Was It Murder? (11 page)

“I wish you could explain it to me, anyhow,” Revell went on.  “In a serious affair like this, every little mystery cleared up is so much to the good.  Besides, I’m sure you must be anxious that the person who murdered one and perhaps two of your boys shall be discovered as soon as possible.”

The simplicity of the appeal seemed to bring Roseveare nearer to emotion than hitherto; after a pause, and in a rather different voice, he replied:  “I don’t quite see how my explanation can help towards the discovery of the criminal, but still, I recognise your right, in the circumstances, to be told rather more than you know already.  I will give you the explanation, therefore, though I doubt if it will do any good.  It concerns other persons besides myself, unfortunately, so you must allow me to mention no names.  I wish I could prevent you from guessing, but I may hope, at least, that you will try to respect as many privacies as you can.”

It was an easy promise to make, and Revell made it.

“You will believe me, I am sure,” Roseveare went on, “when I tell you that I had not the slightest suspicion at first that the dormitory accident was anything but what it appeared to be.  There was nothing to suspect; there was nobody to be suspected; it seemed just one of those tragic, almost pointless, mishaps that do happen from time to time.  The inquest returned what appeared to me and to everyone else the only possible verdict.  Not for two months—till the end of November, in fact—did I harbour the very least misgiving.  Then, one afternoon, the wife of one of my staff visited me alone in this room, and unfolded an exceedingly remarkable story.  She gave me to understand that her husband had done several things that seemed to connect rather curiously with the death of the boy.”

“Good heavens!  You mean that she suspected her husband of having murdered him?”

“Nothing nearly so definite as that, I am afraid.  She was far too incoherent and hysterical to frame her suspicions into anything so tangible.  I did not, as a matter of fact, believe her or take much notice of what she said, which is perhaps a pity.  I remember she mentioned the sick-rooms over the dormitory and said that her husband had been there several times during the vacation, and without apparent reason.  She also said that on the night of the accident he had not come to bed until very late.  Anyhow, as I said, I regarded her case as rather pathological—she seemed to me to be in a highly hysterical condition, and I packed her off as quickly as I could and tried to think no more of the matter.”

“Yet you did, I suppose?”

“I did.  I confess it.  It’s curious how a suspicion, dismissed at first as utterly preposterous, improves its status after a time.  Not, of course, that I really came to believe her.  But I did, perhaps, come to feel that the matter was just worth probing a little.  After all, there are queer things in this world, and I knew that as well as anyone.  The trouble was, of course, that I was not in a position to do any of the probing myself.  To have attempted even the most casual investigation would have attracted notice—you would be surprised how hard it is for a headmaster to find out what is going on in his own school.  So, to come to the point, I recollected a chance conversation I had some years ago with the Master of your college at Oxford, and I sent for you.

“Well now, consider my position when you came.  I did not feel justified in telling you the truth—to have done so, I judged, would have prejudiced the impartiality of your investigation, apart from being an atrocious slander upon a colleague for whom I had, and still have, every respect.  On the other hand, it was clearly necessary that I should give you some reason for having sent for you.  I therefore concocted the little note which I told you had been left between the pages of the boy’s algebra-book.”  He half-smiled.  “It sounds, I daresay, a childish thing to have done, but it was really the only thing I could think of.  And I was, I confess, rather amused when you discovered a plausible and an altogether satisfactory reason why the boy should have left the note which, in fact, he did not write at all.  The moral, perhaps, is that it is easy for an ingenious person to find reasons for anything.”

He continued, after a pause:  “That week-end you were here, however, something happened that removed all my misgivings completely.  The lady in question visited me again, but in very different circumstances.  She came, in fact, to apologise for her previous visit, and to tell me that all her suspicions were really quite groundless and merely the result of nerves.  This tallied, of course, with my own theory of the incident, and I was very glad to take her word about it.”

“Although really you had no more reason to suppose she was speaking the truth then than before?”

