“I’ve come all the way from America,” Marissa added. “We’re old friends . . .”

“Well . . .” Mrs. McGovern said, “I suppose it is all right to tell you that he is no longer a member of the College. But beyond that, I cannot tell you more.”

Marissa hung up the phone and told Wendy what little she’d learned. “Although she certainly implied that he had been a member in the past,” Marissa added.

“I suppose that further corroborates Mr. Lester’s story,” Wendy said. “Let’s give up on the bastard. The more I think about him publishing a fictitious paper, the less I want to talk to him. Let’s go diving.”

“I’ll make you a deal,” Marissa said. “As long as we’re on the medical school campus, let’s find the alumni office and see if he happened to go to school here. If this alumni office is anything like ours, they’d be sure to have the man’s latest address to hit him up for money. If they don’t know of him, then we’ll give up.”

“You’ve got yourself a deal,” Wendy said.

The alumni office was in the main administration building on the second floor. It was a small operation with only a three-person staff. The director, a Mr. Alex Hammersmith, was cordial and eager to help.

“The name’s not familiar,” he said in response to their inquiry, “but let me have a go at our master list.”

He had a computer terminal on his desk and he typed in Tristan Williams’ name. “How do you know this bloke?” he asked, keying the computer to start its search.

“Old friend,” Marissa said evasively. “We came to Australia on the spur of the moment and decided to try to look him up to say hello.”

“Bloody friendly of you,” Mr. Hammersmith said as he glanced over at his screen. “Here we go. Yes, Mr. Tristan Williams was a graduate here, class of 1979.”

“Do you have his current address?” Marissa asked. This was the first encouraging lead they’d had all day.

“Only his work address,” Mr. Hammersmith said. “Would you care to have that?”

“Very much so,” Marissa said, motioning Wendy to give her a piece of paper. Wendy handed her another sheet of graph paper from her purse.

“Mr. Williams is close by,” Mr. Hammersmith said. “Only a few blocks away at the Female Care Australia clinic. It’s near enough to walk.”

Marissa sighed. She handed the graph paper back to Wendy along with the pen. “We’ve already been there,” she said. “They told us he’d left two years ago.”

“Oh, dear!” Mr. Hammersmith said. “Terribly sorry about that. We try to keep our files up to date, but we’re not always successful.”

“Thank you for your help,” Marissa said, getting to her feet. “I suppose Tristan and I were destined never to meet again.”