The Union Club Mysteries Read Online Free PDF Page A

and then allowed his eyes to close.
    Baranov leaned over and quietly removed the glass of scotch from Griswold's hand. His eyes opened at once, and he said, "Hey, put that drink back."
    "First," said Baranov, "how did you find out who the riot leader was?"
    Griswold said, "Oh, you didn't get it? You surprise me! The librarian said, 'It was Greek to me' with emphasis. He was a reader, and it so happens the expression is a quotation. It is not an age-old common saying whose origins are lost in mystery. The phrase is Shakespeare's, no less, and is to be found in the play Julius Caesar. One of the conspirators describes a political rally at which Cicero spoke in Greek. When asked what Cicero had said, the character said he didn't know, adding, 'those that understood him smil'd at one another and shook their heads; but for mine own part, it was Greek to me.'"
    "So?" asked Jennings.
    "So, the conspirator who made that statement in the play was Casca, and it occurred to me that if I looked through the roster of prisoners' names, I might find one that resembled Casca, or, possibly, Cicero. On the roster was one Benny W. Kasker who, I was told upon inquiry, was intelligent, unscrupulous and in for life. I felt that he might very well be the one—and he was."

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A Clear Shot
    I suppose everyone talks about terrorism these days, even in the august and untouchable interior of the Union Club. It was not really a surprise, then, that Jennings went on for some five emotional minutes about the dangers we all ran because there was no rational pattern to terrorist attacks.
    Baranov said, finally, when Jennings ran down, "Come, come, old man. Lightning does not strike the valleys. Not one of us is important enough to make a fair target."
    "Sometimes they're chosen at random," I said. "That's Jennings's point."
    Baranov snorted. "Automobile accidents can strike at anyone, too, but I don't notice people going into blue funks over it. You just do your best."
    It was at this moment that Griswold stirred. The first sign was the clinking of the ice in his scotch and soda, and then he opened one eye and puffed out his magnificent white mustache.
    "It may be," he said, "that lightning doesn't strike the valleys" (It always amazed us that he heard every word we said even when he was sound asleep, or appeared to be.) "and you three may be safe, but I was the subject of a terrorist threat at one time. It was back in 1969—"
    I quickly said, "I believe they're featuring poached salmon for dinner tonight—" but both of Griswold's eyes were open now and they pinned us to the wall like blue icicles.

    *        *        *

    It was back in 1969 [said Griswold], and that was a bad year for prominent Americans. Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr. had been gunned down not long before, and I rather suspected I might be next. I had been engaged in matters I am still not at liberty to discuss, but, of course, secrets are never absolute, and I had made enemies.
    Add to that the unrest on American campuses and anyone could clearly see that matters were rising to a scream. In May of that year, I was up for an honorary degree at a college in Connecticut—I forget the name, for all that nonsense seems to melt together in my mind, but I believe the degree that time was a doctorate in Humane Letters.
    Two days before the ceremony, however, the president of the college received an anonymous communication to the effect that my honorary degree must be canceled forthwith because of my nefarious activities in Vietnam. If it were not canceled and if I appeared at the commencement, I would be killed. The letter said, for I remember the exact words, "If the commencement features this monster, nothing will prevent me from getting him in my sights and getting off a clear shot."
    Still, the person making the threat claimed to be as humane as the Letters with which I was to be honored, for he assured the president that no one else would be harmed,