'Interesting, instructive, and misleading,' said Mrs Bradley emphatically. Findlay gave her a comical glance. He was an intelligent boy, Mrs Bradley decided, and when she needed help he should help her. He was likely to afford her more assistance than were the earnest Stallard and the ox-like Cartaris, she fancied.
*
She was not at all anxious to interview Merrys when he ought to have been playing football. Apart from the boy's own wishes – and he might be fond of football – she had an old-fashioned belief that games – even compulsory games – were not altogether bad for boys.
She had enjoyed meeting the prefects, but it did seem to her that the fewer people – certainly the fewer boys – who realized the purpose of her visit, the greater were her chances of success. She mentioned this to Mr Loveday on the following morning, after breakfast. She did not add, however, that the Headmaster was retaining her in another capacity – that of private detective.
'I tell my prefects everything,' said Mr Loveday. 'I find that it is the only way of inculcating a sense of true responsibility.'
'Who is Merrys's form-master?' Mrs Bradley enquired. It transpired that one Mr Lamphrey had now shouldered this onerous task. Mrs Bradley walked over to the School House to interview the Headmaster.
'Mr Loveday?' said Mr Wyck. 'Oh, yes, of course. His boys will be scattered in various forms, I am afraid. Merrys? Oh, yes, you may interview him when and where you please. If the boy knows anything about this unhappy business – the whole form? Well, of course, you could.' He conducted Mrs Bradley to Mr Lamphrey's form-room. Mr Lamphrey, his gown standing off from his shoulders like the wings of the archangel of doom, was in the apt of inviting a boy called Billings to recite the second stanza of Keats's Ode on a Grecian Urn. Both he and the boy seemed glad to be interrupted.
'Mrs Bradley', said Mr Wyck, 'would be interested in asking your boys a few questions, Mr Lamphrey.'
'With pleasure, Headmaster,' said Mr Lamphrey, horrified, and gazing for support at his First Boy, who was, of course, the enviable although not universally envied Micklethwaite.
'Gentlemen,' said Mrs Bradley, addressing the form, 'I want you to take a clean sheet of paper, to write your names clearly, and then to put down the first word that comes into your minds when I say –'
'Binet-Simon stuff!' muttered Micklethwaite. 'And about forty years out of date.' He said this to nobody in particular. Nobody in particular kicked him, as usual, and there was a slight shuffling as boys took up their pens.
'Right? Murder,' said Mrs Bradley succinctly. 'Blood. Sand. Rannygazoo. Aspidistra. Aunt. Bungle. Spiv. Oxen. South America. Cascara. Beast. Punitive. Matrix. Bicycle. Bluebells. Port Wine. Rabbit. Ink. Hieroglyphics. Dulcibella. Acid. Dogs. Egypt. Herrings. Dulcimer. Wallaby. Bath. International. Haemorrhage. Fitter. Cannibal. Cottage. Indicator. Merchant. Pens down.'
One boy, who had been writing a reciprocal to 'pens down' hurriedly scratched it out, and there was a clatter as of arms restored to an arm-rack. Mrs Bradley requested the first boy in each line of desks to collect the answers to her questions. She looked up at the form when she had looked through the papers.
'I want to speak to Mr Skene,' she said. Skene got up. Mrs Bradley motioned towards the door.
'Mr Skene,' said Mrs Bradley, when they were outside, 'I want the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. What say you?'
'I don't know,' said Skene. Mrs Bradley clicked her tongue. 'I mean, I don't know what you want to know.'
'Suppose we cast our minds back to the night of the murder?'
'Yes?'
'Mr Skene, confide in me. I am not so foolish as to suppose that you and Mr Merrys murdered Mr Conway, even if you did go out on Mr Loveday's bicycle. Believe me, you must be frank.'
'But we didn't use Mr Loveday's bicycle on the night of the murder!' said Skene, horrified. 'It was like this – but we don't want to be sacked –'
*
'And now, Mr Merrys,' said Mrs Bradley, waylaying the unfortunate youth after morning school, 'what is all this about a fountain pen? Had we not better search for it? Is it possible that it can incriminate us? Exactly where were we when the murder was committed, I wonder? And how vengeful were we towards our Mr Conway? What ill-will did we bear him, and for what reason?'
