Abstract:
The unpopular dean of a small college in Oregon dies, perhaps of a coronary, perhaps by poison, and if by the latter perhaps by accident or perhaps by homicide. The professor of philosophy settles for homicide and assumes the role of sleuth, whose findings are corrected by Ferguson, a professor English, scruffy, ill mannered, ironic, and contemptuous of practically everybody, but our hero, and described by a colleague, a senior member of the faculty and one whom we can trust, as the finest human being he has ever met. Ferguson points the finger at all his potentially guilty colleagues before identifying the actual culprit.