Authors: Gladys Mitchell
'I didn't think of it in time,' said the major.
'And now, Wyck?' said the chairman. The governors hitched up their chairs. The Headmaster looked at the assembly, glanced at his notes and then gave a short, clear account of what had happened and what steps had been taken after the discovery of Mr Conway's body by Mr Kay and Mr Semple.
'And there is more evidence to be disclosed at the resumed inquest,' he added, 'but you will all appreciate that I am not at liberty to distribute facts which the police do net want advertised.'
'If
I
had anything to do with the conducting of this case,' said the major, 'I should want to know a great deal about that boy Issacher.'
'Poor Issacher! I am afraid he's had an unsatisfactory life, and then, even the best of Jews are upset by the troubles in Palestine, I believe. I don't like the boy as a boy; I'm sorry for him, though. Conway was no friend of his,' said Mr Wyck, thoughtfully. 'I always had a suspicion that he baited the lad. If I'd been certain, Conway would have gone. I won't have that sort of thing. As you know, Conway was held under 18B for a bit at the beginning of the war. They had to release him, of course, and very soon, but you will remember that I was not very much in favour of his appointment.'
'How long had Mr Conway been a master here?' Mrs Bradley enquired.
'Oh, for four years and the fraction of this term that he was with us,' said Mr Wyck. 'I didn't want him, as the governors, I know, will agree, but we were all glad enough to get a master at that time, as you can imagine. As the alternative was to employ a young woman – highly qualified and very charming – from Newnham, I was persuaded to agree to his appointment. But I didn't like it, and I wish now that I had plumped for the girl. At least she wouldn't have been murdered, although' – he smiled sardonically, an expression which gave his face a Satanic and startling charm – 'although I think she might have committed suicide after a bit.'
'That's all very well,' said the major, 'and you may remember I was as dead against Conway's appointment as you were. But what I say is this –'
'You were against appointing the girl, too,' put in Mrs Forrester, the only woman governor. 'You said she wouldn't be able to manage boys.'
'Neither would she!' retorted the major. 'And talking of that –'
'I don't think we had better,' put in the chairman firmly, 'otherwise we shall never get through. Now, Wyck, what further steps are you proposing to take?'
'I should explain first what further steps I have already taken,' said Mr Wyck. 'I have taken the step of inviting Mrs Lestrange Bradley to watch the School for a few weeks. Some boy or boys know something of this unhappy business. That is a fact which must be faced.'
'Just so, sir,' put in the Superintendent, before the major could reaffirm his faith in boyhood generally and in the boys of Spey in particular. 'We have some evidence already that one of the master's bicycles had been used on the night of the crime.'
'Good heavens, man!' exploded the major. 'Think what you're saying!'
'I am well aware of what I'm saying, sir,' returned the Superintendent, with the indulgence often shown by large men to smaller ones, 'and please don't think that we have the slightest suspicion, let alone evidence, that any of the young gentlemen of the School are connected in any way with the crime.'
'I should think not, indeed!' growled the major, in furious resentment of the Superintendent's good-natured attitude. 'I should jolly well think not!'
'However, there's been larks, of a kind, if the Headmaster will excuse the word as applied to his scholars, and what larks they were have got to be found out, and, when found out, sifted and pinned down. Now, I don't say –'
'But I do,' said Mrs Bradley. 'I say that we know the identity of the boys in question, and, although they were out after hours, and although they impounded a bicycle, and even punctured one of its tyres, I am going to ask Mr Wyck, to whom I shall give their names presently, to exercise his discretion on their behalf and to take no action against them, particularly as –'
'I appreciate the necessity of obtaining their evidence,' said Mr Wyck firmly, 'and am prepared to promise to overlook their conduct. This,' he added, for the benefit of the major, 'is in order to assist in the detection of Conway's attacker, and for no other reason whatsoever.'
'Quite so, sir,' agreed the Superintendent. 'We can't afford to lose valuable evidence because the witnesses are afraid to come forward.'
'Oh, well! Oh, well!' said the major, waving the point aside. 'Now what was all this mud about Mrs Poundbury, and why weren't we told about it before?' His eyes gleamed hopefully.
'There is nothing to tell,' Mr Wyck replied. 'It was not anybody's business at the time except that of the two concerned, and, of course, Poundbury himself. There was no scandal attached to it. Mrs Poundbury was very sensible and, in any case, it occurred during the summer vacation and on board ship. It was nothing to do with the School, and I am sorry it ever came out.'
'Oh?'
'Yes.'
'But it left Poundbury pretty sore?'
