The Professor and the Puzzle Read online

  LATER, I WOULD TRY TO remember just how I grabbed onto the window after falling headfirst through it. But all I know is that it involved a sort of somersault that left me hanging from the sill by my fingertips, my back against the building. I strained to hold on as my feet struggled to gain purchase on something. Luckily, the uneven brickwork of the building created indentations in its face, just deep enough for the edge of my heels to rest on.

  Precariously balanced, I hazarded a glance down at the ground below—it was about twenty feet to the grass. If I landed on my feet, there was probably a 50 percent chance I could survive the fall without serious injury. However, I could also break a leg or a hip on impact. If I fell on my back, those chances dropped precipitously. People have died from falling only ten feet if they landed the wrong way. All in all, though, if I played my cards right, I’d probably survive the fall.

  Of course, “probably” isn’t a very reassuring answer when it comes to whether you’re going to live to see tomorrow.

  “Help!” I finally managed to scream. “Someone come quick!” I scanned all the windows in the classics building for movement, but they were all dark.

  My fingers were beginning to get slippery with the cold sweat of panic. My wrists ached from their awkward position. I could feel my fingers slowly sliding off, the muscles in my hands and arms locking up. I had only a few seconds left.

  Just as my arms were about to give out, I heard a rustling coming from above me. I looked up and shouted, “Is someone there? Please—I can’t hold on much longer!” A few agonizing seconds passed, and then someone appeared in Dr. Stone’s office window, silhouetted by the light coming in from behind.

  “Nancy?!” the figure said, and I recognized the voice.

  “Dr. Brown!” I exclaimed. “Oh, thank goodness!”

  With great effort, the young professor leaned out the window, grabbed my hand, and hauled me back into the building.

  For a few minutes, I just sat on the Persian rug, trying to take deep breaths and waiting for my pulse to stop racing. Dr. Brown stood nearby, his handsome face pale and glistening with sweat. “Are you all right?” he asked, wringing his hands. “Should I call an ambulance?”

  “I’m fine, thanks to you,” I replied, rubbing my sore arms. “Just a few scrapes from the brick, that’s all.” I peered at the edge of the rug nearest to the window, which had bunched up where I had fallen. “It’s so odd how it happened, though. I thought that the rug must have slipped out from under my feet where I was leaning over, but it looks like there’s a rug pad under here to stop that from happening.”

  Dr. Brown studied the rug too. “How very strange,” he agreed. “Although the maintenance people do wax the hardwood floors now and then, which makes them quite slippery. If you were leaning out very far, it could be that even the rug pad wasn’t enough to stop it from slipping.”

  “I suppose,” I said. “Anyway, it was lucky that you were here—otherwise, I might have really needed that ambulance!”

  Dr. Brown rubbed his neck and shrugged. “Oh, well, I only did what any Good Samaritan would have done. I had just come up to my office to pick up some papers when I heard you shout for help.”

  “What is going on here?” Dr. Stone was standing in the doorway, looking tired and confused to find two people loitering inside her office.

  “Dr. Stone!” I said, quickly getting to my feet. “I can explain.” I quickly told the professor about coming in to examine Sophocles’s cage and how I thought I’d heard him calling from outside. Dr. Stone’s eyes grew wide when I got to the part about falling out the window.

  “So,” she said when I’d finished. “It looks like you’re quite the hero, eh, Fletcher?”

  Dr. Brown colored and cleared his throat. “Not at all, not at all,” he said humbly. “I just happened to be in the right place at the right time.” He turned back to me and gave me a dazzling smile. “Well, young lady, I am very glad you’re all right. I’ll leave you to your meeting.” With that, he bowed and left the room, and I couldn’t help but notice how well his suit seemed to fit.

  “Get in line, Nancy,” Dr. Stone said as she set down her things.

  “Huh?” I asked, snapping out of my reverie.

  “You look like you got one of Cupid’s arrows right between the eyes,” she replied with a smirk. “But you’re not the only one. The majority of this department’s student population is head over heels in love with that young whippersnapper. I suppose I can see the allure. He is attractive and charming.”

