Authors: Gladys Mitchell
'You're not serious?'
'I don't know how serious I am. I know the facts. Mr Kay has melted a wax image before his fire at home, and he has stuck a sheep's heart with black-headed pins.'
'The man must be crazy.'
'Not necessarily.'
'But you don't believe in magic?'
'Not in wax loaves and sheeps' hearts, no.'
The doctor shook his head and laughed.
'As time goes on, we shall know what you do believe, I suppose?' he said. Mrs Bradley nodded slowly and rhythmically.
'I certainly believe that Mr Kay's visits to Mrs Harries may prove to have some bearing on the death of Mr Conway,' she said, 'but what that bearing may be is entirely dark to me at present.'
'Did you hear that Conway had just become engaged to be married?' the doctor enquired. Mrs Bradley looked interested.
'To whom?' she asked.
'To the daughter of Pearson, the woodwork and metal-work master,' replied the doctor. 'He is a visiting master. He lives at the other end of the village. He is a widower with this one daughter. From what I've heard, it seems pretty certain that Pearson wasn't in favour of the match, but he turned up at the School on the night before Conway's death and gave quite a party.'
'Champagne and oysters?'
'Champagne, anyway. And the news must have come as a bit of a blow to another of the masters – young Semple. It's been obvious for some time that he's been hoping to marry Marion Pearson, and we think he must have taken an awful knock when old Pearson turned up with the champagne.'
'I like Mr Semple,' said the doctor's wife.
'And I like the sound of Mr Semple,' Mrs Bradley observed. 'I like the sound of Mr Kay, Mr Semple, and, of course, Mr Pearson. They are three of the liveliest suspects I have encountered for years.'
'Suspects? You think one of those murdered Conway? But it's incredible!'
'Yes,' Mrs Bradley agreed. 'It's incredible to you because you know them. But the incredible is not necessarily the impossible, and I, you see, am not acquainted with any of them, which makes it easier to say what I think.'
'Then one of those three, in your opinion, killed Conway
V
asked the doctor. 'I don't believe it!'
Mrs Bradley shrugged.
'Well, which one?' said the doctor challengingly.
'It would be immoral of me to tell you,' said Mrs Bradley, 'although I am most interested in what you've told me.'
'I don't seem to have told you very much.'
'Oh, but you have! You say that Mr Conway himself seemed surprised when his engagement to Miss Pearson was announced, and you say that it was supposed that Mr Semple might have married her and that Mr Semple was angry and upset when he heard the news, and you say –'
'Oh, heavens!' said the doctor, laughing. 'I seem to have said more than I thought I had!'
'Yes,' said Mrs Bradley cheerfully. 'By the way, I suppose
you
had no reason for wanting to be rid of the young man?'
'
I
hadn't, but I know who
had,'
said the doctor suddenly. 'And that's Poundbury, whom, so far, you haven't met. He was present at the inquest – a vague-looking, tall fellow about forty years old. Teaches Latin, and has a very beautiful young wife. He hated Conway like poison, and with good reason. Still, he wouldn't have murdered him, you know.'
*
A Lawyer is an honest Employment, so is mine. Like me too he acts in a double Capacity, both against Rogues and for 'em.
IBID.
(
Act 1, Scene 1
)
A
S
the first week passed by, Mr Kay's popularity climbed (in his own view) to undesirable and embarrassing heights. The theory, now current in the School, that he might at any moment be arrested and charged with the murder, caused boys who, so far, had attended his lessons under protest and who had got through the hour as best they might, to seek him out not only in the form-room but in Extra-Tu (before-time a hated imposition reserved for the backward and the unwary) with requests for information with regard to imports and exports, inflation, vicious spirals, price controls, hard and soft currencies, the regulation of wages in industry, statistics of various kinds, and other, less obviously relevant subjects, so that they might pursue him, later on, to his cottage and feast their eyes upon the scene of the crime.
