School for Murder

by Robert Barnard

  ‘The point I am trying to make,’ said Pumfrey, without any notable display of patience, ‘is that medicine should be locked up.’

  ‘Oh, well, medicine,’ said Enid Crumwallis.

  ‘You don’t count this as medicine?’

  ‘Of course, it is genuine,’ she said, ‘but still . . .’

  ‘Some of the things you give them are not genuine, then?’

  ‘Cold tea and aniseed!’ said Mrs Crumwallis, with a palpable air of triumph. “I put it in old bottles. Mostly these boys are just putting it on, you know, or just imagining things. The cold tea does as good as anything, and the aniseed makes it taste nasty, as they expect. It’s well known people take too much medicine. Did you know that when doctors go on strike the death rate always goes down? People these days are just soft, running along for a packet of pills every time they think they’ve got an ache. I once thought I’d go in for Christian Science, but I couldn’t find the time . . .’

  ‘I see,’ said Pumfrey, his sharp little eyes glistening. ‘And do your medical theories also contenance giving a boy a stomach medicine when he is running a fever?’

  ‘Same thing,’ said Enid Crumwallis gnomically.

  ‘Hmmm,’ said Pumfrey. ‘Well, I suppose he ought to be grateful you didn’t pull one of his teeth out. Well now, you left the medicine—you say this was genuine?—’

  ‘Oh yes. I get it wholesale.’

  ‘—you left it outside the sick bay, in the corridor. How long had it been there?’

  ‘Since he had his last lot. That was about three.’

  ‘Anybody could have got at it, then?’

  ‘Any of the boys could have.’

  ‘Anybody else?’

  ‘I don’t know, do I? Not my business to go round finding out where all the staff are every minute of the day. There wouldn’t be anybody much about between three and quarter to four. That’s when school ends. Pickerage would be the only one around in the boarding annexe before then.’

  Except, Pumfrey thought, if someone had had the last period free. He made a mental note to check.

  ‘And after school ended?’

  ‘Oh well, after that they’re all milling around, all the boarders, that is. Having their tea and whatnot. Noisy little brats. Later on most of them went out on the lawn. Supposedly practising cricket with that Frome boy.’

  ‘I know,’ said Pumfrey. His moustache bristled involuntarily as he noticed the decided lack of compassion in her tone for one who had after all breathed his last in her lap.

  ‘Anyone could have gone up while they were out there,’ pursued Mrs Crumwallis.

  ‘I see,’ said Mike. ‘Tell me, did you have the same high opinion of Hilary Frome as your husband, Mrs Crumwallis?’

  ‘Oh, him,’ said the headmaster’s wife, and then went silent, so that Mike Pumfrey was unsure whether her contempt was directed at her husband, or at his star pupil. Eventually she resumed: ‘I don’t go much on boys. Dark ones, fair ones, fat ones, thin ones, to me they’re no different, the one from the other. Nasty little imps, every one of them, and if you started having favourites, they’d put it over you, sure as God made apples. If I liked boys I couldn’t do my job.’

  ‘Which is?’

  ‘To run this school so it makes a profit. We’re not in this business for charity, you know.’

  ‘No. I can see that. I’m not sure you’re in it for education either.’

  ‘Oh really? Well, I’d have you know there’s plenty who are grateful to have a school like this in the town.’

  ‘I’m sure you’re right. But as far as I’m concerned, Mrs Crumwallis, I’d rather send a kid of mine to the nearest Borstal than put him here under your care. I’d say the sooner you get out of this business into some other, the better it will be. Good morning to you.’

  Mrs Crumwallis stared at him. She blinked, as she imprinted an impression of him on a card in her mental filing cabinet, stored under the heading ‘impertinence’. Then she rose from her chair, and peered down at him again from her great height. Then she did a right about turn and marched to the door. But as she opened it she turned around, and as a parting shot said:

  ‘Hoity-toity!’

  And she closed the door with a bang.

  Fenniway thought Mike Pumfrey was going to explode. He certainly had to repress the desire to spring over to the door, fling it open and bellow at her some crushing obscenity, so as to get the final word. But suddenly, instead, he relaxed in a great shout of laughter.

