The Black Door by Collin Wilcox Page B

I see what you mean. Please don’t worry, then.” I paused and gazed around the room: typically the co-ed’s cluttered quarters, if perhaps a little less frilly than expected. But, looking at Betty Stephenson, it was obvious she didn’t have much to be frilly about. She was one of those girls who should never wear blue jeans. Yet, probably out of a bleak obstinacy, she undoubtedly wore them constantly, derisive of the very femininity she secretly longed for.
    She pointedly glanced at her watch. I decided that, as a public figure’s daughter, she may have been brought up to despise reporters. Or maybe she had just been brought up a brat.
    So, in a businesslike voice, I said; “How long have you known Roberta Grinnel, Miss Stephenson?”
    “Almost four years. We came in as freshmen together. And we’ll”—she hesitated—“I’ll be graduated in June.” The correction didn’t seem to trouble her.
    I decided my best move was to match her own direct, almost brutal candor.
    “Did you like her, Miss Stephenson?”
    She thought about it, but only for a moment, her eyes still steadily upon my own. Then she shook her head.
    “No, I didn’t. Not very much, anyhow.”
    She seemed to be looking for a shocked response. Probably, I thought, she’d been a little girl who’d learned to get attention by shocking people at cocktail parties.
    Still pitching my voice in the flat, disinterested accents of the impersonal inquisitor, I said, “Did anyone like her?”
    “The girls, you mean?”
    I nodded. “Let’s start with the girls.”
    “Then I’d say ‘no.’ At least, I can’t think of any girl that really liked her much. And after spending four years in a place this small”—she glanced out the window resentfully—“you know almost everyone, superficially if not intimately.”
    “There are about three hundred students here,” I said, remembering Campion’s earlier dissertation on Bransten. “Is that right?”
    “Three hundred and forty-three, to be exact.”
    I wondered whether she was including Roberta Grinnel or not, but decided not to ask.
    “How would you describe Roberta Grinnel, Miss Stephenson?”
    Her gaze wandered once more to the window, as she thought about it, taking her time. I had the impression that she was organizing her thoughts, and that her response would be concise and incisive. I was right.
    “Roberta is—was—a girl who leaves you alone if you leave her alone. She’s—she was —quiet and self-controlled, but underneath it all she had a lot of aggressions, I’d say. However, she was intelligent, and polite enough, and she wasn’t petty. As a hallmate, there was nothing wrong with her. It was just that I didn’t like her type. And I felt she didn’t like me.”
    “Of course, you didn’t like her. I mean, her dislike could have been in response to your dislike.”
    She nodded. “That’s true,” she answered readily, as if she really didn’t much care.
    “What was Miss Grinnel studying; do you know?”
    “Yes. She was studying fine arts.”
    “What do you study?”
    “Psychology.”
    “Ah.” I nodded. “That explains your, ah, expert observations.”
    Showing neither surprise nor pleasure, she accepted the compliment with a slight nod.
    “Was Roberta a good artist, would you say?”
    “She was quite good. And she could’ve been a lot better, I understand, if she’d cared enough to work at it.”
    “Was she a good student otherwise? Did she get good marks?”
    Betty Stephenson shrugged. “Again, she got by. That’s all she cared about, I gather—getting by. Staying in school, so as not to cause herself any trouble.”
    “Did she have a car?”
    “Yes.”
    “A red Porsche?”
    She nodded.
    “From what you’ve said, Miss Stephenson, I gather that Miss Grinnel wasn’t a terribly feminine person. Would you agree with that?”
    She thought about it, as if interested in the question as a problem in psychology.
    “Well, she certainly wasn’t—ah—” For the