'We were – well, we weren't vengeful,' said Merrys anxiously. 'You see, it was a week before Mr Conway – before Mr Conway –'
'We broke out at night, did we not? And we borrowed our Housemaster's bicycle.'
'I say, you wouldn't tell anybody that?'
'We found ourselves outside a certain cottage.'
'We only wanted to know the way back. We were lost.'
'But at the cottage we found no one to direct us.'
'Oh, I say!' said Merrys, suddenly enlightened. 'It was you at that cottage?' Mrs Bradley cackled. 'But, you know, it had nothing to do with Mr Conway. We'd gone to the Dogs, and we couldn't – well, it didn't seem worth it to go in, and on the way back we lost our way, and – well, that's all.'
'Is it?' said Mrs Bradley severely.
'Yes.'
'Then what alarms us?'
'Nothing. We aren't. I mean –'
'We saw and heard.'
Merrys looked at her and saw that she knew it all.
'We did hear Mr Kay say he'd like to murder somebody, and we thought he put his fist through the window,' he concluded. Mrs Bradley nodded.
'And we know nothing more?'
'No. Honestly we don't.'
Mrs Bradley returned to Mr Loveday's House to receive coffee and a sandwich from Miss Loveday.
'Were Mr Lamphrey's boys discouraging?' Miss Loveday enquired. 'They are said to be difficult. Gerald Conway was their form-master, of course. My brother takes them for Divinity, which every boy is compelled to study, whether he is on the Modern or the Classical side. Even the Army class takes it, although, in their case, the Old Testament only, of course.'
'Gideon and his river-drinkers?' Mrs Bradley suggested, ignoring all other references, which seemed to her completely beside the point.
'A valuable chapter,' Miss Loveday agreed. 'There is nothing to beat the selected minority. King Edward the Third knew that. Crécy depended upon it. There is also the Third Programme of the British Broadcasting Corporation. An admirable thing in its way, although I sometimes think it falls between two stools.'
'In this school, a selected minority would include Mr Scrupe and Mr Micklethwaite, I presume?' said Mrs Bradley, ignoring a challenge.
'They are clever boys, I believe. Of Scrupe I know little except by hearsay, but Micklethwaite is one of our own boys, and it is too bad that he was done out of the Divinity prize by Mr Conway's meanness and treachery,' said Miss Loveday, speaking with warmth.
Mrs Bradley smiled benignly. She had mentioned the two boys' names at random.
'I heard rumours of this,' she said, mendaciously. 'But, surely, if a boy is entitled to a prize – ?'
'You might think so,' said Miss Loveday energetically, 'but, if you do, it means that you cannot appreciate the amount of petty jealousy that there is to be found in a school common room. Mr Conway, for reasons of his own, accused Micklethwaite of cheating in the last Divinity examination at which, most unfortunately (although one does not think, of course, of criticizing the Headmaster), Mr Conway had been appointed invigilator. The boy, touched in his honour, refused to take the prize, and –'
'Do I understand, then, that Mr Conway did not substantiate his accusation by removing the boy from the examination room?' Mrs Bradley pertinently enquired.
'He said nothing – except afterwards to the boy. Micklethwaite is a strange lad. There was no need for him to have made a public thing of it, but he was, it seems, very angry. He attended a co-educational establishment before he came here, and had absorbed odd notions as to his rights. He was much persecuted at first, but I soon put a stop to that. We are, after all, Christians in this House, although I would not go bail for some of the others. Well, at any rate,
when Micklethwaite refused to accept the prize there was a great fuss, and the Headmaster threatened to cane him for Contempt of Authority.'
'Only threatened?'
'Mr Wyck is weak,' said Miss Loveday in low tones, glancing at the window as she pronounced these treasonable words. 'There was a rumour that the boy had threatened to commit suicide as a protest against the injustice of the punishment, if it was administered, and Mr Wyck thought, I suppose, that he might do it. Commit suicide, I mean. The lad is brilliantly clever and rather overstrung. A pity. I like lads to be manly and only technically gifted. Aesthetics have no place in modern life. That is why ferro-concrete has come into its own.'
'I should not think his life here can have been easy,' Mrs Bradley remarked, 'even after you stopped his being bullied. I refer to Mr Micklethwaite.'
'He is a strange lad,' Miss Loveday repeated, 'and a lad of character. He is fearless of pain, and has become an expert in Judo. The boys have learned to leave well alone, I believe, and might have done so without my assistance.'
