The Union Club Mysteries Read Online Free PDF Page B

hoping to catch the young hopefuls at the moment of diploma presentation or snapping the academic procession. A few even took photos of me, lured, I suppose, by the majesty of my countenance.
    The president, I couldn't help but notice, left an unusually large gap between us. He was thinking, I know, of someone with a rifle and he didn't want to become the well-known innocent bystander.
    From the platform, I looked over the audience. I was more than ever confident that no one would shoot from the stands, or succeed in getting 'a clear shot,' as he called it, if he tried. If someone tried to aim a rifle, it would have to be from some secluded spot where the aiming could be in leisurely and uninterrupted tranquility—as in Oswald's case.
    I looked for windows that overlooked the platform, but there were none. The platform was blocked off behind and above and, to some extent, on the sides. Before us were the people out to the wall of the stadium and beyond that nothing but blue sky.
    In the foreground there were marshals and photographers and newspapermen introducing a note of scurry and incoherence. That was all right, for one of the photographers was really one of my men who knew what to watch for, and whom I didn't want noticed. And somewhere around the stands were the guards whom the president had set up and whom / had not noticed.
    The president spoke; a minister invoked the blessing of the deity; one of the students gave a short speech in an embarrassed tone; then I rose while the president read an encomium that was supposed to justify my honorary degree. With the adjectives done, a hood was placed over my head and all retreated from me, leaving me alone at the podium to give my twenty-minute address.
    This was it. If the prospective assassin were really serious about killing me, and if he were also serious about doing no harm to anyone else, this was the time. I was alone—or at least more alone than anyone else would be at any time during the ceremonies. There were twenty others on the platform, but they were well behind me and were sitting down. A bullet that was fired at my head, for instance, would strike nothing if it missed me.
    And I would have to count on the miss now or, better yet, on stopping the act before it could be performed.
    The manuscript with my speech was in front of me, but I was going to have to improvise, for I was going to have to watch what went on before me. I couldn't help but sweep the stands as I began my address, but that was foolish. I was not likely to make out anything important at that distance and by the time I heard the crack of the rifle across the field the bullet would be in me.
    Leave that part to the guards! I would concentrate on what went on immediately before me. I trusted my friend, whom I noticed at one side, but two sets of eyes are better than one.
    "Let us welcome the fact," I was saying with studied eloquence, "that it is not to a life of ignoble ease that the world of today is calling us; that the strife and controversy we now find ourselves surrounded by asks of us that we—"
    It was just as I spoke of strife and controversy that I spotted the assassin and my assistant did the same. He did not need my signal but had already moved in.
    The assassin was blocked so neatly and led off the field so quietly, that I doubt if even the president noticed. I finished my speech with coolness and aplomb, and I had the satisfaction of knowing that the president marveled at my self-possession in the face of danger. It was only afterward that he was told that the danger had been taken care of.
    But meanwhile I had to sit there and endure the interminable handing out of degrees that followed. It was all very dull—very—
    Griswold's glass was empty by then so we had no compunction in shaking him awake.
    "How did you see the rifleman?" I demanded irritably. "Where was he? How did he smuggle the rifle onto the field and what gave him away?"
    Griswold seemed to gather his wits with