As his cottage had been placed out of bounds to all but his own pupils, these enjoyed a notoriety in the school to which they were unaccustomed and of which they took full advantage.
There was another popular member of the School besides Mr Kay. The rumour that he had stood up in form and advised Spivvy to escape while the going was good, and to take refuge on Mr Scrupe's Argentine cattle-ranch from which extradition was not possible, had raised Scrupe to the ranks of the bloods. His opinion was sought, his witticisms received the tribute due to them, and, most significant of all, his style of dress was copied by his admirers.
To do him justice, Scrupe took almost no notice of this evanescent fame.
Mr Mayhew had sent for him within an hour of his interview with Mr Wyck.
'I am sorry, Scrupe, that you should have been sent up to the Headmaster.'
'Yes, sir, so am I,' replied Scrupe, meditatively rubbing his bottom, an action calculated to infuriate his Housemaster, and in no sense failing of this purpose.
'I trust that your conscience is now clear,' said Mr May-hew, raging, but speaking calmly.
'My conscience, sir, is never less than clear. I envisage every act before I embark upon it, and, my being in, it is up to the opposed to beware of me.'
'I believe him,' said Mr Wyck, when he heard of this conversation. 'I hope that Scrupe will not underestimate his opponents, though. The boy has a brilliant future, if a future exists for any of us. I think I had better take a General Assembly in the morning.'
The Headmaster had considered carefully how best to address the boys on the subject of Mr Conway's death. His first move had been the natural and unexceptionable one of a memorial service in the School chapel. After that, he had not referred to the subject for a day or two, but, once the first inquest had been held, and his business with the police had been temporarily suspended, it was no longer possible for him to keep silent. Parents harried him, several boys were withdrawn without notice, and the Governors had convened a special meeting.
The Headmaster was glad to be quit of the police for a bit. They seemed to have been everywhere. He had even surprised one youthful constable up among the branches of the cedar tree on his lawn, making notes on the contents of his study. Other policemen were apt to bob up out of shrubberies without preliminary notice, and the Superintendent had interviewed Mr Kay a third time and to such effect that Mr Reeder had observed, over coffee in the Headmaster's drawing-room, that whether that poor fellow Kay had murdered Conway or not, he would have Mr Reeder's sympathy if he murdered a few policemen.
The School, which had felt slightly affronted that there had not been, so far, a General Assembly, was rather pleased when Mr Wyck kept them in the School Hall on the Wednesday morning after the inquest, and addressed them on the subject of Mr Conway's death.
'You are not children,' observed the Headmaster, 'and it is time that you should be taken into my confidence. This is a most unhappy term –'
'I don't know so much,' muttered Cartaris to Cranleigh. 'We beat Helston all right, didn't we?'
– 'But I do not wish to dwell upon the past. It is the present and the future which concern us. Now it seems to me' – he scanned the ranks before him, and many a young boy for whose innocence any one of the masters would have gone bail stirred uneasily under his gaze – 'that some boy or boys before me must know something more about this dreadful affair than has yet come to light. If there is such a boy – or if there are such boys – I should wish to have imparted to me this knowledge. Much may be forgiven a culprit who, by a recital of his own misdeeds, helps to shed light upon the strange and shocking circumstances in which we find ourselves. I shall, boys' – he paused, and even the Sixth Form slightly shifted their feet – 'I shall confidently await the course of events.'
'How much do you think the Old Man knows?' asked Merrys agitatedly of Skene. He had still been able to make no plan for retrieving his fountain pen, and was scared.
'Nothing, you ass! Be your age,' said his friend. 'He's only fishing.'
But Merrys was not reassured, and his acute anxiety soon became apparent, particularly when Mr Kay was given special leave three days later.
'Merrys,' said Miss Loveday to her brother, 'is a sensitive boy. This awful murder is preying on his mind. He would be all the better for an airing.'
