAim—” another shouted.
    â€œ FIRE !”
    Five plates smashed against the wall decorated by the spaghetti. Cheers rose from other tables. The five sprinted for the door, sending chairs flying.
    A student in a