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Professor Said Mathematicians Failed 50 Years — But Truant Freshman Girl Cracked It in Class

Professor Said Mathematicians Failed 50 Years — But Truant Freshman Girl Cracked It in Class

Chapter 36

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"And where was that?" Ridgeway asked, speaking for the first time, his voice carefully mild.Ren hesitated. This was the part she hadn't fully prepared for. "From my grandfather," she said. "Edwin Hartman. It was in his notebook—the one your department confiscated."The room went very quiet. Ridgeway's expression did not change, but something in his hands did: a slight stillness that hadn't been there a moment before."That notebook," Dean Whitlow said, glancing at her notes, "has been reviewed by the department. It contains no dated proof of authorship.""Because he's been dead for three years!" Ren said, her voice cracking slightly now. "Because he never got the chance to publish it! Because somebody made sure of that a long time ago!""That is a serious accusation, Miss Hartman," Ridgeway said quietly, "one with no evidence behind it."For a moment, nobody in the room moved. Ren stood alone at her seat, painfully aware of every face turned toward her—most of them unconvinced, a few outright doubtful. She thought of the notebook locked away somewhere in this very building. She thought of her grandmother's voice, thin and proud on the phone. She thought of Dorothy's warning from that morning—if things go badly before they go well—and wondered, standing there, if this was the badly part, and whether the well part was even coming at all.Dean Whitlow glanced at her notes, preparing to move the proceeding forward, the silence stretching thin and uncomfortable.That was the moment the side door opened again.Walter Simmons walked in: slow but sure, leaning slightly on a cane he rarely used. The room turned to look. A professor emeritus, eighty-one years old, was not someone who simply wandered into a disciplinary hearing."I apologize for the interruption," Walter said, his voice carrying further than his frail frame suggested it could. "But I believe I have evidence relevant to these proceedings."Dean Whitlow blinked. "Professor Simmons... this is highly irregular.""So was what happened fifty years ago in this very building," Walter said. "I think it's time both irregularities were addressed together."Ridgeway's face had gone pale, though he kept his composure, his hands folded tightly on the table in front of him.
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Professor Said Mathematicians Failed 50 Years — But Truant Freshman Girl Cracked It in Class

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