Scouring through the papers and books, Theodore looked for any clues regarding Professor Stanford. There's published articles by Professor Stanford, Theodore read through them only to find that they're standard as articles goes, and that even by looking at them multiple times, he doesn't see anything of interest. Flipping through books, Theodore tried to find any published work about Professor Stanford believing in "curing" the human mind of any conditions.
It's showing the more he looked that Professor Stanford knew better to talk openly about these things, as he'd know people would take notice, and investigate him if necessary.
Going through records by the university, he started working over twenty years ago, got his tenure around the fifteenth mark, and it looked like the professor hadn't gone through the changes that he did, because it looked like a standard psychology class.
Somewhere between then and now, he changed and decided to test matters which he believed would cure people, and he's testing them on his few students because only a few signed up for his class. If it were a full class, Theodore doubted he'd try anything with them because of the chances of someone telling the world of his crimes.
There's a newspaper where it detailed a bizarre confrontation the professor had with a trustee during a party and him vowing to prove the trustee wrong. The newspaper doesn't know what the confrontation's about, but afterwards the trustee hadn't reappeared and Professor Stanford working on a new thesis.
Presumably what he's using now and Theodore wanted to know more about the confrontation as he looked for anything pointing to the right direction while he combed through pages of papers and books.
He ended up asking the old librarian, in her 70s if she knew anything about the fight and she revealed to him that she only caught it briefly, as she tended the drink bar at the time. She warned him that her memory's not as good as it used to be and the confrontation happened over fifteen years ago.
"We had a trustee, lord knows where he is now, but he was a very powerful nobleman, and he questioned the authenticity of Professor Stanford's work. He said, well, I can't remember much, my age and all, but I distinctly remember him calling Professor Stanford a "well-dressed cur" and it got heated. Professor Stanford swore he'd prove him wrong," said Lydia, the old librarian, as she pushed up her readers as she looked up at Theodore.
Theodore inquired more about the trustee, Lydia didn't view him favourably, said he'd always had a stuffy attitude. A gentleman, nevertheless, but someone who isn't afraid to question everyone and everything, considering how much he paid into the university, it was his right, but he had ways of digging if he suspected something amiss.
"Do you remember his name, by chance?" Theodore asks her.
Pondering as she sat in her high-chair, Lydia struggles before telling Theodore that she couldn't remember it because it sounded too foreign for her ears that she hardly said it at all during the time he was present in the university, just because she couldn't pronounce it.
"Oh dear, how did it go?" Lydia tried to think of the pronunciation of the trustee's name and it only came out garbled as she tried to sound it out. "Ah… Al… ha… hm."
She struggled before giving up, saying that with his accent, it made it hard to remember. When Theodore asked about the accent, she said that she couldn't recognize it to save her life. It's unique, that much she knows, and it's nothing she heard before in her long years.
When asked about appearance, Lydia said that he was as tall as Theodore, wide shoulders, always wore black fitted suits, kept his peppered hair combed and oiled. His goatee, as well, and his eyes.
"His eyes?" Theodore blinks as Lydia said that one memorable thing about him was his eyes.
Lydia said that there was something about them, under certain lights, they looked like two different colours. Under dark light, it's usually dark. When under lights, there's hints of lavender.
"Lavender?" Theodore blinked as Lydia described the eye colour as a shade of lavender.
Lydia swore that it's the honest truth, made her curious more than once, but she never asked any questions. Neither did anyone else the trustee ever encountered.
"Do you know if they kept any records of where he went afterwards?" Theodore asked her as she shifted in her spot. Lydia replied that the records carried only stopped when he left.
Afterwards, there's nothing where he gone and Lydia doubted anyone would've known or cared enough.
She shirked in her spot as she tells Theodore that the trustee had a cold air about him, the kind that she refused to stay near. Even the other trustees, professors, and alma maters avoided him, just because of the cold air he seemingly exuded.
Only reason she knew what he looked like's because he usually came around every dinner party or event where she worked.
The only one who didn't avoid him's Professor Stanford, but Lydia hedged that they're two birds of a feather, just because of how they acted.
"What do you mean?" Theodore blinked as he grew even more curious.
Shrugging her tiny shoulders, Lydia tells him that just before the fight, the two worked together amicably. Strange as it sounded, but for a time, they seemed to share the same thought process.
"I'm honestly surprised he's even still working here without that trustee's word," Lydia admitted to Theodore.
When Theodore asked why, he learned that the trustee's word and money kept Professor Stanford in his classroom. When he left, it shocked Lydia that Professor Stanford's remains head of psychology.
She explained that his reputation preceded him.
Meaning that he's not very forgiving if any student fails a test. There've been instances of students dropping out of his class, sometimes within days, purely because they couldn't handle his demeanor.
Despite students dropping out and his demeanor, there haven't been any complaints lodged against him, and because of it, the university can't do much, and they can't compel students to come forward if they don't want to, it'd be against the rules if they tried.
"No police report?" Theodore eyed Lydia.
Shaking her head, Lydia tells him that if there's a police report, they'd know about it.
Finding a clue, Theodore proceeded to ask if she noticed anything strange with the students who enrolled in his class recently, and Lydia ranted that after a while, all his students started carrying around a silver coin. They continuously flip them when making decisions and disruptive to people in the library every time there's a clank and a rattling sound coming from somewhere in the library by a student flipping a coin.
"Did you perhaps get a good look at them?" Theodore asked her as she shifted in her spot.
