‘Margaret,’ he said to the secretary when he got back that afternoon, ‘I don’t believe those Greeks who are supposed to have visited his digs to collect Pythias’s effects have any foundation in fact.’
‘My husband tells me the pro has a nice set of secondhand golf-clubs to dispose of, but I don’t suppose there’s any connection,’ said Mrs Wirrell. ‘I expect he often has second-hand clubs for sale.’
‘You had better tell the Detective-Inspector, all the same. I didn’t know you knew that Pythias’s golf-clubs and clothes had gone from his lodgings.’
‘Well, I do take all the incoming calls, don’t I? — and that includes the calls from the police. Right, I’ll ring them.’
Her telephone message sent Routh on another wild-goose chase. Reason told him that the person who had obtained possession of the bag of golf-clubs would hardly have sold the contents to the professional of the local golf-course, who would probably recognise them and ask some awkward questions. It also seemed unlikely that Pythias himself would have sold the clubs locally if he were planning to leave the neighbourhood either with or without the money for the school journey.
Routh went along the next morning and found the pro in the little shop adjoining the club-house. He was cleaning a set of irons. He knew Routh as a club member, although as one who had little time to spare for the most fascinating and infuriating game in the world.
‘Well, well!’ said the pro. ‘There’s nobody here yet to give you a game, but I’ll play you nine holes if you like, Mr Routh.’
‘No, Joe, I haven’t come for a game. I’m here on duty.’
‘Nobody’s robbed my till and the secretary hasn’t complained of missing anything from the club-house, has he?’
‘Nothing like that. I hear you’ve got a second-hand set of clubs for sale.’
‘A very old-fashioned lot of junk they are, too! Wouldn’t suit a gentleman of your ability. Ought to be sold as museum pieces.’
‘They didn’t belong to Mr Pythias, then?’
‘Good Lord, no! Though, for the amount of golf he played, they might as well have done.’
‘Could I have a look at them?’
‘Why not?’ The pro put down the polishing rag he had been using and went to the back of the shop. ‘Here we are,’ he said, coming back with a tatty-looking golf-bag. ‘There’s nothing like a full set of clubs here and those there are must have come out of the ark, like I told you.’
‘What on earth possessed you to buy them?’
‘It wasn’t buy, it was barter. I gave half a dozen used golf balls for them. They’ll come in useful for Mr Turnbull. He collects antiques.’
‘And you’re sure they’ve never belonged to Mr Pythias?’
‘Quite sure. I sold him his set only a couple of years ago. I’d know them again anywhere.’
‘He seems to have been rather a quiet sort, so far as I know. Did he have any friends among the members here?’
‘News to me if he did. He seldom came here, and when he did come it was usually to have a round with me or go round on his own, unless one of a foursome hadn’t turned up and he was pressed to play. I don’t suppose I saw him here more than twice a month, if that. His set of clubs was almost as good as new.’
‘If it should ever come your way, will you let me know?’
‘Sure.’ The pro eyed Routh speculatively and added, ‘What’s the big mystery?’
‘Well, he seems to have walked out of his digs and hasn’t gone back to his job since Christmas. There’s a rumour that he’s ill, but we think he may also be short of money,’ said Routh, juggling with what might be either fact or fiction.
‘Woman trouble?’
‘It usually is.’ They laughed and parted.
‘It wasn’t worth following up,’ said Routh, when he met Bennett again. ‘I’m getting tired of shooting at dead ducks.’
‘I’ve got that letter Pythias wrote to Mrs Buxton last summer, sir. She didn’t want me to have it and said she wanted it back as soon as we’d done with it.’ He handed over the letter and Routh took out an envelope and laid it and the letter side by side.
‘Well, I’m no handwriting expert,’ he said, ‘but I can’t imagine that the same person wrote the inscription on this envelope which contained those cheques and this letter from Pythias. What’s your view?’
‘That’s a very pretty little drawing on the inside page of the letter, sir, isn’t it?’
‘Agreed. What about it?’
‘I wonder whether a man who can sketch as well as that wouldn’t be quite capable of disguisng his handwriting, sir.’
‘They say a real handwriting expert can’t be fooled, even if the subject chooses to print his letters instead of using ordinary handwriting, or writes with the hand he doesn’t ordinarily use. I’ll get the Super to dig up some expert for us.’
When the envelope and the letter came back, the expert opinion was that they could not both have been scripted by the same hand.
‘So it wasn’t Pythias who sent the cheques to the bank,’ said Detective-Sergeant Bennett.
‘Unless he got somebody else to address the envelope,’ said Routh. ‘I think it’s time we dropped this case. If Ronsonby won’t charge Pythias with the theft of the money and then bunking off with it, there’s really nothing we can do.’
7
A Question of Water-Lilies
« ^ »
Except for the continued absence of Mr Pythias, the Easter term settled into its usual routine. The junior geography master became the senior geography master and received the extra allowance attached to this improvement in his status and a ‘supply’ teacher was appointed to cover the vacant position.
