Golden Rain

by Douglas Clark

  “I’m sorry to embarrass you, but now seems as good a time as any to remind you that you were largely instrumental in bringing us here. I really do not feel that you can complain of our methods or actions.”

  “I’m not complaining, dammit.”

  “No?”

  “No. Just because I say you make me feel uncomfortable doesn’t mean I’m complaining. Have you ever been questioned by a senior detective of your standing and acuity? I’ll bet you haven’t, so you don’t know what it does to the one being interviewed, particularly if he’s an old dictator like me who hasn’t had a word of his questioned for years.”

  “I see, sir. I’m pleased you take it like that.”

  “Have I any choice?”

  “Every choice. You are free to tell me to go to hell, in which case, tomorrow morning, a verdict of suicide or of accidental death could be brought in and it would then be felt, perhaps, that our services here would no longer be required.”

  “Is that what you think could happen?”

  “It is a distinct possibility if what I have been told is true, and I have nothing with which to cause the coroner to hold his hand.”

  “Right. If that’s how the wind blows, fire away. Where had we got to?”

  “You said that Miss Holland’s intention to resign was only partially true. Does that mean that as yet she was merely considering a move?”

  “Yes.”

  “To better things?”

  “I hoped so.”

  “My information leads me to believe that she had come to a definite conclusion in the matter.”

  “Ah!”

  “She hadn’t gone so far as to inform you of her decision?”

  “I think you’re barking up the wrong tree.”

  “Maybe. But I’m still gaining height.”

  “It was an ethical decision I was talking of.”

  “I think not. Ethical decisions tend to be hard, factual things. Not exciting or joyous to make. Yet Miss Holland had come to some momentous decision so exciting and joyous that she believed even her mother would be delighted by it.”

  Kenny nodded. “I’m pleased to hear it. But you said Miss Holland had decided to resign. I say she had not. It was an ethical decision she still had to make.”

  “Why ethical?” asked Reed. “Surely changing your job is not a matter of conscience as much as one of preference or opportunity or even, simply, of getting a bigger pay packet.”

  “True,” agreed Kenny. “But the ethical question was a secondary consideration. As I said to Mr Masters, the problem had not been solved. But something else had been arranged.”

  “What?”

  “A marriage.”

  “Miss Holland was about to get married?”

  “That, I think, would be the news she was pleased about and you got wind of. You jumped to the conclusion that she had landed some job preferable even to the one she had here.”

  “I think I understand,” said Masters. “Her ethical problem was whether, as a married woman, she could continue as headmistress of Bramthorpe and, presumably, instal her husband alongside her in the School House.”

  “The second part of that statement would not apply and the law would not allow the Governors to ask for her resignation just because she had married.”

  “Unless there is some provision in her agreement with the Board.”

  “Nothing like that.”

  “So how is her problem ethical? It is legal and in no way dubious.”

  Kenny grinned. “I was the fly in the ointment.”

  “You were objecting? You didn’t want to lose . . . Wait a moment, sir. You’re the man who thought she was so marvellous. And you are a widower. Was it you whom she was to marry?”

  “That’s it. She agreed to marry me only a week or so ago.”

  “What a tragedy this must have been for you, sir. I am extremely sorry.”

  “Thank you. I’m not over her loss by any means, but at my age . . . well, I’m not exactly a swooning young lover. I was shocked by the news, of course, but I felt more anger than any other emotion.”

  “That’s why you insisted that Hildidge should not allow this matter to be dismissed as suicide or accidental death?”

  “Of course. Think how well I knew her. Besides, I am convinced she was happy at the prospect of our marriage.”

  “I’m positive she was. Her letter to her mother showed that. She was keeping it as a precious, exciting secret to reveal to her family when she got home.”

  “Only to her mother. We decided to keep it quiet for a bit.”

  “Because of the ethical problem? What was it? Should she resign as headmistress so that you could continue as Chairman of the Board of Governors, or should you resign to allow her to stay on?”

  “That’s it. There were pros and cons on both sides. I wanted to resign because I felt the school needed her more than it did me. She said she wanted to be a real wife and run our home, with a bit of public work on the side. So she said she would resign. But her contract obliged her to give not only a term’s notice, but a complete term’s notice. That would mean waiting until next Easter to marry. But nothing was decided.”

  “Let’s clear it all up, shall we?” asked Masters. “You had gone off on holiday immediately after becoming engaged to a woman who would herself be free for ten days as from this Friday. That doesn’t ring true to me.”

  Kenny smiled. “I said you were too clever by half. Mabel had arranged to go to Malta for half term. I had arranged my own little break for this week. So where do you think I was going from Guildford on Saturday?”

  “To Malta! I see. You weren’t leaving here together lest the gossip should start. So you hurriedly arranged to join her in Malta.”

  “At Heathrow. I even got a seat on the same plane.”

  “Right. Now the fortuitous call to your solicitor. An explanation for that, please, sir.”

  “I rang Mabel last evening. Naturally. She was alone in the house, ironing her smalls, getting her holiday things together and absolutely full of herself. She told me she was going to call in on Raymond Hussey this afternoon on school business and to ask him if he would take her on personally. Her previous man was in London, but she thought that if she was going to live in Bramthorpe for good, she would need a local man and it might as well be the chap who acted for me.”

