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Weill and he has advised me to make absolutely no statements of any sort about
the matter."
"I understand," the eldest of the trio said. "But we're not the press, or
anything like that. We can assure you that anything you tell us will be
absolutely confidential." He looked inquiringly at the middle-aged man in
tweeds, who nodded silently. "We can understand that the students in your
modern history class are telling what is substantially the truth?"
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"If you're thinking about that hoax statement of Whitburn's, that's a lot of
idiotic drivel!" he said angrily. "I
heard some of those boys on the telecast, last night; except for a few details
in which they were confused, they all stated exactly what they heard me say in
class a month ago."
"And we assume," again he glanced at the man in tweeds "that you had no
opportunity of knowing anything, at the time, about any actual plot against
Khalid's life?"
The man in tweeds broke silence for the first time. "You can assume that. I
don't even think this fellow
Noureed knew anything about it, then."
"Well, we'd like to know, as nearly as you're able to tell us, just how you
became the percipient of this knowledge of the future event of the death of
Khalid ib'n Hussein," the young man began. "Was it through a dream, or a
waking experience; did you visualize, or have an auditory impression, or did
it simply come into your mind...."
"I'm sorry, gentlemen." He looked at his watch. "I have to be going somewhere,
at once. In any case, I
simply can't discuss the matter with you. I appreciate your position; I
know how I'd feel if data of historical importance were being withheld
from me. However, I trust that you will appreciate my position and spare me
any further questioning."
That was all he allowed them to get out of him. They spent another few minutes
being polite to one another; he invited them to lunch at the Faculty Club,
and learned that they were lunching there as Fitch's guests. They went away
trying to hide their disappointment.
The Psionics and Parapsychology people weren't the only delegation to reach
Blanley that day. Enough of the trustees of the college lived in the San
Francisco area to muster a quorum for a meeting the evening before; a
committee, including James Dacre, the father of the boy in Modern History IV,
was appointed to get the facts at first hand; they arrived about noon. They
talked to some of the students, spent some
time closeted with Whitburn, and were seen crossing the campus with the
Parapsychology people. They didn't talk to Chalmers or Fitch. In the
afternoon, Marjorie Fenner told Chalmers that his presence at a meeting, to be
held that evening in Whitburn's office, was requested. The request, she said,
had come from the trustees' committee, not from Whitburn; she also told him
that Fitch would be there. Chalmers promptly phoned Stanly Weill.
"I'll be there along with you," the lawyer said. "If this trustees' committee
is running it, they'll realize that this is a matter in which you're entitled
to legal advice. I'll stop by your place and pick you up.... You haven't been
doing any talking, have you?"
He described the interview with the Psionics and Parapsychology people.
"That was all right.... Was there a man with a mustache, in a brown tweed
suit, with them?"
"Yes. I didn't catch his name...."
"It's Cutler. He's an Army major; Central Intelligence. His crowd's interested
in whether you had any real advance information on this. He was in to see me,
just a while ago. I have the impression he'd like to see this whole thing
played down, so he'll be on our side, more or less and for the time being.
I'll be around to your place about eight; in the meantime, don't do any more
talking than you have to. I hope we can get this straightened out, this
evening. I'll have to go to Reno in a day or so to see a client there...."
The meeting in Whitburn's office had been set for eight-thirty; Weill saw to
it that they arrived exactly on time. As they got out of his car at
Administration Center and crossed to the steps, Chalmers had the feeling of
going to a duel, accompanied by his second. The briefcase Weill was carrying [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]