School for Murder

by Robert Barnard

  ‘Family reasons,’ he pronounced laconically.

  Now family reasons can be anything from baby’s colic to a wife running off with the milkman, and there is no arguing with them, because it is indelicate to inquire further, and potentially embarrassing to boot.

  Mr Crumwallis blinked.

  ‘Ah—yes—er—I see.’

  It was a nuisance. Of course they could cancel Burleigh’s participation. Not having a swimming pool, the boys merely had occasional periods at the Town Baths, and were unlikely to make any great splash in the swimming championships. On the other hand, they did have Willis, whose father was keen on swimming, and influential, and who had a fair chance in the 100 yards freestyle. No—it would look bad to cancel.

  ‘Now what shall I do?’ said Mr Crumwallis aloud. His first thought was to send Hilary Frome in charge. But then he remembered he had so far made little public display of his temporary teacher from Portlington. A public schoolboy, no less.

  ‘I’ll send young Freely with them,’ he said.

  Toby, when he was sent for, was perfectly willing.

  ‘I don’t know much about swimming,’ he said, ‘but I suppose it’s mainly supervision, and getting the boys to the right races.’

  ‘Quite,’ said Mr Crumwallis. ‘Quite. Mainly supervision.’

  ‘What about the boarders?’

  Mr Crumwallis drew himself up.

  ‘I, of course . . . Oh, no. Goodness me, no. My wife and I have to go to the Cullbridge Athenaeum’s wine and cheese party. We are promised. Ah—I have it. I’ll ask Hilary Frome to step in and see to things.’

  ‘Hilary Frome?’

  ‘Yes. Perfectly capable. And always willing to oblige.’

  Toby opened his mouth. It was at this point, if any, that he would have to protest. But the fact that he had won a signal victory over the headmaster on Monday night made him reluctant to pit himself against him again so soon. The headmaster (Toby had some of the instincts of the minor public schoolboy) was, after all, the head. It was his school. What was more, it was in the highest degree unlikely that any protest of his would have the slightest effect in any matter relating to Hilary Frome. It was while he was dithering that the headmaster said:

  ‘That will be all, Freely.’

  And that was that. When Toby had gone, the headmaster got on to the organizer of the Championships.

  ‘I’m afraid our regular chap has had to cry off. Trouble at home, you know. But I’ll be sending the boys with Freely, one of my temporary people. Tip-top young fellow, filling in time before Cambridge. Public schoolboy, you know . . . First class . . . Extremely responsible.’

  And so it was settled. When Hilary Frome was approached he was, as the headmaster expected, perfectly amenable.

  ‘Yes, that will be OK, Mr Crumwallis. Yes, I did have something on, but nothing I can’t cancel. I’d like to do it. I’ve been a boarder, so I know the routine. Just you and Mrs Crumwallis go out and enjoy yourselves. Everything will be perfectly all right.’

  That, then, was the concatenation of circumstances that lay behind the events of Thursday night: Bill Muggeridge noticing the ring on the kitchen calendar; Toby winning a victory over the headmaster on Monday night which made him chary of challenging him again on Wednesday; Mr Crumwallis deciding that, on balance, a public schoolboy who was on the staff would do more for the school’s prestige than a young local, however personable. All these things, and other trifles light as air, took their place in the murder investigation that was to begin at Burleigh School on Thursday night.

  CHAPTER 7

  YOUNG MAN, I THINK YOU’RE DYING

  Naturally, being worried, Toby chewed over the subject on Thursday before school with Penny Warlock. Equally naturally, by lunch break everybody was talking about it.

  ‘The headmaster,’ pronounced Mr McWhirter, ‘has an almost total inability to judge the character of boys.’ He emitted one of his painful-sounding nasal chuckles. ‘But then, I have never in my life known a single headmaster of whom that might not be said.’

  ‘Are you worried generally,’ Septimus Coffin asked Toby, ‘or is there something special?’

  ‘Well, it’s particularly Pickerage, I suppose. He seems to have elevated Hilary Frome into a sort of hero.’

  ‘Not unusual.’

  ‘No. But what I don’t like is that Hilary Frome seems to spend a lot of time with him.’

  ‘That is unusual. Schoolboy heroes usually keep their worshippers at a distance.’