  ‘Well,’ he said, finally. ‘I’m certainly hearing new things today. I never expected to hear anyone say “hoity-toity” at me while I was going about my official business. That’s what comes of having a different kind of customer to deal with.’

  ‘Bit of a character,’ remarked Fenniway neutrally.

  ‘Bit of a tartar, too. My God—what a dried-up old stick. No wonder the headmaster gets sentimental crushes on fair-haired cricketers.’

  ‘And that’s not the worst of her,’ said Fenniway.

  ‘No, not by a long chalk. Negligent, mean-minded, and very, very stupid . . . You know, Fenniway, I wish we could get back to our old ideas: someone getting at Hilary Frome, or perhaps someone getting at the headmaster and his lovely lady wife. It figured, it came together. Someone getting at Pickerage is so much less likely. But I really don’t see . . .’

  ‘I did wonder,’ said Fenniway, ‘if possibly the evidence could have been tampered with afterwards.’

  Pumfrey meditated.

  ‘Before we arrived, you mean? It’s a thought. There was chaos over there. The glasses could have been rinsed, and poison put in the medicine, instead . . . But no, that’s nonsense. What would be the point? Who would go to that trouble, take the risk? Because they would have had to wash out the sherry bottle and put clean sherry back . . . If it were that, it would narrow it down to the boys and the Crumwallises . . . But it’s no good trying to fit theories to fact. What we’ve got to build on is that the poison was in the medicine and in the medicine glass. So either they were out for Pickerage, or—’ he sighed—‘the medicine was poisoned much earlier, and by someone who just didn’t care a damn who they killed. The same person who put that glass into the shepherd’s pie. My God, Fenniway, I wish I could be sure if we’re looking for a maniac, or for someone who’s taken advantage of a maniac’s doings.’

  ‘I suppose we’d better see Pickerage again, hadn’t we?’

  ‘Oh yes. We’ll have to get it confirmed, get it all down on paper. Can’t say I’m looking forward to it.’

  ‘But he realizes already, don’t you think, sir? That’s what he’s been afraid of all along.’

  ‘Oh yes—bound to be. But why the hell didn’t he say something to us, when he talked to us last night?’

  ‘I’ve been thinking about that, sir. From what we can gather, from young Freely, for example, this Pickerage could have been something in the nature of Frame’s second-in-command, wouldn’t you say?’

  ‘Could well be. In other words, he himself might have quite a lot to hide, you mean?’

  ‘Yes, sir. And also might equally be open to attack. If Frome was hated, Pickerage might be too.’

  Mike Pumfrey’s sharp little face was twisted into a grimace.

  ‘Might be. But from the little I know about kids, it’s hard to imagine. This Pickerage seems such a different type, that you’ve got to admit. And a fairly likeable type, even if he might be pretty aggravating to have in a class. Oh well, you’d better get him in. Where is he?’

  ‘Still locked in upstairs. Oh—he’s all right: he ate his meal, and he’s over with the fever. But Walls, the constable upstairs, says he mashed up the pie and inspected every mouthful. So he’s still feeling pretty threatened.’

  ‘He will be, till we’ve got to the bottom of this. Will you go and get him?’

  Out in the hallway Sergeant Fenniway spotted the dejected shades of Mr and Mrs Crumwallis, deep in converse. The shades melted through the door of their private
kitchen when they spotted him. When he came back with Pickerage, Pumfrey thought the boy looked very much healthier than he had last night, though not a great deal happier.

  ‘Sit down there, Malcolm—is that the name?’ said Pumfrey, trying to be a little less brusque this time. ‘Right, now I’m not going to beat about the bush. I want the whole truth from you this time.’

  Some reflex action operated in Pickerage, some reflex action born of innumerable collisions with teachers and heads, interviews where he was accused of something or other that he had indeed done. He put on a look of seraphic innocence. He became the little boy in Jane Eyre who assured Mr Brocklehurst that he preferred learning psalms to being given ginger nuts.

  ‘But I told you the whole truth yesterday.’

  ‘No, you didn’t, Malcolm. You told us some, but you missed out a bit. I want to know what happened between Hilary Frome pouring your medicine and the two of you toasting each other—“your health”, was it?—and drinking up.’

  Pickerage’s eyes had dropped. He swallowed hard.

