Murder At School

by James Hilton

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Did you touch him at all?”

  “I shook him a little to try to wake him, sir, but not really enough to move him in any way.”

  “What did you do after that?”

  “I went to fetch help, sir. The first person I saw was Captain Daggat —he was just leaving his bath, sir. He told me to fetch the Headmaster, while he telephoned for Dr. Murchiston.”

  “So you went to the Headmaster’s house?”

  “Yes, sir, and the Head came at once.”

  Brownley was then permitted to stand down. Daggat gave evidence next, merely amplifying the butler’s account of the discovery. The third witness was Murchiston, who made as usual a somewhat striking figure in his frock-coat and cravat. He testified to having been summoned by telephone, to arriving at the School, and to making a cursory examination of Lambourne’s body.

  “What do you mean by a cursory examination?”

  “A rapid one—such as could be made on the spot.”

  “Very well. Please tell us what opinions you came to.”

  Murchiston had evidently prepared a careful answer to such a question. He replied, slowly and with deliberation: “My examination was not such as enabled me to come to any definite opinions, especially as it was several months since I had last attended Mr. Lambourne professionally. His condition seemed consistent with a sudden heart attack, to which I knew him to be liable, but in the circumstances, I thought it best to leave the matter to be decided by a post-mortem.”

  “You did not perform the post-mortem?”

  “No, but I was in consultation with the doctor who did.”

  “Do you agree with his findings?”

  “Certainly.”

  The next witness, obviously, was the doctor who HAD performed the post-mortem. He was Hanslake, the police-surgeon. A brisk, brusque, younger man, he had no time for the old-fashioned niceties of a Murchiston. With commendable brevity he testified to his examination of the body and to the cause of death, which he declared outright and without any emotion whatever to have been an overdose of veronal.

  This, as might have been expected, caused something of a sensation in the court. When it had subsided, the Coroner turned to Murchiston again.

  “Was Mr. Lambourne, to your knowledge, in the habit of taking veronal?”

  “I knew that he had done so on some occasions. He took it for sleeplessness and headaches, I believe. I warned him strongly against it, but he told me that it was the only thing that gave him peace.”

  “What exactly was the matter with him, Dr. Murchiston?”

  “It would almost be easier to say what wasn’t the matter with him. He had been gassed and blown up during the War, I understand. Apart from a bad heart, there was nothing organically very wrong, perhaps, but the whole state of his mind and body was extremely low.”

  “Would you call him a neurasthenic?”

  “The term was not invented when I studied medicine, but so far as I know the meaning of it, I should say he was one.”

  “Would such a condition be likely to give him suicidal impulses?”

  “Possibly. I could not say more than that.”

  The Coroner returned to Hanslake.

  “You said it was an overdose of veronal. Was it a heavy overdose?”

  “Heavy enough for anyone who wasn’t an out-and-out addict.”

  “Is there, then, any possibility that it could have been taken accidentally? I mean—supposing the deceased had felt particularly unwell, might he have taken so much without suicidal intent?”

  “It is possible, of course.”

  “Is it possible that anyone could have taken a similar amount and not have died?”

  “My experience, I’m afraid, isn’t wide enough to give a definite answer.”

  “You see what I am trying to get at?”

  “Oh yes, you want to know whether it could have been an accidental overdose and not suicide. I think in a case of this sort there is always the possibility.”

  “You said just now that the dose was heavy enough for anyone who wasn’t an out-and-out addict. Did you mean that such an addict might take it harmlessly?”

  “Not necessarily. Most addicts die from an overdose.”

  “But the deceased was not what you would call an addict?”

  “I should say not.”

  “Thank you.”

  Mrs. Ellington was next called. She gave her evidence in a calm clear voice and answered all questions unhesitatingly. She had been friendly with the deceased, she said, for some years, and had sympathised with him a great deal in his afflictions. She was a trained nurse and had sometimes visited him when he had been ill. She had visited him on the night before he died, and had found him then in a very troubled condition.

