“Some of the students may provide me with more scope for my enquiries, I think,” said Dame Beatice, “so if Mr. Henry will conduct me to these quarters you describe, I will leaf through the material which Mr. Medlar has so kindly provided.”
“ I hope you don’t object to using Jonah’s quarters,” said Henry, opening the sitting-room door of these. “We’ve had all his things moved out. The police agreed to that, as soon as they’d finished with his rooms.”
“They are indeed palatial,” said Dame Beatrice, surveying the handsome furniture and fittings. Henry closed the door and they advanced further into the room. “You know that Hamish sent for me, I suppose?”
“I guessed as much. Well, I expect you would like me to leave you while you look through Gassie’s papers. I had better be on hand when he finishes with Kirk. He hates being angry with a student.”
chapter
10
Gascoigne Medlar
« ^ »
Gascoigne’s case-book was interesting and informative, and Dame Beatrice perused it carefully until the bell she had been told to expect indicated that it was time to dress for dinner. She had been told by Henry that Richard was the oldest student in College and was twenty-one years of age. As no student was accepted until he or she had passed the sixteenth birthday, she needed only to study the entries for the past five years to gain knowledge of the students who were now in residence.
Most of the entries she skipped through. It was interesting to note that most of them for the past three years referred to expulsions from school for taking or being in possession of drugs. Before that, the reasons varied and some of the offences seemed trivial. She did, however, read carefully the notes which referred to violence, but these were few and the reasons, if Gascoigne had understood the evidence and reported it faithfully, seemed, if not adequate, at least self-explanatory.
She and Laura were given seats at the high table for dinner; the conversation was nothing more than small-talk and not until the end of the meal was anything said about the purpose of Dame Beatrice’s staying in the College. It was Gascoigne himself who introduced the subject a little later in the evening.
“I suppose,” he said, taking a seat beside her when they repaired to the senior common room for coffee, “it is unrealistic to imagine that you have come to any conclusions so far?”
“I have come to one,” she replied. “It depends upon the fact that a small number of students, including a young woman, were responsible for locking Mr. Jones in a cellar which houses the plant for the central heating.”
“Oh, Henry has all that in hand. I believe he has admonished the culprits. He gave me their names, but I cannot think that they know anything about poor Davy’s death.”
“Probably not. All the same, I think I had better have a first-hand account of the matter from the young woman concerned. She is somewhere in the house itself, I assume, so it will be easier to contact her than to send over to the halls of residence for one of the young men who were involved.”
“I will find out from Miss Yale where she is domiciled. At the moment I expect she is in the women’s junior common room.” He crossed over to where Miss Yale was talking to Laura. “Dame Beatrice would like to talk to Kathleen,” he said. “Do you think you could find her and send her to what was Davy’s sitting-room?”
Miss Yale looked across at Dame Beatrice with no very friendly or approving gaze.
“I suppose so,” she said. “Not that Kathleen is going to care much about Jonah’s quarters as a rendez-vous.”
“Death comes to us all,” pronounced Gascoigne piously. “I don’t suppose poor Davy haunts the place.”
“That’s not what I meant,” said Miss Yale. She got up and went out of the room, returning in a few minutes to say in a firm, repressive voice, “Kathleen awaits your pleasure, Dame Beatrice.”
Dame Beatrice thanked her and glanced at Laura, who rose and went with her to Jones’s quarters. They found a frightened, sulky child waiting on the landing.
“I’m not going in there,” she said flatly.
“How uncompromising you sound,” said Dame Beatrice lightly. “Very well. Would you have the same objection to entering Mr. James’s room? We can go there, if you prefer it.”
“Oh, all right, then,” said the girl. “After all, Jonah isn’t here now.” She opened the door to Jones’s sitting-room and went in. “You won’t pin anything on me, you know,” she said. “You’re wasting your time.”
