It's Murder at St. Basket's

by James Lincoln Collier

  “He said he didn’t want to go,” Leslie said.

  “Well, I don’t understand that,” I said. “Probably he’s afraid we’ll bump his leg. We’ll just have to make him, is all.”

  Margaret said, “I think we should tell Shrimpton.”

  “That’s no use,” Leslie said. “Are you positive you haven’t got any fags, Margaret?” He began opening the drawers in her desk.

  “Stop mucking about in my desk, Leslie,” she said.

  “Forget about the cigarettes, can’t you?” I said. “Margaret, why should we tell Shrimpton?”

  “Because he’d believe us.”

  We thought about that. It was partly true. “At least,” Margaret said, “he would come up and have a look at David’s leg.”

  “But then what would he do?” I said.

  “What side are the masters on?” Leslie said.

  It was a pretty good question. “They’re not actually on Grime’s side,” I said. “I mean, they have to pretend they are, because they have to support the Establishment and all that, but I don’t think any of them actually like Grime.”

  “They don’t want to get the sack,” Margaret said.

  “I still think we ought to get him to a hospital,” I said.

  “I say,” Leslie said, “I think we ought to ask David.

  That was true. And I suddenly decided in my mind that if he still refused to go to the hospital I’d wash my hands of the whole thing. He was my friend and all, and I certainly didn’t want him to die, or anything. But if he refused to let us help him, what could we do? It wouldn’t be my fault—it would be his, and I could feel clear in my conscience about it. And then I would have it off my mind finally. “All right, let’s go ask him.”

  He was awake when we went in. I guess the hum of our voices from Margaret’s room waked him up. “How do you feel, David?” Margaret said.

  “Not too bad,” he said. He looked terrible, all yellow and pasty, and there was something funny about his eyes. I didn’t like looking at him. I noticed he hadn’t eaten the sandwich we’d brought, although he’d drunk some of his tea.

  “Listen, David,” I said, “we’ve decided we’re going to sneak you out to the hospital. You’re real sick, you can’t take a chance on it anymore.”

  “That’s good of you chaps,” he said, “but I’d rather stay.”

  “That’s crazy,” I said. “You might die.”

  “Christopher’s right, David,” Leslie said. “You really must, you know.”

  “No, I’m feeling a lot better,” David said.

  That was a lot of hooey. He was making me mad. “Damn it, David, you have to.”

  “Please,” he said. “I don’t want to.”

  “Why, David?” Leslie said. “What reason can you have?”

  “Please,” he said. “I’ll be all right. I’m feeling much better.”

  Margaret said, “Perhaps you should try to eat a bit of your sandwich.”

  “I’m not hungry,” he said.

  But that wasn’t it: he was feeling too sick to eat. He could lie all he wanted to about being better, but he wasn’t, he was worse. That sort of grayish, butterish color his skin had gotten and the funny way his eyes looked scared me. I didn’t want to look at him, and I noticed Leslie wasn’t looking at him either, but sort of keeping his eyes off to one side. But there didn’t seem to be any use in arguing anymore. He was determined to stay there, for some reason we didn’t understand. Whatever the reason was, though, he wasn’t going to tell us.

  And so now I could safely wash it all out of my mind and forget about him. I wouldn’t have to worry about him anymore: he’d have to worry about himself from now on. But just to make sure that I’d really tried my best to help him, I said, “Now look, David, we insist that you go to the hospital. Don’t argue anymore. We insist.”

  He just shook his head. “Thanks, chaps, I’ll be all right.”

  So that did it, and Margaret went back to her room, and Leslie went with her just to make sure she hadn’t got a fag buried under the stuff on her desk somewhere. I went over to my desk to do my maths homework, mostly to get my mind off things, and David closed his eyes, although I didn’t know if he was sleeping, or just faking it so I wouldn’t argue with him anymore.