  “What was the cause of his trouble?”

  “Nothing very definite. I think it was just one of his periodic attacks of depression.”

  “What time did you leave him?”

  “Soon after eleven. I waited till he was asleep.”

  “Did you know he took veronal?”

  “I had guessed that he sometimes took something. I did not know it was veronal or anything dangerous.”

  “Did you see him take anything while you were with him?”

  “No.”

  “Had he ever said anything to you about taking his own life?”

  “No. He was often despondent about things, but that was all.”

  “Thank you.”

  The last witness was Dr. Roseveare. In suave and mellow tones he testified to Lambourne’s unhappy existence. “He worked hard, he was conscientious, and we all felt very sorry for him. He was as much and as clearly a victim of the War as if he had died on the battlefield, except that his suffering had been infinitely more protracted.” And Dr. Roseveare paused, aware that his words would be headlined throughout England the following day, and would probably be the theme for articles in all the next Sunday’s papers.

  “You visited him on the night before he died?”

  “Yes. Like Mrs. Ellington, I tried to cheer him, but, I fear, with less success.”

  “Do you know if he had anything to worry about?”

  “Nothing at all connected with his work here, I am quite certain. I was perfectly satisfied with him.”

  “Did you know that he took veronal?”

  “I had not the slightest idea.”

  “Did he ever talk to you about taking his life?”

  “Never.”

  “Thank you. I think that will be all, unless any of the jury would care to put a question?”

  One of the jurymen, a local saddler, stood up and said: “Can Dr. Roseveare tell us if the deceased was at all worrited by the Marshall affair?”

  The Coroner glared furiously at the questioner, as if he had committed the grossest of blunders, to say nothing of the most deplorable breach of good taste. But Dr. Roseveare was perfectly unperturbed. “I am afraid,” he answered, “that the Marshall affair, as you call it, has been a worrying thing for all of us at Oakington recently, but I cannot see any reason why it should have affected Mr. Lambourne any more than the rest of us.”

  The juryman wriggled as he stood. “I was only meanin’, sir, that if the deceased was in a low state of mind, like what the doctor said, it was the sort of thing ‘e might ‘ave worrited about.”

  “Oh, quite—quite.” The Head was most affable. “I see your point, and in a general way, I think it very possible.”

  But everyone somehow knew that the saddler had made a fool of himself.

  The Coroner, before the jury retired, said it was one of the saddest cases he had ever come across. The deceased, as Dr. Roseveare had said, had died a soldier’s death in the sense that the real cause, undoubtedly, had been the injuries honourably received in the service of his country. (Roseveare had not said anything of the kind, but there was no one to contradict.) Unfortunately, perhaps, it was their task, as a court, to inquire into the more immediate cause of death,
which two medical men had agreed was an overdose of veronal. There seemed no doubt that the deceased had acquired the habit of taking the drug to relieve his sufferings, both physical and mental. The dose that killed him was heavy, but there was nothing at all to show that he had taken it with the intention of ending his life.

  After that, of course, an open verdict was almost inevitable. The jury deliberated for less than five minutes before deciding upon it; in less than ten the court had dispersed, the newspaper-men were hurrying to the local post office, the Head was entering a taxi on his way back to the School, and the Coroner was enjoying a smutty story with the police-surgeon. The third Oakington tragedy had been accounted for.

  It was during lunch with Roseveare at the School that Revell learned where Guthrie had been. “He said there was no need for him to attend the inquest, so he spent the morning packing. He’s going back to town this afternoon. I suppose you know that he’s giving up the case?”

  “REALLY?”

  “I had a long talk with him yesterday about it. He was frank enough to admit that he had no evidence against anyone, so there was nothing for it but to accept the situation. A likeable man, Revell, apart from his detestable occupation.”

  Revell smiled, though he was rather bewildered by Roseveare’s information. He had guessed that Lambourne’s confession must inevitably end the matter, but he had not quite realised that the end would come so soon and so tamely.