  ‘He . . . there was a lot of noise from the dorm . . . and he . . . Hilary, he went over to the door and shouted at them to shut up.’

  He faded into silence.

  ‘And you?’

  ‘I . . . changed the glasses.’ He looked up, his eyes filled with tears, his voice going to stratospheric heights. ‘It was just a joke. I didn’t know. I mean, how could I ? And they were both brown, you see—the sherry and old Mother C.’s filthy stuff. And I thought . . . I thought it would be a good laugh.’

  ‘Yes. We see that. We understand. We knew that was what must have happened when we found out that the poison was in the glass with medicine in. Was this why you were so upset yesterday night, when you talked to us?’

  Pickerage’s eyes had dropped again.

  ‘Well . . . yes. I mean it was like I’d killed Hilary, wasn’t it? And he was my friend. I’d poisoned him.’

  ‘No, you mustn’t think that, Malcolm. You hadn’t poisoned him because you didn’t know there was poison in the medicine, did you?’

  ‘No-o . . .’

  ‘There’s something else worrying you, isn’t there?’

  Pickerage raised his eyes and looked straight at him.

  ‘Of course there is. Don’t be daft. If somebody put stuff in that medicine, they were trying to poison me.’

  ‘Well,’ said Pumfrey, ‘maybe.’ He shifted uncomfortably in his chair. There was no way of being cosy and matey with the boy in this sort of conversation. ‘And does that mean you can think of some reason why anybody should want to poison you?’

  Pickerage looked aggrieved.

  ‘ ’Course I can’t. Mind you, I’ve thought about it. Tried to puzzle it out. I mean, I know old Stinko doesn’t like me—’

  ‘Old Stinko? Is that the science teacher?’

  ‘No-o-o,’ said Pickerage contemptuously. ‘It’s Muggeridge. He pongs worse than the bogs sometimes. I told you, he gets downs on people. But, I mean, poison. He wouldn’t . . . would he?’

  ‘No. No, of course he wouldn’t. Are you sure there’s no one else who disliked you?’

  ‘No. Why should they dislike me? I mean, the head slippers me, and that, but that’s different, isn’t it?’

  ‘Of course it is. Now, you and Hilary Frome were friends, weren’t you?’

  ‘Yes, we were. He was my best friend.’

  ‘And a lot of people disliked Hilary Frome, didn’t they?’

  Pickerage thought.

  ‘Well, I suppose so. I suppose the staff and that disliked him. I mean, he ragged them. Said things . . . You see, he thought this place was the end.’

  ‘So I gather. Malcolm, what did you and Hilary Frome do on Sunday?’

  The suddenness of the question caught Pickerage out, and a great blush burst out over his boyish face.

  ‘We . . . we went out.’

  ‘Yes . . .’

  ‘We went out for the day.’

  ‘Where did you go?’

  ‘We went to Stanhope Woods. There’s not many people go there, even on Sunday.’

  ‘Yes. And what did you do?’

  ‘We just talked.’

  ‘Why did you want to go where there wouldn’t be anybody around if all you wanted to do was to talk?’

  ‘Well . . . well, we had things to talk about.’

  ‘Come off it, Malcolm. You don’t blush about a bit of talk. What did you do? I’m not the headmaster. What was it?’

  Pickerage’s face looked like sunset over the Alps. He stared down into his lap.

  ‘We did something . . . something Hilary wanted to do. It was nasty. He said I’d like it, but I didn’t . . . It hurt.’

  ‘I see. You’re not the first to have done that, old boy, you know. But perhaps you’d better tell me exactly what—’

  But Pickerage was saved from further embarrassment. The door of the study was flung open, and a splendid and costly vision, in fur cape and Givenchy suit, waltzed into the room, wafting in her wake a breath of spring on the Champs-Elysées, captured just for her, and bottled and retailed at a ridiculous price. She smiled a wide smile, of wonder and self-satisfaction at her own loveliness and desirability.

  ‘Malcolm! Darling! They said I’d find you here. Not in trouble again, surely, darling? And you—’ she turned the full force of her abundant sexual appeal on Mr Pumfrey—‘you must be the new headmaster!’

  CHAPTER 14

  MOTHERS

  It was the first time, in all the visits she had paid to Burleigh School, that Malcolm Pickerage had been pleased to see his mother.