  ‘Yes. But they seem to have spent the day together on Sunday. Pickerage said Frome was going to teach him to play squash, and then take him home to introduce him to his parents. That would be strange enough, but the fact is, he didn’t.’

  ‘I’m not surprised at that,’ said Coffin. ‘What sixteen-year-old is going to take a thirteen-year-old home to meet his oldies? Parents are not that slow on the uptake, and his father is a doctor.’

  ‘Still,’ said Toby, ‘I’d like to know what they did do. And Pickerage has been very reserved since—quite damped down.’

  ‘Pickerage,’ contributed Tom Tedder, ‘is rather out of commission at the moment. He was looking very hot and flushed in woodwork just, now, and I sent him along to Mrs C. She took his temperature—about the only thing she can do—and sent him to bed.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Toby, with an expression of puzzlement. ‘I wonder if that makes it better, or worse.’

  ‘I think you’re worrying needlessly,’ said Dorothea Gilberd comfortably. ‘I mean, what can he actually do?’

  Nobody cared to enlighten her, and after an embarrassed silence the conversation turned to other matters.

  • • •

  The bus was to come to Burleigh for the swimmers at five-thirty, and then drive to Sturford, the county town, where the championships were to take place. Toby checked carefully through the boarding annexe after school, and then there was nothing to be done but hand over to Hilary Frome. This was done with the frigid politeness of two people who do not like each other, know they do not like each other, but have never let that dislike come out into the open. Little icicles like daggers hung in the atmosphere.

  ‘Supper is in the kitchen,’ said Toby, speaking to Hilary in the upstairs corridor of the boarding section. ‘It’s cold, so there’s no problem. The younger boys go to bed at nine o’clock. I usually read to them a bit, but there’s no need for you to. Just let them read in bed for ten minutes or so, and then put the lights out. Oh, and Pickerage is in the sick bay.’

  ‘Oh, I know,’ said Hilary Frome, with deliberate, impertinent provocation. ‘Pickerage is a friend of mine.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Toby, and cleared his throat uneasily. ‘Well—Mrs Crumwallis says he’s to have another dose of—of medicine before he goes to sleep.’

  The two of them looked towards the little wooden table outside the sick bay, where a bottle labelled ‘Dr MacLaren’s Stomach and Bowel Mixture’ stood, together with a large spoon. The label on the bottle bore a picture of Dr MacLaren, who looked as if he might have been personal physician to Mr Gladstone. If the two had liked each other more, they might have cast their eyes heavenwards. As it was, they made no sign.

  ‘Two tablespoons,’ said Toby. Hilary Frome nodded coolly.

  ‘Oh, and I don’t know if you’re going to play any games with the younger boys before it gets dark—’

  It was out before Toby could stop it. Boy as he still was, he blushed.

  ‘I might,’ said Hilary Frome. ‘Before it gets dark.’

  ‘Well, I shouldn’t let Wattling play,’ continued Toby hurriedly. ‘He’s only just out of the sick bay himself, and he might fall over and open up that cut again.’

  ‘Of course,’ said Hilary. ‘Poor old Wattling. Perhaps he can just sit around and score.’

  ‘Yes. Well, I’d better be getting down to the bus . . . I expect I’ll be back by eleven or so.’

  ‘Right you are,’ said Hilary, turning away as if terminating the interview. ‘Ch
eer on Willis. From me.’

  You cool little sod, thought Toby, and reluctantly went down to the front drive.

  • • •

  In the event, Hilary rummaged around in the gym and found a cricket bat and ball. The smaller boys could have some bowling and catching practice. Admittedly it was only March, but the cricket season could never come too early for Hilary. He knew he looked well in white flannel. He rounded them all up, and ushered them out on to the lawn.

  ‘Just going for a bit of a hit, Malcolm,’ he called, as they went past the sick bay. ‘You won’t be lonely?’

  ‘No, Hilary,’ came the muffled voice of Pickerage.

  Hilary, of course, batted, and the boys took it in turn to bowl. The rest stood round the outskirts of the lawn, poised to catch. Wattling had tagged on, plastered up as he was, and Hilary included him in. He wasn’t going to take orders from a jumped-up sixth-former. Hilary batted with style, in the manner of a latter-day Raffles, distributing possible catches around the lawn. He really looked very well indeed.