“Well, perhaps not, according to the strictest logic.  But you must remember that, as something of a doctor myself, I could see the immense improvement in her condition—she was calm and rational upon this second visit and gave every evidence of being bitterly ashamed of her previous one.  Anyhow, I DID believe her.  And so, by the time you made your report to me, the matter was already settled in my mind and I was thinking that I had sent for you on somewhat of a fool’s errand.  It was not, of course, your fault, but I was naturally anxious for you not to waste any more of your time.”

“And what about this second accident?  Didn’t it awaken any of the old suspicions?”

“Why should it have done?  It was, I admit, a most remarkable coincidence, but in the face of Murchiston’s evidence, to say nothing of the evidence of my own eyes, how could I have thought of anything but accident?  Your attitude, of course, was bound to be different, for you could not know the whole truth about the first affair.  I wasn’t in the least surprised that you came along, but you can hardly have expected me to invite you.”

“You really thought it possible that the boy did dive into the empty bath?”

“Certainly.  It was unlikely, but perfectly possible.  It seemed far more possible to me than any theory of murder.  In fact, but for the bullet which you say has been discovered, I doubt if murder could or would have been thought of.  What puzzles me is why the Home Office so readily permitted the exhumation.  They must have been given reasons beyond mere local tittle-tattle.”

“The detective told me his men had found something—some piece of evidence—he didn’t tell me what.”

“Found something?  Where?”

“Here.  On the premises, somewhere or other.”

“Do you mean to tell me that policemen have been searching the School?”

“Not searching, I think, so much as watching.”

“Watching or searching, it is all equally scandalous.”  His voice lost, for the first time, its smooth precision.  “Common courtesy, I should have thought, would have made even a detective ask for the permission which he might know I should have to give.  You may tell your detective friend, Revell, if you see him again, that I should like very much to know by whose authority he sets his spies to trespass on private property!  A disgraceful infringement of all public and personal rights!”

And so the interview closed on that note of anger.  It was something to have found out that trespass, if not murder, could raise the ire of the Headmaster of Oakington.

CHAPTER VI

LAMBOURNE’S STORY

Revell was determined not to sacrifice his entire independence in the investigation.  Greatly as he respected Guthrie, he had no desire to be merely his assistant, or to give up his own rather interesting position in an affair that was certainly becoming more interesting at every moment.  When he met the detective that evening in one of the country lanes near the School, he gave him a fairly full account of his interview with Roseveare.  Guthrie nodded complimentarily when he had finished.

“So you got it out of him, then?  The question is, of course—is it the truth?”

Revell had wondered the same thing himself, but he was a little astonished by Guthrie’s calm suspicion.  “Do you mean that you suspect him?” he queried.

“Oh, I wouldn’t go so far as that.  It’s rather that I always suspect a queer yarn.  And this, you’ll admit, is pretty queer.  Who’s this woman he was talking about—I suppose you DID make a guess?”

Revell paused uncomfortably.  “I don’t know whether I ought—“

“Of course you ought,” interrupted Guthrie with a laugh.  “It’s all informal—between ourselves, you know.  Anyhow, if you prefer it, I’ll have a shot myself and say she’s Ellington’s wife.  Impudent-looking piece, with black hair and a turned-up nose—that’s the lady, isn’t it?”

The description astonished Revell so much that he did not reply; but Guthrie evidently took his silence for an affirmative.

“Why should she go to the Head with such a yarn, I wonder?  If she DID go, that is.  We must remember that either or both of them may be complete liars.  By the way, Roseveare wasn’t Head in your time here, was he?”

“No.  He came a few years after the end of the War.  I daresay you know all about his War record and so on?”

“Oh yes, I gathered he was rather a mandarin in those days.  I even went a bit farther back and looked up his record before the War.  That was quite exciting, too.”  Guthrie stopped to light his pipe in the gathering dusk.  “Thought so—these hedges are full of young lovers, and young lovers, contrary to the popular idea, are not so intent on their own affairs that they won’t listen to two strangers chattering in high-pitched voices about a local big pot.  We must talk more quietly. . . .  Now let me tell you a few things about our friend the Headmaster of Oakington.  To begin with, he hasn’t any ordinary schoolmaster’s degree—the ‘doctor’ before his name is a medical title.”

“I knew that.”