'You heard what he said just now.'
'And you think he might have been the murderer?' The major spoke excitedly.
'I can think of nobody less likely,' replied Mr. Wyck, with his usual calmness.
'Well, we don't seem to have got very far,' said the chairman, 'and as the – the death was the only item on the agenda, I propose, unless Mr Wyck or Mrs Bradley has anything more to tell us, to declare the meeting closed.'
'I'd like to ask a question,' said the major. 'No offence, of course.'
'None,' said Mrs Bradley, perceiving that the question had been addressed principally to her.
'Right. Well, what I mean to say, what's your position with regard to – I mean, are you to be appointed officially by us, or what? Position ought to be made regular, you know, what!'
'My position has not, so far, been irregular,' Mrs Bradley answered. 'I am here in the capacity of guest to Mr and Miss Loveday. Simply that, and nothing more.'
'Oh, well, that's all right, then. Just like to get these things straight. Meeting closed? Vote of thanks to the Chair? Right . . . .'
*
Who accuses me?
IBID.
(
Act 2, Scene 10
)
S
OME
of the governors went home directly the gathering broke up, others remained to dine with the Headmaster. Mrs Bradley returned to Miss Loveday, but supper at the House was scarcely over when a message came from Mr Wyck. In response to it, Mrs Bradley was compelled to break the news to Miss Loveday that she was invited to shift quarters to the School House. This was much to the distress of Miss Loveday, who begged her to remain where she was.
'It would be unreasonable,' Mrs Bradley responded, 'to trespass further upon your hospitality.'
'Oh, I realize,' rejoined Miss Loveday, 'that you came merely to give Merrys an airing. Well, he is aired. We now know all about him. But we value you at par, and therefore, I say, remain.'
'I value you above rubies,' Mrs Bradley cordially responded. 'Nevertheless, I am bid to join the household of the Headmaster, an invitation which can hardly be disregarded.'
'Regard it by all means,' Miss Loveday replied in like tones, 'but remember that for you there is one corner in our Loveday House which is for ever Bradley.'
'I will indeed remember it,' said Mrs Bradley; 'you are too kind; much too kind. You should never cherish serpents in your bosom.' Having said this, it was with a certain sense of relief that she took leave of her eccentric hostess and moved over to the pleasant and commodious School House.
She had not been in the School House above a day and a quarter when she was asked to receive a deputation from Loveday's. This consisted of Merrys, Skene, and Takhobali.
'The thing is,' said Skene, who had been thrust into prominence partly by Merrys and partly by his own natural instincts, 'that the Tar-Baby thinks he ought to spill you something which perhaps you hadn't so far heard of.'
'Lights!' said Takhobali dramatically.
'Lights and soft music,' muttered Merrys.
'Lights?' said Mrs Bradley. 'It is full late in the day to mention lights. When and where? On the night of the death, do you mean? And over by the Roman Bath?'
Takhobali rolled his eyes.
'Do you know about the river lights?' he enquired.
'How can she know?' enquired Merrys. 'She wasn't there, was she, you ass? Tell her about them. It might be beastly important.' He looked at Mrs Bradley for confirmation of this view, and she at once supported him.
'I look forward to your revelations, Prince,' she said.
'There were lights. The Roman Bath, for Skene and Merrys. The river, however, for me,' Takhobali explained, waving his thin, long hands. 'I saw lights along the river. I told Merrys and Skene because I knew they had been out of the House one night, and I wanted to give them opportunity to forbid my telling you if they wished. But they say I should tell. It will assist, and I wish to make recompense for their kind help when I do not understand football game and wish to know. I saw the lights at about eleven o'clock. I was sick, and from the window of that place, I saw.'
'He's always sick after fish-pie. We had it for supper that night,' explained Merrys. 'Nobody takes much notice of lights over at the Roman Bath because Albert-Edward – Mr Loveday – is always doing weird things over there in connexion with the filters and the heating. But when the Tar-Baby mentioned he'd seen lights over by the river, we thought we'd bring him along. Apparently he's been in a flat spin ever since the murder, because he didn't know whom he ought to tell, or whether he ought to tell at all. He's been kicked so often he gets muddled about such things.'
'Ah, yes,' said the Tar-Baby, gleaming. 'I am not to tell tales or talk shop.'
Mrs Bradley went straight over to Miss Loveday.
'What were the lights at the Roman Bath on the night of the murder?' she enquired. Miss Loveday gazed in mild astonishment.
