The Professor Mysteries

The Professor Mysteries

by

John Hulme

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2017 John Hulme

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All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner without written permission from the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews..

This is work of pure fiction. All names, characters, places and events or instances are totally the product of the author’s imagination and are used throughout the work in a fictitious manner. Any accidental resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, colleges, businesses, companies, actual events, or localities is entirely coincidental.

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Table of Contents

The Professor and the Dean’s Dilemma

The Professor and the Three Blind Mice

The Professor and a Case of Crabs

The Professor and the Mermaid’s Daughter

About the Author

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THE PROFESSOR AND THE DEAN’S DILEMMA

I STOOD IN the doorway of my tiny, cubby-hole-sized office watching my recent visitor sway gracefully down the corridor on the way to her next appointment. Even seen from the back she was very attractive and I could have spent the rest of the morning watching the way she put one high-heeled foot in front of the other as she glided away. For the last ten minutes she had sat awkwardly on the only spare chair in what laughingly passed as my faculty office, legs crossed, leaning slightly forward, talking to me. I could not remember a word she said, except it had something to do with textbooks.

That was when I smelt trouble. No, this is not a metaphor, the smell was real and filled the corridor behind me. It could only mean one thing. I turned to look. Sure enough, standing behind me was the only Professor on Campus who smoked his own distinctive blend of pipe tobacco.

Nice girl, he murmured appreciatively, taking his pipe from his mouth and rummaging in his pocket for a refill. Who was she?

I looked down at the business card I was holding. She’s called Angela Wrinski, I told him, she says she is a ‘book rep’ for Hogden & Beech publishers. That was all the information that was on the small square of cardboard in my hand; nothing about her oval face, bouncy hair, pouting lips or if she liked long walks along the bank of the river.

By now The Professor, as everyone on campus called Professor Henry Wodeash, had found his roll of pipe tobacco and was vigorously refilling the bowl of a very ancient briar, pushing it down hard with his thumb. This is a good Burley from Europe, he advised me, holding the roll under my nose, smell the hint of flue-cured Virginia and the pinch of Perique. I didn’t add any light-bodied Macedonian to this batch. Not sure if it adds anything - just testing. It was not news to me that Professor Wodeash liked making his own pipe tobacco, all the faculty in the Biology Department had at one time or another sat through his famous lecture on the best and worst of the American fumitory Nicotinana and the superior qualities of European-cured. But I was not a smoker, I could not afford the habit, so I twitched my nose away from the offered gift and tried to catch a last glimpse of the delightful Angela.

A strange aversion, went on the Professor, warming to his favorite topic, your refusal to accept the superiority of Jean Nicot’s weed over other pleasures. He used a large wooden match to apply a flame to his pipe and sucked noisily until the clouds of smoke almost obscured his face. Busy?

I desperately tried to wave away the fog between us before I choked. When I had orginally met The Professor, at the start of my first semester at The College, I had been more than slightly intimidated by his manner and the stuffed owl he kept perched on the huge, padded armchair in his office. This, he explained was to distract students when they came to complain about their grades. It had certainly intimidated me, at first, but after spending many hours in his presence I had deduced that there was a lot more to Prof. Wodeash than the eccentric character he liked to portray.

Physically he was shorter than most of his colleagues, balding, round of face and body, but with a knowing twinkle in the hazel eyes peering through never-quite-clean spectacles. He had befriended me at once, for reasons I never completely understood, and during an average week I spent more time with him in his well appointed office than in the accommodations my Chairman had reluctantly provided for me. Status at The College was determined by the location of your desk and the number of file cabinets you were allocated. A very junior Assistant Professor generally had to share, with two other colleagues, a hundred square feet, two desks, two chairs and one wastepaper basket.

No, I’m not particularly busy at the moment, but I do have a grant application due by the end of the month. I should be working on it right now, but I got interrupted. I stared down the corridor but Angela had vanished.

Come with me then, he insisted waving his pipe in the general direction of the stairs, I have business with the Dean and would welcome some moral support. That man can be quite exasperating at times. Without waiting for my consent he pulled his trousers back up over his belly, dropped the books under his arm, picked them up with a ‘Tut tut’ and made his way to the central stairwell in the Science Building. Having no willpower of my own, and nothing better to do - I followed.

What was she trying to sell you? he asked as we got to the bottom of the stairs and exited onto the quadrangle.