  But the maths didn’t go too well. I’d get into it, going along struggling with the problems, and then I’d hear some movement behind me on the bed, and that would bring David back to my mind. I’d get a picture of him dying, or of his leg just exploding from pus; and then I’d sort of take a deep breath, and work my way back into the maths again. And I’d work away at it for a while, and then David would move again, or I’d see his blazer hanging over his chair out of the comer or my eye, and he d come back into my mind again. I tell you, it’s okay to say that you’re not going to think about something, but it doesn’t always work. I hung his jacket up in his closet where I couldn’t see it, and then I tried to pretend that Shrimpton had come in and taken him to the hospital, and that he wasn’t in the room, but was safe where he could be cured. But nothing worked: about every ten minutes there he’d be, back in my mind again, keeping me nervous and worried.

  Finally I gave up on the maths, told Leslie to be quiet when he came in, I was going to sleep, and went to bed. It took me awhile to doze off, but I guess I was pretty tired, because I did.

  I don’t know what woke me up, but I think maybe David groaned in his sleep, or shouted or something, because I could hear him thrashing around as I came up out of sleep. All I wanted to do was get back to sleep, but I felt pretty wide awake. I have a thing I use when I can’t get to sleep, which is to float around one of the apartments we used to live in and see if I can remember where everything was. I mean I sort of float up in the air above everything, and try to remember where the sofa was in that apartment, and where we kept the silverware and the paper napkins and so forth. So I tried that, but it didn’t work. All I could think about was David lying there with his sick-looking face and his leg hurting, and maybe dying; and it came to me finally that no matter what I tried, I wasn’t going to be able to put him out of my mind. He wasn’t my responsibility, that was true. He was the Grimes’ responsibility or his father’s or his own, since he wouldn’t let us help him. But still and all, I was stuck with it: he was my responsibility because no matter what I did, my head was making him mine. And I knew that whatever happened, my head was going to force me to go on worrying about him until it came to an end, and there was no use fighting it any longer.

  I got up. I didn’t want to turn the light on, because it would shine out into the backyard and if one of the masters was awake he’d see it. I fumbled up my watch from where I leave it on the floor by my bed, and went out into the hall. There’s a dim light that stays on all night out there. It was two o’clock, according to the watch. That was a good time to do it. The pubs close at eleven, which means that the masters are in bed usually by midnight. Of course, there’s actually no law against staying up late in England, but they close the tubes and buses around eleven-thirty or twelve, too, so everybody pretty much goes home after the pubs close, anyway.

  I sat down at the head of the stairs and thought about it. There were front stairs and back stairs down. The front ones were wide, and easier for carrying David down, but more risky. The back ones were meant for servants, and were kind of dark and steep and small. We didn’t use them much because they led down to a sort of back hall leading to the kitchen and the laundry room and so forth. But there was a door out into the backyard through the kitchen, where the deliverymen came, and I didn’t think it would be locked. Mostly they didn’t lock the doors at St. Basket’s, except during the vacations when nobody was around. I wasn’t even sure they had keys for all the doors. Shrimpton once said to us, “No self-respecting thief would be caught dead in this place—there isn’t anything worth the trouble of carrying off,” which was pretty much true. But even if the door was locked, there were plenty of windows. We could go out one if we had to.r />
  The question was how to carry David. I thought about the fireman’s carry, where you sling the guy over your shoulders, but that didn’t seem too good because we’d be bound to bump his leg. Then I thought about the way two people can make a chair with their hands, crossing them over and grabbing onto each other’s wrists. When I was younger I used to do that sometimes to carry some little kid around. But I realized that was too risky: you have to walk sort of bent over and since there wasn’t any way to hang onto anything, there was a good chance we’d stumble and fall. Finally I remembered a carry I’d seen in a movie. It was supposed to be a comic movie. These two guys were soldiers and they were rescuing their pal from the army hospital so he could meet his girl friend. What they did was each sling the ends of a sheet over their shoulders, and the hero sat in between them, where the sheet made kind of a seat. I figured we could do that. David wasn’t too heavy.

  I went back into the room, leaving the door open so there would be a little light, and shook Leslie. “Wake up,” I whispered.

  “Huh?” he said.