“Oh, you did?  Well, it’s unusual, rather, isn’t it?  Then again, he had no scholastic experience before he came to Oakington.  He’s been many things in his time—doctor, politician, business man, even a sort of gentleman farmer—but till a few years ago he never ran a school.”  Guthrie paused and puffed reflectively.  “Of course, you know why Oakington took him?  The place was in a bit of a bad way under the previous fellow—Jury, wasn’t his name?--and they—the School governors—imagined Roseveare would pull the show out of the mire.  Which, to a large extent, I believe he has done.”

“He has a wonderful personality, I think.”

“Oh yes—no doubt about that.  Don’t think I’m attacking the fellow at all.  I’m merely pointing out that we’re not dealing with the average Eton and Oxford headmaster who composes Greek epigrams and wears a parson’s collar.  Roseveare’s a man of wider experience altogether.  Twice at least he made a fortune and lost it—once in America and again in New Zealand.  He had, and still has, an extraordinarily persuasive way with him.  In America he made a great hit as a company-promoter.”

“Really?  That reminds me that I’ve very often seen him poring over stock-market reports in the papers.”

Guthrie smiled.  “That, by itself, isn’t very remarkable, I’m afraid.  There’s hardly a headmaster in England who hasn’t dabbled in shares—generally to his loss. . . .  Roseveare, however, really was a sort of financier at one time in his career.  Oh, quite honest, yes—or at least as honest as a financier can be.  He was unlucky, though, in the end—lost all his money and crossed to New Zealand.  There he set up as a local doctor in a small town where the schoolmaster’s name was Ellington.”

“Good Lord—you mean the Ellington who’s here at Oakington now?”

“Yes.  What’s more, when Roseveare became successful and took a practice in a larger town, Ellington soon afterwards followed him there as a schoolmaster.  They were obviously very close friends.  The only place Ellington didn’t follow Roseveare to was the War.  He stayed in New Zealand, where there wasn’t conscription, and became rather unpopular.  Later, when Roseveare was appointed to Oakington, Ellington came hopping over from the other side of the world to become a housemaster here.  Curious, don’t you think?”

“Very curious.  I say, don’t you think it looks rather like

blackmail?  Suppose Ellington knew something a little bit

discreditable about Roseveare’s past—after all, a man with all

those different careers may well have done something or other—“

“He may, of course, but there’s absolutely not a shadow of evidence.”

“Well, just for the moment assuming that he had done something a

little bit over the line in one way or another—“

“That’s all very well, but I fail to see what possible connexion it can have with the murder of the boy Marshall.  After all, that’s what we’re investigating.”

Suddenly Revell was attacked, conquered, and completely overwhelmed by an idea.  “Yes, I know, and see how it fits in.  Do you remember me telling you that the boy came back unexpectedly that night and that very few people knew he was in the dormitory?  Roseveare didn’t—at least, I don’t think he did.  Well, supposing Roseveare, having been blackmailed by Ellington till he was desperate, had decided to get rid of his oppressor once and for all!  He knew that Ellington had to sleep in Marshall’s bed in the dormitory until the boy came back.  He didn’t expect the boy back until Monday.  Isn’t it just possible, then, that the death of the first Marshall was that somewhat rare combination—a murder AND an accident?”

Guthrie broke into a gust of laughter.  “Now that’s really clever of you, Revell, and if there were only the least little bit of evidence in support of it, I’d say it was worth looking into.  Even so, I don’t know how you’d fit in the second affair.  What possible motive could the respected Headmaster have had for murdering the second boy?”

“Exactly.”  Revell’s voice was sharp with excitement.  “And have I ever suggested that he murdered them both?  Mayn’t there just as easily have been two murderers as two murders?”

“Oh, get away with you—you’re too clever for a poor old honest plodder like me.  Besides, I think we’ve done enough theorising for the time being.  What we want is facts, and the sooner we set about getting them the better.  Now let’s turn back for a final drink before bed-time.”

Nor would he say another word about the case except, just before they separated, to mention that it might be just as well, in the circumstances, if Revell were to stay on for a time as the guest of Dr. Roseveare.