A Question of Proof

by Nicholas Blake

  ‘Hmph. It took some brains to get rid of the weapon like that. It seems to me there’s a remarkable similarity between the two murders. In each case the criminals deliberately put themselves under suspicion, first by admitting that they were in the haystack and then by being in the obvious proximity to Mr. Vale when he is murdered, and in each case they arrange it so that there shall be no proof. I tell you, sir, it’s a double bluff. And damned clever too. Surely you’re not suggesting that there’s no connection between the two murders?’

  ‘Far from it. I suggest that there’s even more connection than meets your eagle eye. Hasn’t it occurred to you that there’s at least just as much likelihood of the murders having been done like this by somebody else in order to incriminate Evans and Mrs. Vale as of having been done by them so as to incriminate themselves?’

  Armstrong started and fingered his top button uneasily.

  ‘And secondly,’ pursued Nigel, ‘doesn’t the highly public nature of both crimes suggest anything to you?’

  Armstrong looked puzzled. ‘I don’t see what you mean. This last crime was public enough. But the murder of Wemyss? Well, the haystack was in rather a prominent position, I grant you. Still, I don’t see how you could call the murder itself ‘public.’ ’

  ‘ No… No. Of course not,’ said Nigel, looking at Armstrong quizzically.

  ‘Look here, sir, what is it? You’ve got something on your mind. What’s this new theory of yours? You told me you’d come across with it this afternoon, one way or another.’

  ‘Yes, I know. But things have happened since that. This Vale business complicates matters. Hell and damnation,’ he went on, talking almost to himself, ‘and I could have stopped it. I had all the facts. I might have known – oh well, spilt milk and all that. I want a day more. They can’t get away, can they? Let me know, by the way, when you’re going to arrest them, and we’ll see what your humble servant can do.’ Nigel rose wearily. As he was opening the door he turned and said over his shoulder, ‘And, incidentally, Armstrong, I’m prepared to lay twenty to one that you find the weapon in Evans’ room tomorrow.’

  ‘Wh-wh-what?’ gurgled the superintendent, but the only reply was a squeak from the closing door. ‘For all that,’ Nigel was saying to himself on the other side, ‘I wish I knew where it is now.’

  XII

  Shocks All Round

  THE NEXT DAY was perhaps the busiest and most eventful in Nigel Strangeways’ life. Before twelve hours of it had elapsed, the whole structure of deceit and misrepresentation which the murderer had erected had fallen in like a house of cards. It was a terrible day for Michael and Hero. Michael, waking early after fitful sleep, felt a vague nightmare weigh upon his heart; he remembered that it was exactly a week since he had woken up in sunlight and kissed Hero in the haystack – a week since someone had tied a piece of string round a boy’s neck. But it was not this that oppressed him. Then he remembered; he had started from sleep in the middle of the night and suddenly realised the full meaning of the superintendent’s activities that evening. They suspected Hero of killing her husband, and himself of hiding the weapon. So obvious, when one came to think of it. Hero’s face, lovely and forlorn, rose up before his eyes; then the mists of fear came down, blotting out everything but the difficult and treacherous path beneath his feet – a path, he reflected grimly, so likely to end now in a sheer drop. Nigel said he knew – that was his last hope. Hero herself lay in bed, wan and wide-eyed. Wherever she turned she could see nothing but a body with a tiny hole in the back and a tiny ooze of blood on the grey coat. That she was free at last, free to marry Michael; that at least one person believed her to be the murderess of her husband – these things did not enter her mind. The darkness of physical horror still enveloped it too closely. It was an exciting day for Superintendent Armstrong and more than one of the staff. It was a day notable, moreover, for perhaps the only triumph in the drab life of Hugo Sims.

  Michael got out of bed and studied his face curiously in the glass. It looked exactly the same as it had looked a week ago. No pallor, no dark pouches, none of the conventional imprints of mental anguish. He felt vaguely resentful; one might at least have something to show for it. He dressed and opened the door to go downstairs. As he closed it behind him another memory started up out of his unconscious. Sometime last night, in the shadowy gulf between waking and sleeping, he had heard that same sound, seeming to come from a great distance. It couldn’t really have come from a great distance, of course, or he wouldn’t have heard it. It was probably part of a dream, anyway. He dismissed it from his mind.