  “Wake up, we’re taking David to the hospital.”

  He sat up. “Did he change his mind?”

  “No,” I whispered. “We’re just going to make him. Put your clothes on.”

  “All right,” he said.

  Then I went over and shook David. “I’m awake,” he said.

  “We’re taking you to the hospital,” I said.

  “Isn’t this the hospital?”

  That gave me a creepy feeling. “No, this is St. Basket’s School.”

  He didn’t say anything.

  “David, you have to wake up.”

  “Where’s my father?” he said. “I want to see my father.”

  He wasn’t making much sense. “Come on, David, wake up.”

  “I want to see my father. I want to tell him something.”

  Leslie was dressing pretty fast. “Cor, he’s off his nut,” he whispered.

  “Come on, Leslie, let’s hurry.”

  But I could see that he was dressing as fast as he could, and I knew he was as scared as I was, because we both thought that David was going to die right there, and we would be carrying a dead person.

  I explained my plan, and then I pulled down the sheet that was on top of David. I took a look at his leg. It was swollen as big around practically as a watermelon, only sort of gray and shiny with skin so tight there weren’t any wrinkles or marks on it at all. It scared me to death to look at it. Leslie stared, too. “Are you frightened, Christopher?”

  “Yes,” I whispered.

  “I am, too.” It was the first time he’d ever admitted it. We stood next to each other, with the sheet over our shoulders, each of us holding it with our outside hand. A loop of the sheet hung down between us. We maneuvered over to the bed, and sat David up. He moaned. “Where’s my father?” he said. “I have to tell my father something.”

  “Quiet, David,” I said. “Everything’s going to be all right.”

  “I have to tell my father.”

  Gently, we sort of slid him out of the bed toward us. In a way it was a good thing he was out of his head, because he didn’t know what was happening, and he didn’t put up any fight. We slid him carefully sort of backwards until his rear was in the sling, and we raised the sling up until he was high enough so that his feet wouldn’t dangle on the ground. Then we just backed away from the bed. He groaned when his leg slid and dropped off the bed, but we’d got him up high enough so that it wasn’t touching anything. And we started.

  It was easier than I had thought it was going to be. He was pretty light, and Leslie and I were in pretty good shape from football, and we just sidled along out of the room and into the hall.

  Margaret was standing in the door to her room. That made me nervous, because it meant that we were making enough noise to wake people up. “Good luck, chaps,” she whispered. We nodded, and started down the stairs.

  That wasn’t so easy. The stairs were narrow, and we had to go one at a time, with Leslie going first because he was taller than me and could hold that side of David up a little higher. Still, Choudhry was sort of tipped, and I was worried that we’d drop him. But what worried me worse was that every once in a while he started talking. He was already in the hospital, he believed, and he must have thought we were doctors or nurses or something, because he kept asking for water, and when his father was going to come. To shut him up, I whispered, “He’ll be here in a few minutes, David. Just go to sleep.” He closed his eyes, but it didn’t last, for at the bottom of those stairs, when we hit the floor where the masters lived, he said all over again, “When is my father coming? I have to tell him something.”

  This time I didn’t answer. I just nodded at Leslie, and we turned the landing and started down the next flight of stairs, which led to the floor where the Grimes lived. We had to go slow. There was only a tiny light at the bottom and we could hardly see the steps. They had carpets on them, old and worn, and I could smell the mustiness. The light gleamed faintly on the banister, making little shine spots on the varnish. We went on down, step by step. Try as we might, we couldn’t keep David from shifting around as we took each step, and the movement kept him talking. Sometimes it was just a mumble, but sometimes he would really speak out in a regular voice. I tried sort of holding my hand over his mouth, but he kept jerking his face away, and I stopped, because I was afraid he might make us stumble. We were near the bottom of the stairs. Once we got past this floor and down onto the ground floor I figured we’d be pretty safe, because there was nobody asleep down there. “Let’s hurry, Leslie,” I whispered.

  I wished I hadn’t, because it got David talking again. “Where’s my father?” he said. “I want to tell him something.”