  That, at any rate, was what the headmaster thought, watching him keenly from his sitting-room, sipping a cup of atrocious coffee. A real credit to the school, he thought. He meant, in fact, a real ornament, for Hilary Frome was ornamental rather than creditable, but the two things elided in his mind. The headmaster expanded into geniality as he contemplated his own cleverness in ensuring that Hilary Frome remained at Burleigh for his GCE year. Indeed, he regretted bitterly that his attempts to establish a sixth form in the school had been so abortive. Those boys (they were few, for academic impulses withered and died in the Burleigh air) who aimed at Advanced Level, or even university, had always trickled off into the state system as soon as they had taken their Ordinary Levels, if not before. A criminal waste. Imagine what Burleigh might achieve, Edward Crumwallis thought, with Hilary Frome as its head boy for two or three years!

  Hilary Frome knew he was being watched. He always had a consciousness of that, as a beautiful woman does. When the light began to fail he despatched Tilney with the bat and ball to the gym, and sent the others ahead to the boarding annexe. Then he strolled, slowly and elegantly, in that direction himself.

  ‘Ah, Frome . . . One moment.’

  It was the headmaster, calling him from his sitting-room window. Somehow Hilary had known he would.

  ‘Ah—Frome,’ said Edward Crumwallis, as Hilary walked respectfully in. ‘Splendid idea of yours, getting in a bit of advance practice for the season. Excellent notion. Any talent there, do you think? Well, time will show, eh? You seem to have an excellent way with them, with the younger ones. You have, if I may say so, the right touch.’

  ‘Thank you, sir,’ said Hilary demurely.

  ‘You know, Frome, it gives me a great deal of pleasure to think of you as head boy here next year. A school, you know, is like—’ here the headmaster came to a halt, because he had launched into a metaphor without having a metaphor readily to hand; and in fact he had very few notions of what a school was like—‘is like the human body. Know what I mean?’ Hilary Frome nodded intelligently. ‘It may seem healthy enough, but it’s no use if what’s up here—’ he tapped his head—‘isn’t up to scratch. It’s what’s up top that counts. It’s like that with a school. We’ve got a fine little school here, I’m sure you’d agree—’ Hilary Frome looked at him with a light of pure idealism in his eyes, but he drew the line at assenting—‘but what’s going to count in the years ahead is what we’ve got up top. And one of those things is you, Frome.’

  Hilary swallowed, apparently with emotion.

  ‘I’m sure I’ll try to pull my weight, sir,’ he said, his damask cheek giving no sign of the tongue inside it.

  ‘I know you will, Frome. I’ve always known it. I may say without vanity that I’m rarely mistaken in a boy. And I can see that for the tasks that lie ahead of you in this school you are splendidly equipped. Quite splendidly equipped.’

  Hilary Frome was afflicted by a cough.

  ‘I can see already what a fine relationship you have with the other boys. Firm, yet friendly. Build on it, Frome. And there’s one more thing I wanted to say.’

  ‘Yes, Mr Crumwallis?’

  ‘I appreciate your stepping in like this. Filling the breach, holding the fort, and that kind of thing. I may treat you as a grown-up person, may I not? Should you feel like a glass of—er—sherry in the course of the evening, by all means come and pour yourself one!’

  He waved his hand munificently in the direction of the sideboard, as if it were the bar at White’s. Hilary Frome glanced politely in its direction, and saw the two bottles of sherry left over from the last staff festivities, one of them half empty, the other two-thirds empty.

  ‘Thank you very much, sir. If I feel like a glass, I certainly will have one.’

  ‘Good,’ said the headmaster. ‘Good . . . And now Mrs Crumwallis and I must wend our way to the Athenaeum. A fine organization, Frome. Father’s a member, eh? One day I hope you will be.

  His back was already turned, so he did not see Hilary Frome’s gesture, expressive of what he could do with the Cullbridge Athenaeum.

  • • •

  ‘Hello, Malcolm,’ said Hilary Frome, pausing at the door of the sick bay on his way to the boarders’ common room. ‘How are you feeling?’

  ‘Pretty rough,’ said Pickerage, who certainly looked less than his usual perky self. ‘I think I caught a cold on Sunday.’