  “I can feel a ‘but’ coming on . . . ,” I said.

  Dr. Stone chuckled. “But,” she continued, “he’s always focusing on the wrong thing. He finds students like him—the charismatic crowd-pleasers—and puts them up on a pedestal, telling them to be ‘the best’ and fight their way to the top of the heap. Whatever that is. That’s just not my way. I find that often, it’s those studious, diligent students who keep their heads down and really do the work that succeed.” She paused, thoughtful. “It’s like Euripides said: ‘The good and the wise lead quiet lives.’ At least, that’s what I believe.” She sighed. “Anyway, I like Fletcher. He’s cute. If you like that sort of thing.”

  “He prevented me from falling out of a second-story window,” I said. “What’s not to like?”

  Dr. Stone shook her head. “It boggles the mind. And if I hadn’t been late getting up here after class, it could have been me leaning out that window! Two near falls in just a couple of days—what do you think of that? Either I’ve got terrible luck, or someone’s out to get me.”

  I knew she was joking, but the truth of what she said hit me all at once. What had just happened to me was a lot like what had happened to Bash at the gala! Again, it happened to the wrong person, but both times it seemed like Dr. Stone was the intended target. I might be right about the rug not slipping on its own—maybe Dr. Brown wasn’t the only one in the building. In the dim light, someone could have mistaken me for Dr. Stone.

  Someone who wanted to pull the rug out from under her. Literally.

  It was her office, after all; they wouldn’t expect anyone else to be here at this hour. More than that, only a person who knew about Sophocles would have stuck their head out the window in response to his call. But now that I thought about it, I hadn’t seen any bird when I’d been hanging on for dear life. And I’d scanned the entire building when I was searching for a rescuer—even if he’d flown off, I would have seen some sign of him. Had Sophocles’s call been a trap? It made sense, but then, where was he now?

  Realizing I’d been quiet for too long, I glanced back at Dr. Stone, who was gazing out the still-open window. “You know, after we lost Cameron, I thought I’d be done with loss for a while. But it looks like loss and I aren’t finished with each other yet. Poor Bash. That boy has potential. I hope to God he comes out of that hospital the same as he went in.”

  “Cameron Walsh,” I said. “The old classics chair. You and he were friends?”

  She nodded, a nostalgic smile spreading across her face. “That old coot was even grumpier than I am. Always stomping around the building in the same ratty old suit jacket, pieces of his lunch still lodged in his beard. He never cared about appearances—never had the time for that. He was too busy being a genius.”

  “You must have admired him,” I said.

  “Oh, I did. And I like to think the feeling was mutual. We worked together for many years, Cameron and I. We squabbled like an old married couple, but it was a fruitful relationship. We helped each other. Before he died, he’d been working on a paper about one of Protagoras’s lost texts. It was a big deal, really hush-hush. I was honored when asked me to read it. I think I was the only one who did.”

  “I’m so sorry,” I said. “Whatever happened to the paper?”

  Dr. Stone shrugged. “I don’t know,” she admitted. “Cameron hated computers, so it’s probably buried among all those files that we boxed up after he passed. No one has had the time to go through his things for t
he archive yet. I’m sure it will turn up.” She sighed. “I just wish he’d have been here to see it published.”

  With a sigh, she walked over to Sophocles’s cage and picked up a box of birdseed from the shelf. She was about to pour a little into his feeding bin when she stopped herself. “I always give him a little dinner before heading home for the night,” she said sadly, setting down the box again. “I guess old habits die hard.”

  “We’ll get him back,” I promised.

  “You said you heard him outside the window,” she said. “At least that means he’s still alive. Maybe he got scared off and he’ll come back again tomorrow.”

  “Maybe,” I lied, remembering my discovery about the cage. Everything was still leading me to believe that Sophocles had been birdnapped. “Speaking of that, there’s something I wanted to ask you. When I heard him, it wasn’t just squawking—it seemed like he was saying something, possibly in Greek. It sounded like, ‘so sauce on.’ Do you know what it means?”

