Wolfe and Benjamin sat on the same bench in the quad, beneath the giant sycamore tree, where'd they been only a day before. Now, however, instead of the bright afternoon sun scattering light across the tops of trees spread out across the low hills beyond the Foundation grounds, it was late evening. The first stars were beginning to appear in the deep purple western sky, and there was a nip in the air that had caused Benjamin to turn up the collar of his jacket.
They'd arrived at the bench after a long walk around the Foundation's grounds; a walk that had seen Wolfe remain almost completely silent and deep in thought; a walk that had followed their very brief appearance in the dining hall.
And Benjamin had felt it was just that: an appearance. As though Wolfe wanted them there for everyone to see, chatty and happy, exchanging hellos with some and a few quiet words of grief over Edith's death with others.
Benjamin had seen Gudrun there, sitting at a table with Stoltz. She'd waved him over, but Wolfe had subtly if forcefully steered him toward another table, with Arthur Terrill and George Montrose. Once seated and with an entree before them, Wolfe had very skillfully kept the conversation to neutral topics: the grandeur of the Morris Estate, the tragedy of Edith's accident. And as soon as the coffee had been served, Wolfe had risen to excuse himself and Benjamin.
"We've still got some tidying up to do," he said, "and we'd best get to it before it gets too late, especially if the police will be here in the morning."
Benjamin said good night to Terrill and Montrose, even as Wolfe was practically dragging him out of the dining hall and into the chill air of the quad outside. But then, instead of explaining his silence during dinner or his haste to leave when it was over, Wolfe had simply led him on their walkabout of the grounds.
Benjamin noticed that they seemed to circumnavigate the area, taking the outmost pathways; in several places Wolfe had left the path to walk toward copses of trees, in some cases only a dozen yards or so from the surrounding fence.
Eventually they found themselves back in the quad, sitting on the bench beneath the sycamore.
And finally Wolfe broke his long silence.
"I'm afraid, Benjamin," he said, sounding quite serious and without any of his usual glib undertones, "perhaps I should have let Arthur give you that severance pay and let you go."
"If you're worried about my talking with Gudrun again…"
Wolfe shook his head. "Look, Benjamin, I said the Foundation had influence. Perhaps I should have used the word 'power'-though in Washington, the first is the most effective expression of the second." Wolfe thought again for a moment, continued, again with a deadly serious tone.
"Most citizens of this country don't realize how our modern government functions, which is only on the advice and counsel of thousands of technical experts, like these." He waved a hand around the Foundation's grounds. "If there's need for a new telecommunications bill, or energy policy, or foreign policy, who do you think plots that all out? All the technical details, the intricacies? Do you think your average senator is up to that task? They're lawyers, for the most part, not technocrats. And half the time they're out raising money to remain senators. So by and large such laws and policies are written by people like these, here at the Foundation. People like your new friend, Gudrun, for instance."
He stood and put his hands in his pockets, apparently against the cold air, then looked down at Benjamin and continued.
"These are ideologues of the first order, Benjamin. People who are absolutely convinced they are right. And they will do any and everything necessary to exercise their… rightness."
Benjamin realized this was the most impassioned speech he'd heard from Wolfe since he'd met him.
"So you're telling me the Foundation is a sort of… shadow government."
Wolfe sat back down on the bench, sighed. "Whatever you choose to call them, they have enormous power. And they are very protective about that power. Very protective."
"Which is why Arthur is so worried that Fletcher might have shared his work before his heart attack?"
"Heart attack?" Wolfe smiled grimly. "Are we still calling it that?"
Benjamin sighed. "I suppose not." He shook his head sadly. "When I said earlier you were conducting this like you were investigating a murder instead of a security leak, I just hadn't wanted to admit I was thinking along those lines myself. But since we're being honest about it, I have two questions. The first is, how?"
"I know of at least three substances that can induce a heart attack if ingested," Wolfe said, quite matter-of-fact. "One needs only add DMSO to the mixture to assist in uptake through the skin, and then apply it to almost any surface. Such as, for instance, a computer keyboard?"
"But why the extra keyboard? Why not simply put this substance on the keyboard Jeremy was already using, on the laptop?"
"Not precise enough. Such things evaporate rather quickly. Our assassin had to know exactly when Fletcher was going to use the keyboard. Obviously he knew Jeremy was in the habit of using a detachable one, so while Fletcher was talking with Edith, he stopped by his room and removed it. Then, when Fletcher called for another keyboard, he could prepare it and…"
"So you're suggesting that computer guy, the one who brought us the keyboard, that he killed Jeremy?"
