Death at St. Asprey’s School

by Bruce, Leo

  “I’m interested,” said Carolus blandly. “I don’t at all wish to back out just now.”

  “Then I must speak more bluntly,” said Sconer who could be a bold man when his wife was not present. “You are no longer welcome here, Mr. Deene.”

  “That’s all right,” said Carolus. “Almost all the enquiries I have to make are away from the school. In Cheltenham or elsewhere. I’ll move down to the Windmill Inn.”

  “What I meant was, we should like you to cease all enquiries on our behalf.”

  “I will, certainly. As from now. But I shouldn’t think of dropping them on my own behalf. I’ve told you, I’m interested.”

  “This is monstrous,” said Sconer. “My wife and I invited you here in the first place to make certain investigations. We now wish you to cease them as the police have the whole matter in hand.”

  “Sorry,” said Carolus. “I’ve set my hands to it, as they say. I shan’t be happy till I know who killed Sime and why. But as I’ve told you I don’t need to stay at the school for that.”

  Mr. Sconer seemed dubious as though he had not been briefed for this contingency.

  “It’s not a matter of your staying at the school,” he said. “You are, of course, welcome to stay. It is that I find it… with the police…”

  “I see,” said Carolus.

  At that moment Mrs. Sconer entered.

  “My dear,” said her husband. “Mr. Deene says he cannot possibly drop his investigation at this point.”

  Mrs. Sconer surprised them both.

  “I should think not!” she said. “He has not yet discovered the truth and it is only the truth that can possibly save the school now.”

  Mr. Sconer looked as though he doubted this.

  “Please continue, Mr. Deene,” went on Mrs. Sconer majestically. “I hope you will leave no stone unturned.”

  “I shall have to be away for a day,” said Carolus.

  “By all means. My husband will arrange for one of the Men to take your classes.”

  “I have to trace a piece of information elsewhere.”

  “We quite understand,” said Mrs. Sconer. Her husband seemed about to say something, but caught her eye. Carolus left them to sort it out.

  His prediction to Parker that he would be approached by others, with or without information was fulfilled that day with unexpected promptitude, for after lunch Mollie Westerly came up to him.

  “Like to take a breather in the garden?” she asked with characteristic directness. “I want a bit of a natter with you.”

  Carolus saw that in spite of her breezy manner there was a disturbed, perhaps frightened look in her rather fine dark eyes.

  ‘Yes. Let’s go. I’ve heard a lot about the rose-garden.”

  It was a still warm afternoon and the girl, so unlike a schoolmarm, so nearly beautiful, dressed with elegant discretion, seemed again to Carolus a most unlikely person to find in this scrubby little hotbed of malice and suspicion. Yet she was obviously very much concerned in it.

  “I gather you have quite a bit of experience of situations like this,” she said rather accusingly.

  “Not quite like this,” said Carolus. “But I have investigated murders before.”

  “I know. That’s why I want to talk to you. I think I’m in trouble.”

  “You think you are?”

  “Well, yes.”

  “Surely it’s clear-cut. Either you had something to do with Sime’s death or you didn’t.”

  “It’s not quite as simple as that. Do you think I’m under suspicion?”

  “I think we all are.”

  “You too?”

  “Why not? I was here when it happened.”

  “But you weren’t on the archery lawn. But I was. What’s more I was shooting from the corner which can’t be seen from Matron’s window. It’s directly in front of Sime’s. But that’s not all.”

  Carolus waited. Yes, there was fear in the brown eyes.

  “I hated Colin Sime,” said Mollie Westerly after a moment. “I suppose because I thought at first I loved him.”

  “Most people here seem to have hated Sime, except the boys,” said Carolus gently.

  “They haven’t said so. I did.”

  “Perhaps you should tell me about that.”