  Michael took out pencil and paper, and wrote a little note. ‘Darling Hero, I love you. Remember, I shall love you always and whatever happens. When you want me, I will come. Be brave. Michael.’ He folded it up, knocked on Hero’s door and slipped it underneath. Then he went down to breakfast. They were all there, Nigel too. He saw Nigel’s lips moving, ‘It’ll be all right, don’t worry,’ he seemed to be saying. The masters treated him with a strange blend of awe and pity and embarrassment, as though he were dying of a plague. Of course, they had seen him and Hero. Every one must know about that now, and every one must be thinking the same as the superintendent. Only Griffin remained constant in friendship. Michael felt nothing but love and fidelity in his attitude. Having paid their respects to the dying man, so to speak, the masters returned to the topic they had been discussing before his entry.

  ‘No, no,’ Tiverton was saying, ‘even supposing any of us had the money to buy the place, we’d not get the boys. Do you suppose the parents will send their children to a place where two murders have been committed?’

  ‘Good-bye to our little bread-and-butters, eh, Tiverton?’ said Gadsby. ‘I think you are taking too pessimistic a view of things. We don’t know, of course,’ – here he lowered his voice discreetly and gave a wary glance in Michael’s direction, a perfect example of tactless tact – ‘what Mrs. Vale’s plans are, but I imagine she would be only too glad to get rid of the school. My advice to you, Tiverton, is to sound the parents and see how many would continue to send their boys to us if we moved to some other part of the country. There’s nothing like trying, is there?’

  Sims leaned across to Tiverton with a worried expression. ‘I agree with Gadsby. I mean, it’s very awkward for some of us. There are so few jobs going nowadays, especially for older men. I’m sure the parents would be sympathetic. After all, it’s not our fault that all this has happened.’

  ‘Not our fault,’ said Wrench, ‘but the fault of one of us. Or do you attribute these murders to some outside agency?’

  There was a frozen and scandalised silence; the kind of silence that obtained in the common room when someone had the bad taste to bring Russia or religion into the conversation, Michael noticed. He glanced across at Nigel. His friend was sitting quite still, staring noncommittally down his nose and listening far harder than anyone would have supposed. He looked just like a junior master, listening respectfully to his seniors. Griffin broke the silence. ‘I’m all for the idea. Let things calm down a bit, and then start off somewhere else. I rather fancy you as a head beak, Tiverton.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Wrench enthusiastically, ‘we could have something like a school. Do away with all these ridiculous petty restrictions and teach boys to think in English instead of Latin.’

  Wrench was going down badly this morning. His last remark was an implied criticism, not only of the late headmaster, but of the whole school. And the first thing a schoolmaster must learn is to venture no criticism of a school till he has been there at least two years. However much masters may dislike each other or the system under which they are working, the fact of working together in a group unites them in opposition to the criticisms of any newcomer. It was Sims this time who broke the hostile silence. ‘I know. We could do an awful lot, couldn’t we?’ he said, his eyes shining. Every one was taken rather aback. Then Tiverton remarked, in the encouraging, slightly patronising tones which every one seemed to use toward
s Sims when they were not snubbing or ignoring him, ‘Well, what would you suggest?’

  Blushing and stuttering, the little man proceeded to give a lecture on how he would run a school. It was really very good, Michael said to himself. Sims had evidently given a great deal of thought to the subject; it was a pity he was such a failure in practice. Sims suddenly realised the attention which was being given to his remarks, and trailed off into silence, blushing more furiously than ever. Wrench was looking sulky at this stealing of his thunder. Gadsby patted Sims on the back. ‘Well done, old man,’ he said effusively; then, collecting eyes and showing Sims, as it were, like an infant prodigy, ‘He’s got quite a lot under his bald patch, has old Simmie. Ought to be a headmaster. I always say, you never know what there is in a fullah till –’

  ‘Last time you treated us to that observation it referred to a capacity for murder,’ Wrench pointed out sourly. Every one began simultaneously talking about something else, and breakfast was finished to an accompaniment of inconsequential chatter. When it was over, Nigel drew Griffin and Evans aside. ‘There are one or two things I want to get clear about yesterday. You’ll be able to tell me, Griffin, how is the umpiring arranged – I mean, is it the regular thing for umpires to change in the middle of the game?’