"Or someone with access to the computer equipment," said Wolfe.
Benjamin went silent again, then said, "That raises my second question. What could Jeremy have discovered that would be so potentially damning that someone would kill him to keep it secret? And for that matter, why bring you in to investigate his death? Why not simply let the police come, see it as a heart attack, and when it's all over destroy his research?"
"Well," said Wolfe, sitting back and staring up into the sky, "I can think of two responses. Either whoever is responsible for his death isn't in a position to prevent an investigation. Or, they are in a position to want an investigation."
"What do you mean?"
"Perhaps they want the incident investigated for the same reason we do: to find the truth. A truth they don't yet know, one they hope we will discover for them. Remember what I told you about security and fault lines? Perhaps they're waiting for a signal that we've stumbled across the fault line to all this, so they can better disguise it from others." Then he turned and looked at Benjamin, his eyes again expressing sincere concern. "And perhaps today, you did exactly that."
" Me?"
"When you realized that Seaton's hoax diary was a fake and perhaps, perhaps let slip to Seaton that you knew it was a fake. And if the real diary has anything to do with whatever Fletcher discovered…" Wolfe let the implication sink in.
Suddenly Benjamin felt a band tightening across his chest.
"But we don't have proof of any of this."
"You're right there," Wolfe said. "Under normal circumstances, I'd say we'd next like to talk to one F. Myorkin and N. Orlova. Find out what their relationship is, or rather was, to Fletcher."
"But these aren't normal circumstances?"
"I don't mean to further excite you, my boy, but do you realize that just by taking Fletcher's computer with us today, off the Foundation's grounds, we violated their confidentiality requirements? That they could, if they wished, arrest both of us right now for security violations? Don't you think that's exactly what our dear friend Hauser is aching to do?"
"Then why doesn't he?"
"Well, that brings us back to a question I asked you soon after we first met. 'Why me'?"
"Why you, what?"
"Why would they bring me in on this? Someone who hasn't worked for them for years? Someone not of their 'inner circle'? Someone who, as you seem fond of pointing out, has spent too much of the last year nursing a bottle?"
"I didn't-," Benjamin started to protest, but Wolfe waved him silent.
"No, you were right. And Arthur knows it. So isn't the answer obvious? They want the truth, but from someone they think too incompetent-or, to put it finely, too drunk-to recognize it when he sees it. I was to be a foxhound, someone who could tree the secret of Fletcher's research, then be pulled off so they could catch it. And kill it."
He rose and stood next to Benjamin so he could look him in the eyes.
"But they didn't count on you," he said. "They couldn't have known Fletcher sent for you. You're the random element here, Benjamin Franklin Wainwright. And we need to take very good care of you."
Wolfe put his arm around his shoulders, seemed on the verge of saying something else, then changed his mind. "You should get some sleep."
"And you?"
"I'd like to take another look at Edith's laboratory without Hauser hanging over my shoulder. I still don't see the connection between Edith's research and all this, if connection there is. After all," he shrugged, "accidents do happen, even in the midst of conspiracies."
"Conspiracy?" Benjamin said. " Do you think everyone here at the Foundation is involved?"
Wolfe smiled that glib, infuriating, charming smile of his.
"Yes and no," Wolfe answered cryptically. "The most effective conspiracy," he said, patting Benjamin's shoulder, "is the one you don't know you're part of."
And then he wished Benjamin good night and walked off toward the biology building, his shoes leaving a trail in the chilled grass.
Benjamin was reluctant to let him go. For one thing, after what Wolfe had told him, he didn't particularly want to be alone. He also had the thought that in the morning he might awaken to find himself arrested and hauled off to jail in handcuffs. Hardly the sort of boost he'd originally imagined his stint at the Foundation would provide his career.
Thus Benjamin reached his room dejected and nervous. He doubted he would be able to sleep. He saw Wolfe's briefcase where he'd left it, propped against the far side of the bed, with Fletcher's computer inside. Oh, good, he thought. More incriminating evidence.
He sat on the bed, staring at the Ginsburg book and thinking back to how it had all started, so quietly and apparently innocently, just two nights before.
And, despite his anxiety that at any moment he would hear Hauser pounding on his door, a police van with flashing red and blue lights waiting in the cold night air outside, he found himself nodding off to sleep.