It's Murder at St. Basket's

by James Lincoln Collier

  “Plainfield,” that voice ripped out again. I tell you, the power she poured into that voice could really scare you. I looked up and saw Leslie coming through the crowd. He glanced down at me quickly, and then away.

  That voice came again. “What do you mean by this, Plainfield?” A lot of the kids had turned around to see what was going on. She clapped her hands. “All right, everyone. Out, out quickly. Plainfield’s inadequacies are no business of yours. Clear the hall, please.”

  Everyone stopped looking. I stood up, carefully keeping my back to her, and began to move along towards the door. Most everybody was moving out now, pushed along by that booming voice. I kept myself a little hunched down and low and walked along as fast as I dared. The hall wasn’t long—maybe thirty feet or something—but I had the feeling that any moment that booming voice was going to reach out and grab me the way it had Leslie. It made creepy fingers go all over my back. I got to the door, and started out, and just then that powerful boom ripped down the hall: “Plainfield, where is Quincy?” From just in back of me I heard the high voice of one of the younger kids say, “Here he is, M’am.” I jumped down the front steps, dashed across the yard, slammed through the gate and began running down Tanza Road. The kids were drifting along the sidewalk toward South End Green for the bus, or getting met by their chauffeurs in Rolls-Royce Silver Clouds. There wasn’t anything funny about a kid running someplace; but some of the kids who knew me, the ones in my form, stared at me, because they knew I wasn’t supposed to be out, and they could easily figure that I was running away. I didn’t think they would squeal on me, but you couldn’t be sure, because of the way they believed in obeying the Establishment. It was like the kid who said, “Here he is, M’am.” He wasn’t being mean or anything: it was just that the idea of going against Miss Grime would never even cross his mind.

  At the bottom of Tanza Road I stopped and took a look back up the hill. Nobody seemed to be following me. I couldn’t see Miss Grime or any of the masters anywhere. So I slowed down a little, turned onto Nassington Road, and began walking quickly toward South End Green.

  The trouble was, I didn’t know very much about London. You would think that after living there for eight months I would know how the subways worked and so forth, but I didn’t. Most of that time I’d been locked up at St. Basket’s, and hadn’t learned much about how to get places.

  Mr. Plainfìeld worked in what they call the City of London, or mostly just “the City.” This doesn’t mean all of London, just a part of it.

  Mainly the City is a business place, kind of like Wall Street in New York, where there are stockbrokers and banks and things like that. Mr. Plainfìeld’s office was on Poultry Street—the English say “in Poultry Street”—number Six. On the note Leslie had given me, he had written “St. Paul’s, Central,” which meant that the closest subway stop was the one called St. Paul’s, on the Central Line.

  There weren’t any tube stops—that’s what they call subways in London—too near to St. Basket’s. There was one up on Hampstead High Street where Leslie had gone to phone that day, and one at a section called Belsize Park, near the movie theatre where Mrs. Rabbit likes to go. I thought about it for a minute as I walked along, and then I realized I didn’t really know which one was closest. I stopped, and took out one of the pennies I had collected, and flipped it: heads for Hampstead, tails for Belsize. I don’t know what happened—maybe the wind hit it or something, because usually I’m a good catcher, but I dropped it. It bounced on the sidewalk and rolled off the curb and under one of the cars parked in a row along there. I cursed, and bent down, but I couldn’t see it. I couldn’t afford to waste any money, though, so I lay down flat and looked under the car. The penny was there. I reached it out, and got up on my knees; and that was when I realized that there was a car coming very slowly up Nassington Road.

  People don’t normally drive that slowly. I stayed there crouched down, trying to get a glimpse at it between the parked cars. It was blue, and Jaggers’ little Austin 1100 was blue, too. I held my breath. It kept coming slowly, slowly. I stayed as low and as close to the parked car as I could. The blue car came on: and then when it got right next to the one I was hiding behind, it stopped.

  “Who’s there behind that car? I see you, Quincy, come out of there.”

