A Question of Proof (5 page)

Michael mumbled something and went out. He felt vaguely irritated. Hero’s little deceptions were still apt to fret him.

‘What did Evans want?’ Vale was saying.

‘One or two properties for the play he’s doing with his form.’

‘Mm. I don’t know that I approve of all this dressing-up in school. And this is a most unsuitable time to be thinking of play-acting. Hero, it is terrible. I have given my whole life to the school. Fifteen years: and now this happens. a boy to whom I stood more especially
in loco parentis
.’

‘Why, nobody could say it was your fault.’

‘Of course not,’ he replied irritably, ‘that’s not the point at all. But you know perfectly well that any suspicion of scandal is enough to ruin a place like this. And where shall we be then?’

‘Well, I suppose we shan’t starve. We come in for some money now, I take it.’ Hero was exasperated into a callousness of phrase that quite startled her.

‘My dear, that was a most brutal and uncalled-for remark. As though I – really, Hero, you can scarcely be yourself tonight. I should have expected a little more sympathy from my wife on such an occasion as this.’

Hero sighed wearily. The old appeal for pity. And the trouble was that it always worked, operating on the part of a woman’s nature that was beyond her control. No, she said firmly to herself, I love Michael. I’m not going to be emotionally bullied into doling it
out
to anyone else. Love is not indiscriminate charity. She looked more dispassionately at her husband. He was quite white, and breathing heavily. She said:

‘I’m sorry. I expect I’m a bit overwrought myself.’

‘Yes, yes, it is a difficult time for us all.’

She tried to laugh him out of his concern, saying lightly:

‘Especially for us who are under suspicion.’

‘Under suspicion? Are you mad, Hero. Good heavens, you mean the money. Why, you don’t really suppose –?’

‘Well, the police will presumably look for a motive.’

Hero still was speaking in jest; but, looking up, she was dismayed to see her husband’s face taut with fear. God, she thought, he’s going to break down in a minute. One might have supposed he really had done it himself.

Two small and highly malleable noses are pressed against the window of the Third form classroom, which gives on to the hayfield. Their owners-the intrepid leaders of the Black Spot – with their usual flair for smelling out or getting into touble, have detected the presence of the detectors and have cut evening prayers in order to keep an eye on their activities. They are busy getting what the papers call an ‘exclusive story.’

‘Look, Stevens, that must be the head policeman-that one in the flat cap.’

‘ “Inspector,” you ass, not “head policeman,” ’ observed the dictator crushingly.

‘Isn’t he a whopper? He’s fatter than the Griffin.’

‘I bet he’s not so strong, though. Do you remember Griff holding me and Pongo above his head – one in each hand?’

‘Jolly hard cheese on Wemyss; though he wa a bit of a worm. I wonder what the accident was.’

‘Accident? You poor simp, you don’t really think it was an accident, do you? They wouldn’t have a crowd of bobbies all over the place if it was an accident.’

‘Crumbs! Do you mean –?’

‘Murder. Mm. Bumped off. That’s what I mean. And what’s more,’ added the dictator darkly, ‘I’ve got an idea who –’

‘Oh, whoopee! Tell me! Are we going to track him down? Who is it?’

‘Don’t breathe all over the glass, you boob, I can’t see.’ Ponsonby rubbed the moisture away with his sleeve. ‘I shan’t tell you yet,’ Stevens proceeded, ‘you’d only go yapping it all round the school.’

‘Oh, Stevens, I wouldn’t really – I say, what’s what bloke with the camera doing?’

‘Photographing the remains. We always do it in murder cases. Gosh, don’t you see, that proves it’s murder.’

Ponsonby goggled in admiration of his leader’s flight of logic; then doubled his nose up against the pane.

‘Look, they’re lifting him up. They’re going to put
him
in the hay cart. I can’t see any blood, can you? Doesn’t he look horrid? I think I’m going away.’

The dictator was made of stemer stuff. ‘You go away if you like. I’m going to see this through. Quick! Come back! They’re turning the hay over: looking for clues, I expect.’ Ponsonby returned to the window. ‘Now they’re driving the cart away. Wonder where they’re taking him. Cemetery, I suppose.’

‘Do you think we’ll get a half-holiday for the funeral?’

‘Might. Gosh, look, the inspector’s found something. He’s taking it up in his handkerchief. Fingerprints, you know.’

‘Oh, flip! Will he take ours?’

‘Shut up! I can’t see – it’s getting so dark. It’s a bullet, perhaps.’