Lydia replied that the students gave her nasty looks when she tries to take the coins from them, so they've started avoided the library because of her dislike of them flipping the coins.
"I'm guessing he might've got them from the trustee, I never seen them before. I know they're scuffed on the one side and there's a face of some man, I never seen before," Lydia shrugs as she told Theodore what she knows of the coins she caught the students from his class flipping in the library.
She couldn't get a closer look on account the students become aggressive, but Lydia knows the coins aren't any currency or limited-edition coins she's aware of, and she's a librarian that looked through several books with different known currencies.
Perturbed as well, Theodore asked if Lydia heard about the deaths of two students from the class, which the librarian held a hand over her heart as she mourned the losses as much as anyone did when the news broke.
"Did anything strike you odd about the deaths?" Theodore pressed for answers as the librarian seemed knowledgeable than the clerk he talked to prior.
Nodding, Lydia said that she noticed just before the students stopped coming to her library for studying, they become agitated or anxiety stricken when they didn't have their coins out in their hands. They hardly acknowledged anyone's suggestions if they don't have the coins in their hands.
When she heard of the first death, it horrified her, as she said she never expected Clover. The way Lydia tells it, it sounded like Clover held out better than the other students, but when her boyfriend put the coin in the piggy bank in their flat and didn't tell her about it, having gone to work afterwards, that's when everything went wrong.
The flat found completely overturned as Clover desperately tried to find her coin, but having not look in the piggy bank, led her to conclude that it's lost, and took her own life as a result of the fatal conclusion.
"Poor man, he's never recovered," Lydia told Theodore that after the suicide, her boyfriend wasn't the same man, guilt ridden, dropped out after the dust settled, and Lydia doesn't know where he went.
Theodore asked about the wood chipper accident and Lydia tells him that it was a horrible accident, but it didn't surprise her when the police report showed that there was a coin lodged in the blades.
"Do you believe that Professor Stanford's abusive to his students?" Theodore asks her for her opinion on the professor.
Lydia didn't want to make inflammatory remarks without basis or evidence, but she said that she never liked the man, either. Always in it for himself and never the type to take criticisms well.
She asked for confidentiality and Theodore gave his word, looking around with her tiny eyes shifting between spots in the open library, Lydia believes that Professor Stanford's capable of anything. He's not the type to back down from a challenge, especially set by the trustee, and he's going to do whatever it takes to prove his worth to the trustee.
Hearing this exposition, Theodore's intrigued by the mysterious trustee that disappeared and hadn't turned up. The description, nothing came to mind, but Lydia seems to think Professor Stanford received the coins from him, and she doesn't know what they are or how many Professor Stanford carried.
Checking the time, Theodore sees that the class let out, and thanked her for her time, before leaving the library. He hurried back to the TARDIS, when he reached it, he opened the door and stepped inside.
Expecting Lila having returned from class, he called out to her, but she didn't respond.
Stepping through the threshold and closing the door behind him, Theodore looked around the console room, not seeing Lila.
He called out to her once again, but she didn't respond, so he checked areas in the TARDIS that he suspected she might've gone in, and found her holding her head in one of the large bathrooms, sitting on the bench, and in her free hand, a pill bottle.
"Lee!" Theodore rushed to her side, stirring her as she raised her head to look at him. Slowly blinking she groaned as she looked down at the pill bottle as she agitatedly said, "Thirty minutes, my ass!"
Sighing in relief, Theodore sat beside her as he asked if she's alright, and she told him she gotten a massive migraine, and took some painkillers in hopes of clearing it. The instruction says that it took thirty minutes for the medicine to take, but it hadn't yet, and she's still feeling it.
Theodore didn't pry her about her class, not now, he tended to her as he helped her up and led her to her bedroom so she'd rest. He checked her forehead and the sides of her neck, as Lila asked what he found on his end.
"There was a trustee, someone Professor Stanford knew, apparently they weren't exactly friends. My source thinks that the coins came from him, but without a coin for me to study, I can't be sure. Didn't remember his name, just that it sounded foreign as his accent and apparently he has interesting eyes," Theodore tells her as he helped her into bed. "Nobody lodged a formal complaint against the professor and no police reports, but I suspect they're induced with fear that they possibly can't compel themselves to come forward."
Slowly nodding her head, Lila tells Theodore that it's something and asked if he wanted to hear what she found out from class, but he insisted that she get some rest. Not to worry about it until her migraine goes away, Doctor's orders.
"Aye, aye, captain," Lila teasingly tells him as she gave him a weak smile as Theodore stood near her. Shaking his head and his wild hair moving in the breeze, Theodore sighs before giving her a quick kiss on the forehead, and she gently squeezed his nose.
Leaving her to rest, Theodore returned to the console room where he attempted to use the console to determine the identity of the trustee.
Something unique, Theodore hoped that he would've been a blip on the radar, at most. With how much money he donated, there had to been some sort of money trail, and if he's lucky, Theodore finds out where the trustee got his coins. It'll be a home run if he can find evidence against Professor Stanford.
Fumbling with the old console, Theodore put in the characteristics that Lydia's able to tell him, and waited for the TARDIS to process the request.
As he waited, his icy blue eyes looking at the screen, Theodore catches the screen briefly turning black before the green words appeared.
ACCESS DENIED
Blinking, Theodore tried to search again, once more.
ACCESS DENIED
"What do you mean?" Theodore looked at the screen.
Above, the lights dimmed as the power fluctuated, before plunging Theodore into darkness.