The Theban Mysteries Read Online Free PDF

“This is Miss Strikeland, who stands between us and the great outside world.”
    “How do you do,” Kate said, to be interrupted by the switchboard.
    “The Theban School,” Miss Strikeland chirped; “certainly, just a moment please.” She plunged in a plug with one hand, beckoning to Anne with the other. Anne moved in closer.
    “He’s here again,” Miss Strikeland whispered.
    “Who?”
    “That man. Walking around over there. It’s the second or third time he’s come.” Cautiously, Kate and Anne followed her glance, but the man had his profile to them and could be examined freely. He looked in his early seventies, impeccably dressed. He held his hat in his hand and gazed about him exactly as though he were in a museum he had come miles to visit. Certainly there wasn’t much to gaze at—the occasional girl dashing through the lobby, the people who entered and came to Miss Strikeland’s window for information, the members of the staff on their way to the staff lounge or one of the offices. Yet the elderly man seemed to study it all as though, as Ophelia said of Hamlet, he would draw it.
    “How odd,” Anne said. “He
looks
harmless enough. Have you asked him what he wants?”
    “He says he just wants to look around. I pointed out that this was a school—after all, there isn’t a sign outside and sometimes people don’t know. He said he knew it was a school, the Theban School, and that’s why he wanted to look around. He hoped I would be kind enough to allow him to do so. I told him he couldn’t go upstairs, and he said he wouldn’t. Last time he sat down on a bench and watched the girls leaving—he sat there for several hours.”
    “Miss Strikeland,” Anne said, “do you suspect him of being a dirty old man?”
    “Well, he doesn’t look like it, does he? I’ve kept a pretty close eye on him. All the same, it’s worrying.”
    “He’s going,” Kate said.
    “So he is. Well,” Anne said, “if he comes again, Miss Strikeland, you’d better let someone know. Miss Freund, for instance; she’s good at this sort of problem.”
    “You’re right,” Miss Strikeland said. “Welcome to the Theban, Miss Fansler. Sorry to be so distracted.”
    “The same Miss Freund as in my day?” Kate asked. “Admissions, excuses, and frantic receiver of appeals for carfare?”
    “The same. Except now she also handles bus passes, and is on very chummy terms with the local police precinct.”
    “Because of the boys in the gym?” Kate asked, following Anne back to the stairs.
    “No. Because sometimes the girls no sooner poke their little noses outside the door than they are set on by gangs of kids—lower-class gangs, though it doesn’t do to say so. But they taunt the Theban girls with being rich, so one rather gathers that’s the point. After several hysterical parents’ meetings, we nowhave a standard operating procedure. One of the girls returns immediately to the school and Miss Freund gets in touch with her policemen buddies. The girls are asked to report if they’re molested on the buses or anywhere else. It’s hard, really, to expect them to be simple and innocent in a world that’s so criminal and brutal. Well,” she added, pushing open a door and leading the way into a lunchroom where the din was so intense it struck one with palpable force, “How about lunch? I never know whether a tour like this sharpens the appetite or kills it. Good, I see Mrs. Banister. Shall we go and chat about dramatics at the Theban? Needless to say, we haven’t even mentioned the problems of literature and seminars, except for the intrusion of that unfortunate poem. You aren’t brooding, are you?”
    “No more than is good for me.”
    “Splendid. Then sit down and introduce yourself, and I’ll get you some lunch. It’s either tuna-fish sandwich or chicken à la king. I recommend tuna fish.”
    Mrs. Banister proved to be a tiny woman of enormous vivacity and emphatic views which she enunciated with vigor and