Chapter Twenty-FiveA Lady Is Missing
Tim was having a bad enough day as it was. His mind was in a turmoil and the mass of notes and diaries and memoranda on his desk made no sense to him at all. It reminded him of an occasion when he and another young instructor, after a convivial night, had inadvertently swapped lecture notes and he found himself on the rostrum with pages of mathematical symbols in front of him.
It was a relief when a man came to connect the phone. Tim stood around and watched him and asked the kind of dumb questions that mechanically inclined people expect professors to ask.
“How about some coffee?” Tim suggested when the man had finished.
“Like to,” the man said, “but I got another job. Got to fix the phone in that house across the inlet.”
“Squareless’s house?”
“Y