'I must cultivate this boy,' said Mrs Bradley.
'And what progress do you make with Merrys?' asked Miss Loveday, changing the subject. 'His behaviour improved yesterday. I noticed it. He had two helpings of the first course, and threw potato. We do not throw bread now, for motives of patriotism, and should not, for the same reason, waste potato, either. For one thing, there is not too much of these staple fillers for growing lads, and, for another, hunger is a wonderful disciplinarian.'
'So is fear,' said Mrs Bradley. 'You were quite right to deduce that Merrys was afraid.'
'Of what?'
'That is what I am here to find out.' She did not add that she had already found it out, because, although she had heard of the midnight exploits of Merrys and Skene, she had not decided how to make proper use of them. She had decided to go to the Headmaster with her tale before she went to the police, but she wanted further time to study Mr Wyck, and to work out his probable reactions to the tale she would have to tell. Meanwhile, she was not inclined to rely upon Miss Loveday's discretion.
'You have not told me yet of your experiences with the Fifth Scientific,' said Miss Loveday suddenly. 'Did you encounter Whittaker? His father is a platelayer on the London and Great Midland Railway, and Whittaker is one of the Guinea-pig boys. He is a great success. Did he threaten Springer? He loves to learn, and Springer, I think, confounds him.'
'Surely,' said Mrs Bradley, not troubling to explain that she had not yet encountered the Fifth Scientific, 'this School is unique in having boys who desire to learn? My sons never did. Their reports were uniformly scurrilous.'
'Oh, you have sons in the plural? I understood you had only one, the famous K.C.,' said Miss Loveday.
'Ferdinand? He is my son by my first husband, who was of French and Spanish descent. I have other sons, but I much prefer my nephews. Ferdinand and I are unlike, and get on well. He reminds me, in many ways, of his father, and that is welcome, since otherwise I might have forgotten what his father was like. It is some time since we were married,' said Mrs Bradley alarmingly.
Miss Loveday, deflated by this incursion into family history, abandoned the subject, as it was intended she should, and poured out more coffee.
'I suppose it was Merrys who borrowed my brother's bicycle?' she remarked. 'I should not like it reported. I know his mother. Where did he go, by the way?'
'To the Dog-racing track.'
'Good heavens! So young a boy!'
'He did not go in. The entrance fee was beyond his expectations.'
'I am glad of that. I see still less need to report the occurrence to the Headmaster. I shall inform my brother, and he will deal with Merrys. I suppose the child was afraid that he might be accused of the murder if it were found out that he is in the habit of breaking out at night. I hope you have reassured him. Nay, I know you must have done. Potato-throwing is always an excellent sign. I check bullying in the House by it. A lad who throws potato is in spirits, and Merrys threw a good deal.'
'He lost his fountain pen,' said Mrs Bradley conversationally.
'Oh, was it his?' said Miss Loveday, producing a pen from the recesses of her costume. 'I found it on the gravel. He must have dropped it on his way out. You had better take it.'
'Did you not look at the name on it? Merrys had his name on his pen.'
'I saw no name. Would you care to look for it?' Mrs Bradley took the pen. There was no name on it. 'And now,' said Miss Loveday – hastily, it seemed to Mrs Bradley – 'to the business of the visit of the governors. They are said to be against Mr Wyck, who, of course, as a modern Headmaster, has no conception of discipline. I say this in no carping or Communistic spirit, but the facts speak for themselves.'
'In what way?' Mrs Bradley enquired.
'Boys breaking out at night; my brother and I being compelled to heat the Roman Bath by moonlight; John Semple being friendly with Bennett Kay, and so on and so forth,' Miss Loveday economically responded. 'And, of course, all this Common Room champagne. It was sherry when first I came here.'
'The boys who broke out at night were your own boys,' Mrs Bradley was impelled to point out. 'The Roman Bath, which, I must admit, I would very much like to see, is your own and your brother's concern. The champagne, I understand, was in celebration of an engagement, and exactly what bearing the friendship between Mr Semple and Mr Kay can have upon the Headmaster's control of the School, I do not understand.'
'John Semple, although a moron, is not without ancestry of a reputable kind,' pronounced Miss Loveday. 'Bennett Kay is of very mixed blood. In the Common Room, as we knew it of old, a friendship between the two would have been impossible. But tell me more of your experiences. Have you met our dark gentleman yet?'