  Roseveare continued: “By the way, Revell, what exactly are your intentions, now that this unhappy business seems to have worked itself out? Do you particularly wish to go back to London?”

  Revell hesitated, and the other went on: “Because, if you aren’t keen to return, you are very welcome to stay on here until the end of Term, which is only four weeks away. As a matter of fact, I would rather you did so. I don’t think your real position here has yet been guessed by anyone, and that, you will agree, is a good thing.” (Lambourne had guessed it, though, Revell remembered.) “I fear that if you were now suddenly to disappear, the circumstance might only add another to the monstrous cloud of suspicions that we are now hoping to disperse. My staff, I trust, feel that so far I have done my best to protect them and their interests, but their attitude might change were they to discover that I had imported an Old Boy of this School to act as amateur detective and spy on them.”

  “The description of my job isn’t exactly flattering,” replied Revell with a laugh, “but still, I see your point.” He was thinking, as a matter of fact, of sunny afternoons with Mrs. Ellington by his side as the two of them cycled along country lanes, of cool tea-times with Mrs. Ellington ministering to him in her little chintz drawing-room, of restful Sabbath evenings with Mrs. Ellington beside him in the visitors’ pew in chapel. “I’ll stay on if you like,” he added. After all there was nothing else to do, and the thought of his sooty little pied-ŕ-terre in Islington was far from attractive. “But you must let me do some work for you, or something like that. Otherwise it will seem just as strange as if I were to go.”

  “Quite. I had already decided, in fact, to offer you a temporary post as my secretary. And at a salary which you will discover for yourself at the end of the Term.”

  “You are really too generous, sir.”

  But it was difficult not to be put in a good humour by such jovial and beneficent methods.

  Yet, for all that, Revell was slightly annoyed, and his annoyance centred upon Guthrie. It was unmannerly of the fellow, to say the least, to clear off without a word of explanation or thanks to one who had undoubtedly assisted him to the best of a perhaps more than average ability. Then an idea struck him; if he were going to stay on at Oakington for the rest of the Term, he must first go back to his rooms and make arrangements with his landlady, pack a few extra things, and so on. Why not go that very afternoon and travel on the same train as the detective?

  Thus it came about that the two of them met in a compartment of the three-twenty train to King’s Cross. Guthrie seemed not in the least surprised, and welcomed Revell quite cordially. “Another deserter, eh, Revell? Given up the Oakington case as hopeless even to the amateur?”

  “I’m staying on at Oakington till the end of Term,” Revell explained. “The Head asked me to. But I’m just going back to pick up a few things.”

  “Oh, so you’ve taken the secretary’s job, then? He told me he was going to ask you.”

  “I’m trying it till the end of the Term, anyhow,” replied Revell, cautiously.

  “Congratulations.” And Guthrie laughed. “Not at all a bad job, I should think. Precious little work, and plenty of time to flirt with the charming Florence Nightingale, eh?”

  Revell found himself, to his intense annoyance, flushing like a schoolboy.

  “Oh come now, no need to look shocked! She’s a pretty little piece for those who like their multum in parvo. Can’t say I do, myself, but tastes differ, don’t they?” He added: “I’m glad we’re to travel together—it will save me writing you a very nice letter of thanks.”

  “What I’d like as much as thanks,” said Revell, “is to know a little bit more about what exactly happened.”

  “Oh? You want me to go over the ground like the fiction detective, do you, and explain every point? The trouble is there’s not much to explain, I’m afraid. Lambourne’s confession closes the affair, of course, and neither the professional nor the amateur branch of the service can really claim to have covered itself with glory. It’s rather an annoying thing, to get a confession at second-hand. Legally, you see, it doesn’t count. It’s a particularly vicious example of what the soldier said.”

  “You mean that you can’t even announce it to the public?”

  “Advisable not to—so they tell me at headquarters. Can’t be proved, you see. Some relative of Lambourne’s, if he has any, might up and sue me for slandering the family name. Dashed queer thing, the law, isn’t it?”

