Murder Your Employer by Rupert Holmes

Author:Rupert Holmes
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Avid Reader Press / Simon & Schuster
Published: 2023-02-21T00:00:00+00:00

XXII

The conference room at Slippery Elms had once served as Guy McMaster’s library, reached via the formal staircase in the Grand Reception Hall. At the top of the stairs to the left, one enters an extremely wide anteroom whose glass-enclosed shelves are host to a staggering display of rare bindings and first editions. It was a priceless collection, literally speaking, for none of the books had ever been purchased; rather, they’d all been hand-selected by Guy McMaster himself from the libraries of stately homes where he’d been a delightful houseguest.

The anteroom also serves as an aural buffer zone for the boardroom beyond it, preventing those walking in the hallway from overhearing the oft-heated conversations when Dean Harbinger Harrow crosses daggers with Assistant Dean Erma Daimler, who believed that removing the word “assistant” from her title would be one of McMasters’ most worthy deletions.

“Gemma needs another term, at the very least,” Dean Harrow quietly protested.

“Then you pay for it,” instructed Erma Daimler who, like the other members of the review board, was enthroned in one of a dozen deep-buttoned leather chairs around the Norman banqueting table of the original dining hall at Oxbane. The operation of McMasters was an ongoing debate between the two, Dean Harrow’s viewpoint being philosophical and artistic, Daimler’s economical and pragmatic. “I dislike hypocrisy, Harbinger. It’s all very well to shroud our purpose in cozy euphemisms and plush surroundings, but McMasters is a business.”

“I prefer to think of it as a way of life. And death, of course,” said the dean.

Coach Alwyn Tarcott murmured to Captain Dobson. “And we’re off.”

Daimler responded, “It could yield more profit if it were run in a sensible and less sentimental way. Our housing is strained at the seams, or haven’t you noticed? Imagine tripling the school’s revenue while modestly lowering tuition. The average student stay is two or three semesters. I’d reduce that to six weeks, in and out, in an accelerated program.”

The dean laughed. “I can’t make anyone a well-rounded deletist in that brief a time.”

“They don’t have to be well-rounded!” Erma retorted. “We’re wasting their time teaching them how to poison potato salad or boobytrap a power mower when all they really want to know is how best to press a pillow against their aunt Pilar or wreak vengeance on the swine who stood them up at their senior prom. They should tell us whom they wish to delete, we should tell them how to do it, cue ‘Pomp and Circumstance,’ and next please!”

“You overlook one minor snare,” advised Harrow.

Professor Graves pushed a thatch of hair away from his eyes, knowing the dean used that expression when an opponent had the dean precisely where the dean wanted them. With keen interest, Graves dryly inquired, “Pray, what would that snare be, sir?”

The dean answered with an eye on Erma Daimler. “If a history teacher tutors you on the Spanish Inquisition and its torture devices, and you then go out and perforate your best buddy in a homemade iron maiden, that is not the teacher’s fault.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.