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Later, when the ruckus started from below, I made to go down to quell it. But Elsbeth forestalled me. “It’s okay,” she said. “I kind of like it. It’s alive.”

When she finally drifted off, I quietly got up, pulled the drape over the alcove, and made my way here.

We haven’t heard from Korky in a few days, but that’s not unusual. I know he isn’t one of those fair-weather friends who abandons you the moment the going gets rough.

I did have a run-in today with Maria Cowe, who is in charge of Human Resources for Affiliated Institutions, what used to be called Personnel. She demanded to know why I wanted the file of Celeste Tangent, the lab assistant Worried referred to in one of his e-mails. I told her it was an administrative matter, and that surely it was only routine for directors such as myself to ask to see employee files and for her office to comply.

She responded that, because Ms. Tangent was really an employee of the Ponce Institute and not of Wainscott, I would have to fill out forms to make an official request.

I became quite angry. I told her that if Ms. Tangent’s file was not on my desk when I arrived the next morning, she would be hearing from the museum’s legal department.

Indeed, the first thing I did upon returning to my office was phone Felix Skinnerman. I told him that I wanted the museum to establish its own human resources department sooner rather than later, in fact immediately. I told him I wanted it called the Personnel Department. I told him I wanted him to subpoena from Ms. Cowe the records or copies of the records of anyone who works either directly or indirectly for the museum.

Well, Felix, as usual, calmed me down. He said this was an area where we had to go cautiously while our case was still in the courts. To raise this issue now, he said, would be to call attention to a very strong de facto link between the two institutions, strengthening the case of the university. He suggested I do what all administrators do — go over her head.

I told him that meant going to Malachy Morin, which was something, on principle, I simply would not do.

“Why do you need the file?” he finally asked me.

“It may have something to do with the Ossmann-Woodley case,” I said.

“Oh, then. Why don’t you contact your friend in the SPD and have him obtain it through the courts? It might take a while, but you’ll have it.”

I thanked him effusively and called Lieutenant Tracy. He wasn’t in, but he called back a short time later. I admit I felt a bit foolish telling him that I could not, as a matter of routine, obtain the file of someone working, however indirectly, for the museum.

But the lieutenant put a different spin on it. “Perhaps,” he said, “they’re trying to hide something.”

“Yes,” I said, “that’s a possibility.” And while using that, so to speak, as a cover for my managerial impotence, I seriously wondered, thinking back to my confrontation with Ms. Cowe, if there might be something to his suggestion.

The lieutenant took down the particulars and said he would get right on it. And now I can’t get it out of my head that Malachy Morin and Maria Cowe are all mixed up in this together.

But that may be just a measure of how desperate I’m getting, clutching at straws and strawmen. For instance, I received a personal and confidential memorandum today regarding the matter pending before the Subcommittee on Appropriateness that has me perplexed. It’s a strange affair, to say the least. As Professor Athol, the Chair of the subcommittee, outlines it, both parties are accusing the other of date rape. The matter is further complicated by the facts that the woman is an outspoken lesbian activist involved in social issues while the man is an African American born-again Christian confined to a wheelchair. To avoid an expensive and prolonged legal wrangle, the two individuals have agreed to appear before the subcommittee to present his-and-hers sides of the story and to abide by any findings we make.

Now, we have dealt in the past with situations of nearly intractable sensitivity, but nothing, I daresay, approaches