“Ah, well, it, like my money, is my own,” said Dame Beatrice mildly, “Do sit down. May I call you Kathleen? This, as I expect you know, is James’s mother.” Laura, who had closed the door, sat down at the escritoire, took out a pencil and provided herself with a sheet of paper.
“Everything you say will be taken down in writing and may be given in evidence,” said the girl bitterly.
“Dear me! I didn’t know you had ever been in the hands of the police,” said Dame Beatrice.
“Ought to have been. Shop-lifting. They didn’t press the charges.”
“Your mother had an account at the shop in question, of course, and she corroborated your explanation that you had been shopping on the strength of it, I suppose.”
The girl looked startled at first by this display of omniscience. Then she said, “Didn’t want a fuss. Bad for her image. You got that from Gassie, I suppose.”
“From some notes he lent me, yes. And now let me suggest that we get down to business. The sooner it’s over, the sooner to sleep, don’t you think? Will you tell me all about the kidnapping and incarceration of Mr. Jones?”
“I suppose the police told you about that! Well, they’ve spoken to me. They’ve seen all six of us. I’m not saying any more to anybody. I don’t know what happened to Jonah and I couldn’t care less, and none of us knows anything about it.”
“Convince me of that,” said Dame Beatrice. “No,” she went on quickly, “swearing at me won’t help. I’m prepared to believe your story. That is, I am prepared to believe as much of it as you are prepared to tell me. I know it won’t be the whole truth, but I think that the part you are going to tell me will be the truth. Up to a point, you see, you have nothing to hide. After that point I will tell the rest of the story to you, if you like. Come, now, what do you say?”
“Look,” said the girl uneasily, “how much do you know?”
“That I am not disposed to tell you at present, any more than you are disposed to pay me the same compliment, so that is fair enough. Here goes, then. I know that six of you, yourself and five young men, arranged and conspired together to kidnap Mr. Jones and shut him up in a cellar. Taking advantage of the fact that all the rest of the staff were occupied, some with a film show, some on a cross-country run, and so on, you followed Mr. Jones to his lock-up garage, took him prisoner and incarcerated him. You left food with him and planned to release him on Thursday night or last Friday morning.”
“Yes, but he wasn’t there.”
“No, he was dead by then. What is more, you knew he was dead. I will go even further. You even knew that he was to be buried in the long-jump pit.”
“No! No, we didn’t! We thought somebody else—one of the staff—had let him out. We didn’t know he was dead!”
“Then why did you hold a council, the six of you, and, in a panic, decide to tell Mr. Henry that you had kidnapped and imprisoned him? It was quite unnecessary, if you really thought he had been freed. Can you not see that?”
The girl was silent. Dame Beatrice waited. At last Kathleen muttered, “I don’t know. He—Jonah—he wasn’t at lunch, so I suppose that’s why.”
“I don’t think that will do, you know,” Dame Beatrice said gently. “Mr. Jones was often absent from lunch. He used to drive into the village or the town and obtain lunch and a drink at a public house. There was no secret about this, was there?”
“I suppose there was not.”
“I know there was not. So why should the six of you have decided to own up to the k
idnapping unless you knew perfectly well what had happened to Mr. Jones?”
“I don’t know.”
“Well, in that case, perhaps I had better tell you.”
“No! I don’t want to hear! I won’t listen!” Kathleen got up, rushed to the door, flung it open, and ran.
“Want me to chase after her?” asked Laura.
“No, no. She will keep, as the police would say.”
Laura went over and closed the door which the girl had left wide open.
“You’ve scared her stiff,” she remarked, resuming her seat. “I’ll transcribe my shorthand, shall I?”
“By all means. Meanwhile, I think I would like a word with Mr. Medlar.”
“They don’t run to an inter-com. system here. I’ll go and page him for you.”
“We will both go, then. The notes can wait.”
“Are you going to voice your suspicions to him?” Laura gathered up her shorthand notes and pushed them into her handbag.