  But I knew he wasn’t sure whether he’d seen anybody or not. If he’d seen me he wouldn’t have yelled, he’d have jumped out of the car and grabbed me. So I stayed scrunched up against the car, my hearting beating like crazy, trying to keep my breath from getting too loud; and in a minute he started the car again and drove slowly on up Nassington. Then I jumped up and started running. It seemed pretty sure to me that he would figure I was trying to make a phone call again, and head for South End Green. You pretty much had to go through South End Green to get to the Belsize Station, which meant I should head for Hampstead. I tore along until I came to a turning called South Hill Park. There’s a tricky little pathway leading off South Hill Park between some houses, that comes onto the Heath. I raced through there, and then began running across the Heath as fast as I could. When Jaggers didn’t find me in South End Green there was no telling where he would try next. Everywhere in London is full of tiny little streets going every which way; Hampstead is that way too, so I knew it would be hard for him to find me. But I was pretty worried anyway. So I kept on running, slowing down to walk when my lungs began to ache and burn, and then speeding up again when I caught my breath. Finally I got off the Heath and onto the streets again. I wasn’t exactly sure how to get to the tube station, but I knew the general direction, and I kept working my way along this little street and that one until I came onto Hampstead High Street. The tube station was right there.

  Luckily, they have very good maps in the London tube stations, and it wasn’t too hard for me to figure out how to get to St. Paul’s. Hampstead was on the Northern Line. All I had to do was take the tube down to Tottenham Court Road, change to the Central Line, and it was only three stops after that. Still, considering everything, it was four o’clock before I got there, and after four by the time I found Six Poultry Street. Of course I had to ask for directions.

  It was an old brick building, about five stories, with a creaky elevator. There wasn’t any directory downstairs, but I asked the elevator man for Mr. Plainfield, and he took me up to the fourth floor. I didn’t know what Mr. Plainfield did—he was a lawyer or stockbroker or something—but whatever it was, he was pretty important. First I had to give my name to some lady at a desk, and then she had to go through some doors, and finally when she came back, I had to be led through a whole big room full of underlings before I actually got to Mr. Plainfìeld’s office. He was sitting behind a big wooden desk, and in back of him you could just see a corner of St. Paul’s Cathedral out the window.

  “Well, Christopher,” he said, “To what do I owe this honor?” He put his feet up on a chair that was near his desk, but I noticed that he didn’t ask me to sit down. Mr. Plainfìeld is not really a bad guy. Actually I think he likes me, even if I am a bloody Yank. When I was down at their house, he always struck up a conversation with me about my interests and so forth, and didn’t make me go sightseeing, but took us to a car race.

  “Well, Sir,” I said, “I guess this is going to be pretty unbelievable to you, but it’s true.” And I told him the whole thing—about Jaggers slamming Choudhry with the hockey stick; and how they were trying to cover it up and keep us from telling anybody; and how David was beginning to get pretty sick. He just sat there sort of nodding and not saying anything until I got to the end. Then he took his legs off the chair, and sort of pushed it toward me with one foot. “Here, have a seat, old fellow,” he said.

  I pulled the seat around in front of the desk and sat down. “I know it sounds hard to believe, Sir.”

  He put his arms behind his head and leaned back. “You might rather say so, Christopher. You mean to tell me that Leslie is actually being held prisoner?”

  “Well, we t
ried to run out together and Miss Grime shouted for him and made him come back. But she didn’t see me.” I realized I’d forgotten to say Sir.

  “But of course, Christopher, the school can’t have the boys wandering about London like orphans, you know.”

  “I know, Sir, but the thing is, what they’re really worried about is anybody finding out that Choudhry is hurt.”

  “Surely they have a doctor on tap?”

  “Dr. Corps-Deadly, but—”

  “I expect if there’s any problem he’ll surely be called in.”

  I was getting pretty embarrassed at having to argue with Mr. Plainfield, and I warned myself to be polite and not mouth off. I knew if I just gave up and left I wouldn’t be able to even speak to Leslie and the rest when I got back. “Sir, I’m sorry I have to keep arguing, but I swear there’s really something funny going on. I know that probably sounds crazy.”

  “It does a little, Quincy. This is England, you know. We don’t lead quite so dramatic lives here as you do in the States.”

