A Question of Proof (15 page)

The two boys came up immediately after lunch. Nigel was eager to begin questioning them, for the idea conceived after his second exploit had been greatly strengthened by the third. However, he had first to undergo the ceremony of initiation into the secret society. He gave an account of his adventures and handed over the rabbit-trap. He was then blindfolded, while the dictator read a kind of confirmation service over him, in the course of which he was compelled to swear a number of very solemn and magniloquent oaths. Finally, the bandage was removed, a large black spot of ink was printed on his right wrist, and he was a full member of the society. The dictator and his lieutenant now changed into Stevens II and Ponsonby. The hunt was up.

‘Sir, it’s about the day Wemyss was murdered. At breakfast me and Ponsonby arranged to meet in Mouldy’s hut to transact important private business of the society,’ the dictator reeled out the last phrase in character, and was immediately transfigured into Stevens II again. ‘We oiled out as soon as lunch was over – it’s quite easy, you know, sir – and hid –’

‘Behind the sacks, against the right-hand wall of the hut as you go in,’ interposed Nigel nonchalantly. The boys’ eyes rounded. Ponsonby said, ‘Gosh, sir, how did you know that? You must be a jolly good detective. Are you head of Scotland Yard?’

Nigel was unaccustomed to the point-blank praise of small boys, and blushed a little, ‘No, far from it. But do go on, this is frightfully interesting.’

‘There isn’t really anything more. We talked for a long time. You see, my brother had asked me about the gang’s beating up Wemyss, so we had that to arrange too. Then we hurried back into school just before changing time.’

‘Why, Stevens wanted to tell you, sir –’ broke in Ponsonby.

‘Put a sock in it, Pongo! We thought we ought to tell you, sir, because the policeman asked if anyone had been outside the house after lunch and of course we couldn’t tell him because it was the Black Spot and deadly secret.’

‘I see,’ said Nigel, thinking that they had been very lucky in not giving away their secret to Armstrong, for it could not have failed to put them under official suspicion. ‘So I take it you didn’t set eyes on Wemyss while you were going in or out.’

‘No, sir, I’m afraid we haven’t been much help,’ said Stevens, with pathetic eagerness.

‘You’ve cleared up one difficulty, and I rather think that if you will answer some more questions, you will have done more than anyone else could to solve the mystery.’

‘Oh, whoopee! Ask me, sir!’ ‘Ask me!’

‘Well, then, first of all, I suppose Wemyss wasn’t a member of the Black Spot?’

‘I should think he jolly well wasn’t, slimy little
chizzer
!’ Stevens clearly did not subscribe to the de mortuis doctrine.

‘Is it possible that he could have thought he had a chance of being elected?’

‘Oh, I should think so; he was sidey enough, anyway.’

‘Now I want to get it quite clear. How do you go about the business of deciding on new members?’

‘Stevens generally decides himself,’ put in Ponsonby, with a certain air of grievance. Nigel could well imagine it.

‘Slit your gullet, Pongo! We have a general meeting of the gang, sir – there are supposed to be six besides the dictator and the lieutenant – then, if every one agrees on a person, we give him an ordeal, like we did you.’

‘Supposing the person doesn’t want to be a member? I mean, how do you find out if he wants to be? Do you sound him about it beforehand?’

‘Sometimes, sir. Generally we just give him the instructions straight away.’

‘But do most people in the school know about the Black Spot? What I mean is, when you just give the instructions without talking to the person beforehand, how does he know it’s not a leg-pull? Would he have heard about the society’s method of initiation?’

‘Oh, yes, I think so. At least, he’d know about the Black Spot. Of course, it’s supposed to be absolutely secret, but I expect most of the school know about the sort of things we do.’ The realist spoke again.

‘So if a boy got a set of instructions, and wanted to become a member of the society, he would follow them out without telling anyone about them?’

‘Mm. Rather.’

Nigel sat back and lit a cigarette. So far, everything seemed to be bearing out his bizarre theory. He went on again, approaching the crucial question.

‘You said yesterday that you made up a different test for each new member. What sort of tests have they been?’

‘Oh, all sorts of things. Playing jokes on the masters, altering the school clocks, hiding Sweeny’s bell, scouting about the country like you did, sir, and so on.’

