Emerald Aisle by Ralph M. McInerny Page A

taken.”
    â€œIs your library insured?”
    Incredibly, it was not. “No money could compensate for the loss of the collection. I could not replace it. I entrust it to Providence.”
    â€œGod permits evil to happen,” Roger said.
    Primero nodded, as if this was an endorsement of his views.
    Phil advised Primero to change the locks on the doors of the Lake of the Isles home. Primero understood immediately and
clearly accepted the implied accusation. Roger and Philip flew home first class to Chicago and took a commuter to South Bend. Phil had the sense of being toyed with. He had grown skeptical that a theft had occurred, a real theft.
    â€œCan a wife steal from her husband?”
    â€œIt doesn’t matter if he chooses not to bring in the police.”
    The day after their return, Roger gave Father Carmody a report of what had transpired in the Twin Cities.
    â€œA woman scorned?” Father Carmody asked.
    â€œBoth Primeros said they had no children.”
    â€œNone living,” the priest said.
    â€œAh.”
    A son had died while Joseph was in the navy. Roger had the sense that they blamed one another for the loss. It seemed significant that she had referred to his books as her husband’s children.
    â€œHe never got over it,” the priest said. “Neither of them did.”

9
    A MYSTERIOUS PACKAGE ARRIVED at the Notre Dame Archives, brought by Federal Express, and Greg Whelan signed for it. What is more enticing than a newly arrived package, its contents undisclosed and mysterious? Greg lifted the cardboard container in his hands as on a scale; it was not light though not as heavy as he might have wished, whatever it contained. He shook it, carefully, but no sound fed his excited imagination. He got up from his desk and closed the door of his office.
    The sender was Primero and although the package was not addressed to him, simply to “Archives, Notre Dame, Indiana.” Greg worked in the Archives. He was, in fact, assistant director, but this was a title held by several others as well. One of the sacred perks of the director was to open or supervise the opening of any such package as this, and Wendy was rightly jealous of her prerogatives. As it happened she was at the moment enjoying a long lunch in the University Club, trying to get a clearer picture of the future location of the Archives from an enigmatic administrator. In the circumstances, it seemed to Greg Whelan that he had not only a right but an obligation to open the package.
    When he had done so, slowly, following the instructions on the colorful container, and got his first glimpse of the contents, he rose as if in reverence. Was it possible? He slid the ancient pages from the container onto his desk, and there before his eyes were holograph letters written by Cardinal Newman himself. More accurately
the drafts of which fair copies had been sent. Without touching them, using the eraser ends of several pencils as instruments, he arranged them on his desk and stared down reverently at the handwriting of John Henry Cardinal Newman. It was a breathless moment. He was suddenly filled with that feeling captured in the scholastic maxim bonum est diffusivum sui. He wanted to share the moment, let other eyes than his own enjoy the vision of this treasure that had dropped unexpectedly from the sky. A fellow worker in the Archives? He shook the thought away as he reached for the phone. Who better than Roger Knight could appreciate what had arrived at the Archives?
    Roger did not answer his office phone, and Greg chose not to leave a recorded message. He called the apartment of the Knight brothers and was told by Philip that Roger was on campus. Despite the difficulty with which he got around, Roger could be anywhere. And then, scarcely believing his ears, he heard Roger’s voice outside his door. He sprang across the office and pulled open his door, startling Roger Knight who was about to knock.
    â€œI have been