  “Oh yes. I mean to. It was on the day before he … his death. You see, during the first weeks of the term I thought … well, I went about with him a good deal. I suppose in a way I was attracted to him. He was a man with that peculiar thing people call ‘a fascination for women’. No one has ever defined it—all you can say is that some men have it. Well, Sime had. At least for me. But after a time I began to discover what a howling cad he was.”

  “How?”

  “What do you mean ‘how’?”

  “How did you discover?”

  “Oh … Everyone knew. No one liked him. I could see it.”

  “You had no real reason?”

  “Reason? No. What’s reason got to do with these things?”

  Carolus persisted.

  “You didn’t, for instance, think that he was blackmailing anyone?”

  “Blackmailing? No. Was he?”

  “He has been accused of it.”

  “Of course I’m not surprised, but I didn’t know that. I just realized he was a rotter and wanted nothing more to do with him. But it’s not so easy when you’re on the same staff. Besides the awful thing was that he still had a sort of hold on me. I can’t explain. He had a very strong personality you know. I couldn’t quite get free of him, and I hated him for that. Am I making sense?”

  “Admirably. Do go on.”

  “It wasn’t like me. I’ve always been a pretty decisive kind of person. I think he knew that. He used to jeer at me for it. Yes, Mollie, he used to say, you want to be quit of me, don’t you? But you can’t, my dear. That sort of thing. It was infuriating.”

  “Then I … well, I suppose I fell in love with Jim Stanley. I don’t think you know him very well. He’s … he has … I mean, he’s…”

  “Quite,” said Carolus.

  “As soon as Sime saw us going about together he was furious. I can’t think why because he never really cared for me at all. But he did everything he could to turn me against Jim. And he watched us all the time. You’ve heard how he used to take the field-glasses from the shooting range up to the top of the tower when we were out for a walk? It was beastly”

  “Tell me about the day before he was killed.”

  “I’m coming to that. He sent Mayring to say he wanted to see me and like a fool I went to his room. He began shouting at me. He was in a filthy mood. Presently I lost my temper and I remember saying—‘I could kill you, Colin!’ My back was to the door when I said it and I turned round to see Matron standing in the doorway. She’d come down for something she said. She’d heard what I said and next day, after Sime had been found dead, she reminded me of it. ‘Pity you said that’, she told me. ‘Anyone might think you meant it’. I’m sure she has told the police.”

  “If the police suspected all the people who said they could kill Sime, or words to that effect, it would be a long list. If they suspect you it must be for some other reason.”

  Mollie stopped.

  “What other reason?” she asked.

  “I have no idea. When did you last see Sime?”

  “Then!” said Mollie a little excitedly. “That afternoon when I told him I could kill him. The day before he was murdered. I never saw him after that.”

  “You didn’t see him later that afternoon?”

  Mollie stared at him. She seemed about to say something, but fell silent.

  “I may be mistaken,” he said. “But I thought that just after tea that afternoon I heard him say ‘Hullo, Mollie’, to someone who had knocked at his door and gone in.”

  “Yes. You’re right. I didn’t mean to mention it because it was so sickening. I went to say I was sorry. You know, he had a sort of horrible hold on me.”

  “I’m glad you
told me that,” said Carolus. “What about the next day? The day of the murder?”

  “I never went near him, thank God! That I’ll swear to. I stayed in my room after lunch, then, soon after three, went out to the archery lawn.”

  “Which way did you go?”

  “Downstairs in the private part, through the hall into the big schoolroom and out. I didn’t enter the staff bungalow at all.”

  “When did you see Stanley?”

  “Jim? He came to the archery lawn soon after I got there. Why?”

  “He didn’t follow you to the staff part of the house?”

  “No. He’d have told me if he had. Why do you ask these questions?”

  “I like to follow everyone’s movements that afternoon. He went to look for you in the private part of the house just after you came through the hall from your room. He asked Mrs. Skippett if she’d seen you.”

  “It all sounds so important now, doesn’t it?” said Mollie sadly. “Such trivial things do. Yet all that might have happened any afternoon.”

  “Murder’s like that.”

