A Javelin for Jonah

chapter

6

Joynings jumps the Gun

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Henry had not yet collected his search party. The College enjoyed its after-lunch break and was disinclined to go roaming the woods on what the majority thought would be a fool’s errand.

“Who wants to find bloody Jonah, anyway? Good riddance if he has gone,” was the consensus of opinion. Hamish, faced with this conclusion, left the tennis courts and went on to the field where the gymnasts, singly or in small groups, were stretched out in the sunshine, secure in the knowledge that for them there would be no class that afternoon. He spoke crisply to one and another.

“You a gym man? Well, there’s no gym this afternoon, so go on to the tennis courts and report to Henry. Why? Because I shall scrag you if you don’t.”

As the gymnasts, on the whole, tended to be small-boned and amenable rather than hefty and belligerent, this policy worked well, particularly as the men’s gym squad, owing to Jones’s slackness, were known to be lethargic and out of condition. They groused and slouched, but they obeyed. Henry addressed them.

“You’ll be looking for Jonah. He may be injured. He must be found. I’d rather we found him than the police. That’s all. We’ll quarter the woods inch by inch. It shouldn’t take long.” He indicated a heap of hockey sticks which some of the girls had been asked to bring over from their games shed. “These will help you to prod the undergrowth and shove brambles out of your way, and all that. Shout out if you find him or if you find anything which will help us to trace him. If he’s hurt, of course don’t attempt to move him. O.K.? Off we go, then.”

“Do you think there are enough of us to search the woods thoroughly, Henry?” asked a slim youth wearing a singlet and grey flannels. “When I’ve seen films where the police do it, they fan out and beat every bit of bracken.”

“Trouble is that everybody except you blokes has a coaching session in about half-an-hour’s time, Gil.”

“What about the long-jump squad, then? There’s been a sort of hoodoo placed on the pit since Colin’s accident and what with Barry being on leave until recently, and all that. Why shouldn’t they be given something to do, as well as us?”

“Barry is going to give them a blackboard lecture with slides of Klaus Beer, Ralph Boston and Lynn Davies—oh, and Mary Rand and Viorica Viscopoleanu, of course. I’m afraid Barry is not very keen on using the pit even yet. He can’t get over Colin’s accident, any more than the long-jump squad can. You cut along and start looking for Jonah, and don’t worry about the long-jump fellows.”

“It’s a bit morbid of Barry, don’t you think, to boycott the pit like this?” asked Hamish, as he and Henry cantered after the students. “After all, accidents do happen, and Colin seems to be going on all right.”

“Barry will get himself sorted out in time. He’s very fond of Colin, you know. Besides, he blames himself for the accident in the most unreasonable way. Says that if he hadn’t gone on leave, the thing would never have happened. Well, of course it wouldn’t, but you can’t argue in that sort of way.”

“How thoroughly do you think this lot will search?” asked Hamish, as they caught up with the last of the gymnasts and passed them.

“I don’t think they’ll put themselves out, but the woods are not very extensive. We’d better separate, I think. You take the left side and I’ll do the rest. How much time can you spare?”

“Not a lot, I’m afraid. Got a swim-session with some learners. I want everybody in College to be able to swim.”

“All right, then. Do you know that old hut in the clearing?”

“No, but I can find it.”

“All right. Take that path there. It leads to it. If the hut seems to be locked, kick it in. The timbers are sure to be rotten.”

“If it’s locked, Jones can’t be there.”

“Somebody may have a key. They got one to the stoke-hole, remember.”

Hamish found the hut. It was locked, but he had no difficulty in kicking in two or three boards and entering the musty premises. There were two rooms. The building must have been a temporary shelter for a gamekeeper when the estate had been in private hands. Hamish looked around. The rooms were bare, except for cobwebs, and smelt damp. There was no sign of Jones. On his way out of the woods he encountered Henry again.

“Not in the hut,” he said.

“No? It was just a possibility,” said Henry. “We haven’t had any luck, either. Well, I’m going to leave the students to it now. I feel I’ve shown willing and I ought to be back in College in case Gassie wants me. Miss Yale has just met me and mentioned the stoke-hole, so I think I’ll take another look at it just in case there’s another something which I’ve overlooked.”

“Another something? How do you mean?”

“Well, it turns out that there is another key. It belongs to Miss Yale and hangs up just inside her door with one or two other of her keys. She says it isn’t there now and she can’t remember when she saw it last. She came to tell me.”

“Oh, dear! Well, if Jones has been removed from the stoke-hole —and it seems he has — where on earth can they have put him? That’s if he hasn’t slung his hook off his own bat. He may well have done so, you know. I mean, don’t you think that, if the students did manhandle him a bit and then some of them let him go, he may have got wind up and decided that enough is enough? This business of Miss Yale’s key may be significant, don’t you see. I mean, another lot of students might have known it was there, let him out with it and threatened that it might be worse for him next time.”

“Well, it could be so, I suppose, but, in view of his car’s still being here, I don’t think it’s very likely. I agree that somebody in the know, but not one of the six who came along to confess, must have swiped Miss Yale’s key, taken Jones out of storage and put him somewhere else, but it’s only speculation.”