  Dr. Stone raised a hand to her mouth. “Yes—yes, I do. He’s saying zdeú sōson. The direct translation is ‘Succor, oh mighty Zeus’ and I trained Sophocles to say it when he needs help.”

  I swallowed hard.

  “If he just got out of his cage, why would he be calling for help?” Dr. Stone asked.

  “Well,” I answered, “it could be that he was frightened from being outside alone. . . .”

  Dr. Stone skewered me with a calculating stare. “I can feel an ‘or’ coming on,” she said.

  Guilty as charged. “Or,” I continued, treading carefully, “he could have been calling for help because someone was keeping him from coming home.”

  There was a pregnant pause as the professor took in this revelation. She cleared her throat. “You think someone . . . kidnapped my parrot?”

  The way she said it made it sound like this was a truly ludicrous notion. Uh-oh, I thought, alarm bells going off in my head. Something told me this wasn’t going to go well. Desperate to explain myself, I told her about the lack of claw or beak marks on the door to the cage, and how unlikely it was that he’d have been able to open it without leaving some behind. “It’s still possible, of course,” I added. “Just . . . not probable.”

  Dr. Stone crossed her arms, clearly not convinced. “Who would do such a thing? And why?”

  “I’m still trying to figure that out,” I admitted. “Do you have any idea who might have a grievance against you? A disgruntled student, perhaps?”

  The professor’s eyebrows rose. “Am I that hated, then?” she asked, her voice suddenly harsh. “Do the people you’ve met here detest me so much that you think they’d go to such lengths just to hurt me?”

  I hesitated, unsure how to answer such a loaded question. Obviously, I’d hit a nerve. “I didn’t mean to suggest that. I just . . . I just think it’s possible that someone might have taken Sophocles on purpose, to use him against you. And I’m—”

  “Occam’s razor, Nancy,” she broke in. “The simplest answer is usually the right one. A bird goes missing from his cage. Most likely, he opened it and flew away.” She walked to the office door and stood by it. “I think it’s time for you to go.”

  I squeezed my eyes shut in frustration. This wasn’t the way I’d wanted this meeting to go! But there was nothing for it now. I gathered my things and walked out the door. I looked back at her to say something more, try to salvage the evening, but she held a hand up, and the words died on my lips.

  “I should never have agreed to let you come here,” Dr. Stone said, shaking her head. “I allowed my fear for Sophocles to delude me into thinking that you actually might be able to help me find him. But I should have taken my own advice. If something sounds too good to be true, it probably is.”

  And with that, she closed the door.

  I stood there for a minute, staring at the gold nameplate morosely. As investigations go, this one wasn’t going well. First I zeroed in on the wrong victim, and now I’d alienated the real one! Dr. Stone might still be in danger, but even if I told her as much, she’d never believe me. Someone tried to hurt her again tonight, and almost put me in the hospital in the process. Who knew when the next attempt might be?

  I had to make some real progress, and fast. For Sophocles—and his beloved professor—I had a feeling that time was running out.

  CHAPTER NINE

  The All-Seeing Eyes

  I WAS SITTING IN MY room in the Mansion, moonlight spilling through the window overlooking the campus beyond. Suddenly something white and tied with a string was pushed under the door.

  What could that be? I wondered.

  I went to pick it up and unrolled the note, which was on thick, rough paper that almost felt like parchment. Somehow I knew that what was written there was important—maybe even essential to solving this mystery. But when I looked at the paper, it was covered in Greek writing. I couldn’t understand a word of it.

  I felt a surge of frustration rise in my chest. Nothing was making sense! Who would write such a message? I ran to the door and threw it open, hoping to catch the person who’d delivered it.

  But the person standing there wasn’t a person—at least not in the normal sense. It was a man-shaped creature, wearing a black robe, and every inch of its body was covered with staring eyes.

  “Open your eyes,” the creature said, its voice reverberating in my head.

  I said nothing, struck dumb with awe and terror.

  “Open your eyes,” it said again, “and you will find the answers you seek.”

  The creature opened its mouth again, but this time, instead of words, a buzzing sound came out, like the sound of a horde of bees humming in a repeating rhythm.