  “She intended to tell Hussey that you two were engaged?”

  “No, she couldn’t do that because we were still undecided about our ethical problem and we reckoned it had better be worked out before the school solicitor got to hear the news.”

  “Why did you ring Hussey this morning?”

  “Don’t you see? When Mabel talked about both of us using Hussey, it reminded me that I would need to make a totally new will. So I spent last night thinking about it. And it occurred to me that they sometimes take these lawyers quite a long time to draw up. But I reckoned if Mabel decided to stay on at the school . . .”

  “Persuaded by you whilst in Malta?”

  “Right. Then there would be no reason for us to wait at all, and we could get married literally within days of our return. So I wanted the new will ready, just in case. So I rang Hussey to give him a sort of warning order. But I never got round to it. He told me about Mabel’s death and I came straight back to Bramthorpe.”

  “I see, sir. Thank you.”

  “Anything else?”

  “I’m afraid so.”

  “In that case we’ll all have a refill. Sergeant, would you act as duty steward?”

  Reed got to his feet. Masters started to refill his pipe.

  “Thinking it out, are you?” asked Kenny.

  Masters smiled. “No, sir. I know what I want to ask, but there is something I want to say first. It’s this. Tomorrow Mrs Holland will be in Bramthorpe for the inquest. Do you wish to meet her?”

  “Yes.”

  “In what capacity? As Chairman of Bramthorpe Governors or as the man who was to have married her daughter?” />
  “I think the former. Nobody knows . . .”

  “Just a moment, sir. Questions. You said earlier that you and she had agreed to keep your engagement a secret. Yet Miss Holland was patently intending to go home to tell her mother before going off to Malta. What near family have you got, sir?”

  “A son. Married with two children.”

  “Have you told them?”

  “With Mabel’s permission, I told Norman and Barbara immediately after she had consented to marry me. We agreed to tell them and to ask them to keep our secret. We both felt our close families had a right to know. After all, we were doing nothing underhand, but there were the reasons I’ve spoken about for not going public.”

  “As far as I can make out, your secret has been kept. The local police don’t appear to know and neither, apparently, does your solicitor.”

  “That’s why I think I’d better meet Mrs Holland in my capacity as Chairman.”

  “I think you’re right, sir. The what-might-have-been could only add to her grief. Now, to come to my last point.”

  “What is it?”

  “You said that Miss Holland had visited the solicitor, Hussey, on school business as well as to discuss her private affairs. Does that mean that the school was involved in some form of litigation that involved Miss Holland?”

  “If you’re looking for some malicious opponent in some legal suit, I’m afraid you’ll be disappointed.”

  Masters replied blandly: “I shan’t be disappointed, Sir Thomas, no matter what does or does not turn up.”

  “You mean it is all just a job of work to you?”

  “Not quite. But a large amount of our work is nothing more than elimination. I must, obviously, ask about the solicitor because he was the only person we know of with whom she was about to have dealings. If what I learn about him and the nature of their business serves to eliminate Mr Hussey from further inquiries, I shall be a step further forward in my investigation.”

  “Heads I win, tails you lose?”

  “Something of the sort. But you seem reluctant to tell me about the visit to the school’s solicitor.”

  “Which makes you suspicious?”

  “A little. If you persist, I can only become more so.”

  Kenny thought for a moment before replying.

  “The reason why I haven’t rushed to tell you about Mabel’s proposed visit to Hussey is, I suppose, because I thought it would lead you astray by directing your attention to a man whom I have known for a great many years and who—in my opinion—could not possibly be considered as one of your suspects.”

  “Sir,” said Reed, “doing a cover-up job on somebody is not helpful to that person. It heightens the suspicion.”

  “I know that now, Sergeant. I’m an old fool, I suppose. So I’ll tell you. Hussey wasn’t feeling very pleased with Mabel.”

  “As a headmistress?”

  “No, no. He thought she was wonderful in that area. The point is, the school has never had a bursar. Nobody had ever felt the need for one, as Hussey’s firm did it all for us. They sent out the school bills and collected in the money. They did the accounts, paid the rates, saw to tenders for painting and building. I think it all stemmed from some notion way back that such things were not fit work for women, but one couldn’t have a male bursar in a girls’ school.”

  “Hussey did all this as well as acting as Secretary to the Board of Governors?”

  “Yes. All very cosy, isn’t it?”

  “Presumably it has worked well?”

  “Very well.”

  “And Hussey has enjoyed the business?”

  “It has been one of his firm’s traditional mainstays.”

  “So what has happened?”

  “Mabel wished to appoint a bursar.”

  “Ah! Wasn’t she satisfied with Hussey? Had he grown too expensive?”

  “Mabel was a good administrator, as well as being a great teacher. She felt the need to hold the reins, but I doubt whether she would have made the move to take over completely had it not been for Miss Lickfold.

  “Miss Lickfold is the longest serving mistress at the school and was, at the time of Mabel’s appointment, deputy headmistress. She is now within a year or two of retirement. Mabel’s predecessor left the school because of illness. Miss Lickfold took over, in the interregnum, until a new head could be appointed. I need hardly tell you that Miss Lickfold applied for the job and fully expected to get it.”