“Who is the somebody? And where, as I say, could they have put him if the students don’t find him in the woods?”

“Well,” said Henry, “I don’t know either answer and I don’t really want to name names, but Barry has been brooding more than a bit since he knew of Colin’s accident. Then there’s Lesley. She and Barry between then could account for Jones, I think. He’s big, but he’s flabby and, apart from that, if Lesley really got busy with that sandbag thing at the end of the indoor jumping-rope and connected it with Jonah’s head, if you see what I mean…”

“She wouldn’t really commit actual bodily harm, though, would she? Girls don’t, you know.”

“Don’t they? She’s talked pretty wildly, anyway. Still, I noticed this morning that her two invalids are among us again and looking none the worse, so perhaps she has cooled off by now.”

“Here’s hoping,” said Hamish. “Well, I’d better leave you. I’ve promised some beginners a tutorial in the indoor pool, as I told you, and I don’t want them drowning one another before I get there.”

“You’re too conscientious by half,” said Henry.

“Look who’s talking!” said Hamish.

He found his beginners skirmishing about in the shallow end, ordered them out of the water and gave them a short demonstration of free-style swimming which was sardonically applauded. As he swung himself up out of the water a girl came out of one of the cubicles.

“I say, Jimmy,” she observed, “guess what!”

“My guess is that you’re late for class, but think nothing of it. I’m paid a great deal of money for putting up with little slackers like you,” said Hamish. “Get in, all of you—jump! No crawling down the steps.”

“No, but listen, Jimmy,” protested the girl.

“No time,” said Hamish. “Get in, all of you, and take hold of those crawl-boards you see at the shallow end. Arms at full stretch. Free-style kick, and count One, Two, Three, One, Two, Three, until I tell you to stop. Like this.” He dived in again and demonstrated. There was more sardonic applause as he heaved himself out on to the side.

“No, but, listen, Jamesy,” persisted the youngster, “it’s so peculiar. You must come. You must. It might be terribly important.”

Hamish looked at her and decided that she was in earnest.

“If you’re pulling my leg, young woman, ”he said, “you’ll be in trouble.”

“No, really! You must come. I’ve found something horrid in my cubicle.”

“Oh, Lord!” thought Hamish, following her along the warm tiles. “How big is it?” he asked, thinking of Jones. However, had it been Jones, she would probably have screamed the place down, he reflected.

“Well, it’s not big, exactly,” said the girl. “More kind of long and thin, actually.”

“Can you carry it?”

“Oh, well, yes, but I don’t like the idea of touching it.”

“Very well. Get into the water with the others.”

“Oh, but it’s my find! I want to show it you.”

“Get into the water, or I’ll throw you in at the deep end and leave you to drown.” He made a threatening gesture which sent her screaming away. Then he entered the cubicle, which was electrically lighted. The girl was right in two respects.

The object which was standing in one corner of the tiny room was certainly portable. It was a javelin. It was also important, for the binding at the hand-grip was dark red and looked sticky.

Hamish did not touch the javelin. He came out of the cubicle and went to the telephone in the instructor’s dressing-room. He asked for Henry.

“Look,” he said, “can you come over to the indoor pool?” Having received Henry’s assurance, he went back to his squad of learners and worked them hard until Henry appeared.

“What’s up?” Henry asked. “Drowned somebody?”

“No. Come and see whether you see what I and that little horror Cynthia have seen. If you do, the matter may be very awkward.”

“How do you mean?”

“I don’t mean anything. Does anybody in the College know a butcher?”

“A butcher?”

Hamish led him to the cubicle and showed him the javelin.

“It struck me,” he said, “that one of our bright young lads might have amused himself by doing a bit of horror-faking, that’s all. What I’d like to know is how he got hold of the javelin.”

“There are a dozen in the sports cupboard.”

“None of them has an inscription, though, has it?” He indicated some chased lettering on a small silver plate affixed to a ring just below the binding of the grip on the javelin. “In my opinion, this belongs to Medlar. It must be the javelin which has disappeared from his collection. We both checked and it isn’t any longer among the trophies.”

“We’d better have him over, then. He ought to be in on this.”

While Hamish went back to the swimmers, Henry brought Gascoigne over and showed him the javelin. “And I wouldn’t touch it,” he said. “Fingerprints, you know.”

“Poppycock!” said Gascoigne. “Fingerprints have no value unless they are on record at a police station. However, I have no intention of touching the messy object. My opinion is that some practical joker has been daubing my javelin with red paint.”

“Oh, you recognize it as your javelin, do you? James has identified it, too, so I suppose it must be yours.”

“Certainly. If you look, you can see the inscription I had put on it. All the museum objects are inscribed or numbered. I wish I knew who has managed to gain access to the museum, though. The key has never been out of my possession except those days, some weeks ago, when James had it to catalogue the collection. He seems certain that none of the students could have obtained possession of the key, but people are always certain about that kind of thing. I must speak to him again.”

“Well, he’s here if you want him,” said Henry. “Incidentally, I’ve seen the students whom I set to searching the woods. There is no sign of Jonah.” He walked along the side of the bath to where Hamish was giving instruction. “Gassie craves a word,” he said.