Books, at least that is what she talked about, I answered. During our all-to-brief conversation Angela had raised the topic of Biology textbooks a number of times. She left me three to look over for possible adoption in my course next semester. Is that normal? In my very limited past experience the idea that someone would give me three books with an estimated value of over $150 would have been absurd.

Oh yes, quite normal. She wants you to recommend, and use, one of those books in your Intro. course next semester.

Only one book? I usually give my students a reading list of books they can get from the library, and a comprehensive set of topics we will be covering. Why would I recommend just one book?

Ah! I had forgotten where you got your degree. That may be the way you were taught, but here at The College, we do things differently. You have a lot to learn.

Like what?

In introductory courses, such as the one The Chairman wants you to teach, it is considered unnecessary to burden the students with too much information. Publishers, such as Hogden and Beech, produce huge encyclopedic tomes of erudition, and then send sales representatives, like your Angela, round to the faculty offices trying to persuade them to ‘adopt’ their own particular text. If she is convincing, and you agree that her book is better than the identical ones produced by other publishers, then the students in your course next semester will all have to buy a copy.

We crossed the Quadrangle while I digested this information.

He went on: She left those books so you could look them over, see what they contain and when you have decided on one of them, you will then force all your students to buy it. That’s how the publishers make their sales; they persuade you to make someone else buy something that they really do not want. An interesting twist in the usual way we decide to make a purchase.

Leaving the Quadrangle we entered the Campus holy-of-holies where only college administrators had offices, scraped off any dirt that may have been on the soles of our shoes, genuflected at the portraits of Past Presidents and followed the signs.

Deep in the Administration Palace - er - Building, a place I never usually set foot, we climbed marble stairs to a lofty third floor, walked down a corridor wider than the Science Building, admired the fine art on the walls and stepped around groups of sitting, chanting students who were protesting The War by rejecting bourgeois habits like washing and haircuts, blaming everyone over 30 for everything - and not going to the classes their parents were paying for.

At the solid oak door to the Dean’s office The Professor finally took the pipe out of his mouth and with some regret put it into one of his deep pockets. I expected him to knock, but instead he pushed open the door and propelled me inside.

What do you want? came a sharp voice from a art-deco desk at the other end of a palatial outer-office.

Ah! Dear Mrs Cluny, smiled the Professor and I noticed, to my surprise, he was now speaking with a slight Irish accent. Cat, cat, but is it not my poor heart that is banjaxed by your wonderful self? Is it not?

The blarney is it you are trying on me? Yer old rogue, said the thin, sharp-faced woman of unknowable age sitting behind the large desk covered with file folders and a large electric typewriter of the latest model and vintage. Her features, one look from which would have frozen boiling water, softened slightly and her fingers stopped drumming on the desktop. Himself is busy at this very moment, so he is.

Who said I wanted to see the Dean? Only a tool would want to see him when I could stand here and stare at you all day. There was no force on earth that could make Mrs Cluny smile but her head suddenly lowered and she looked at her keyboard. Perhaps she blushed but it was hard to tell.

Away with ye, yer quare yoke, she said softly to the keys of the typewriter.

So Prof. Wodeash took her at her word and, without knocking, opened the second solid oak door in the room.

Behind this door was a chamber that would not have been out of place in an English Manor house or French Palace. This was where The Dean administered all that went on in the various Academic Departments of The College. From here flowed orders and authority to each branch of academia commanding them to go and educate. I almost expected to hear solemn organ music in the background.

No ordinary, humble faculty member of my lowly status ever got invited to these lofty heights, so I stared, mouth slightly open, somewhat rudely at the furnishings ranging from the thick-piled Persian carpet on the parquet floor to the encrusted ormolu clock on the mantle that had once reminded Louis XIV when he was due for his next appointment.

A tall, immaculately attired man with swept-back gray hair and brilliantly red tie jumped in surprise at our sudden entrance. He had been bent over a side table closely examining a set of documents and making comments in the margins with a $500 fountain pen.

Wodeash! he groaned in exasperation and a touch of despair, slowly screwing the top on his pen and turning to look at us. If he saw me at all he did not acknowledge the fact. What do you want? Can’t you see I am busy? His voice was calm but the way his shoulders slumped indicated he had been down this particular road many times before. Before you ask, the answer is no.

I come seeking enlightenment, said The Professor brightly his feet making no noise on the exceptionally soft carpet as he moved over to the Dean. It was a long journey; the office was not a small one. Bring forth your knowledge, help me decide; is our Dean a benefactor or is he a sponsor of ignorance. Help me out of my quandary.