  The same could not be said of Superintendent Pumfrey.

  ‘No,’ he rapped out. ‘I am not the new headmaster.’

  ‘Really?’ she said, with a sweet, soft, inquiring smile. She came over to the desk, and Pumfrey was overwhelmingly conscious of scent, of a soft, clinging material, something between corn and orange in shade, and of the smile, now invitingly close and (as they say about duplicated letters that look convincing) personalized. As an afterthought, she put her hand on Pickerage’s shoulder, fondly.

  ‘Seeing you there, behind the desk, I naturally thought . . .’ she went on. ‘One of the boys outside, you see, told me that the school had a new headmaster . . .’

  ‘Yes. I believe that is so. It’s not my concern, but I understand Mr. Coffin has taken over.’

  ‘Oh, but I know him. I’ve met him. Quite old, but definitely sympathetic, wouldn’t you say? Someone one could have complete trust in? I don’t think personally that I’ll miss Mr Crumwallis, you know. I expect some people were impressed, and possibly he was some kind of scholar, but I must say I expect myself a more manly man at the head of a boys’ school. If you see what I mean.’

  She opened her eyes wide at him, to tell him that he would precisely fit the bill. Mike Pumfrey wondered what sort of man there still was around who responded to such outrageously outdated appeals. Elderly businessmen, he would guess. Huffing slightly, he turned his head towards her son.

  ‘Malcolm, perhaps you’d better run along now. I expect you’d like to go out with your mother later, wouldn’t you? Have a meal, or something?’

  “Oh—a meal,’ put in his mother. ‘I don’t know if I—’

  ‘Yes. Super,’ said Pickerage, the parody schoolboy. ‘I’ll go and get changed.’

  Once he had gone, his mother sat somewhat stiffly in his chair, fixed Mike Pumfrey again with those liquid eyes that were definitely now less inviting, and said:

  ‘Just what is this all about?’

  Mike Pumfrey cleared his throat.

  ‘I’m sorry if I committed you there, but your son has gone through a pretty terrible time, Mrs Pickerage, and—’

  He had trodden, inadvertently, on a button that produced an automatic response.

  ‘Oh, darling, please not that. I haven’t been that for many years. I’m Veronica Furley. I reverted to my maiden name. My friends call me Ronny.’

  Sergeant F
enniway, awake to the sign, noticed that his superior’s moustache gave a totally spontaneous, and eloquent, bristle. Privately Mike Pumfrey was thinking that Veronica Furley was really too ’twenties for words.

  ‘Well, Miss Furley,’ he began, hardly able to resist the temptation to call her Ms, ‘I’m a police officer.’

  ‘I knew it! I wouldn’t want you to think I’ve often been involved, but I felt sure I knew the signs. What on earth has been going on?’

  So Mike Pumfrey launched into an explanation. He made it as unsensational as possible, but the bare facts were striking enough. Veronica Furley, though she put up almost no pretence of any motherly concern, seemed to listen with a most commendable appetite for the sensational. She let him continue uninterrupted until the end.

  ‘Well, I say! Poor old Malcolm. Practically did the blighter in himself, didn’t he?’

  ‘No. No, Miss Furley. It was totally inadvertent. Please don’t say anything like that to him.’

  ‘But of course not. Though I think I’d be horribly excited. But you think somebody may have been trying to get at him, do you?’

  ‘It’s an obvious possibility—something we have to investigate, at any rate.’

  ‘What a little beast he must have been. Of course he’s a dead bore quite a lot of the time, but I wouldn’t have thought . . . Damn! I suppose this means I’ll have to look round for another school for him.’

  ‘He certainly seems to want to go somewhere else. At the moment, anyway. But I wouldn’t be in too much of a hurry, if I were you. We may have this cleared up in no time, and then he could well change his mind.’

  ‘Still, I have been thinking of it. I mean, people ask me, people who know about him, and of course The Burleigh School cuts no ice, no ice at all. I always tell them it’s because the boarding section is so small, though of course I realize the boarding section is so small because the school is no good. I say it’s like being part of a big family, but then I think of that bony woman with the specs, and practically burst out laughing. I mean, she is too workhouse for words, don’t you think?’