  There was that stuff again. I tried not to let it get me mad. “Please, Sir, couldn’t you just call the police and ask them to investigate?”

  He leaned back. “Christopher, one simply can’t have the police around every time a schoolboy gets a bruising. In England, we expect the schools to exert a bit of discipline. From what I understand about America, discipline seems to have broken down. We hear these frightful stories about gangs of boys knifing their masters and that sort of thing. Try to understand, Christopher, here we don’t mind if a master gives a boy a bit of a warm bottom.”

  I wished Leslie had been there to stop Mr. Plainfield from blaming it all on my being American. “David didn’t just get hit. His leg’s broken.”

  “Christopher, believe me, one sympathizes fully with your concern for your schoolmate. But one simply can’t interfere, you know. St. Basket’s School is perfectly reputable.”

  “Please, Sir—”

  He leaned back in his chair and stared up at the ceiling. “Of course, there was that awful business a few years ago about the boy who disappeared. I think it shook people’s confidence in the school for a time.”

  Something about that remark made my ears perk up, but I knew I’d better not seem too interested or he wouldn’t tell me about it. “That must have happened before I came, I guess.” I’d forgotten to say Sir again.

  “Quite. It would have been six or seven years ago, I reckon. I remember it fairly well because we were considering St. Basket’s for Leslie, you know, and it gave us a moment’s pause.”

  That wasn’t much help. I didn’t care about their moment’s pause. I remembered about the Sir. “What was it that actually happened, Sir?”

  “Oh, it was all in the papers. A boy simply disappeared, and of course there was a great fuss over it. It was thought to be kidnapping at first, but in the end it was clear that he’d been doing badly at school, and had been despondent. Later on, they found some of his clothes washed up on a beach. Margate or South-end or some such. Poor lad had drowned himself, of course. Seemed a rather sad story, actually. Pakistani boy he was, like your friend at school. Son of one of your Indian nabobs or some such, which was why they suspected kidnapping at first. Well, that’s neither here nor there.”

  But as far as I was concerned it wasn’t neither here nor there. It filled me with electricity, that story. “It sounds pretty interesting,” I said. “I think the kids at school would be interested to know about it, Sir.”

  Suddenly I realized it was the wrong thing to say. He made a sort of face. “I doubt Miss Grime would be happy to have a lot of ancient gossip revived, Christopher.”

  “No, but I mean—”

  He looked at his watch. “I’m sure I must be keeping you from something, Christopher.”

  I got the hint, but I couldn’t go yet. “Please, Sir, will you do something about David?”

  “Christopher, I’ve said all I have to say on that subject. I don’t mean to be hard. Perhaps you’ll come down in two weeks’ time for Bank Holiday and we can discuss it then.”

  “But, Sir, in two weeks David could be—”

  He held up his hand like a traffic cop to stop me. “I’m afraid I must insist that the matter is closed.” He stood up, and reached across the desk to shake my hand. There wasn’t anything I could do; so I shook hands, and remembered to be polite. “I’m sorry to have bothered you, Sir,” I said.

  “That’s all right, Christopher,” he said. “Now off with you, before Miss Grime starts thinking you’ve been kidnapped yourself.”

  CHAPTER 7

  SHRIMPTON WAS THE one who nailed me when I came in. I told Margaret and Leslie about it at supper. They were just getting started. It was the usual slop—shepherd’s pie, which is that hamburger stuff with mashed potatoes smeared on it, the pale peas for the vitamins, and custard pudding—sort of a lump of cake with a kind of yellowy custard dumped over.

  It was Mrs. Rabbit who brought it up, actually, when she waddled out to see how we were doing. “I see yer put yer foot in it, Yank,” she said. “Blotted yer copybook, innit?”

  “I wouldn’t have got caught if Shrimpton hadn’t been in the yard having a smoke.”

  “The ‘ell yer wouldn’t. What cher think Shrimpton was doin’ muckin’ abaht out there? He wasn’t just takin’ in the fresh air. Old Grime was out to ‘ave the coppers after yer. Good job yer pushed back when yer did. Coo, she was roight angry. Yer’d be spendin’ the noight in the Borstal. Yer for it now, myte.”

