“I know how you feel, Sister. You’d welcome a discrepancy anywhere, even in the laundry list. But that’s the sum of our evidence. Three suspects, all with opportunity, none with an alibi. Absolutely even distribution of suspicion, and our only guidepost is the word Quasimodo. Do you know any of these three men?”

“I have never met them, Lieutenant, but feel as though I knew them rather well from Professor Flecker’s descriptions.”

“Good. Let’s see what you can reconstruct. First, Ruggiero de’Cassis, professor of mathematics, formerly of the University of Turin, voluntary exile since the early days of Fascism.”

Sister Ursula said slowly, “He admired de’Cassis, not only for his first-rate mind, but because he seemed to have adjusted himself so satisfactorily to life despite his deformity. I remember he said once, ‘De’Cassis has never known a woman, yet every day he looks on Beauty bare.’”

“On Beauty . . .? Oh yes. Millay. Euclid alone . . . All right. Now Marvin Lowe, professor of psychology, native of Ohio, and from what I’ve seen of him a prime pedant. According to Flecker . . .?”

“I think Professor Lowe amused him. He used to tell us the latest Spoonerisms; he swore that flocks of students graduated from the University believing that modern psychology rested on the researches of two men named Frung and Jeud. Once Lowe said that his favorite book was Max Beerbohm’s Happy Hypocrite; Professor Flecker insisted that was because it was the only one he could be sure of pronouncing correctly.”

“But as a man?”

“He never said much about Lowe personally; I don’t think they were intimate. But I do recall his saying, ‘Lowe, like all psychologists, is the physician of Greek proverb.’”

“Who was told to heal himself? Makes sense. That speech mannerism certainly points to something a psychiatrist could have fun with. All right. How about Hugo Ellis, instructor in mathematics, native of Los Angeles?”

“Mr. Ellis was a child prodigy, you know. Extraordinary mathematical feats. But he outgrew them, I almost think deliberately. He made himself into a normal young man. Now he is, I gather, a reasonably good young instructor—just run of the mill. An adult with the brilliance which he had as a child might be a great man. Professor Flecker turned the French proverb around to fit him: ‘If youth could, if age knew . . .’”

“So. There they are. And which,” Marshall asked, “is Quasimodo?”

“Quasimodo . . .” Sister Ursula repeated the word, and other words seemed to follow it automatically. “Quasimodo geniti infantes . . .” She paused and shuddered.

“What’s the matter?”

“I think,” she said softly, “I know. But like Professor Flecker, I fear making a fool of myself—and worse, I fear damning an innocent man. . . . Lieutenant, may I look through this house with you?”