Read Online The Campus Murders by Ellery Queen - Free Book Online

marathons. Six-day bicycle races. Jitterbug. The Dipsy-Doodle. Benny Goodman. Crazy, the kids went crazy. Later, Boom-Boom-Didem-Dadem-Wadem-Chew, f’gawd’s sake. Mairzey-Doats and Doazy-Doats and Li’l Lambs Eat Ivy. Yech!” He flung his bar rag down. “And the drinking. Everybody was stoned. Sex-mad, too.” The barman half shut his eyes. “My old man was a Methodist preacher. Tie that. And I was a real high flier. Kept a jug of corn in my locker in high school. Had a Model A, and it rocked, man, you believe it. And all those sweet pickings.” He chuckled with nostalgia. “There was a party every night, and what went on in those back bedrooms was something. Kids are healthier today. More honest. The skirts came up just as easy in those days, and there was always Peggy Pregnant the All-American Roundheels. And, hell, smoking weed, too. I tried it and went back to booze. I hit a dozen alcoholic wards before I wised up. Reefers, they called them then, bombers. You’d buy a tobacco-can full.”
    The bartender stopped to refuel.
    â€œBut the colleges didn’t have the problems they have now,” McCall argued.
    â€œThis has been coming a hell of a long time, friend,” the bartender said. “By the way, my name is Grundy.”
    â€œYou don’t sound it,” McCall said.
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œI mean, never mind. McCall’s mine. How do you figure?”
    Grundy reached to the back bar, brought up a bottle of Jack Daniels, and poured himself half a slug in a shot glass. He drank it quickly and washed the glass. “That’s how I do it now—my quota for today. How do I figure, Mac? I figure the kids are in the last half of the twentieth century, and the colleges are still back in the nineteenth. And that’s how the kids figure. That’s what this unrest is all about. I wish there were more of them.”
    â€œWhat do you mean?”
    â€œI mean the real rebels, the revolutionaries, the ones who’ll stop at nothing to overturn the system. They’re only a handful.”
    â€œYou’re on their side?”
    â€œSure. Why not? I’m against the Establishment—any Establishment. But even the college kids who aren’t activists are more intelligent and serious than my generation was. But nobody listens to them. Jesus. Just half a shot glass and listen to me . Another one and I’d be a poet.” He looked at McCall’s drink.
    â€œNo more now,” McCall said, finishing it.
    â€œThey’re all right, those kids,” the barman said. “Make no mistake about that.”
    â€œCount on me,” McCall said. “Name’s Mike, Mike McCall. Nice talking with you, Mr. Grundy.”
    â€œCall me Joe,” the barman said. “Joe Mozzarella, the spaghetti king. Out of Joe Cacciatore, fifteen to one.”
    â€œWhich is it? You told me Grundy.”
    â€œAh, sweet mystery of life.”
    â€œYou sure it’s bourbon in that bottle?” McCall asked.
    â€œI knew a doctor once drank ether. All the time. Smelled terrible.”
    â€œNo kidding, Joe, what is your name?”
    â€œVermicelli.”
    â€œHave it your way. Seeing you.”
    â€œMike, Mac, McCall, does it make any difference as long as I don’t call you Sally?”
    In his room, McCall put a call through to Governor Holland. The governor was not at the mansion; nobody seemed to know where he was. McCall left a message and said he would call back if anything developed.
    He sat on the bed, wishing for the lethal weed and thinking more about Laura Thornton. Whoever had been with her at the Greenview Motel had played it cosy. The girl had done the dirty work, registering, paying for the room. Could it have been Damon Wilde? He very much wanted to talk with young Mr. Wilde.
    He checked the book, called Dean Gunther’s office, and asked if anything had clarified the mystery of the missing clothes.
    â€œNot a