“I think not, but that depends upon how our conversation goes. Let us try the senior common room. He may still be there.”
The senior common room, however, was deserted except for a maid who was gathering up empty coffee cups.
“Mr. Medlar, madam,” she said, “I expect he’s in his office. He usually works there of an evening. I have orders to take his whisky and soda in there at half-past ten.”
“Ah, then,” said Dame Beatrice to Laura, “we must not disturb him.” They returned to Dame Beatrice’s room to find Hamish loitering outside the door.
“Hullo,” he said. “I knocked, but you weren’t there, so I thought I’d hang about. I didn’t think you’d be long, as you could hardly be with Gassie.”
“Why not? We went along to see him, as a matter of fact,” said Laura.
“To find out, rather, whether it was possible to see him,” amended Dame Beatrice. “We found that it was not. He had retired to his office to work.”
“He’d retired to his office to go into a huddle with Henry, Miss Yale and the girl Kathleen,” said Hamish. “She came to the senior common room in no end of a taking. What have you been a-doin’ to her? She was racked with sobs and, from what I could interpret, was demanding your head on a charger. Gassie then called a council of war and led the weeping Niobe off to his den, followed by his faithful henchmen.”
“Why the support?” asked Laura.
“He never sees the women students in his office or his sitting-room unless Miss Yale is there. It’s like in a police station, where they always have a woman P.C. in the room, I believe, when they’re questioning a female suspect. It looks more official and averts disadvantageous comment. Besides, the women students don’t give a fig for Gassie, but they’re terrified of old Nokomis. Why Henry was hauled in I don’t know.”
“Well,” said Dame Beatrice, “I thought I had upset the girl, but I hardly expected that she would go to these lengths.”
“I thought I’d made it clear in my letters that they always run to Gassie if they have any complaints.”
“I did not know that it included complaints about casual visitors. By the way, do you remember talking over with me the suggestion that you should take up a temporary appointment here?”
“Yes, of course. You told me that Medlar had once been second master at Isingtower School. I mentioned it to him on my first day here. He didn’t seem altogether overjoyed to think that I knew. Instead of discussing it in a cosy manner, he jettisoned the subject with some abruptness, I thought. Wasn’t he a success at Isingtower?”
“As a schoolmaster? I have no idea. As a kindly husband, however, quite a number of people seem to have decided that he was wanting. His wife was drowned in the bath and there was a great deal of unpleasant talk. The wife left a good deal of money, you see, and all of it went to Gascoigne Medlar.”
“Did he ever come to trial?”
“No. The case went as far as to the magistrates and they dismissed it—or so Ferdinand told me. That was when he knew you were coming here. He thought Medlar was guilty.”
“He seems to have followed the proceedings pretty closely. How about you? Do you think, from what you were told, that Medlar was guilty?”
“Again, I have no idea. All I gathered was that Mr. Henry’s evidence may have turned the scale.”
“Henry? What on earth had he to do with it?”
“He affirmed in cross-examination by the defence—he was the prosecution’s witness—that Mrs Medlar’s mental health was such that she might have decided to end her own life. In fact, she was a dipsomaniac—I suppose nowadays it would be more fashionable to call her a confirmed alcoholic— and was subject to severe attacks of alcoholic depression. Mr. Henry, I am afraid, proved a thorn in the flesh of his (supposedly) own side.”
“But is Henry qualified to express that sort of opinion?”
“Oh, yes. Until he accepted a partnership at Joynings he was a well-known psychiatrist.”
“You knew him, then, before you came to see me?”
“That argues a degree of acquaintanceship to which I do not aspire. I have seen him at conferences occasionally. I do not remember that I ever spoke to him until I came here.”
“And he’s Medlar’s partner? Well, I’m hanged! I say, I suppose that doesn’t stink a bit, does it?” asked Laura.
“Mr. Henry—I know his surname, of course—has always been interested in young people. At one time he was psychiatric consultant to a county education authority, I believe. I should imagine that he finds his work here very interesting and rewarding.”
