"Karoly had been here about four years when he suddenly dropped dead of a heart attack, and Riley produced a holographic will. In French, of course, but properly notarized and witnessed. Reduced to its simplest elements, it said he was leaving everything to Riley Quinn to do with as Quinn saw fit. There was one curious phrase: he wrote that he knew Quinn would do all that was 'juste et humain' with his paintings. There were no relatives here to contest the will, so it was probated without a hitch.

"Since then Janos Karoly's reputation has got bigger every year. Riley had a genius for fanning the flames just enough. He donated three paintings to the Museum of Modern Art on condition that at least one be displayed at all times, or the gift would be revoked. That was to keep them in the public eye. Then he'd lend three or four to an exhibition here to see that they were mentioned in an important article there. He was chary about selling them, but whenever he let one go, it always brought the full asking price.

"The one thing he didn't do was let anyone touch Karoly's notebooks. Shortly after Karoly's death he'd started translating them for publication-he read French very fluently-but he complained to me once that every time Karoly seemed to be getting to the heart of a problem, he'd switch to Hungarian. Naturally I suggested getting someone to translate those passages, but he mumbled some excuse, and that was the last time he ever mentioned the notebooks willingly. He'd always change the subject if they came up."

"Where does Mike Szabo come in?" Sigrid asked as he paused to refill his coffee cup and hers from the thick earthenware pot on their table.

"That started about a year and a half ago. The Klaustadt Gallery owned a couple of Karoly's paintings, which they'd bought from Riley, and they wanted to do a retrospective. Riley made the mistake of agreeing. The show was stunning. No other word for it. It was the first time that many of Karoly's later paintings had been seen together, and they captivated the public's fancy. Inevitable, I suppose. The colors were so entrancing, and they were representational enough to be understood by most people, including the sector that usually professes itself indifferent to art."

Sigrid ignored the barb.

"The exhibition attracted wide coverage-from all the art journals and even from newsmagazines and television. Somebody vstarted calling Karoly the 'Hungarian Picasso', which showed an abysmal ignorance of both artists; but it stuck. About a week after that, Mike Szabo turned up at the Klaustadt and demanded to know who had stolen his uncle's paintings. Created quite a scene." Nauman grinned, recalling accounts of that laborer's eruption into Klaustadt's elegant premises, how in three or four broken languages he had called them all thieves and swindlers loudly, indignantly and at great length.

"They bundled him into a back room and sent for Riley in a hurry. Riley accused him of being an impostor at first, but he had papers and letters that proved he was definitely the only son of Janos Karoly's only sister. She'd been much younger than Karoly, and they hadn't seen each other in years; but when he fled Hungary, he'd smuggled a letter back to her, which promised that he wouldn't forget her or her son. Szabo found it among her papers after her death in '67 and immediately scurried off to Italy, but he couldn't find anyone who'd ever heard of Janos Karoly. I gather he wasn't particularly disappointed. Art in the abstract doesn't seem to appeal to him too much. He'd drifted around Europe for awhile and finally wound up in Pittsburgh in the early seventies, living on the fringes of the Hungarian community there, working odd jobs and making just enough to get by. Nobody in that crowd gave a damn about art, either; but once the news media started giving so much space to their 'Hungarian Picasso', someone mentioned it in Szabo's presence, and it sank in.

"Legally he didn't have a leg to stand on, but Quinn tried to stop it quickly and gave him five thousand dollars outright."

"Plus a one-way ticket back to Pittsburgh?" Sigrid asked dryly.

Nauman shook his head. "Riley was more thorough than that. The ticket was for Budapest with the promise of another five thousand when he arrived."

"I'm surprised Szabo didn't take it. Ten thousand must have seemed like a lot of money to an odd-jobber."

"Oh, he was tempted," Nauman conceded, "but Piers Leyden deflected him and helped him resist. Leyden was at the Klaustadt the next day, heard the whole story and saw an irresistible chance tot weak Riley's nose. He told Szabo that Riley wouldn't have given him a dime if he didn't have a guilty conscience, and that ten thousand was a pittance compared to the true worth of his uncle's paintings. Szabo was only too willing to believe it; but what could he do?"

" Leyden was no doubt full of suggestions," Sigrid said. She had taken the neo-realist's measure.

"Dozens," Nauman agreed. "For openers he advised Szabo to take the first five thousand and cash in the plane ticket. Then he got Szabo a job raking leaves and shifting furniture with Buildings and Grounds. Szabo hired a lawyer, but Karoly's will was too explicit-'everything to Riley Quinn' in black and white."

"Couldn't the lawyer make anything out of that 'juste et humain' phrase?"

"Too nebulous."

Sigrid set down her coffee mug and said reflectively, "Szabo must have been a constant embarrassment to Professor Quinn. If it were Leyden who'd been poisoned, I know who my chief suspect would be."

"Don't be too sure," Nauman said lightly.

" Leyden 's addicted to practical jokes, and Riley wasn't his only victim."

Returning to her original point, Sigrid said, "You say Szabo was too emotional to poison Quinn, but what if it were something unplanned, a spur-of-the-moment yielding to temptation when he found himself alone with Quinn's coffee?"

"When was he alone with it? There were still three other cups on that tray-mine, Sandy's and Vance's. And potassium dichromate's not something you walk around with in your pocket, is it?"

"The grounds people must have duplicates of all the keys, and he'd certainly have access to them," Sigrid pointed out reasonably, "but I suppose he couldn't have known the coffee routine any better than Harley Harris did."

"No, it couldn't have been Harris, either," said Nauman.

Was there regret in his tone, wondered Sigrid.

"Nor Sandy."

"Why not?" she asked coldly. "Are pretty little blond secretaries automatically exempt?"

A flicker of amusement touched Nauman's lips as he noted her acerbic tone. "No motive. She and young Wade are getting married sometime this summer; going off to Idaho in September. She liked Simpson better than Riley, but I can't see her killing Riley so his job could be a going-away present for Bert Simpson. If he even wants it. He's turned the deputy chairmanship down once before, you know."

Something niggled in the corner of his mind.

"What is it?" she asked alertly.

Nauman shook his head. "It's gone now."

"Something to do with Simpson or Sandy Keppler? Or what about David Wade? Could Quinn have hurt him in any way? Maybe written a nasty letter of recommendation?"

Again Nauman shook his head but less decisively. "No, Riley actually wrote a very flattering letter. Or rather, he told Sandy what to say and then signed it. Riley did run the art history side of the department, and theoretically David Wade was answerable to him; but in practice they had almost nothing to do with each other. As long as the young lecturers taught their classes competently, Riley left them alone. And Simpson, not Riley, was Wade's dissertation advisor, so there'd be no conflict in that area."

Again something niggled just below the surface of his consciousness, but this time Nauman ignored it and signaled for their bill.