‘Stevens had a jolly nippy idea for one last term, sir,’ said Ponsonby, ‘only it never came off. He was going to tell a chap to disappear for an hour. He could go anywhere he liked in the school or the grounds, but no one must see him.’

Nigel’s heart leapt strongly. So he had been right, after all. His fantastic theory was vindicated. He controlled his voice and said carelessly:

‘That was a good one. Why didn’t it come off?’

‘Well, sir, you see, it was like this. We’d written out the instructions, and folded them up and passed them along to the chap in form, but the master saw it and confiscated it.’

Glory be, thought Nigel, this is too good to be true. He went on, ‘But didn’t the master make a fuss about it? I should have thought that would have been the
end
of the Black Spot. Or did he just tear it up without reading it?’

‘No, sir, Simmie was jolly decent about it. He’s not a bad sort of beezer at all, if he wasn’t such an absolute ass. I didn’t see him tear it up, but he can’t have reported it to Percy or we should have got tanned. Percy is frightfully down on all that sort of thing. Simmie just gave us some lines for passing notes in form and didn’t say anything more about it.’

Sims! Good Lord, Sims! Well, well, well. ‘Why does every one rag Mr. Sims, if he’s a decent kind of man?’

‘Oh, well, sir, he is such an ass. I dunno. You just can’t help it. It’s quite safe, too, he never does anything but set you some lines, and he generally forgets to collect them; at least, he used to; but now he writes them down in that black book he carries about with him. “Doomsday book,” he calls it.’

‘It doesn’t always seem quite safe to rag in his room,’ remarked Nigel meaningly. Stevens and Ponsonby shifted uncomfortably on their seats.

‘That was just bad luck. We’d forgotten Percy was in school that hour. I say, my bim’s jolly sore still. Isn’t yours, Pongo? Old Pedantic swings a pretty hefty cane.’

‘Well, here’s a bob to buy some medicine. Chocolate, applied internally, is quite a good remedy, I’m told.’

‘Thanks
awfully
, sir.’ ‘Thanks
frightfully
, sir. I say, sir, have we really been any help?’

‘Don’t let out a word of our conversation to anyone. You’ve as good as told me how the murder was committed.’

‘
Gosh
!’

IX

Retrospects and Prospects

AS SOON AS
the boys had left, Nigel went to look for Sims. The question was, how to bring up the subject of the paper that Sims had confiscated without arousing his suspicion. No, thought Nigel, that won’t do. If he is the murderer, and worked on the lines I’m certain the murderer did work on, he is bound to be suspicious. And if he is innocent, he’ll still be automatically on the defensive; he’s probably got a first-class persecution mania, and that’ll make him morbidly sensitive of trouble in the air, however much I try to conceal it. No use trying tact or tactics. He’ll be put most at ease if I appeal to him as to an equal and put the facts straightforwardly.

Sims’ room was like himself, colourless, ineffectual, rather pathetic. He had tried to liven up the regulation school environment with a few touches of his own, Nigel noticed – a second rug, a couple of reproductions of Dutch masters, a huge and elaborate desk; but somehow they made no difference; they seemed to have absorbed their owner’s air of failure – they looked as out-of-place and stranded amongst the ordinary
furniture
of the room as did Sims himself amongst his colleagues. The books, too, Nigel observed, while Sims trotted about looking for cigarettes –what an incredibly miscellaneous collection! Novels representative of the whole possible gamut of taste, thereby betraying the complete absence of it in Sims; a whole shelf full of the Christian mystics and meaty-looking tomes of evangelical sermons; the most boring of modern poets rubbing shoulders with the most respectable of classic ones; elementary textbooks on almost every conceivable branch of human knowledge, as though Sims had hurried from subject to subject looking for his metier and always been disappointed. The bookcase was a museum of false starts and broken hopes. It filled Nigel with pity. He felt as if he was about to vivisect a lost dog.

‘Is one allowed to ask how you’re getting on?’ said Sims.

‘Oh, rather. I’ve found out quite a lot today, entirely by accident. I’m beginning to think I’ve got the explanation of the difficulty that has been holding up the case.’

‘Have you really? Dear me! You mean –?’

‘Well, you have no doubt wondered what it was that induced Wemyss to disappear so mysteriously after school that morning.’

‘I – why, yes, it did seem very unaccountable, unless he was murdered almost at once. Surely he must have been. Someone would have seen him otherwise, wouldn’t they?’