The expression that a boy would be all the better for an airing was a favourite one with Miss Loveday. A boy needed an airing if she thought he needed dosing, thrashing, coddling, translation to a study, an extra turn in the Roman Bath, inclusion in the House cricket eleven (in which she took a deep, religious, and, to the boys, embarrassing interest), a term-time visit to the dentist, a hair-cut, or, indeed, anything which came outside the routine of the form-room. 'I should like Merrys to see a psychiatrist. I suppose his parents ought to be approached. I will see to it.'
'Yes, they must be approached. Some people are odd about psychiatry,' said Mr Loveday, who was accustomed to taking up his sister's suggestions without argument. 'For my own part –'
'Your own part doesn't matter,' interposed Miss Loveday. 'Your subconscious mind is no particular nuisance.'
Glad to be reassured on this point, Mr Loveday approached the Headmaster, and obtained Mr Wyck's consent to bring a psychiatrist into his House, provided that the Headmaster chose the psychiatrist himself. Mr Wyck had his own reasons for making this otherwise extraordinary stipulation.
Merrys's parents, who did not find Miss Loveday's writing very easy to read (she had an old-fashioned idea that to type letters to parents was discourteous), thought that the operative word was physicist, and, not being able to attach any meaning to the letter, they wrote back to agree with it because they did not think that anything could alter their son for the worse. They then forgot all about it and went to Torquay. They were, from Mr Loveday's point of view, ideal parents, for parents who take undue interest in their boys are the bugbear of all Housemasters.
Merrys, apprised of his fate, accepted his new role with philosophy.
'I believe Albert-Edward thinks I'm bats,' he confided to Skene. 'He talked about my reflexes. I thought he meant my biceps at first, but it seems not.'
'Reflexes are serious, you ass,' said Skene comfortingly. 'Criminals have them. I should say Albert-Edward is on to something.'
'More likely Nancy,' returned Merrys, discomfited. 'I believe she's mad herself. Madmen always think everyone else is.'
'She may not be far wrong in your case,' said Skene, amiably.
*
Miss Loveday had already rung up the doctor when the Headmaster informed her brother of his decision to choose the psychiatrist himself; therefore the doctor lost no time in communicating to his guest the welcome tidings that there was now no reason why she should not visit Spey School.
He had telephoned the Headmaster, and had received a cordial invitation from Mr Wyck to bring Mrs Bradley along at the earliest possible moment. He remembered their previous meeting, which had been at an Educational Conference some years previously, and it was with relief, he confessed, that he could at the same time accede to Mr Loveday's request and be certain that a reputable and sensible person would be invited to take charge of Merrys's conscious and subconscious mind.
'And she could have a look at the rest of the boys in that House,' said Mr Wyck to his wife, when he had put the telephone receiver down. 'I am not satisfied with matters there. It is really quite time that Loveday retired, although I haven't the heart at present to suggest it.'
'I'm longing to meet Mrs Bradley,' said Mrs Wyck. 'What is she like to look at?'
'As far as my memory serves me, singularly unprepossessing,' replied Mr Wyck judicially. 'But a character. Yes, certainly a character. And, of course, an exceptionally brilliant woman.'
But Mrs Wyck was accustomed to unprepossessing people in the persons of the masters, their wives, and the parents of the boys; and she had met so many brilliant people that one more or less made no difference.
'I suppose she will live at Loveday's,' she remarked.
'I expect Miss Loveday will invite her to do so.'
'Then we will have her to dinner once or twice, if that will do.'
'When she's examined Merrys and so forth, I'm going to ask her to stay on at the School until we get this awful business cleared up,' said Mr Wyck, suddenly. 'She has had some success, I believe, in such cases, and she may be able to cope with the police. They've already trodden twice on my rock garden.'
Mrs Bradley, quite as anxious to get to the School as Miss Loveday and the Headmaster were to have her there, burst upon Mr Loveday's astonished House at supper time, although she had arrived in time to pay an afternoon call upon her hostess.
