Hawthorne felt that Pendergast was lying. The realization led him to recall Mrs. Hayes’s remark that the former headmaster wasn’t a nice man, especially after his wife died. And she had spoken of his vanity, that he had tinted his hair and worried about his figure. Hawthorne glanced at Kate, who was unbuttoning her jacket. Her head was tilted and she seemed to be listening to Pendergast with all the care that she might listen to someone speaking in a language she barely understood.

“Did Fritz Skander put any pressure on you?” asked Hawthorne.

“Why on earth would he have done that? Has Fritz been saying anything about me?”

“You resigned in early December. I’m trying to understand why.”

Pendergast’s red face grew a little redder and he stuck out his lower lip. “I’m not quite sure where you are going with this, Mr. Hawthorne, nor do I welcome it.”

On impulse, Hawthorne asked, “Can you tell me about Gail Jensen?”

“What was the name again?”

“Gail Jensen—she died two weeks before you resigned.”

“Yes, yes, I do remember something,” said Pendergast. “A student, isn’t that correct? She died of a burst appendix . . .” He stood very still as his eyes moved back and forth between Hawthorne and Kate. The sound of Christmas music could faintly be heard through the window.

“She helped out in your office,” said Hawthorne. “You must have seen her every day.” He didn’t understand why Pendergast wasn’t telling the truth.

Pendergast spoke quickly. “Hardly that, and it doesn’t mean I had anything to do with her. I don’t care what Fritz told you.”

There was a pause as they looked at each other.

“Why should Fritz have said anything about Gail Jensen?” asked Kate. Hawthorne noticed the chill in her voice.

“I don’t mean just about her. Why should he talk about me at all? The girl was just someone who occasionally worked in the office. There were several students who did.”

Hawthorne again thought about Mrs. Hayes’s unwillingness to talk about the ex-headmaster. He decided to bluff a little. “That’s not what Mrs. Hayes told me. Let me use your phone and I’ll give her a call.”

Pendergast stood as if rooted to the floor. Hawthorne watched different emotions pass across his face: anger, fear, despair.

“You’re trying to trap me.”

“I think you’ve trapped yourself,” said Hawthorne. “You made her pregnant.” Glancing at Kate, he knew that she had reached the same conclusion.

Pendergast made one last attempt at indignation. “You got the whole thing from Fritz, didn’t you? You’ve been leading me on.”

“She had an abortion and died. For Christ’s sake, she was only fifteen!” Hawthorne paused. “Shortly after that, you resigned. I expect you were forced to resign.”

Pendergast moved to his desk and stood with his back to Hawthorne and Kate. His gray tweed jacket had flecks of blue and purple. He put his hands on the edge of his desk and leaned forward as if resting. Then he turned back to Hawthorne. “What if I deny it?”

Kate spoke up first. “Then we’ll go to the police.”

Nodding, Pendergast raised a hand and rubbed his forehead. “Oddly enough, I’ve been expecting a visit like this ever since I left Bishop’s Hill, but I thought it would be someone wanting money.”

“I want to know what happened,” said Hawthorne.

Now that what he had done was out in the open, Pendergast began to relax. He raised a shoulder, then let it drop. “One thing just led to another. She’d been doing work in the office. One night I got her to stay late. We’d been a little chummy all along. My wife had died, I don’t know . . .” He seemed ready to excuse himself, then changed his mind. “I had sex with her once. She wasn’t a virgin, I can tell you that much. Anyway, she got pregnant. She told me I was the father. Of course I had no idea if it was true or false, but I found her a doctor. She told him that the father was a boy her own age. She was frightened that her parents would find out. You have to believe me, I was devastated when she died. Fritz knew about it. He always knew about everything. And a few other people suspected. Fritz said that if I resigned, he’d keep quiet and make certain it went no farther.”

“Aren’t you trying to shift the blame?” said Kate, still with the anger in her voice.

“I’ve no excuse for what I did,” Pendergast said wearily, “but Skander’s no angel. He and Roger Bennett had plenty of little tricks.”

“Like what?” asked Hawthorne.

“Fritz was bursar—I guess he’s still bursar unless you’ve fired him. I was sure he’d been embezzling money. Not much. A few hundred here and there. Then in my last year he and Roger hit upon a particularly lucrative scheme. They pretended that we had one less student than we actually had, which meant the boy’s tuition went into their pockets.”

“How do you know this?” asked Kate.

“I was rather inattentive toward the end. It made them greedy. Actually, it was Mrs. Hayes who asked if there hadn’t been a mistake in the figures. I confronted Fritz and he tried to blame Roger. Finally, they both admitted it.” Pendergast held out his hands as if offering Hawthorne their very emptiness. “Sad to say, I had far more to lose. The Jensen girl had died and I was in no position to stand up to them. So we forgave each other, as it were. I took my retirement and departed.”

“What was the student’s name?” asked Hawthorne.

“Peter Roberts. He was a freshman. As far as I know, he’s still there. And they might have had other hidden students, unless your presence scared them.”

Hawthorne wondered whether Pendergast was just trying to get even for what he believed was Skander’s betrayal. Then he thought of the trombone, a missing computer, a slide projector that had been ordered but had never arrived, the peculiar billing of his chair, the uncertainty about Chip Campbell’s salary. And there was more—a variety of apparent oversights and clerical errors.

“And no one suspected?” asked Hawthorne.

“Fritz handled the books and he did it with a certain casualness, an affable sloppiness that was very cunning. He could conceal a lot. And the embezzlement, if it was discovered, he could blame on a sort of harmless negligence. But this business of hiding students could send him and Bennett straight to jail.”

“What you did was even worse,” said Kate, her voice rising. “It was statutory rape and the girl died.”

“That’s perfectly true, young lady. It was a criminal act, and I feel terrible about it. But imagine what would happen if it became public. Charges and countercharges. The Boston papers would have a field day. Everyone’s reputation would be tarnished, even your own. Who knows who would wind up in court, or if the school could remain open.” Although Pendergast remained watchful, he began to recover a bit of his former heartiness. He moved around his desk, opened a drawer, and took out a bottle of Martell cognac. He held it toward Hawthorne and Kate. The color was returning to his face. “I find these discussions utterly exhausting,” he said. “Like a snoot?”

—

When Hawthorne and Kate got back to Bishop’s Hill about two-thirty, Hawthorne wanted to see Skander right away. But Kate said he should wait. Hawthorne was angry and he needed time to calm himself. They had talked about Pendergast’s accusations all the way back from Vermont: whether they were true, whether they were exaggerated, whether they were even worse than Pendergast had said. Hawthorne hadn’t recognized the name Peter Roberts; Kate found it familiar. Not only did Hawthorne feel betrayed by Skander, he felt he had been made a fool of.

They were standing in the parking lot by Kate’s small green Honda. The sky was overcast and it seemed to be already getting dark. “I’m as upset as you are,” Kate said. “They should all be in jail. Not just Pendergast—Fritz and Roger, too, if he’s telling the truth. But it makes more sense to wait till you have enough to take to the police. You don’t know what Skander might do if you frighten him.”