Death at Hallows End (14 page)

“Yes,” said Carolus.

“But you'd rather neglected one aspect of it, which is why we've come down.”

“Really? What's that?”

“The Rector,” said Molly. “We've been to call on him.”

Mr. Sporter could not resist this.

“Rector-wise we're pretty well off here, I think,” he said. “I like a bit of how d'ye do in church, myself. Candles and vestments and what have you. They say this boy's absolutely coloss at that sort of thing.”

“We did not come to discuss ritual with Mr. Whiskins, believe you me,” said Molly Caplan. “We came to see him about something very different.”

“Perhaps I'm to congratulate you both?” suggested Carolus mischievously.

“Don't be absurd,” retorted Molly shortly. “We knew, as you knew, that Mr. Whiskins was expecting Humby to call on him that afternoon or evening.”

“And what did you find out? That he didn't call?”

Thripp intervened.

“There's no need to be facetious, Deene,” he said. “The information which Mrs. Caplan and I have obtained should be of the greatest value to you. We have established that Humby
did
reach the village that afternoon.”

“You have? Well, that's something. It had become pretty certain, you know, when Stonegate recognised his photograph as
that of the man he had seen in Humby's car. But Stonegate could have been mistaken or lying. He has a taste for publicity.”

“Hasn't he?” said Mr. Sporter. “Publicity-wise there's no one to beat Stonegate. He's terrif, he really is.”

“When he wants to be and about certain things,” pointed out Carolus. “I don't suppose he's more anxious than the rest of us to throw his whole life open to scrutiny. But that's neither here nor there. What you have obtained, Mrs. Caplan, is badly needed confirmation of his story. I'm grateful to you both. What else did the Rector tell you?”

“He hadn't seen Humby for years, he said,” Lionel Thripp replied. “Or me for nearly as long. He used to have a living outside Newminster, and Humby used to go out there. Humby's son, in fact, was one of his acolytes, as he described it. As Morgan Humby is now nearing forty and has been an American citizen for ten years, you can see it was a while ago. But they kept in touch, apparently, and when business brought Humby to this part of the world they were both delighted at the prospect of meeting again.”

“Did they meet, though?”

“Not in fact. Mr. Whiskins saw Humby driving through the village and went home to await his coming. As you know he never appeared.”

“I don't know,” said Carolus. “Did Whiskins say that?”

“He took it for granted we should know that Humby had disappeared from Church Lane and not been seen again,” put in Molly Caplan.

Carolus turned to Thripp rather pointedly.

“Tell me, as a matter of interest,” he said. “Did Humby include any Hallows End local charities in Grossiter's will?”

“Yes. He did. I don't remember exactly what. The choice was left to him entirely, remember.”

“Of course. That was all the Rector had to tell you?”

“I think so. He is very, very upset about the whole thing. Poor fellow seems a bag of nerves.”

“He did not give me that impression,” said Carolus. “But that was yesterday, and anyway you know him better than I do. Well, I am delighted to have seen you both. I must get back now to the wrath of my housekeeper.”

“You suffer from that, too, do you?” put in Sporter, not noticing that his wife had entered the bar behind him.

“Who's a housekeeper?” she asked. “You be careful what you're saying.”

Mr. Sporter grinned.

“You're marve, my dear. Absolutely marve.”

Carolus left them to it.

Mrs. Stick, as a matter of fact, was delighted to see Carolus back to eat his lapper oh at last.

“I've done it ar long lays,” she said. “That's brazy with force meat balls. It's so tender it will melt in your mouth. And I've got a bottle of that wine I told you about, nicely sham bray. So you'll be all right for tonight, anyway, whatever you may get up to tomorrow.”

“I'm going to stay at home,” said Carolus.

“Well, so you ought, sir, with it being Sunday. I'm sure it must be wrong to go playing about with murders and that on the Sabbath, even if it's not at any other time. I'll bring your dinner in about ten minutes.”

Carolus phoned Mr. Gorringer and asked whether he would be at home that evening.