At supper she sat upon Mr Loveday's right and scanned the ranks of Tuscany with interest. Her bright black eyes took in all details whilst she listened with every appearance of interest to Mr Loveday's conversation, for Mr Loveday, shying away from the point at issue, was giving her an earnest account of the construction and heating of his Roman Bath, so that comments and interjections on her part were redundant, which, with her usual intelligence, she had realized at the outset that they would be.
Miss Loveday, at the foot of her brother's table, conversed with the prefects Stallard and Compton (who agreed non-committally with her views and proffered none of their own) upon the House's chances of lifting the cricket cup next season. Of football Miss Loveday had less knowledge than of cricket, but football she referred to during May and June. She had a theory that it made boys nervous to have the current game discussed at meal-times, and she thought that this nervousness gave boys indigestion. She was known to the House as Nancy the Nark, a sufficiently descriptive nickname, and one which had wounded her when first she heard it, but it had resulted in a certain amount of ironic popularity which she learned to enjoy. Her brother placed her second only to his Roman Bath in his affections, and gave way to her lightest whim. Mild and easy-going as he was, he was known to have thrashed a boy severely merely for bouncing a tennis ball against the wall beneath her bedroom window whilst she was taking her afternoon rest. He was, in point of fact, afraid of her, a mental state which is apt to result in affection.
After supper the House prefects were summoned to Mr Loveday's drawing-room to be introduced formally to the guest with whom they had sat at supper.
'Stallard, my head boy, Cartaris, captain of football, and the School full-back, Compton. Here, also, are Edgeley and Findlay,' said Mr Loveday. 'Boys, this is Mrs Lestrange Bradley, of whom, no doubt, you have heard.'
The prefects looked obstinate, a sign of shyness, and Mrs Bradley, grinning, gave Edgeley, who was near her, a poke in the ribs. He yelped involuntarily, and the others laughed with embarrassed heartiness.
'Well, now that Edgeley has taken the edge off things,' said Miss Loveday (adding to the slight hysteria of the gathering by her awkward choice of nouns), 'we can get down to brass tacks, as you boys say.' The prefects, who would not have dreamed of employing this metaphor, maintained their previous expressions. 'Mrs Bradley,' continued Miss Loveday, 'has come to turn you all inside out, so here is your chance to show your guilt.'
'I don't want the House to be informed of this,' interposed Mr Loveday hastily, 'but you five, as House prefects, are to be taken into our confidence. Now, you must all begin by feeling thoroughly at ease.'
'Thank you, sir,' said Stallard, not knowing what else to say, and feeling anything but at ease. 'We – I think we understand what you mean.'
'That's that, then,' said Miss Loveday. 'Now, find seats. Findlay, the most lissome, had better sit on the floor, and Edgeley, his friend, may join him, and then we will all eat cake and drink sherry. I encourage the boys to like sherry,' she added to Mrs Bradley, whilst Mr Loveday busied himself with the decanter and Stallard handed round cakes, 'because I think it is so much better for them than the gin they all drink in the holidays.'
The boys, who were at the manly age when they were learning to drink beer in preparation for going up to the University, accepted the sherry politely, balanced plates on their knees, or, in the case of Findlay and Edgeley, on the fender, and wished that the social evening was over. It was to prove more interesting, however, than they had expected. After Mr Loveday, in a discouraging voice, had offered everybody a second glass of sherry, he put down the decanter, leaned against the mantelpiece, pulled at his lower lip for a moment, and then came out with it.
'As Miss Loveday has indicated,' he said, 'Mrs Bradley is here on very important business, and I shall look to my prefects to give her all the assistance in their power.'
'Of course, sir,' said Stallard, as this seemed to be expected.
'Certain boys in this House,' Mr Loveday continued, 'are showing signs of nervousness and unrest. These are indications of a disorder with which you prefects are not qualified to deal.' Findlay looked up quickly from his seat on the hearthrug. Cartaris looked down at his fingernails and smiled grimly. The others remained politely poker-faced, wondering what all this was about. 'Oh, I don't mean
that
kind of disorder,' added Mr. Loveday hastily. 'I mean –'