  ‘Did you now?’ said Hilary, coming in to the sick bay, which was really no more than a scruffy little room with only a slight hospital smell about it to bespeak its function. ‘One more thing for you to hold against me. Never mind, I’ll be coming to give you your medicine later on.’

  ‘Ugh. Mrs Crumwallis’s muck.’

  ‘Now, now. Remember I am the apple of the headmaster’s eye. His right hand . . . testicle.’

  Pickerage giggled.

  ‘He has just told me that if I continue in my present path, remain the fine, upstanding, clean-living boy I so evidently am, I may one day hope—wait for it—to be elected to—Gracious heavens!—the Cullbridge Athenaeum!’

  ‘Big deal!’ cried Pickerage, regaining something of his usual Senate page-boy look. Hilary seemed to have got the reaction he wanted, and, looking pleased, he went over to the window.

  ‘What are you looking at?’

  ‘Surveying the stately grounds, enjoying the splendid view to be had from Burleigh’s magnificent hospital facilities.’ He peered into the gathering gloom. ‘Well, well: you can see over to the sports field.’

  ‘So what? We don’t play floodlit football.’

  ‘Even to the sports pavilion. Well, well.’

  Suddenly he dashed over to the door and put out the light.

  ‘What are you doing, Hilary?’

  ‘Seeing, but not being seen . . . Ah, just as I thought. . . Poor old Muggeridge.’

  ‘Muggeridge? What’s he doing here at this time of night? Why didn’t he go with the swimmers if he’s not doing anything?’

  ‘Wouldn’t you like to know! There are parts of my life, my dear Malcolm, that even you are not privy to. Elements in my grand strategy that, as commander, I do not care to confide in you . . . Cowardly timorous beastie as you are . . . Whoops! He’s tripped over a root . . . There he goes, off into the trees.’

  He glanced round in the darkened room.

  ‘Well, Malcolm, what are we going to do with you?’

  ‘Switch on the light, Hilary. I don’t like the dark.’

  ‘Baby . . . There you are . . . Well, now I’m in charge of this great boarding establishment, how are we going to amuse ourselves?’

  Pickerage, already flushed, looked down at the sheets, hot and bothered.

  ‘I don’t know . . .’

  ‘Come on, shy little miss. What’s up?’

  ‘Well, I don’t want to do . . . what we did on Sunday.’

  ‘You don’t want to do what we did on Sunday, do you not, you prim little Victorian? And
why, pray, not?’

  ‘I didn’t like it . . . It was nasty . . . It hurt.’

  ‘Really? What a shame. It didn’t hurt me. It’ll be easier next time. We make a great partnership, Malcolm.’

  ‘Don’t start on about that again. I don’t want to.’

  ‘Who’s starting on about anything? . . . You wouldn’t like me to adopt someone else as my protégé, would you, Malcolm?’

  ‘Oh no, Hilary!’

  ‘Well, then, we are going to make a partnership, aren’t we?’

  Hilary Frome sat down on the bed.

  ‘And if it hurt you, that’s not the only fun there is, is it? You prefer the old kind, do you? Conservative little thing. But the old kind is a very good kind.’ He slid his hand down under the sheet. ‘Awfully nice . . . warming . . . satisfying . . . Isn’t it, Malcolm?’

  • • •

  The ancient television in the boarders’ common room was giving a reasonable picture for a change. ITV had a good traditional Western on, in which the grizzled old sheriff (played by a clapped-out Hollywood actor who had kept out of politics) taught the rules of the game and his homespun philosophy to his tearaway young deputy (played by a reformed pop star). It was just the sort of thing the boys liked, and when Hilary had fetched their suppers—a cold Scotch egg each—from the kitchen, they all sat watching it. The younger boys did not take at all kindly to Hilary lounging in a superior way in front of the set and drawling out the dialogue before it got spoken.

  ‘Sometimes a man’s gotta do . . .’

  ‘Oh, shut up, Hilary! You’re spoiling it.’

  ‘Womenfolk’s just like cattle, boy. You treat ’em rough but you treat ’em fair.’

  ‘Put a sock in it, Frome.’

  The film drew towards its close, the inevitable shootout round the hanging rock.

  ‘Well—bed for the teeny-weenies.’

  ‘Oh, get stuffed, Hilary. We’re going to watch to the end.’

  Recognizing the limits of his power, Hilary gave in ungracefully.