‘No, it’s a pencil – a silver pencil.’

IV

Viva Voce

THE SUN HAS
finally abdicated his noonday eminence, unperturbed by dark deeds, fear or passion. He looks in at the dusty common room, where masters are chatting spasmodically, trying without much success to cover up with commonplace this sudden chasm in their lives. The police have quartered the hayfield now and found whatever was to be found, and the hay cart is carrying its normal load. A line of lapwings flies along the far edge of the playing field, their black and white showing alternately like ripples of light or waves on a moonlit lake. Tiverton, watching them out of the day room window, toys with a mental image of death and life, crime and innocence, black and white. Every one in the school, for that matter, except a few very young boys who are so small that the whole affair passes over their heads, finds his eyes drawn magnetically to the windows and what lies beyond them.

Soon the superintendent comes in to the day room. The boys eye him in that deceptively polite, appraising silence with which boys in the mass are wont to
receive
a stranger. Armstrong looks almost fidgety, if such a human Everest could be said to fidget. But, encouraged by the receptive looks of his audience, he passes his forefinger once round the inside of his collar, assumes his most avuncular expression, and plunges in:

‘You have all heard that an unfortunate accident has occurred. I have been sent to inquire into it, and I hope that if any of you young gentlemen can give me assistance, you will do so.’ He has begun well. The most captious juvenile critic can find nothing to lay hold of here; and the idea of assisting the police has gone down splendidly. The superintendent feels that he is passing this test with honours, and resumes more expansively: ‘Now all I want to know at present is, did any of you notice whether your playmate was at lunch, or see anything of him afterwards?’ An invisible shudder passes over the assembly, starting from the veteran critics of the Fifth form at the back, and communicating itself like a groundswell to the small boys at the superintendent’s feet. Yes, he has put his foot in it all right. One word has changed him from a potential hero to a figure of fun. For some weeks now the word ‘playmate’ is to be a stock joke and a great weapon of offence, and it would take him many more weeks to live down the effect of it. He realises that he has ‘lost his audience,’ and ceasing to attempt any further imitation of Agag repeats his questions in a harsh, official tone. Wyvern-Wemyss had not appeared at lunch; several boys had had leave out to
lunch
with parents, and those who ordinarily sat next to Wemyss assumed that he had leave out too. No, no one had set eyes upon him afterwards, or knew where he had gone. Nor had anyone been outside the buildings till just before the sports began. Armstrong may have a kestrel’s eye, but he cannot be expected to pick out, amongst eighty boys, a small hand slightly lifted and as quickly lowered at his second question, or two small pairs of features becoming tense and obstinate at his third. He strides down the room and out of the door, rather hurriedly for him – but not so quickly that he escapes the beginning of a short variety tum by a youth with outstanding spectacles and ears, in which the unfortunate word figures as the
pièce de rèsistance
.

The superintendent is closeted with a headmaster distinctly conscious of the fact that he is being interviewed in his own study, and feeling, no doubt, something like Kronos when Zeus turned up out of the blue and started to put him through his paces.

‘Now, sir,’ the superintendent was saying, ‘let me see if I’ve got the facts right so far. The boy was last seen, as far as we know, during the last period of lessons today. His absence was not noticed till seven p.m. when a search was instituted. From the evidence of Morley, the foreman of the labourers, it is clear that the body was well concealed.’

‘It might have been placed there in the course of the evening, any time after the murder,’ the headmaster added.

‘Why, of course, sir; that had not occurred to me,’ said the superintendent mendaciously, adding in a heavily humorous tone that caused the Rev. Vale to wriggle slightly in his chair, ‘we shall be having you in the force before long, sir.’ He went on: ‘All your staff been with you for some time, sir?’

‘Yes, except for Mr. Wrench; he came last term.’

‘What sort of a man is this Mr. Wrench?’

‘Well–er–I’ve always found him satisfactory in his teaching capacity. Not a scholar, of course, not a scholar; but conscientious, and a very fair disciplinarian.’

‘I was not referring to his teaching capacity so much as to his general character.’ It was curious the way no one seemed to be able to converse with Percival Vale without being infected with his measured mode of speech.

‘Oh, his general character? His college gave him a very fair testimonial. I can’t say I’ve come into contact with him a great deal outside our scholastic duties. He strikes me as reserved; and he has a rather regrettable leaning towards aestheticism. I doubt if his politics are altogether sound. But, of course, he is not quite a – not quite, a – ah – that is-’ The headmaster broke off, looking a trifle confused.