'They could have little bearing,' she replied. 'They were carried, I daresay, by my brother and myself. We go over occasionally to stoke the Roman furnace. We can scarcely wake our servants for such a task. The heating system is curiously unsatisfactory, although I would not care to have my brother hear me say so. The Bath is his main interest, as you know.'
'And you were there on the night of Mr Conway's death?'
'If anybody says so, yes. I suppose it was one of the boys who mentioned it? They should not have been up and about at such an hour.'
'And
you
did
not
mention it?'
'What bearing could it have?' Miss Loveday mildly enquired. 'Oh, I know that Gerald Conway was either wholly or partially drowned, but that's neither here nor there with respect to the matter under discussion.'
'So you have no objection to admitting that you and your brother were up and about that night?'
'No objection at all. Why should I have? My conscience is clear,' said Miss Loveday, closing the argument. Mrs Bradley sought the first opportunity of reopening it, but this time she attacked the weaker partner.
'What were you doing at your Roman Bath on the night of Mr Conway's death?' she enquired of Mr Loveday with considerable abruptness, going out to where he was embarrassing Cartaris by personally conducting and supervising a House football practice.
'Put your
head
down, boy!' yelled Mr Loveday; and then he replied vaguely, 'Doing? Oh, stoking the furnace, you know; the hypocaust. A tricky business. Just stoking, but it requires an expert hand, and is a disagreeable business because the roof is low. Slaves did the stoking for the Romans, as you are aware, but I cannot ask my servants to undertake it at night, although my knife-and-boot boy can see to it during the daytime, and usually does so.'
'How often do you go out at nights for the purpose?' Mrs Bradley enquired.
'Feet
I Feet!'
yelled Mr Loveday. 'Every now and then,' he added maddeningly.
'So that when the Superintendent of Police asked you what reason you had for setting your House in order,' said Mrs Bradley, paraphrasing a conversation which the Superintendent had rehearsed to her and of which she had been quick to see the point, 'your reason was really a very good one indeed?'
'How do you mean?' Mr Loveday enquired; but his body had stiffened, Mrs Bradley noticed.
'You yourself, not to mention your sister, had actually been out of the House and at the Roman Bath that night,' she gravely explained, 'and therefore you wanted to be sure that the police should not suspect you of having murdered Mr Conway.'
'Oh, nonsense!' said Mr Loveday, with unusual vigour. 'We could scarcely have known that somebody would attack and drown poor Conway on a night when we were out of the House! By putting my House in order, as I believe I termed it, I merely wished to be certain that none of my boys could be held blameworthy. It was a very great shock to me when I was told that Merrys and Skene had been absent from the House one night not long before the event.'
'By the event, you refer to –'
'Well kicked, boy!' cried Mr Loveday. 'Coincidences are bound to occur,' he added, turning again to Mrs Bradley, 'and it is coincidence, pure and simple, that our expedition that evening should anticipate Conway's death, but there is nothing very strange about it, surely? – particularly as Miss Loveday and I were in the habit of stoking the furnace.'
'I suppose not, if you put it that way,' Mrs Bradley agreed. 'Who composes the menus for the House suppers?' she demanded suddenly.
'My sister, of course, as my housekeeper. Or, rather, she keeps or delegates that privilege, as she chooses.'
'Does she often give the boys fish-pie?'
'They have it sometimes, except for Takhobali. He never eats it.'
'He did, on the night of the murder.'
'That was foolish of him, then,' said Mr Loveday. 'The boy knows perfectly well that it makes him bilious. Although why it should –
pass,
boy,
pass! –
I find it impossible to imagine. A simple, light, nourishing dish like – that's better, Forrester! Hand him off, man! – like fish-pie would not, one would fancy, upset anybody.'
'Some people are allergic to fish,' said Mrs Bradley. 'No doubt that is the case with Prince Takhobali. And I wonder who talked of eels to Mr Micklethwaite?'
'I suppose Takhobali saw the lights at the Roman Bath that night and thought the spot was haunted,' said Mr Loveday, turning thoughtfully away from his House practice and accompanying Mrs Bradley along the edge of Big Field towards the School House. 'And how do
you
react to our culinary miracles?' he enquired, almost in his sister's feminine idiom, but with an ironic note in his voice which rather surprised Mrs Bradley. She praised the cook's resourcefulness, remarked upon what a problem meals now provided for hapless housekeepers, and instanced her own French cook's difficulties and exasperations.
'Tell me', she said to Mrs Wyck, as they sat at dinner in the Headmaster's private dining-room – for Mrs Wyck dined only once a term with the School House boys – 'what you think of Mr and Miss Loveday.'