No, Wodeash, the answer is NO!

But you have not heard my case. How can you banish your lack of understanding if you do not acknowledge your ignorance.

Stop it. I know why you are here and there is no case to be made. I am not paying for you to teach a course on Quantitative Parasitology to only six students. Do you understand?

Dean, Dean, you know too much and understand too little. You were an economist in your other life, before you sacrificed all honor and became an administrator - weren’t you? But here in the real world there are six students anxious, if not desperate, to learn and understand how to save lives and succor the infected. It is a small price to pay. Give me permission to offer this course next semester and thus earn my, and their, undying gratitude.

The College cannot afford to pay you the ridiculous salary we pay you just to teach six students. It does not take a trained economist to work that one out. And, yes, I do consider myself a very good economist. It was a big sacrifice when I became Dean.

Looking round the room it was hard to see where the sacrificial part came in, but I was far to overawed to point this out.

I see you still read around the subject, laughed The Professor. During the Dean’s exasperated responses my companion had drifted over to the side table and was resting his finger firmly on two large text books. He peered at the titles. A bit simple even for you, are they not? ‘History of Banking’. Don’t you know where money came from?

I do, but our students don’t, replied the Dean with yet another frustrated sigh. He joined The Professor at the table and picked up one of the volumes. These are two textbooks being considered for adoption in our Intro course on Economics and Banking.

Then why are you looking at them, you don’t teach anything anymore?

I have been asked to pick one of them, the Dean went on, not rising to the bait. Each of these books was written by one of our own faculty members. They are both on the topic of Banking, its history, significance and modern interpretations. One is by Distinguished Professor Mowbray, and the other is by Professor Sidney Thirsk. Naturally they both want the Economics Department to choose their own book for the Intro course.

So, why is it your problem?

He breathed out slowly and expressively. The Department is evenly split. Our Curriculum Committee cannot decide and it has turned into a very divisive topic in faculty meetings. Apparently in the last meeting words became very heated and the younger faculty almost came to blows. Finally they decided not to decide and dumped the whole problem in my lap. I’m still a member of the Department of Economics and they want me to make the final choice.

That should be easy, choose the best one. Come on Charles, gird up what is left of your academic loins.

The Dean used one professionally manicured hand to pick up one of the offending volumes.

Well . . . both books are good enough for this course in many ways, and normally it would be a difficult but straightforward decision. However . . . he paused and rubbed his high forehead with the back of his other immaculate hand, . . . this time it is not so simple. After the junior faculty had examined both books, they discovered that one of these two texts contains an important error - a mistake serious enough that would automatically disqualify its choice, here at this College, or any other college.

So, just eliminate the one with the error. Isn’t it that easy?

No, its not, Wodeash, this is not science.

What is it then?

History

Ah!

Personally, at this point, I was totally confused. What had history to do with economics? But The Professor saw the problem at once. He picked up one of the two books and opened it at the sticky note that had been attached to one of the offending chapters. Adjusting his glasses so they perched on the end of his nose, he read the yellow-highlighted part puffing out bursts of air from between his pursed lips. Then, after putting down that book, picked up the competitor and after some fumbling, found the equivalent section. He puffed his way through a few lines ‘tut tutting’ as he came to the end. Pushing his glasses back into place, he put the books side-by-side on the table and looked at the tall Administrator.

Dean, he said pityingly, you have a dilemma.

At this point I made the mistake of giving a slight cough and both men suddenly remembered my presence.

Who is this? asked the Dean looking closely at me for the first time, and not particularly liking what he saw.

This is my newly arrived, very junior colleague, replied The Professor with a cheeky grin on his face, I am slowly introducing him to the various species of wildlife he will find on The Campus. He is here at my request. You will probably never meet again, so I won’t introduce you. I wanted him to see the front lines of the continuous battle between knowledge and ignorance and where all our problems start. He has never been in this office before and probably is innocent enough to believe we are all in the profession of educating the young.

Don’t start with me, Wodeash, you are not getting the extra money for your six-student course. Now, if we are finished, it has been a pleasure talking to you, get out of here and let me get back to my suffering. Goodbye, Professors.

Somehow Mrs Cluny had noiselessly appeared beside us. She took The Professor firmly by the elbow and none-to-gently guided him back outside, not stopping in her