‘Not quite a gentleman?’ Armstrong suggested. ‘Well, that may be said of quite a number of us. However, to resume. The search proved unsuccessful, and you got in touch with us. May I ask, sir, by the way, why you did not ring up the police as soon as the
boy
was found to be missing? We had no word from you till seven-thirty.’

‘I was unaware at the time that my nephew was murdered,’ replied the headmaster acidly. It was the superintendent’s turn to wriggle slightly in his chair.

‘You imagined that he had just run away, or something, I take it,’ he counterattacked.

‘Your second hypothesis is more correct than your first,’ returned Mr. Vale. ‘I supposed that he had met with some accident. My boys are not in the habit of – a – ah – running away.’

‘No, quite so. And you were first informed of the tragedy at seven twenty-five by Morley, who told you of his discovery?’

‘Yes.’

‘You then sent for Mr. Tiverton and told him to inform the rest of your staff; and you telephoned to Dr. Maddox and the police?’

‘That is so.’

The telephone rang in the lobby outside. The headmaster began to rise from his chair, but Armstrong lifted a large hand and said:

‘Don’t trouble yourself, sir. Sergeant Pearson will take the message.’ The headmaster relapsed into his seat, saying with a rather sickly smile:

‘You seem to have garrisoned the place already.’

The sergeant entered and told his superior that Dr. Maddox was on the phone. After a short conversation Armstrong returned.

‘Now, sir,’ he continued briskly, ‘may I ask you few
more
questions; just a matter of formality?’

‘Certainly.’

‘If you will give me an account of your own movements between one and four.’

‘Oh, well, let me see. I was in school till quarter to one. Then I signed leave outs till lunch time. In hall till one-thirty.’

‘All your staff at lunch, sir?’

‘Yes. No, I’d forgotten. Evans asked to be excused attendance.’ Armstrong made some cryptic hieroglyphics in his notebook.

‘Give any reason?’

‘No, I do not consider it necessary for my staff to –’

‘Exactly, sir, and then?’

‘I was talking in here with my wife for about a quarter of an hour. After that I went up to my dressing room and changed. By then it was time to go and meet the parents. Today was our Sports Day, you see.’

‘And when did they begin to arrive?’

‘Why, about two-fifteen, I suppose. I really don’t see what –’

‘You were in your dressing room from one-forty-five to two-fifteen – changing?’

‘Well, I dare say I lay down and rested for a part of the time. You cannot expect me to remember every trivial action.’

‘You will excuse me asking, sir, but have you anyone who can confirm this? Servants coming in? Your wife?’

The headmaster bent upon him that look which had quelled many an unruly parent and could reduce small boys to a state of total aphasia. It bent and broke upon the superintendent’s adamantine front.

‘This is outrageous! I did
not
commit this murder and I
was
in my room from one-forty-five to two-fifteen. If you do not take my word for the one, you are not likely to take it for the other.’

‘No, sir. We can’t afford to take people’s words in murder cases. I have my duty to do. If I can’t get information from one person, I must try to get it from another.’ There was an inflexible ring in the superintendent’s voice, and Percival Vale recognised it. He said, abruptly, and rather sulkily:

‘My wife was in her bedroom for part of the period. It adjoins my dressing room. We spoke a few words to each other through the door. That’s all the proof I can give you.’

‘About what time would that be?’

‘Mrs. Vale came up shortly after two. We went downstairs together.’

Armstrong relaxed his moral pressure at this point, and drew the remaining facts from the headmaster comparatively painlessly. These were: that the boy’s parents were dead and he was the nearest living relative; that he shared the duties of guardianship with James Urquhart, Esq., solicitor, of Staverton; that no one had asked to take the boy out for the afternoon; and that he was unaware of anyone who could possibly want to make away with his nephew. The superintendent
also
listened graciously to a theory that some tramp must have killed the lad – he was accustomed to have a considerable amount of money, for a boy, in his pockets; and declared that this no doubt was what had happened. It was only after the superintendent had gone out to ‘have a few words with Mrs. Vale,’ that the headmaster began to realise, with a nicely balanced blend of indignation and apprehension, that his inquisitor had had him in the hollow of his hand, as Gulliver held the King of Lilliput, and that there had been a sinister absence of inquiry about the extent to which ‘his nearest living relative’ would benefit by the Hon. Algernon Wyvern-Wemyss’ death.