In the Last Analysis by Amanda Cross Page A

told her she had probably aroused some sort of fetishism in some poor frustrated man. If you ask me, he took the camera as a cover, but he was really looking for something personal; but there really wasn’t anything in her room worth looking for”—Jackie slid rather hastily over the unfortunate implications of this remark—“and, of course, she dressed like the matron of a girls’ school. I used to tell her she was really very good-looking, if she would only cut her hair instead of just wearing it pulled back, and you know—showed herself off a little. I was fascinated by that picture the detective was showing around here, apparently of someone connected with Janet. Perhaps she did go out to meet aman, after all, though it seems unlikely. If so, she certainly kept him well hidden.”
    “Did she go out often?”
    “Well, not often, but fairly regularly. She went out to dinner, or she would just disappear, and obviously she wasn’t going to the library. I think someone saw her with a man once.”
    “Who?” Kate asked. “Was it someone who saw the picture?”
    “The detective asked me that,” Jackie said in her maddening way, “and, you know, I can’t remember. It was someone I was talking to by the fountain, because I remember that someone had put soap in the fountain, and this girl and I were commenting on that; but I can’t remember how the question came up—something like my saying one doesn’t expect to find soap in a fountain, and she said, speaking of the unexpected, etcetera. But, you know, I just can’t remember who it was. Perhaps I dreamed it all. Of course, she—Janet, I mean—was an only child, and I always think that the reciprocal rivalry of the sibling relationship does a great deal to develop the personality, don’t you?”
    It was likely that she did not expect an answer, but Kate rose to her feet, with a frank look at her watch. Even for the solution of a murder, there was a point beyond which she would not go. Miss Lindsay joined her in a movement toward the door. “You will let me know, won’t you,” Kate said, striving for a casual tone, “if you remember who the person was who saw Janet and the man?”
    “Why are you so interested?” Jackie asked.
    “Thank you for the coffee,” Kate flung back, and, closing the door, sped down the corridor with Miss Lindsay.
    “It’s a pity no one murdered
her,”
said Miss Lindsay,echoing Kate’s thoughts. “I think even the police would gladly leave it as one of the unsolved cases.”
    With an intense feeling of frustration, Kate made her way to the office of university records. Here, with a certain amount of what Jerry would probably have called “throwing her weight around,” she managed to obtain Janet Harrison’s records. For the first and undoubtedly the last time in her life, Kate was grateful to the modern mania for forms. She began with Janet’s record at the university; her marks had been B minuses, with an occasional B. To Kate’s professional eye, this indicated that her instructors had found her clearly capable of A work, but performing, probably, on the C level. There was a strong tendency among professors, including herself, to save C’s for the strictly C students, of whom, God knows, there were enough.
    Janet Harrison’s college credits were all in order; she had majored in history, with a minor in economics. Then why had she chosen to come to graduate school to study English literature? Well, the fields were not, of course, precisely unrelated. She had apparently applied for, and received, several college loans, and she had also applied for a fellowship. For the details of this application one had to consult the fellowship office.
    Cursing, Kate went to consult the fellowship office. Janet had probably gotten the fellowship, but it would be interesting to know. Her marks in college had been almost all A’s, though the college, supposedly near her home (Kate was somewhat shaky on the geography of the Midwest)