“Mrs. Gorringer and I will be delighted to see you, my dear Deene, at the School House. What time shall we expect you? Nine? Splendid. In the meantime
retournons à nos moutons”

“
Oh, were you having dinner?” said Carolus. “So sorry to disturb you.”

At the appointed time he found Mr. Gorringer and his wife in the chintzy drawing room of School House. Mrs. Gorringer was a tall, somewhat scrawny woman with a reputation, fostered by her husband, for wit. Her expression was eager and watchful as though she were forever awaiting a chance to be funny.

“Ah, Deene,” said Mr. Gorringer. “Choose your seat and make yourself comfortable. I know you like a good cigar and have reserved for you one of these. Really excellent, I find them. They are called Whiffs and my wife laughingly refers to them as a whiff of grapeshot. You won't? Then a glass of port? No? Perhaps we can tempt you presently to coffee. I hope you bring good news for us? A
propos
Mr. Humby, I mean. I need scarcely remind you that he is a School Governor.”

“I'm afraid not,” said Carolus. “In fact I'm pretty certain that Duncan Humby is dead.”

Dead?” echoed Mr. Gorringer inevitably, as though he were astounded at the very notion.

“Unless I am wholly mistaken about the whole case.”

“And that, I suppose, you will never admit to being. So you will have it that poor Humby is dead. Where, then, is his body?”

“I don't know,” said Carolus wearily. “It may never be found. We are up against great cunning and resolve here. It would not surprise me if no one is ever tried, and I certainly doubt if there will be a conviction.”

“I will not have that!” said Mr. Gorringer. “You do yourself less than justice. A murderer so subtle that he escapes the net of our Deene? It's not to be thought of.” He turned to his wife, “Is it, my dear?”

Mrs. Gorringer seemed to be thinking out a
mot
in reply, but, unsuccessful in her search, made do with a breezy, “Not for a moment.”

“I am glad, however, that you have come this evening, Deene, and that for two reasons. One is that I wished to remind you
that term starts next Friday so we must hope all your investigations may be completed by then. The other is that I think perhaps—unexpected as this will be to you—I may be able to add my mite to the information you are seeking. That, in modern popular parlance,
shakes
you, I imagine.”

“It has not happened before, certainly. What information have you got, Headmaster?”

“Ah! I see I have aroused your curiosity. But it is possible you are already aware of the circumstances. Do you remember, some five years ago, a day boy of the name of Spaull?”

“Can't say I do,” said Carolus, “I was never good at the boys' names.”

“A pity. A great pity. To know their names is half the battle. However, this boy Spaull will come to your recollection if you remember the last season in which we played Rugby Football before changing over to Association in the Christmas Term and the salubrious game of Hockey in the Spring. Spaull played fullback, a mighty man of valour.”

“Indeed? Yes? I scarcely remember the Rugby team.”

“I was forgetting,” said Mr. Gorringer severely, “your unfortunate attitude of indifference towards the school's prowess in sports. Fortunately I can amend it. Spaull was so over-vigorous in the match against Margate College that there was some rather embittered correspondence between me and the Headmaster of that no doubt excellent institution.”

“I remember this Spaull,” said Carolus. “An apish lout who failed every exam he went in for, but was excused for this because he played well at some game.”

“A flannelled fool at the wicket? Or a muddled oaf at the goal?” asked Mrs. Gorringer brightly.

“Both, so far as I can remember,” said Carolus.

Mr. Gorringer showed his displeasure by a long deep rumble as he cleared his throat.

“Spaull,” he said, “was School Captain, a dauntless player of Rugby Football and a resourceful bowler of no mean batting ability. He did the school much credit in the field although no great things could be expected from him in the classroom. It now appears, Deene, that he is involved in the events you are investigating.”

“How?”

“It has come to my ears,” said Mr. Gorringer, and Carolus could not keep his eyes from those hirsute orifices, “that this same Spaull, initial H I believe, was on the scene of the crime when it happened.”

“What crime?” asked Carolus.

There was another displeased rumble.

“The crime you are investigating, Deene.”

“I wish I knew what that was, let alone where or when it happened.”