  “Do you think I’m suspected, Mr. Deene? Tell me frankly.”

  “Not on what you’ve told me this afternoon,” said Carolus..

  Was there a touch of exaggeration in Mollie’s relief? “That’s all right, then,” she said.

  When Carolus reached the common-room it was empty, but after a while Mayring came in wearing his spotless flannels.

  “Left my pipe here,” he explained looking round for a large cherry-wood incinerator which he was learning to handle.

  “How are the rehearsals going?” asked Carolus.

  “Terrific. Lipscomb’s going to be terrific as Bottom and I’ve decided to play Oberon myself—the king of the fairies, you know. Chavanne’s Puck. It’ll be absolutely terrific.”

  “I hope you don’t lose any of your cast after the Inquest.”

  “There is that,” said Mayring soberly.

  “I’ve got one question for you, by the way.”

  “Oh Lord! I want to get up to the nets. You know we lost to St. Carrier’s on Saturday…”

  “I won’t keep you a moment. Did you go into Sime’s room just after lunch on the day of the murder?”

  “What makes you ask?” fenced Mayring.

  “Curiosity. Somebody must have. You were here in the common-room weren’t you?”

  “Yes. I was. I can’t remember whether I went into Sime’s room then. I certainly found him later.”

  “I know about that. Did you go in just after lunch?”

  “I may have. I often do.”

  “I wonder why you are so evasive. You will certainly be asked this at the Inquest.”

  “I’m not evasive. I can’t remember everything.”

  “You say you often went to his room after lunch. Any particular reason?”

  “Oh he was laid up. Couldn’t move. I went in to see if he wanted anything.”

  “And did he? That afternoon?”

  “No. Jumbo Parker was in there, having a chat. He’s about the only other person in the place who would speak to Sime.”

  “Except Mollie Westerly.”

  “I suppose. But not if she could help it.”

  “But you got on quite well with Sime?”

  “Yes. I was sorry for him when he was laid up. Rotten luck, in the summer term. Now I do want to get up to the cricket field.”

  “Were the curtains in Sime’s room drawn when you left?”

  At that moment Jumbo Parker came into the room.

  “I can’t possibly remember,” said Mayring. “You had better ask Parker.”

  Carolus did.

  “Mayring tells me that you were chatting with Sime when he looked in after lunch on Friday. Do you happen to remember if his curtains were drawn then?”

  “No. They can’t have been because I drew them for him. He asked me to because he wanted a nap.”

  “What time would that have been?”

  “Somewhere between half past one and two,” said Parker. “I don’t know exactly.”

  “Well, now I am going to cricket,” said Mayring.

  As he opened the door a chorus rose from those waiting in the passage.

  “Please sir, may I play Quince?”

  “Please sir, Chavanne says if he’s got to wear a goblin hat he doesn’t want to play Puck. May I play it, sir?”

  “Please sir, Matron says we can’t use pillows for Bottom’s padding.”

  “Shut up!” shouted Mayring desperately, “and get up to the cricket field, you mooncalves.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  When he went outside he found Kneller waiting for him. Yet another of these information volunteers he thought. But Kneller in his deep abstracted way—though he obviously had something to communicate—was not in a hurry to come to the point. He asked Carolus what he thought were the chances of the school’s being able to continue, not disguising that his chief anxiety was to retain possession of his cottage.

  “When this was a private estate,” he explained, “my wife’s father was the agent here and she was brought up in the cottage in which we live. She could never feel as sure of herself anywhere else. I hope you will come across and see us sometime. My wife would be delighted. She likes meeting people.”

  Carolus said he would certainly do so.

  “She does not get many callers,” said Kneller. “The Rector occaisionally. D’you know Spancock?”

  “Yes. He seems quite a lively character.”

  “Very abrupt, though. I can scarcely follow him.”

  “He was at your cottage on the afternoon of Sime’s death, I believe?”

  “Yes. He dropped in unexpectedly not long after lunch. He wanted to hear about Sime. He was up at the church at the time of the accident, you know.”