  “So the Oakington murders will go down into history as unsolved crimes?”

  “If they go down to history at all, I suppose they will. Of course I’ve had to tell my superiors the truth about it. But nobody else. And I should advise YOU not to, either.”

  “Haven’t you told Roseveare?”

  “No. Why should I? Let the poor man stick to his suicide theory— it’s less unpleasant for the School’s reputation, and that’s all he cares about.”

  He leaned back amongst the cushions and puffed contentedly as the train gathered speed out of the station. “It’s been a disappointing case altogether —there’s no doubt about it. By the way, I understand the inquest went off all right? Were you there?”

  “Yes. They brought in an open verdict.”

  “Good. Mrs. Ellington and Roseveare and I were anxious that that should happen. No use bringing more scandal on the School, was there?”

  “Yet you think it was suicide?”

  “I’m positive of it. Suicide to escape a murder charge. But I could hardly have said that in the court, could I?”

  Revell thought for a moment. At last he said: “It’s a queer business, the whole thing. What sort of a man do you think Lambourne really was?”

  “You want a character study, eh? Well, I’m not particularly good at that sort of thing, but I’ll do my best. I should say his chief characteristic was cowardice.”

  “Cowardice?”

  “Yes. You know, Revell, behind all the sentimental stuff, there isn’t very much to be said for the coward. And Lambourne, I’m afraid, WAS one— utterly. During the War, for instance—I wonder why nobody beside me ever thought of looking up his record. Oh yes, I know he was shell-shocked —and I’m not talking of anything he did after that—it may have been excusable then, but it wasn’t before. Anyhow, he narrowly escaped a court-martial death-sentence.”

  “For cowardice?”

  “Yes. It’s on the record. That sarcastic manner of his, too—it’s very often the mark of the coward, especially in dealing with boys. Then again, if he had a passion for Mrs. Elling
ton, why on earth didn’t he have an affair with her if he could persuade her to it? That’s what a normal man does in such circumstances. He doesn’t plan a complicated system of murders to bring her husband to the scaffold. Finally, of course, there was the suicide. Perfectly in character—a last act of cowardice rather than face the music.”

  “Would you have got him, do you think, if he hadn’t confessed?”

  Guthrie smiled. “That’s tempting me, isn’t it? To be perfectly frank, I don’t know. His brains were so much better than his nerves.”

  “What puzzles me is that he should have bothered to make the murder look like an accident at all. Why not leave all the clues pointing straightforwardly to Ellington if his object were merely to get Ellington hanged?”

  “Because, my dear boy, he was far too clever for that. Murderers don’t leave clues pointing straightforwardly to themselves. Don’t you see that by making the thing look like an accident he was really making the case blacker than ever against Ellington? It was clever, damnably clever, I admit. But even cleverness can’t circumvent fate. And it was fate that made Brownley see him that night as he left the swimming-bath with the cricket-bat under his arm.”

  “Oh, it was Brownley, then, who saw him? But he had a pretty marvellous explanation of it all, didn’t he?”

  “Marvellous, as you say. To twist it round to make things look blacker than ever against Ellington was sheer genius—nothing less. Perhaps he WAS a genius, in his way. Ah well, the case is over and done with, and perhaps it’s as well he did take his own life—it’s saved the world a lot of trouble. Even if we’d got a full confession written out and signed by him, a clever lawyer might easily have cast doubts upon it. The law never likes too much to depend on the word of the man in the dock—whether it’s for or against him.” He yawned for the second time. “Let’s forget it, Revell, if we can. Always a mistake to think too much about these things. That was the trouble with Lambourne—he STUDIED crime—read all the high-brow books about it—got ‘em locked up in a little bookcase in his bedroom—ever see it, by the way?… Ah well, if the Oakington affair’s done nothing else, it’s made us acquainted—maybe we shall meet again some day.”