2004-11-19 A clue in the words of a dying man

I recommend the unabridged audio recording by Robin Bailey to anyone who's interested; he's a great narrator, and his recordings of various adventures of Inspector Sloan have all been excellent.

The University of Calleshire at the beginning of the fall term is a mass of discontent, among students and professors alike. The students' Direct Action Committee is incensed that Malcolm Humbert was expelled - and they want to use him as an excuse for a sit-in, to lure the University administrators into suing Humbert for trespass. The few sitters-out are grousing about their holiday jobs - particularly the ecology students, who had a massive amount of holiday work. As for the faculty, Hilda Linnaker (English literature) is melancholy that her magnum opus on Jane Austen is nearly finished, marking her upcoming retirement, Bernard Watkinson (History) is grumpy about putting up with female students, while Simon Mautby (ecology) is in one of his usual volcanic outbursts over the unavailability of good lab help to look after his animals so he can get away.

The administrators' determination not to get the police involved with the upcoming sit-in is matched only by Superintendent Leeyes' resolution not to entangle the Berebury force in it. Unfortunately, Sloan and Crosby are called out to investigate a burglary - Colin Ellison, rising star in ecology, suffered the loss of his holiday essay and notes, together with the trashing of his room, the day before it was due. And on the day itself - the first night of the sit-in - another young ecologist, Henry Moleyns, is found stabbed, very professionally, leaving only the mysterious last words "twenty-six minutes".

Are the theft and the murder connected? Why would anyone kill a penniless ecology student, fresh back from a bicycle tour of Europe? Why did Moleyns have a falling out with the committee and refuse to go near the sit-in - what happened to him over the summer, and where did he go? Then a second murder takes place, suggesting a possible motive - but for whom?

And what does "twenty-six minutes" *mean*, anyway?

This story is both a completely fair puzzle, and a very good story. As a subordinate thread in the narrative, we're kept up to date on Sloan's private life - he and his wife are expecting their first child, and it's affecting his brain. :) The child's birth occurs in SOME DIE ELOQUENT, if you're interested. Crosby, his assistant, gets a little respect for something other than driving, for once, as he unearths some interesting evidence, and lack thereof, while searching various rooms at the university.