  Griffin gave him a long, steady look. ‘I see… Yes. We generally do as we did yesterday; take it in spells.’

  ‘When did Tiverton ask to be relieved?’

  ‘He didn’t. I suggested it at tea. He’s got a bit of a gammy leg – the war, you know – and can’t do with standing about for too long.’

  ‘Was it your own idea to run in for water when Mrs. Vale fainted, Michael?’

  ‘Of course, what else could I do? They’d removed all the tea things from the tent.’

  ‘Nobody else suggested it too, I mean?’

  ‘Well, I think somebody did say “fetch her some water,” as a matter of fact. But I should have gone anyway.’

  ‘Who was it?’

  ‘I really have no idea. I was not in a state to notice.’

  Nigel left them and went into the common room. Tiverton, Wrench and Sims were there. ‘I want to get it quite clear what every one’s position was immediately after the murder,’ Nigel said. Each of them explained. ‘And it was when you were bending over Mr. Vale that you noticed Mrs. Vale had fainted and told Evans to get some water?’ Nigel was looking impartially at the three of them; it was difficult to know to whom the question was addressed.

  ‘I never said that,’ said Tiverton at once.

  ‘I thought it was you who made the suggestion, Sims,’ said Wrench.

  ‘I don’t think so. I may have, of course. I mean, it’s the natural thing to say. Perhaps I did. Everything happened so suddenly. Yet, I don’t seem to remember.’ Sims shook his head in a puzzled way.

  Nigel asked a few more questions, then left them. He next walked into the day room, detached Stevens II from a circle of boys loudly discussing the demise of their late headmaster, and brought him out on to the field.

  ‘Stevens,’ he said, ‘are there any hiding places in the school which no one would be likely to know about?’

  ‘I say, sir, do you want to hide somewhere?’

  ‘No; I mean places where you could hide a thing, quite a small thing?’

  Stevens considered. ‘Well, sir, I suppose there are some. But I think they’d be pretty easy to find. We’ve played that game sometimes, but we always found the thing very quickly. It’s a bare sort of place. I wish there were some secret passages or something.’

  ‘Mm. I was afraid so. By the way, do you ever have fire alarms here – practice ones?’

  ‘Rather. Jolly good sport. There’s a whopping great bell, just outside No.1 dormitory. When it rings every one has to hurry out of school and form up in the yard – that’s in the daytime. At night we form up in the dormies instead, and the masters come in and we slide down those chute things. We made somebody ring it once as a test for the Black Spot, but there was a frightful row; he got tanned, and Percy said anyone who did it again would be expelled because if people kept on doing it there might be a fire one day and no one would take any notice because they’d think it was another joke and every one would be burnt to a crisp,’ Stevens recited breathlessly.

  ‘That’s rather a pity,’ said Nigel slowly, ‘you see I wanted it rung today. Oh well, it can’t be helped.’

  Stevens’ eyes twinkled. ‘I’ll ring it, sir.’

  ‘Will you really? That’s awfully decent of you. I want it done five minutes before lunch. And you’re going to be caught.’

  Stevens stared at him. ‘Caught? What do you mean, sir?’

  ‘Mr. Griffin is going to catch you. That’s part of the plot. But don’t worry about that. I’ll see it’s all right. And don’t tell anyone. You must swear not to tell anyone until Mr. Griffin catches you.’

  Stevens bound himself by the most bloodcurdling of the Black Spot oaths, and was then sent in to fetch Smithers. Nigel did not expect that the boy would be able to tell him anything very important, but he wanted to clear up loose ends before making his dispositions for the final attack. He was more certain than ever that his theory of the case was the only possible one, but he had no more material proof of it than when he first formed the theory. There was just the chance, a hundred to one chance, a very long shot indeed… But then, the weapon. It made no difference to his theory where it was found or indeed whether it was found at all, but it piqued him; his total and abject failure to imagine how the murderer had disposed of it. Smithers aroused him from his reverie.