“Let me then put it that Spaull was staying in Hallows End last week and for all I know is there still.”

“He is,” said Carolus. “I know that.”

“What perhaps you do
not
know, Deene,” said the Headmaster with triumph in his voice, “is that Rumour has been busy with this young man and has connected him, in no uncertain way, with the late James Grossiter. In a word, he is believed to be Grossiter's illegitimate son.”

“Yes. I have heard that tale and I don't believe it for a moment. But his mother was given a handsome settlement when she left Grossiter's service. And Humphrey Spaull was to have received ten thousand pounds from Grossiter.”

“I see you are already well informed,” said Mr. Gorringer sourly.

“Where you might be helpful to me, Headmaster, is in the matter of Spaull's character as a boy. Did he seem cut out for crime? Would you consider him a potential murderer?”

“Deene, we are chatting informally in the presence of my wife. Nonetheless I must apply all the weight of my office to protest, in the strongest terms, against your suggestion that our system here at Newminster could produce any such ghastly anomaly. No boy who has been in my care will ever, please God, besmirch the good name of the Queen's School by—”

“Not even Priggley?” interrupted Carolus.

“I scarcely regard Priggley as a product of the school at all, remembering his unfortunate background and heredity. But even he … However, let me content myself with a simple but emphatic negative to your query. No, sir, Spaull had no criminal tendencies. He was not an intellectual, but an honest, hardworking, hard-playing boy of whom the school may well be proud. And not all your—I use harsh terms perhaps—your perverted ingenuity will succeed in involving him in whatever web of guilt you may be spinning.”

“So there!” added Mrs. Gorringer, smiling.

“My dear,” reproved her husband. “No one appreciates the felicities of your ready humour more than I, but at the moment I am in deadly earnest.”

“Well, thank you for your information, Headmaster.” Carolus rose to his feet. “I only came to tell you that I am very pessimistic about this case. I believe Humby is dead, and I doubt if we shall ever get a conviction.”

He bade goodnight to both of them and hurried home to bed.

Next morning he realised the soldier's dream and stayed in bed till nearly eleven o'clock, reading the Sunday papers. But just as he was about to get up, Mrs. Stick came to his room, her cheeks flushed and her eyes behind her steel-rimmed spectacles bright and angry.

“It's begun all over again, as I knew it would,” she said. “There's two of them downstairs now asking for you urgent
about Hallows End and the young man's got his head all bandaged up and looks a sight. I don't like the look of her, either.”

“Tell them I'll be down in ten minutes.,” said Carolus.

“I was just making my patty mason when the bell went.”

“Perry
Mason, surely Mrs. Stick.”

“No, sir,
patty
mason for your first course, and now I don't know how it'll turn out. Sunday morning, too. I told them you didn't believe in playing with murderers on a Sunday but they would have it they must see you at once. Spaull, his name is, and I don't like to ask hers. Not looking like she does.”

It was less than ten minutes later when Carolus reached his sitting room and found the couple sitting side by side on a settee. Spaull was burly with a crew cut, the girl was good-looking but somewhat supercilious in expression.

Spaull said at once, as though prompted, “Do you remember me, sir? I was at the Queen's School.”

Carolus looked at him. “Yes. I think so. What's the matter with your head?”

“That's what we've come to see you about,” said the girl. “My name's Zelia Harris, by the way. Last night…”

“Were you there, Miss Harris?”

“Not ecktually.”

“Then hadn't we better have the story from Spaull?”

“You're going to get it. We're going to my home to take it down and type it now.”

“
To type
it? Why?”

“Tell him, Humphrey.”

“It's all rather complicated,” said Spaull. “There's a lot of detail I might forget, so Zelia suggested my dictating to her.”

“And I said it was the only occasion on which you
would
dictate to me, in any sense of the word.”

“Dictating what?” asked Carolus, somewhat impatiently.

“A statement on this whole affair at Hallows End.”

“What do you know about it?”

“A good deal more than you think, Mr. Deene,” said Zelia. “Humphrey was connected in a certain way with Grossiter.”