“And profitable, I imagine,” said Laura.
“Now, mamma, not a word against Henry,” said Hamish. “I like him very much.”
“What was the evidence on which Mr. Medlar was taken before the magistrates?” asked Laura.
“According to Ferdinand, who furnished me with such facts as I know, it was asserted that he was alone in the house with his wife when it happened.”
“Didn’t they live at the school, then?”
“Yes, but there was some sort of jamboree which involved all the boys and which the servants had leave to attend.”
“Why didn’t Medlar attend it?”
“He said that he dared not leave his wife in the house alone, and Henry concurred in this. Mrs Medlar, because of her disability, never attended school functions, so the police took the view that opportunity had knocked at Mr. Medlar’s door and that it was too much of a coincidence that his wife had been drowned under such circumstances.”
“And under such water,” said Laura. “Personally, I agree with the police. I think it was fishy in the extreme.”
“Your choice of metaphor, mamma, may be exact, but it is unfortunate, perhaps,” said Hamish. “Anyway, if Henry ever did have any doubts, I’m wondering whether the murder of Jonah hasn’t resolved them.”
“How do you mean?”
“Well, there is such a thing as blackmail. Suppose some evidence was available which showed that Medlar was guilty and that Jones had come across it? After all, Medlar had never been brought to trial and acquitted. A case against him could still be made to stand up, couldn’t it? Don’t you think Jones could have been blackmailing Medlar for years and that Medlar got sick and tired of it? I really believe that if anybody blackmailed me I’d do my level best to lay him out. But if Henry’s evidence could save Medlar from being sent for trial, why did the prosecution call him? Naturally the defence wouldn’t, not at a preliminary hearing.”
“The police intended that he should assent to their lawyer’s submission that Mrs Medlar’s condition was as I have described it and that it was in Mr. Medlar’s interests, emotionally as well as financially, that he should be rid of her. The defence, however, cross-examined Mr. Henry with intent to show that she was quite capable of drowning herself, because she was either too drunk to know what she was doing, or too lacking in mental stability to reject the idea of suicide.”
“Didn’t the prosecution call any other witnesse
s? The police are usually cautious about prosecuting a man unless they’re pretty sure of their case.”
“There was also the question of the will. It was argued by the prosecution that Mrs Medlar was of sound mind when she made the will and that therefore it was valid and that Mr. Medlar knew this and had killed her in order to get hold of the money. Unfortunately for them, they then called Mr. Jones, the deceased wife’s brother and only surviving relative.”
“Pickled, I suppose,” said Hamish.
“I should hope not! All the same, there is no doubt that he appears to have told a garbled story and the magistrates decided that what they had heard was insufficient to justify a committal.”
“So, between them, Henry and Jones saved Medlar’s bacon,” commented Hamish.
“And both have been substantially rewarded,” said Laura. “Up to the time of Jones’s death, that is to say. And the will stood up all right, did it?”
“Oh, yes. Two doctors agreed that the poor woman was compos mentis when she made the will eight years earlier and this meant that Mr. Medlar inherited the money.”
“Why was Jones brought into it?”
“He was supposed to testify that he had heard Mr. Medlar utter threats against his wife. By the time his cross-examination was over, however, it seemed just as likely, on the face of it, that Mr. Jones had drowned his sister in exasperation because she was leaving nothing to him, as that Mr. Medlar had drowned his wife because she had left everything to him.”
“A sort of non-proven, in fact,” said Laura.
“But was Jones anywhere in the neighbourhood at the time?” asked Hamish.
“The question was not asked. The magistrates retired and conferred and I imagine that Mr. Medlar’s excellent reputation came up for discussion and that one of the justices who, as chairman of the school governors, had been obliged to declare an interest and retire from the bench while the case was being heard, may have put in some powerful pleading behind the scenes.”
A Javelin for Jonah mb-47 Page 12