  Buzz. Buzz. Buzz.

  The insistent vibration dragged me awake, and I sat up in bed.

  I blinked at the daylight in my room, confused—but relieved. It had just been a weird dream, and the buzzing sound was my phone. A very weird dream. But my relief lasted only a moment. Instead of being home in River Heights, I was still in my guest room in the president’s mansion—mired in an investigation that had been going nowhere. “Ugh,” I said, flopping back onto the pillow. I wasn’t ready to deal with reality just yet.

  But reality wasn’t going to let me go back to dreamland. My phone, which was still ringing incessantly, was about to throw itself off the nightstand. I caught it just as it vibrated itself over the edge and gazed blearily at the screen. GEORGE FAYNE, it read, and displayed a photo of George giving me a toothy grin and two thumbs-up.

  “Hello,” I croaked.

  “Well, hello to you too, sunshine,” George said. “It’s a little late to still be in bed—especially for you! How’s it going over there?”

  “Oh, just peachy,” I replied, clomping over to my suitcase to try and find clean clothes.

  “Drew, sarcasm does not become you. What’s wrong, gumshoe? Can’t put your finger on the goon? Stuck behind the old eight ball? Some cat not being square with you?”

  “You think you’re funny, but it’s not funny.”

  “It’s a little funny.”

  I sighed and tried not to smile. “Okay, fine. It’s a little funny.” While I got dressed, I brought her up to speed with everything that had happened since she and Bess left. “So that’s where things stand,” I finished. “I’m almost certain someone is trying to hurt Dr. Stone, but I still don’t know who or why. There are plenty of students who have motive—she’s probably handed out plenty of bad grades in her day—but I have no way of narrowing them down or proving that they had the opportunity to sabotage the balcony before the party or kidnap her parrot. And as for whether someone pushed me out of her office window—I was in the classics building, so any one of the students in the department could have known about her office hours and been there at the right time.”

  “Huh,” George said thoughtfully. “I see your problem.” There was a pause as both of us racked our brains, trying to come up with a solution. “Wait a second,” George said su
ddenly. “The cameras!”

  “What?” I asked.

  “The security cameras in the president’s mansion! I noticed them when we first came into the building. They’re those white spheres that look like little eyes—pretty sophisticated technology. They’re only the size of your palm, so they’re easy to miss.”

  Open your eyes, my dream had told me. Maybe this was what the creature meant.

  “I bet you they take digital video surveillance,” George continued. “And the files are kept somewhere on a server. If you review the files from the day of the gala, you’d be able to check who came in and out of the mansion during the time when the balcony was sabotaged. That would help you narrow down your suspects!”

  “George, you’re a genius!” I said, feeling a spark of excitement reigniting inside my head. “Thank you so much!”

  “Sure thing, doll,” she replied. “If you need any more help, just drop me a dime, savvy?”

  “You are so weird, George,” I said.

  “Please come home soon,” George whispered into the phone. “Gramps’s computer has been updating for forty-eight hours straight and I am so bored.”

  After promising that I would do my best to wrap up the case quickly, I washed up and went downstairs to find Iris.

  “I thought you said you had a key to this room,” I murmured as I watched Iris wiggle a credit card into the crack of the locked door.

  “I meant a key in the general sense,” Iris replied, biting her lip in concentration as she jimmied the card farther into the locking mechanism. “Like, an object capable of unlocking the door.”

  “Uh-huh,” I said, unconvinced. I was about to suggest that I work on the door instead—as I’ve had plenty of experience—but I decided to keep my mouth shut. Iris seemed intent on contributing to the case, and I wasn’t about to get in her way.

  I eyed the small red sign on the door, which read, in no uncertain terms: AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY! It was late afternoon now, and we were down in the bowels of the president’s mansion, which was a lot darker and dustier than it was upstairs. All around us in the musty hallway were large rolling bins piled with dirty linens, carts filled with cleaning supplies, and stacks of extra chairs and tables for events. The door Iris was so industriously trying to open was to the security office, which held all the servers and computers that controlled the house’s surveillance cameras.