  “Miss Grime isn’t actually going to kill me, Mrs. Rabbit,” I said. I wasn’t looking forward to seeing her, though.

  “‘Ere now, don’t carry on like that,” she said.

  “How did you get caught?” Margaret asked.

  I shrugged. “I got off the tube at Camden Town and took the 24 bus up until Fleet Road, and then I walked over that little footbridge and up the Heath along the wall. I figured it was dark enough that nobody would see me. But Shrimpton was just standing there, waiting.”

  “What did he say?” Margaret asked.

  She was pretty interested in the whole thing of me breaking the rules and what people did when they got caught, and I could tell that even if she wasn’t about to break any rules herself yet, she was getting curious. “He said that I was a bloody American idiot.”

  “Never mind about that,” Leslie said. “Did you get to my father’s office?”

  “Yes,” I said. And I told them the whole story about Jaggers nearly catching me, and the tube trip and finally what Mr. Plainfìeld had said, and how it was all a waste.

  “That’s my bloody old man,” Leslie said. “Don’t think hard of him. He can’t help himself. He must do the correct thing.”

  “That isn’t helping David, though.”

  “I’m afraid neither of you chaps are going to be jolly useful to the poor bloke now,” Margaret said. “You’re not allowed out until spring hols.”

  “Is that right?” I said.

  Leslie nodded. “Afraid so, old boy. We’ve been gated. We’ve had our lot.”

  “What did Grime say to you?”

  “She really tore me off a strip. She said she’d have me up on charges as an incorrable child—”

  “Incorrigible,” Margaret said.

  Leslie blushed. He didn’t like being wrong on anything. “Don’t butt in, Margaret. I was merely being funny.”

  “Oh, come off it, Plainfìeld. You—”

  “Cut out arguing, you two,” I said. “Just tell me the story.”

  “How can I if Margaret keeps butting in?”

  “Shut up and let him talk, Margaret. What did Grime actually say?”

  “She said she didn’t know what malicious mischief we were about, but we were gated until spring. She said she was sure no English boy would behave as I had, and that I should remember Americans had no moral sense and were not to be trusted. She’s right about that, of course.”

  I scooped up a pea and snapped it at him wi
th my spoon. It hit his cheek. He snatched up a piece of bread and began smearing it with butter. “You are going to regret your hasty action, my man,” he said.

  “I take it back, I take the pea back,” I said.

  He had the piece of bread completely smeared about an inch deep with the butter. He stood up and held it flat on one hand, like a waiter carrying a tray.

  “And now, Quincy, admit that you are a cowardly American sod.”

  I jumped to my feet. “You are a cowardly English sod—” He lunged. I leaped back, and just then Mrs. Rabbit leaned out of her window.

  “‘Ere now, what’s all this row? I should think you bloody ruffians ‘ad ‘ad enough trouble for one day. Poor Mrs. Rabbit.”

  Leslie sat down and calmly began to eat the bread and butter. “Carry on, Mrs. Rabbit,” he said. “I was merely explaining morals to this Yankee sod.”

  “‘E can bloody well explain morals to ‘imself.”

  We got back to our shepherd’s pie. “Is that all Grime said? Were you scared?”

  “Don’t be an ass, of course I wasn’t scared.”

  “Oh, don’t give me that baloney, Plainfield. I’d have been scared.”

  “That’s because you’re a Yank—”

  Margaret put her fists up around her ears. “Aaaaeeeyaaah,” she shouted.

  Mrs. Rabbit stuck her head out the window again. “Pack up that noise, miss, or no sweet.”

  We calmed down, and Leslie said, “Grime said she was going to have us birched.”

  “Not jolly likely,” Margaret said. “The only master big enough to birch you lot is Jaggers, and I don’t suppose she’s keen on that.”

  I said, “Shrimpton said he was going to birch me when he caught me at the gate. He said, ‘Quincy, you’ve made my day. The privilege of birching one of our cousins from across the sea always gives me the most exquisite pleasure.’”

  “They’re all just talking,” Margaret said.