The cheques had been paid into the school-journey fund and it was generally assumed that they had been sent to the bank by Mr Pythias and that somebody else had addressed the envelope for him. Mr Ronsonby, with his wife’s grudging agreement, had subscribed the rest of the money and had told nobody else about this. He was convinced at last that all his confidence in Mr Pythias had been misplaced and he said as much to Mr Burke.
‘Well, everybody here is of the same opinion,’ said Burke. ‘Is the school journey still on?’
‘Yes, of course it is.’
‘Ah!’ said Mr Burke, guessing the truth but thinking it better not to say so, since he had no intention of offering to share in the payment to the travel agents. ‘Oh, well, before anything else comes about, I suppose we have to plan the official opening.’
‘Yes. I shall call a staff meeting on Friday and see what suggestions are put forward. Have you yourself anything in mind?’
‘I suppose we shall include the things we show the parents on open days, but the governors will expect a little more than that. It’s a nuisance it has to come in the summer term. I don’t want the sixth too much involved. GCE begins immediately after Whitsun.’
‘Yes. Still, they are our top boys and must make a showing. I shall persuade the governors to fix a date for the opening as early in next term as possible and then the GCE candidates will have to wire in and memorise and revise for all they’re worth. The challenge may stimulate them.’
‘One can only hope so,’ said Mr Burke. ‘I don’t think we’ve ever had such a weak set of candidates for years. And all this picking and choosing of subjects! Give me the old Matric in which you had to pass in five compulsory papers.’
‘It was hard on those who had no aptitude for maths or science.’
‘I believe in the good all-rounder. Balance is everything. What’s the use of a good bowler if he’s got butter-fingers in the field and gets out first ball when it’s only a long hop or a full toss?’
‘We could do with Pythias,’ said the headmaster, whose summer game was tennis, not cricket. ‘He used to get some very advanced work from his geography classes, something which made an excellent and most impressive display. The man was an artist, nothing less. Oh, well, he’s far away by now and has probably changed his name.’
&n
bsp; ‘Detective-Inspector Routh has just come in. Are you free?’ asked Margaret Wirrell, coming in.
“I’ll go,’ said Burke.
‘I was just saying to Burke that Pythias has probably taken another name,’ said Mr Ronsonby when Routh was shown in.
‘Another name, sir?’
‘Oh,’ said Mr Ronsonby, trying to speak airily, ‘you know what a hot-bed his native part of the world has always been. Pythias was at college over here and, except for his name, nobody would know that he wasn’t an Englishman, but who knows what affiliations he may have had with his own country? I have never thought Pythias was a likely surname, but he has never offered any other.’
‘I think, sir, you had better forget those sort of doubts. A man is entitled to call himself what he likes so long as he has no criminal intentions in so doing. I agree that, if Mr Pythias has absconded with the money, he may well have changed his name, but I see no reason why we should assume his guilt until we get more evidence of it than we’ve got at present. I am afraid, sir, the chances are that Mr Pythias is dead.’
‘I would sooner believe that Pythias is dead than that he has absconded with what, in these times, is a relatively small sum of money,’ said Mr Ronsonby, ‘but what else can I believe? If he is dead we should have heard by now, surely?’
‘Well, I’ve done my best and so, by all accounts, have you, sir, to trace him to Springdale. We’ve both failed, but there might be some substance in your idea that, if he has absconded, he has also changed his name. It would also mean that, if he was staying with friends there, they also have English names, for I could find no Greek ones in Springdale. I suppose you don’t feel able to lodge a formal complaint against him for absconding with the money? We can’t go any further unless you do, although I may tell you that the case interests me. My view is that sooner or later we’re going to find ourselves with a murder enquiry.’
‘Murder? Good gracious me, Inspector! Think what that would do to my school! You know, Inspector, further to what I could see you regarded as my wild and fanciful notion that Pythias may have mixed himself up in Greek politics, perhaps those of a subversive nature, I am wondering whether he could have been kidnapped when he left Mrs Buxton’s house on that Friday night and spirited away. He could be in a Greek prison by now. Does Buxton travel with a mate? It would take two of them to kidnap a grown man.’
‘Oh, yes, sir. It needs two of them to load up and unload the furniture van. I’ve seen the mate and he endorses everything Buxton says about the time they knocked off on that Friday. I don’t think we shall get any further with the Buxtons.’
‘Well,’ said Mr Ronsonby, ‘I’m beginning to feel sure in my own mind that Mr Pythias has been caught up in Greek politics. I did have my suspicions that he had met with foul play — been mugged on his way to the station or on the train — but, if that had been so, you would have turned up some evidence of it by now.’
‘Well, sir, I shall keep an eye on things, although not, as I say, an official eye, but there’s really nothing else I can do at present. I’m under orders, you see.’
‘Oh, well, I must just soldier on, then, Inspector.’
There had been a good deal more discussion of Pythias’s absence from the staffroom and endeavours had been made to ‘sound’ Margaret Wirrell to find out what she knew. All efforts to extract information failed and for good reason. Even if she had known anything, she would not have betrayed the headmaster’s confidence, but, in any case, her unvarying and truthful reply to enquirers was, ‘You know as much as I do.’