  “But the board thought otherwise?”

  “She had no support. We were unanimous that she would have been hopeless. We knew little of her teaching ability, but we did know she was more like a Victorian governess than a modern schoolteacher. We dare not have entrusted Bramthorpe to her.”

  “So there was bad blood between Miss Lickfold and Miss Holland.”

  “I don’t think so. But there was a keen sense of disappointment on Miss Lickfold’s side and an even keener sense of Miss Lickfold’s inadequacy as a teacher on Mabel’s side.”

  “Ah!”

  “It took Mabel less than a term to realise that her senior assistant was not up to her job. At the school, it has been traditional for the senior forms to be taught exclusively by the more senior mistresses and the junior school by the junior mistresses. So Miss Lickfold was only teaching her subjects to the Lower and Upper Fifths and the Sixth form.”

  “The most important forms—those preparing for extra-mural exams?”

  “Right. Mabel was very hot on her timetable being adhered to and that upper school teaching should be geared exclusively to examination syllabuses. In order to learn what was going on, when she first arrived, she did spot-checks on the girls’ exercise books. She soon discovered that Miss Lickfold was going into form rooms for specific lessons, but was, as often as not, merely discussing whatever subject entered her head. For instance, instead of setting written prep in History one night, she had told the Upper Fifth to write an essay on euthanasia. When Mabel spotted this she was very perturbed on several counts. First, she was angry that a mistress should waste the time of girls preparing for a specific exam. Second, she was even more angry to learn that Miss Lickfold had spent that day’s History period discussing euthanasia instead of Palmerston or some such thing. Third, she was of the opinion that healthy-minded fifteen and sixteen-year-old girls should not be subjected at any time to lessons on so morbid and unsuitable a subject. Fourth, she was worried because Miss Lickfold lived with her elderly mother who had been a chronic invalid—bedridden—for many years. Miss Lickfold supported her mother most dutifully, but Mabel was afraid lest Miss Lickfold’s preoccupation with euthanasia should have a sinister and personal basis.”

  “What did Miss Holland do about it?”

  “At first she proposed to wait until the end of that first term and then to rejig the timetable. Meanwhile she was wondering how best to warn Miss Lickfold—without hurting any feelings—that the syllabus must be adhered to. Then came another incident which I understand was typical of the woman. If there was talking in the form room and she was unable to detect the culprit, her ploy was to pick on some innocent girl and say, ‘Mary Jones, you are talking.’ When the girl replied, ‘No, Miss Lickfold,’ the old trout would reply, ‘Well you are now. Do fifty lines on Walpole as a punishment for contradicting.’ As you can imagine, such treatment was unlikely to be tolerated by today’s sixteen-year-olds, though they seem to have put up with it for long enough. But, as I say, shortly after the euthanasia business, Mabel had a complaint from a parent whose daughter had been unjustly punished. The parent had investigated the affair before approaching Mabel.”

  “What did Miss Holland do about it?”

  “She acted immediately. By introducing a punishment book. Any punishment given in the school had to be entered in the book. This was no trouble, because with the other mistresses punishments—in senior forms particularly—were very few and far between and had to be well-merited. Mabel herself interviewed each girl involved before the task was done.
Her excuse was that she wanted to identify the troublemakers and naughty ones. The reasonable mistresses understood what was going on and welcomed it. It gave Mabel the means to stop any further foolishness on Miss Lickfold’s part.”

  “It seems to have been a very diplomatic way of handling the situation.”

  “Mabel felt she was in a difficult position. The Lickfold was a beaten rival for the headship, and she felt the need to handle the woman with kid gloves. She changed staff responsibilities at the end of the term and relieved Miss Lickfold of her senior school duties. Actually, Mabel would have liked to be rid of her, but short of criminal misdemeanour there is no way of sacking such a teacher these days, and, in any case, Lickfold was supporting a sick mother. But of late—and I’m talking, I suppose, about the last two summers and their exams—Mabel had been achieving excellent results with the upper school. To improve still further, she realised that the standard of teaching in the lower school had to be brought up to the same level as that in the top forms.”

  “To give the girls a good, solid grounding?”

  “Right.”

  “And Miss Lickfold was again the culprit?”

  “The chief of them. But as I said, there’s no easy way of getting rid of a duff teacher and Mabel was, in any case, very conscious of Miss Lickfold’s private responsibilities. So she had thought up a solution that corresponded with her wish to get the administration of the school’s affairs into her own hands. It was to offer Miss Lickfold the post of first Bursar of Bramthorpe. She made the offer last Easter. It had an added inducement for Lickfold were she to accept the offer. She would be allowed to work until she was sixty-five. That would give her five more years of salary with an increased pension to follow.”

  “A reasonable proposal for somebody with an expensive dependent, one would suppose. How did Miss Lickfold view it?”

  “Not surprisingly, she was attracted by it, but said she felt the school could not do without her teaching ability and experience. So she suggested a compromise—that she should become bursar after she had reached the age of retirement from teaching.”