'What do I
think
of them? – as possible murderers, do you mean?' asked Mrs Wyck, who combined, as a Headmaster's wife had need to do, great simplicity and great perspicacity in unpredictable proportions. 'Well, I think they've been rather clever, so far, haven't they? – if they did it, I mean. Of course, I don't really think they did, for a minute. But do let's talk about them as though they did do it. I'm so sick of policemen's questions that it will be a change to have a straightforward discussion without any questions at all.'
'But there will be heaps of questions,' said Mrs Bradley promptly. 'Heaps and heaps. And
I
shall ask most of them,' she added. 'First, tell me why you
don't
suspect the Love-days.'
'I thought we'd agreed to suspect them. Oh, well, never mind. I don't think they're the sort of people to do anything
wrong.
Not anything as wrong as murder, anyway. I can't explain what I mean, but – well, just that.'
'I know exactly what you mean. And yet, you know, somebody killed Mr Conway.'
'Oh, good! We're going to suspect them, after all! But, you know, Gerald Conway had some very queer acquaintances, hadn't he? Some rather odd things have come out about him since his death. Don't you think it's much more likely – ?'
'Have some odd things come out? – Still, the police would look closely into all that sort of thing.'
'Yes, they have. They told Christopher so. Their own opinion is clear. They think somebody here did it. But, speaking seriously, I can't believe that. I keep going over everybody in my mind, and I can't fix upon a single person capable of such an act except –'
'Except?'
'I ought not to say it, even to you, but the only people I can think of are Brenda and Louis Kay.'
'Is his name really Louis? I was given to understand –'
'His name is Bennett Arturo Kay, and his wife calls him Benny, when she calls him anything. Anyway, I think they are the likeliest, because they've got the biggest motive, except for the Poundburys. Motive always counts most with the police, doesn't it? Of course, in real life, as I say, I don't believe
anybody
here did it, but if I were writing a detective story, or reading an account in the paper, I should plump for the Kays. Louis was an enemy of Gerald Conway, and with good reason, I believe.'
'And the Poundburys?'
'Oh, well, I like the Poundburys, and, between ourselves, I don't really like the Kays at all. Besides, I think the balance would have to be on the side of the Kays because, if what I suspect is true, they
both
had a motive, whereas, in the case of the Poundburys, only
he
would have had one. That's old scandal, of course, and I ought not to repeat it, but I expect everybody knows all about it by now. Even the police know, which is rather dreadful, but I believe they are very discreet.'
'I know something about it myself, as the result of the Governors' meeting,' said Mrs Bradley. 'But would you say that Mrs Poundbury had no motive? She might have had her own reasons for jealousy, particularly as his engagement had been announced. But we're losing sight of the Lovedays. Now what do you make of this?'
She recounted to Mrs Wyck the story of Takhobali and the fish-pie.
'But why on earth did the silly boy eat the stuff if it always makes him ill?' demanded Mrs Wyck. Mrs Bradley shrugged.
'That is one of the things I want to find out,' she said. 'But I don't want the boys to think it has any importance beyond the importance they already know it has.' And she told Mrs Wyck the story of the river lights on the night of Conway's death. 'Then, you see,' she added, 'there is the fact that the Lovedays were both out of the House on the night of the murder.'
'That looks so bad that it must be a proof of their innocence, though,' said Mrs Wyck. 'What else is there against them?'
'I was hoping that
you
could tell
me
that,' said Mrs Bradley. 'Their behaviour since the murder has been what one would expect. What I would like to know is how their behaviour
since
the murder compares with their behaviour
before
the murder. I cannot be more explicit, for it is only
since
the murder that I have been privileged to make their acquaintance.'
'I don't think I can help. They seem just the same to me,' said Mrs Wyck. 'I know what you mean, though. You want to know of any actions which seemed innocent enough in themselves
at the time,
but now would look rather different if the Lovedays come under suspicion of having committed the crime.'
'I knew you would understand me,' said Mrs Bradley. 'Exactly that. Cannot you think of anything?'
'No, I can't. Besides, we are regarding this as a
planned
murder, aren't we? Do you really think it was? – seriously, I mean.'
'I really think it must have been. You see, there's not much doubt that if it had been done on the spur of the moment it would have been done differently.'
Mrs Wyck turned very pale, and Mrs Bradley apologized.
'The dog with the brick tied to its neck, you mean,' said Mrs Wyck, waving away Mrs Bradley's expressions of concern, and very rapidly pulling herself together. 'It does seem dreadful, and, as you say, probably planned; otherwise . . .'