Time wore on through a rather dismal spring until half-term and after. There were the usual epidemics of measles and chicken-pox among the younger boys and of influenza among the masters. Because of fluctuations in the weather there were whole days when no outside work was done on the building, but three weeks before the Easter holiday the contractor’s foreman was able to assure Mr Ronsonby that, given any luck with the weather, the work would be completed very soon after the beginning of the Easter holiday. He was drafting in extra men and allowing more overtime and now could see an end to the job.
So bright, in fact, were the prospects that Mr Ronsonby called Mr Burke into consultation and then arranged another staff meeting at which Margaret Wirrell was to be present to take notes. The date of the official opening could not be decided by the staff and headmaster because the governors had not so far reached agreement on this point. Besides, the mayor’s list of engagements had to be taken into account and was not, so far, finalised.
‘But there is no reason,’ said Mr Ronsonby, ‘why we should not present the governing body with three or four suggestions as to a possible date, if only to jog their memories. Perhaps somebody would give us a lead. It can’t be a Thursday because of council meetings; it can’t be a Saturday (“thank God!” said a voice) because our chairman plays golf on Saturdays, and it can’t be a Monday because of the Philanthropic.’
‘Well, that leaves plenty of choice,’ said Mr Burke. ‘Why don’t we offer the Tuesdays, Wednesdays or Fridays of the first two or three weeks of term?’
Other voices took up a refrain.
‘Will the choir be needed and are the orchestra to take part?’
‘Does the head boy make a speech?’
‘There will have to be a bouquet for the mayoress and another for the wife of the chairman of governors, I suppose. A boy in my form has a father who is a florist.’
‘What about catering?’
‘The catering, yes,’ said Mr Ronsonby, seizing upon the most important item of the programme. ‘We shall have to send out invitations, of course, but we must assume, for practical purposes, that everybody will accept. All the council members will expect to come and so will the whole of the governing body. The secretary and treasurer of the parent-teacher association must be asked and so must the heads of all the neighbouring schools. Her Majesty’s Inspectors must be invited, although they probably won’t accept as that would establish a precedent, but our own education officer and a representative of the contractors will certainly turn up. Most of the men will be acompanied by wives and there are ourselves and our own wives. Perhaps, Margaret, you will do the necessary arithmetic later on and let me have an estimate of the probable numbers. I may have left out one or two people, but you will know and can fill them in.’
‘I suppose we let Bussell’s have the catering order,’ said Mr Burke. ‘They always cater for us at the swimming gala and on sports day.’
‘Oh, yes, we must support the local tradesmen when we can. When we know the numbers, perhaps you would see them, Burke. Take Margaret with you. Catering orders need a woman’s touch. I can give you carte blanche, more or less, as no doubt the parent-teacher association will fix up a whist drive or coffee parties or a fair, so there should be plenty of money for food and so on. After all, a school is only formally opened once in its lifetime, so we ought to make the occasion one which our guests will remember.’
‘What about the choir and the orchestra, Headmaster?’ persisted the teacher responsible for these amenities. ‘The songs will have to be chosen and rehearsed, and —’
‘Make out a list, Phillips, and bring it along to me. One thing, we have time in hand. The same goes for the orchestra. A list of possible works and, if a soloist can be found, all the better. The audience always likes to have a solo performance thrown in, whether instrumental or vocal.’
‘There is Fallon on the trumpet, Headmaster, and —’
‘Excellent. See to it and let me have the details. Now we come to another point, gentlemen. The governors want to make us a present to mark the official opening. They are prepared with some suggestions of their own if we have no special request, but would like to give us something we ourselves would prefer.’
Suggestions came readily and every suggestion had its detractors.
‘A small cricket pavilion, perhaps.’
‘Redundant. What’s wrong with the gym changing room?’
‘A piece of statuar
y.’ (This came from the art master, Mr Pybus, who was hoping for a commission.)
‘Some oaf would contrive to put graffiti on it,’ said a dissenting voice.
‘A memorial window.’
‘Too churchy. Besides, it would get broken.’
‘Heraldic lions on the front gates.’
‘They would be an Aunt Sally for the local toughs.’
‘To hark back a little,’ said the art master, ‘is the affair to be run on the lines of an open day? I mean, if so, there must be exhibitions of work. I have some very promising boys taking GCE in art, and —’
The headmaster sat back and let the tide of suggestions and argument surge round him. It ceased after a bit and then the deputy head, who had not joined in any arguments, said, ‘To get back to the point, I thought we were discussing the gift the governors have decided to donate to the school, were we not? I was wondering about a water-lily pond for the quad.’
‘The groundsman won’t grass-seed the quad until the autumn and then the grass has got to grow. We wouldn’t have the pond for goodness knows how long,’ said the master who ran the gardening club. ‘Otherwise I like that suggestion, but I’m sure the governors will want their present to be on view on opening day.’
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