‘That does seem probable, on the face of it. But the problem still remains, what made Wemyss go – like a lamb to the slaughter, so to speak – at all? What made him miss lunch, for instance? And, though you couldn’t have guessed it, you’ve had the answer in your own hands.’

Sims blinked and looked worried. ‘I? Dash it all, Strangeways, whatever do you mean?’

‘Do you remember last term confiscating a note that was being passed in form? Written in capitals, with a round splodge of ink at the top, something about the Black Spot?’

‘Bless my soul! However did you get to hear of that? Yes, it was some ridiculous nonsense about a secret society – telling somebody he was to disappear for an hour. Disappear!’ Sims’ eyes blazed behind his thick spectacles, ‘Great Scott, Strangeways, I see what you’re driving at. You mean, one of the boys sent a similar note to poor Wemyss – but that implies that this boy killed him. No, I can’t believe that. They’re perhaps rather too high-spirited at times; but murder – no, no, it’s impossible.’

‘There again I’m inclined to agree with you, though I don’t know how the superintendent will take it. Tell me, what did you do with the note? Is it possible that one of the servants could have got hold of it?’

‘Oh no; we destroyed it. You see, I happened to make some comment or other about it in the common room, and we – er – in short, we decided to destroy it.’

‘We?’

Sims looked more worried than ever. He bent his head in thought. ‘Look here, Strangeways, is the superintendent in your confidence?’

‘I haven’t told him about this development yet, but of course I shall have to.’

‘I see. I hate the idea of getting other people into trouble, but –’

Nigel said gently, ‘In so far as the knowledge of this note is potentially incriminating, you are bound to be technically under suspicion yourself, I’m afraid.’

‘Oh dear; yes, of course. How awful! But that does seem to make it a bit better. Well, let me see: Wrench had a look at the note. Who else was there? Oh, of course, Evans. I remember that because it was he who suggested that we should let it go no further. He said something about these secret societies being a sign of vitality and inventiveness, and that it would be a pity to stamp it out. I daresay he’s right. He knows a great deal about boys – but then, he is so popular with them. Somehow I never seem to have got the knack of it like he has.’

‘I heard two of them singing your praises just now, anyway.’

‘Did you really?’ Sims’ face quite lit up. ‘That’s very gratifying. I’m afraid you must form a poor opinion of me, getting so much pleasure out of a little thing like that. But it’s the breath of life to us schoolmasters – to find that our labours are sometimes appreciated.’

Nigel managed tactfully to arrest the heart-to-heart talk which seemed imminent, and after making certain that the knowledge of the Black Spot note had been confined to Sims, Wrench and Evans, took his leave. It was now time to let Superintendent Armstrong into these discovered secrets. He had only paid one visit to the school in the last two days, though there was always a constable about the place – ‘just to see that none of us makes a bolt for it,’ as Griffin said, to the general discomfiture of the common room. Armstrong was evidently relying on Strangeways to provide an opening for his next move. Nigel asked Mrs. Vale if she would mind driving him in to Staverton before tea. Hero was quite willing. She had only seen him in company up till now, and felt a recurrent jealous impulse to measure her influence with Michael against his.

Nigel was sensible of the faint antagonism beneath her offhand manner – she resents my being able to do more for Michael than she can, he thought – and set himself to dispel it.

‘How is your husband feeling about things now?’ he asked.

‘The condition is unchanged. The bottom of his world has been knocked out, but he’ll grow a new one soon enough unless the parents start removing their boys.’ She spoke bitterly. Nigel winced inside himself. He disliked superficial cynicism in women, just as much as he liked their natural, deep-centred irony. There was consequently a marked evasiveness
in
his reply when she asked him how he was getting on with the case. Her hand tightened on the wheel and she wrenched the car petulantly round a corner.

‘The flippancy of the postwar woman distresses you, I see. Don’t you realise that my husband means simply nothing to me now? I love Michael and I don’t care what happens as long as he is happy.’

‘I know that you love Michael and that no one could make him so happy as you. But I imagine your husband meaning nothing to you now is more of a wish than a fact. You can’t live with a person for several years without forming some relationship, and personal relationships don’t suddenly vanish into thin air. The truth is, you’re angry with yourself for not being able to break the ties between yourself and your husband.’