'Our –?' said Mrs Bradley startled.
'Prince Takhobali,' Miss Loveday explained. 'Did you think I meant somebody else? And Issacher. A gifted lad, although not, in the strict term, European. A lad with a sixth sense. A lad with eyes in the back of his head.'
Mrs Bradley promised to make Issacher's acquaintance, but before she contrived to do this, further rumours, which turned out to be perfectly true, flashed round the School and were received with considerable acclaim. There was to be a half-holiday for a full Staff meeting at which the Governors would preside; and a C.I.D. Inspector was being sent for from Scotland Yard to help the local police.
9. An Assembly of the Elders
*
Where shall we find such another Set of practical Philosophers?
IBID. (Act 2, Scene 1)
MRS BRADLEY had not been in and around the School for more than a couple of days when she received a note from Mr Semple.
'Kay and I made rather a curious discovery on the spot, almost exactly, where we found Conway,' the note explained. With anticipatory relish, Mrs Bradley at once wrote a reply, inviting Mr Semple and Mr Kay to meet her as soon as their duties permitted. A room in Mr Loveday's House had been allotted to her as a study, and, with this as a strategic base, she was able to ask them to tea.
Only Mr Semple turned up, however.
'Kay isn't a very sociable bird,' he explained, 'so I've come along on my own. No, no tea, thanks. I've promised to go along and have it with old Pearson. His daughter's out for the evening. I just came to tell you what we found.'
Mrs Bradley summed up her guest, and decided that his looks did not deceive her; for Mr Semple looked what he was – an athletic, games-playing young man, fairly well-bred, obviously simple-minded and equally obviously kind-hearted. What seemed alien to him, therefore, was his bleak-eyed, terrified stare, a slight stammer every time he spoke, and a too-easy assurance and buoyancy with which he was attempting to cover up these nervous reactions.
Enter quite a possible murderer, thought Mrs Bradley, and one with an excellent motive. 'And this discovery of yours?' she said. Mr Semple looked distressed.
'Oh, no bearing, I daresay,' he admitted, 'but Mr Wyck indicated that you were the person to come to, don't you know. I
t was a headless cock, as a matter of fact. Killed in that Voodoo sort of style. Revolting, actually.'
'Details,' said Mrs Bradley, producing her notebook. Mr Semple looked more distressed than before, but replied and gave the details. They were interesting, and, as he had said, revolting. Mrs Bradley inscribed them carefully in her notebook. 'And what bearing do you suppose all this to have upon the death of Mr Conway?' she enquired. 'Have you heard that a member of the Staff has been visiting the village witch, Mrs Harries?'
'I did hear something,' admitted Semple. 'Why, do you know about that?'
'Oh, yes. I am a frequent visitor there myself. I suppose Mr Kay did not accompany you here because he has met me there.'
'Kay's doing some sort of research for some sort of Society, I believe,' said Mr Semple. 'He's one of these Folk-Dancing sort of chaps.'
Mrs Bradley did not connect folk-dancing and witchcraft very closely, but did not say so. She talked about the ballet – much to the confusion of her guest.
When he departed, she gazed after him with a certain amount of pity. The rejected lover seldom meets with sympathy, she reflected; and rightly so, for he deserves none.
She mentioned this theory to Miss Loveday, who already delighted her very much. Miss Loveday, who had been sewing, put away her workbox with great deliberation, assumed her spectacles (which, to Mrs Bradley's stupefaction, she always discarded when she sewed), and pronounced with deliberation:
'And which of us, my brother or myself, do you suspect of the murder of Gerald Conway?'
'I think (if I thought that either of you had had anything to do with it), that I should suspect the two of you of having been identical accessories,' said Mrs Bradley. Miss Loveday nodded.
'I understand you,' she said, 'and it is, of course, unnecessary to tell you that my brother and I are twins. This is not generally known, but I tell it to you because I feel that you knew it the moment you set eyes on us. What say you?'
'I am dumbfounded,' said Mrs Bradley, 'and, naturally, much enlightened.'
'I wonder whether you always speak the truth?' said Miss Loveday. 'I have noticed that doctors, whether charlatans or not, very seldom commit themselves to direct statements of fact. Do you suspect our Roman Bath?'
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