It seems
Gracine has been misinterpreting some of the things you've been saying
in your class. She's such a sensitive girl." "Dumb Bunny, you mean," Norman corrected mentally. He murmured, "Oh?" with some show of politeness. "Dear Henrietta was a little puzzled as just how to handle it, though
of course she's a very tolerant, cosmopolitan soul. I just mentioned it
because I thought you'd want to know. After all, it is very important
that no one gets any wrong impressions about the department. Don't you
agree with me, Hervey?" she ended sharply. "What, dear? Oh, yes, yes. Say, Norman, I want to tell you about
that thesis I showed you yesterday. The most amazing thing! Its main
arguments are almost exactly the same as those in your book! An amazing
case of independent investigators arriving at the same conclusions. Why, it's like Darwin and Wallace, or--"

"You didn't tell _me_ anything about this, dear," said Mrs.
Sawtelle, as if he had cheated her. "Wait a minute," said Norman. He hated to make an explanation in Mrs. Sawtelle's presence, but it had
to be done. "Sorry, Hervey, to have to substitute a rather sordid story for an
interesting case of independent investigation. It happened when I
was an instructor here--1929, my first year. A graduate student
named Cunningham got hold of my ideas--I was friendly with him--and
incorporated them into his doctor's thesis. My work in superstition and
neurosis was just a side line then, and so I didn't happen to read his
thesis until after he'd gotten his degree." Sawtelle blinked. His face resumed its usual worried expression. A look
of vague disappointment had come into Mrs. Sawtelle's black button
eyes, as if she would have liked to read the thesis before hearing the
explanation. "I was very angry," Norman continued, "and intended to show him up. But then I heard he'd died. There was some hint of suicide. He was an
unbalanced chap. How he'd hoped to get away with such an out-and-out
steal, I don't know. Anyway, I decided not to do anything about it, for
his family's sake. You see, it would have supplied a strong reason for
thinking he _had_ committed suicide." Mrs. Sawtelle looked incredulous. "But, Norman," Sawtelle commented anxiously, "was that really wise? I
mean to keep silent. Weren't you taking a chance? I mean with regard to
your academic reputation?" Abruptly Mrs. Sawtelle's manner changed. "Put that thing back in the stacks, Hervey, and forget about it,"
she directed curtly. Then she smiled archly at Norman. "I've been
forgetting that I have a surprise for you, Professor Saylor. Come down
to the sound booth now, and I'll show you. It won't take a minute. Come
along, Hervey." Norman had no excuse ready, so he accompanied the Sawtelles to the
rooms of the speech department at the other end of Morton, wondering
how the speech department ever found any use for someone with as nasal
and affected a voice as Evelyn Sawtelle, even if she did happen to be a
professor's wife. The sound booth was dim and quiet, a solid box with soundproof walls
and double windows. Mrs. Sawtelle took a disk from the cabinet, put it
on one of the three turntables, and adjusted a couple of dials. From the amplifier came a strangely intermittent wailing or roaring,
as of wind prying at a house. It struck a less usual chord, though, in
Norman's memory. Mrs. Sawtelle darted back and lifted the needle, hurriedly, so it
grated against the disk. "I made a mistake," she said. "That's some modernistic music or other. Hervey, switch on the light. Here's the record I wanted." "It sounded awful, whatever it was," her husband observed. Norman had identified his memory. It was of an Australian bull-roarer
a colleague had once demonstrated for him. The curved slat of wood,
whirled at the end of a cord, made exactly the same sound. The
aborigines used it in their magic making. But now his own voice was coming out of the amplifier, and he had an
odd sense of jerking back in time. "Surprised?" she questioned coyly. "It's that talk on civilian defense
you gave the students last week. We had a mike spotted by the speaker's
rostrum--I suppose you thought it was for amplification--and we made a
sneak recording, as we call it. We cut it down here." She indicated the heavier, cement-based turntable for making recordings. "We can do all sorts of things down here," she babbled on. "Mix all
sorts of sound. Music against voices. And--"

It was hard for Norman to appear even slightly pleased. He knew his
reasons were no more sensible than those of a savage afraid someone
will learn his secret name, yet all the same he disliked the idea
of Evelyn Sawtelle monkeying around with his voice. Like her dully
malicious, small-socketed eyes, it suggested a prying for hidden
weaknesses. And then that talk about mixing sounds--somehow it did not
set good with him. What it all boiled down to was that he detested the woman. Rather brusquely, he excused himself. "We'll see you tonight," Evelyn called after him. It sounded like, "You
won't get rid of me." *       *       *       *       *

Back at the office, Norman put in a good hour's work on his notes. Then, getting up to switch on the light, his glance happened to fall on
the window. After a few moments, he jerked away and darted to the closet, to get
his field glasses. Evidently someone had a very obscure sense of humor to perpetrate such
a complicated practical joke. Intently he searched the cement at the juncture of roof ridge and
clawed feet, looking for the telltale cracks. He could not spot any,
but that was not easy to do in the failing yellow light. The cement dragon now stood at the edge of the gutter, as if about to
walk over to Morton along the architrave of the big gateway. He lifted his glasses to the creature's head--blank and crude as an
unfinished skull. Then on an impulse, he dropped them to the row of
sculptured heads, focused on Galileo, and read the little inscription
he had not been able to make out before. "_Eppur si muove._"

The words Galileo was supposed to have muttered after recanting before
the Inquisition his belief in the revolution of the Earth around the
Sun. "Nevertheless, it moves." A board creaked behind him, and he spun around. By his desk stood a young man, waxen pale, with thick red hair. His
eyes stood out like milky marbles. One white, tendon-ridged hand
gripped a .22 target pistol. Norman walked toward him, bearing slightly to the right. The skimpy barrel of the gun came up. "Hello, Jennings," said Norman. "You've been reinstated. Your grades
have been changed to straight A's." The gun barrel slowed for an instant. Norman lunged in. The gun went off under his left arm, pinking the window. The gun clunked on the floor. Jennings' skinny form went limp. As
Norman sat him down on the chair, he began to sob, convulsively. Norman lifted the phone and asked for an on-campus number. The
connection was made quickly. "Gunnison?" he asked. "Uh-huh, just caught me as I was leaving."