  “Then why didn’t he go to see Sime?”

  “They didn’t Get On,” said Kneller. “There was some trouble once when Sime criticized Parker as an organist. All very trivial, I expect, but the Rector preferred to ask us for news of him. He didn’t stay ten minutes.”

  “He didn’t go in for archery then?”

  “He came out one afternoon and had a shot but couldn’t get an arrow on the target. By the way, the police have taken all my archery equipment, I suppose for examination. It’s a bit of a bore but as Sconer has banned archery for this term it doesn’t matter so much. I can’t see what they’ll get from finger printing that stuff. Everyone has handled everything.”

  “Did you keep an exact tally of the arrows you had?”

  “Yes. We’ve lost several since we’ve been practising. But Sime wasn’t shot with one of those we use on the targets, you know.”

  “He wasn’t?”

  “No. It was a hunting arrow or broadhead. I showed you one of them before.”

  “I remember. A fearsome thing. The shaft was rather longer I seem to remember. Could you screw an ordinary arrow’s shaft on to the hunting arrow head?”

  “No. The thread is different.”

  “But you might be able to shoot one broadhead among the target arrows without being noticed?”

  “Easily, I should think. When we’re practising each of us is chiefly concerned with his own bow and arrows and target, of course. He wouldn’t be looking round at the next man’s. Of course when they all walked down to the targets it might be noticed.”

  “The arrow which killed Sime was one of yours, of course?”

  “Yes. At least I presume so. One of my broadheads was missing.”

  “When did you discover that?”

  “Not till after the murder, unfortunately. They were kept apart from the others. When I heard that Sime had been shot with a broadhead I went and checked and found one missing. Someone must have been pretty confident of himself to take only one for a job like that. Suppose he had missed?”

  “Suppose William Tell had missed,” said Carolus facetiously. “What a lot of words and music it would have saved us. Schiller’s too much for me, anywa
y.”

  “But I like Rossini’s music,” admitted Kneller. “Anyway, Tell did hit the apple and whoever killed Sime did…” A slow and rather ugly smile appeared on Kneller’s face … “hit the adam’s apple,” he finished.

  Carolus became more businesslike.

  “Had everyone easy access to all the arrows at any time?” he asked.

  “Good gracious, no. You don’t think I would leave them unlocked with fifty little fiends of boys about, do you? The summer-house where they were kept had a strong lock with an enormous key and I locked up after we had finished practising each day.”

  “But while you were all here it was open of course. Were the arrows you weren’t using, the broadheads for instance, in a locked box?”

  “No. I see what you’re getting at. Any of us could have extracted a broadhead without being noticed, probably.”

  “That’s what I wanted to know.”

  They were interrupted by Stanley who strolled up so casually that Carolus guessed he had some purpose in joining them.

  “I hope you two chaps realize you’re being watched,” said Stanley.

  “From Matron’s window, you mean? When are we ever not watched from there?”

  “She can’t see the rose garden, though,” said Stanley with satisfaction. “She doesn’t know that you and Mollie had a natter this afternoon.”

  “Don’t be too sure of that.” Kneller sounded damping. “It’s not only observation with Matron. It’s her information service.”

  He nodded grimly and without another word walked away in the direction of his cottage.

  “Strange chap, Kneller,” said Stanley inevitably and banally.

  “Think so? He seems to know a lot about archery. He has been telling me about the different kind of arrows. Sime was killed with a broadhead, apparently.”

  “Was he?” said Stanley with marked indifference. “What am I expected to do about it? Weep?”

  “It was murder,” said Carolus.

  “Of course it was. How else could Sime die? It’s a wonder it didn’t happen years ago. People like that can’t shuffle off this mortal coil unhurriedly. Someone’s bound to do for them.”

  “You make no secret of your feelings.”

  “Why should I? I didn’t kill him—though it surprises me I didn’t. No one can possibly suspect me.”