The Feline Affair (An Incident Series Novelette) by Neve Maslakovic Page A

evening’s
fundraiser.” I sent Helen a quick text as we walked along, then
mused out loud, “So it turned out to be Shakespeare after all and
not Sir Francis Bacon or whoever.”
    “Yes, not Sir Francis Bacon.”
    I looked over at the professor. He sounded a
tiny bit, for want of a better word, peeved about the whole
thing. “Wait—did you and Dr. Rojas have a bet riding on it?”
    This would not have been unusual. Dr. Rojas
and Dr. Mooney, the two senior TTE professors, liked to engage in
the occasional friendly wager about whether a historical detail was
likely to be true or not. Dr. Rojas, as befitting a theoretician,
usually reasoned out an argument at his desk in his office down the
hall from STEWie. Dr. Mooney, as befitting the more hands-on kind
of scientist, would roll up his sleeves, step into STEWie’s basket,
and return with evidence that settled the matter one way or
another. If they did have a bet, this time Dr. Presnik had done the
traveling for them.
    “Yes, and I lost…which is why I’m buying
lunch today at the Faculty Club. Gabe figured the simplest, most
logical assumption was that Shakespeare did write the plays.
Occam’s razor. I took the opposite point of view, that it would be
just like History if someone entirely unexpected turned out to be
the real author.”
    History is quirky—that’s true enough—but my
guess was that the professor had chosen to take the non-Helen side
for other reasons. Xavier and Helen shared a past, though they
usually carried on professionally enough—in fact, he had
accompanied her on her first run, to attend a performance of Hamlet at the Globe. Dr. Mooney waved the matter away and
nodded amiably in my direction, “Anyway, I have a new bet to
propose to Gabe that may even the score.”
    “Involving the cat?”
    “Very much involving the cat.”
    “Well, I’m all ears.” As we headed up the
stone steps of the Faculty Club, I remembered why I had stopped by
the TTE lab in the first place. “By the way, Dean Sunder wanted me
to pass on a suggestion—that you give a lab tour to Mrs.
Butterworth this afternoon before the History Museum
fundraiser.”
    I saw him give an inward groan, but he only
nodded absentmindedly.
    “Be nice to her, she’s rich,” I reminded him.
Mrs. Butterworth was one of our big donors.
    “Well, perhaps she’ll buy us a new lab
generator.”
    “And for God’s sake, don’t mention Helen’s
run,” I added as we went inside. “I think Mrs. Butterworth’s hopes
lie on the Sir Francis Bacon side of things.”

    “Schrödinger,” I said.
    “Yes. You’ve heard of him, surely? The famous
cat experiment he proposed in 1935?” Dr. Gabriel Rojas eyed me
above the fancy salad the waiter had set down in front of him. I
had ordered the safe choice, the day’s pizza special, and had
received a small, elegant-looking square pizza served on a matching
square plate. A knife and fork seemed to be in order, so I pulled
out the cutlery I’d been given with a resigned sigh. As for
Schrödinger and his cat—well, who hasn’t heard of them? I said as
much before trying the first forkful of the pizza.
    “In my experience,” Dr. Rojas continued
between salad bites, “the best way to gauge if a student
understands a topic is to ask him or her to explain it to you.”
    He stopped speaking after making that
statement and went on silently eating. I realized he was applying
that philosophy at that very moment and was, in fact, waiting for
me to explain about Schrödinger and his cat. I took another forkful
of pizza to give myself time to formulate a reply. Great. I had
come to lunch for a decent bite, not a quiz on quantum physics. My
college studies had consisted of a rather unfocused education,
which had led to a business administrator’s degree and my job as
science dean’s assistant. I wasn’t expected to have an in-depth
knowledge of the sciences in the eight departments under Dean
Sunder’s and my care. Still, I had found that a