Irish Coffee by Ralph McInerny Page B

crumbled under the pressure.”
    â€œSuicide?” Griselda whispered the word.
    Mary sobbed. “Worse than having him gone is the thought that I should have done something to prevent it.”
    â€œYou had no inkling?”
    â€œOnly in retrospect. But not at the time.” She wiped her eyes. “He had an older sister who died in mysterious circumstances. Perhaps she was a suicide too.”
    Griselda almost wished she hadn’t come but of course what she really wished was that what she had heard could not be so.

5
    IN 1963 WHEN WHAT WAS then called the Memorial Library was opened—only later was it named after the longtime president of the university, Father Theodore Hesburgh—the university archives had been assigned the sixth floor, a space that had seemed ample at the time. But the accumulation of archival materials, plus the exponential increase in the number of volumes that caused the library to covet the space, seemed to make it inevitable that someday new quarters would have to be found for the archives. But crowded though it was, and accessible by way of an unassuming single door just to the right of the elevators, those who worked there had come to cherish their working conditions, and none more so than Greg Whelan. Of course the jammed condition made it difficult to accommodate such visitors as Roger Knight, but then Roger presented a problem wherever he went.
    On the afternoon of the funeral, Greg had commandeered one of the rooms in the archives set aside for visiting scholars, and it was there behind a closed door that he and Roger discussed the strange passing of their mutual friend, Fred Neville.
    â€œThere seem to be two young ladies who expected Fred to marry them,” Roger said.
    â€œI never noticed anything between Fred and Mary.”
    â€œHow often did we see them together?”
    â€œNot often.”
    â€œAlmost never, Greg. But Griselda led me to believe that at the Joyce Center the two of them were what gossip columnists call an item.”
    â€œIt’s odd how the meaning of that word developed.”
    â€œWhich one?”
    â€œ Item . Literally, it means again . In lists it prefaced different points, functioning much like a , b , c . Then it came to mean the contents of what it introduced. So what was listed became an item.”
    Roger listened with pleasure. He always came away from a visit with Greg with some, well, item of information which, whether it came as complete news or not, was welcome. Silently, he shared Greg’s delight that with Roger he could be fluent, no trace of his stammer. His little linguistic aside was preparatory to what they had meant to discuss.
    â€œAt first it was possible to imagine that Mary had merely imagined her liaison with Fred. Not so, if Griselda is right, as I’m sure she is.”
    â€œBut wearing black!”
    â€œHer mother knew nothing of it either, Greg.”
    â€œOf what?”
    â€œThe fact that Mary and Fred intended to marry.”
    â€œThat doesn’t seem like a motive for suicide,” Greg said, with a sly smile. Among bachelors a certain amount of misogyny is de rigueur.
    â€œBut it is Naomi McTear who has a diamond ring and who is accepted by the Nevilles as their future daughter-in-law.”
    â€œShe looks like a tough cookie.”
    â€œA liberated woman?”
    â€œEnslaved by her job. I don’t know what Fred saw in her.”
    â€œPhil says she is stunning.”
    â€œSo is novocaine.”
    â€œPhil knows such things.”
    A moment of silence during which the two seemed to acknowledge that they did not.
    Greg said, “I had the feeling that Mrs. Shuster was measuring Phil for the role of son-in-law.”
    â€œAfter she saw I wouldn’t do.”
    â€œReally?”
    â€œPhil says so.”
    The ensuing silence lasted more than a minute. Greg seemed to decide that there was no adequate comment he could make.
    â€œFred came here a