  Michael and Griffin, strolling towards school from the far side of the field, saw the meeting between Nigel and Smithers. They saw the two walking slowly along the path towards them, the boy talking up into the man’s face and holding with shy affection on to his sleeve. They saw Nigel walk slower, and then suddenly stop quite dead as though he had seen a cobra in front of him; his head jerked forward; Michael was near enough to see that his face was lit up. It did not look like astonishment or satisfaction; it seemed to be a mixture of the two. Michael hurried towards them. He felt certain that something very important had happened; also, he had just remembered again the noise he had heard in the night, and thought Nigel might as well know about it. As he approached, he heard Nigel saying, ‘… tell the superintendent. It’s all right. I’ll explain to him.’

  Smithers moved away. ‘You look as if the angel Gabriel had appeared in person to you,’ Michael said.

  ‘An angel in disguise, as they say. I’ve just been getting the inside dope on the Wemyss killing. This is going to make Armstrong look pretty blue. The trouble is, he’ll never believe that I had guessed it long ago –’

  ‘Good Lord, you don’t mean that Smithers –?’ interrupted Michael.

  ‘Oh no, he is not the perpetrator of the dastardly outrage. It took a good deal more brains than that poor lad is blessed with. Well, I must run along and tell the superintendent that this is where he gets off.’

  ‘Just a minute. It’s probably unimportant, but something happened last night –’

  It was Nigel’s turn to interrupt, ‘You heard the door of your sitting-room open, perhaps.’

  ‘Oh, it was you, was it?’

  ‘No. Unless I walk in my sleep.’

  ‘Then how the deuce –?’

  ‘Elementary, my dear Watson. I’ll explain later. By the way, Armstrong may conceivably arrest you and Hero this morning. But don’t let it impair your appetite. We’ll have you out again before the evening.’

  Nigel walked off towards the school, leaving Michael gaping in an unbecoming manner. ‘Your friend seems in good spirits,’ said Griffin, who had just come up. ‘Yes, he’s just told me that I shall probably be arrested before lunch.’ It was Griffin who gaped now. After a bit, he said wistfully, ‘I suppose you wouldn’t like someone to give that policeman a sock in the jaw, would you?’

  ‘Not just at present, thanks very much all the same…’

&
nbsp; Nigel went through into the private side of the house and discovered Armstrong in the morning-room, gazing complacently at an object laid before him on the table. Nigel moved closer to inspect it. It was a thin length of steel, which had been filed to a point at one end.

  ‘Is this a dagger that I see before me?’ he asked.

  ‘That’s right, Mr. Strangeways.’ The superintendent beamed. ‘Found it in Mr. Evans’ room, resting on top of the picture rail. Pearson swore it wasn’t there last night. Reckon he didn’t look properly, myself. I didn’t half tell him off. That was a good guess of yours, sir.’

  ‘Pretty obvious. The murderer has been trying to incriminate Evans all along. He fetched the thing in the night from wherever he’d hidden it and stuck it up there.’

  An almost theatrical expression of skepticism appeared on Armstrong’s face.

  ‘Evans thought he heard his sitting-room door being opened last night,’ continued Nigel.

  ‘Sez he!’

  ‘You’re very skittish this morning, superintendent. I shall always know now what the early bird looks like when he has caught the worm.’

  ‘Well, sir, mustn’t waste any more time. I’m sorry; very painful for you, sir. Got the warrant here,’ he tapped his side pocket, ‘going to arrest them now and get it over.’

  ‘Sez you.’

  The superintendent, who had half risen from his chair, lowered himself back into it with great deliberation.

  ‘Now what is it, Mr. Strangeways? Here am I just about to arrest a friend of yours for murder, and there are you grinning fit to split your face. If you’ve really got something, hadn’t you better come across with it?’

  ‘I’m going to bring in a boy called Smithers, and I want you to promise not to ballyrag him. He’s been withholding valuable information, but quite unintentionally. If you start blustering at him, he’ll probably dry up altogether. He’s very sensitive, though he doesn’t look it.’

  Armstrong tried to look hurt. ‘Come sir, you know I never bully witnesses.’