  We reached the bottom step. My heart was thumping like a drum, fast as it could go, and I was dripping with sweat, even though it was pretty cool in there. We stepped onto the landing, and just then I heard a kind of a thump, sort of a distant noise from somewhere. We stopped dead still. “What was that?” Leslie whispered.

  And just as he said it the light from a huge flashlight blinded us and the booming voice of Miss Grime ripped out, “Mr. Grime, take that child away from those two fools.”

  Mr. Grime came into the flashlight and picked David up out of the sling. David stared at Miss Grime with those funny eyes. “Father,” he shouted, “father!”

  “Put him in my room, Mr. Grime,” she ripped. “He’ll spend the night with me.” She switched on the hall light, and turned off the flashlight. She was dressed in a kind of huge purple bathrobe, with a lace nightcap over her head. Leslie and I just stood there with the sheet over our shoulders, scared to death.

  Mr. Grime had got David cradled in his arms the way you carry a baby. He began to struggle, kicking his legs around, and trying to jerk loose from Mr. Grime’s arms. Mr. Grime squeezed him tighter. David kept on staring at Miss Grime.

  “Take him away,” Miss Grime boomed out. “As for you two fools—”

  “Father!” David screamed. Mr. Grime carried him to the door, twisted the knob with one hand, and kicked the door open. “Father!” David shouted, and waved his arms at Miss Grime. “Father, I know where they buried my brother.” Then Mr. Grime carried him through the door, and kicked it closed behind him.

  CHAPTER 9

  SHE LOCKED US in our room for the night; but she didn’t say anything to us except, “I expect I will have to teach you two fools a lesson.” In the morning, Shrimpton let us out. All he said was, “What sort of lark have you chaps been up to?” and we went down to breakfast.

  I felt mostly just numb. The whole thing was so unbelievable. Now, with the morning light streaming in on our oatmeal and cold toast and usual marmalade, it seemed as if it couldn’t really have happened, as if it was just a specially scary movie we’d seen. You know how something like a movie or a dream can hang on for a while after you get done with it; well, it seemed as if it was just something like that, and in a few minutes i
t would be gone.

  But I knew that wasn’t true. All along, I’d had the feeling that there was something bad underneath all of this, and now I knew what it was; and I wished I hadn’t found out.

  At breakfast, Margaret wanted to know what had happened. She hadn’t gone back to bed, but had been standing by her window looking out into the backyard, waiting to see if we got away all right. Of course, she’d heard the noise of Miss Grime’s voice come booming out, and she’d torn back into bed, and had lain there listening while Miss Grime clomped us back upstairs and locked us in. She hadn’t a very good idea of what had happened, but we didn’t dare tell her very much at breakfast because of Mrs. Rabbit. I had a feeling that Mrs. Rabbit would be on our side if it came down to it; but she had to be careful about getting fired, too, and the best thing was to not let her know what we knew right away.

  During the day, the word began to go around the school that something funny had happened during the night. Some of the fifth formers heard Shrimpton and the French master, Pué, talking about it, and they came around and bothered me and Leslie to tell them what had happened. But we wouldn’t. We just said we’d heard some kind of noise during the night, but we didn’t know what it was. The trouble was, we couldn’t tell the truth because nobody would have believed it. We couldn’t say, “Oh, it’s just the usual thing, the Grimes murdered David Choudhry’s brother, and David just found out where they buried him; and now they’re going to murder David, too, to keep him from talking.” You couldn’t say a thing like that with a straight face. Everybody would burst out laughing.

  Besides, we didn’t know for sure if it was true. You couldn’t trust what somebody shouted out when they were delirious. It could have been sort of like a nightmare. We didn’t know whether David had ever had a brother, and if he had, we didn’t know if he had anything to do with the suicide boy. We could have been imagining the whole thing. Leslie bummed a fag from somebody after French, and we slipped off into the bog and talked about it.

  “When you visited him in Paris, nobody mentioned anything about a brother?” Leslie asked.