Lancelot

there, and she’s stagestruck and hangs around at all hours. In fact, make a complete record. Make a note of anyone you know: Merlin, Troy Dana, Janos Jacoby, Raine Robinette, even me and my wife. I want the whole picture. Do you understand?”
    His single swift opaque look told me he did understand. Understood and agreed. Understood even that there was something I needed to know but didn’t want to tell him, nor did he want me to.
    â€œNow here’s the problem. Think of it as a mathematical game. I want you to pick one of those rooms. I’ve fixed it up with Lock, you can have any room you want, he knows you’re in the film.”
    Placing the floor plan on the plantation desk between us, I wrote names in empty rooms.
    â€œThe idea is to pick a room or any other vantage point which commands a view of the following: the inner door of the Oleander Room here—that’s where they view the rushes—Dana’s room here, Raine’s here, Merlin’s here, Jacoby’s here. Here’s the hitch (this should interest you—it baffles me): there would be no problem if the inner court were a simple quadrangle. You could simply sit at the window of nearly every room and see everything, even Merlin’s room, which is on the second story. All you would have to do is choose a room, say here on the first floor opposite. But as you see, it is not so simple. The court is L-shaped. So if you took this room, you could not see Raine’s room here. And if you took this room, you could see Raine’s room but not Merlin’s.”
    â€œMm.” Now Elgin was interested, transported from the inelegant mysteries of white folks’ doings to the elegant simplicities of geometry. Using his thumb, he began to push his lip over his eyetooth, a new mannerism. My guess is he got it from one of his M.I.T. professors.
    â€œTake these binoculars, Elgin. They are excellent night glasses. Don’t forget your log. In your log make a note of everything you see: not only the exact time anyone enters or leaves a room, but anything else you happen to notice, what a person may carry with him, what they do, the smallest item of behavior.”
    Elgin was busy drawing lines across the court, angles and declinations. He frowned happily. I repeated my instructions.
    â€œYou mean all night?”
    â€œYes. That is, from eleven to dawn. Or rather, just before dawn. I don’t want you to be seen.”
    â€œFor three nights?”
    â€œMaybe. At the outside. We’ll see how it goes. You’re relieved as of now from guide duty. Go home and get some sleep. I’ll tell Ellis that I’m sending you to New Orleans to take a deposition.”
    â€œI wonder what this room is. Probably the alcove for Coke machine and ice maker.”
    â€œProbably. No window.”
    Elgin took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. “You see, here’s what it comes to.” I could see him twenty years later, for his expression, his mannerisms had already begun to set; see him behind his desk, give himself to a problem, quickly take off his glasses and rub his eyes. “The problem as you pose it is insoluble—unless you want to rig up a system of mirrors, bore holes in floors, which I gather you don’t.”
    â€œI don’t.”
    â€œYou see, if I were in 214, an upper room near the inner corner of the ell, I could see every room but Raine’s on the first floor. On the other hand, if I were across the court near the outer corner of the ell, I couldn’t see Merlin’s room.” More lines, lines crossing lines like electrons colliding.
    â€œTo see all rooms, posing the problem as you do, you’d need two observers. Me here and, say, Fluker here.”
    â€œFluker! He’d go to sleep!”
    We both laughed. The very name was funny for us, a secret joke.
    Elgin smiled his old smile, his sweet white-flashing un-mannered smile. “He sho would. Hm. Let’s see. Let’s-us-see.” He gazed at the plan and tapped his pencil. Why did I feel like the student visiting the professor? “We-ull!” (How happy scientists are! Why didn’t we become scientists, Percival? They confront problems which can be solved. We don’t know what we confront. Does it have a name?)
    Elgin put on his glasses. “The pool is here?”
    â€œRight.”
    â€œIs it lit?”
    â€œBy underwater lights after ten. The floodlights are fixed to