Hamish ordered his learners out of the water and waylaid the girl Cynthia.

“Get your things out of your cubicle and find another one in which to dress,” he said. “I suppose it’s too much to ask you to keep quiet about what you’ve found?”

“Don’t touch the javelin,” said Gascoigne, as the girl prepared to enter the cubicle. “Just pick up your things and run along. I hope you are not the culprit who took the javelin from my museum?”

“I was sent here for running away from home, not for shoplifting, Gassie darling,” said the girl pertly.

At the high table that evening Jones’s chair was empty again. Hamish caught Henry casting an anxious glance at it. The students, too, seemed to be eyeing it. There was a subdued air about the dining-hall and voices were kept low. Gascoigne ate his dinner in almost complete silence and did not favour the senior common room with his presence at coffee after the meal.

“I’ve been on to him,” said Henry, when the Warden’s absence received comment from the others. “I’ve told him it’s more than time he called in the police to trace Jonah. Naturally he doesn’t want to, but now this javelin has been found, I don’t think he’s got any option. I don’t like this mysterious business. Jonah wasn’t popular, to say the least, and we’ve got more than one homicidal character on the premises. While Gassie is chewing things over, I want one of you to come with me to have a look round Jones’s quarters. I think I’d like a witness, in case he’s left any clue as to his whereabouts. I don’t care for the look of things at all, and I’m making no secret of the fact. I want an absolutely unbiased witness, so, James, I’d like you to accompany me.”

“Wouldn’t Medlar… ?” began Hamish.

“I’d sooner have you.”

Together they went to Jones’s rooms. Unlike the rest of the staff, he had been given a sitting-room as well as a bedroom and both were beautifully furnished.

“Plushy,” said Hamish. “All brother-in-lawly love, I take it.”

“I suppose so. I’ll look through the bureau if you’ll turn out the cupboard.”

They searched the sitting-room and then went into the bedroom. Apart from a good many empty bottles under the bed and some lively photographs under the clean shirts, there was little to indicate an individual taste or a positive personality. There were no letters and no unpaid bills, but neither did anything indicate that Jones might have packed up and taken an unceremonious departure. Henry and Hamish gave up their search and went to Henry’s own room. He made coffee and produced a bottle of brandy.

“I talked very seriously to Gassie this evening just before dinner,” he said.

“What did you tell him?”

“I told him everything, beginning with the clues the students had given us and the interview we’d had with the committee— the Rag Committee, I suppose they’d call themselves. I told him of the search we’d made, and I impressed on him—or tried to—that the students themselves weren’t happy about Jonah’s disappearance.”

“What did he say to that?”

“Well, he admitted it was worrying. He also said that he’d been in contact with one or two of the local farmers to ask whether there had been any complaints of animals being killed, but he had rounded up no information.”

“Rather a strange thing to have done, surely?”

“Oh, no, not really. We have had complaints—few and far between, I must admit—but it’s not unknown for some of our bold spirits to raid a farm for sucking pigs. Then they have a barbecue, you know—that sort of thing. He was thinking of that messy javelin, of course. In spite of talking about red paint, he thinks there might be blood on it, you know.”

“I gather, from what you said about pigs, that the farmers wouldn’t be altogether surprised to get his enquiry?”

“Not at all surprised, and he’s well in with them because, if there ever have been complaints, he has provided very generous compensation.”

“To keep the thing out of the hands of the police, I suppose.”

“Yes, that’s it. It is one of his proudest boasts that none of the students has ever been in trouble with the law. That’s why the parents have so much confidence in him. As for Jonah’s disappearance, he said the chances were that he’d simply slung his hook, feeling that the students had had enough of him. I wish I still thought that was the case, but there’s something else—something I shall have to mention to Gassie. You remember we got paid on Wednesday morning? Well, in his bureau I found Jonah’s cheque, and a whacking big one it is. You see the point: it hasn’t been paid in. If he’d really slung his hook, he wouldn’t leave money behind. Well, I’ve told them to bring round my car. Could you spare time to accompany me to the pub? I tried it before, so I don’t think it will be the slightest bit of use, but Gassie suggested it, so I think perhaps…”

It was half-past nine when they reached the village. The night was clouded over and the stars were hidden. From the pub bright lights shone out on to the road and there came the hum of many voices, sounds of laughter and, as Hamish and Henry entered the bar, the sharpish plop of darts and the clink of glasses. The pub was crowded and the landlord and his barmaid were at full pressure.

Henry wormed his way through the crush to the bar counter and ordered. As he paid for the beers he said, “Jones been in tonight?”

“Haven’t set eyes on him since Tuesday, sir.”

“What time on Tuesday?”

“About 6 p.m. (All right! All right! Be with you in a minute.)” The landlord moved further down the counter to attend to an impatient customer, and Henry carried the drinks to a table at which Hamish had managed to secure two seats.

“Any luck?” asked Hamish.

“Last seen for certain at around opening time on Tuesday evening. It doesn’t get us any further. We know he was out and about until after lunch on Wednesday.”

A hanger-on, who voluntarily collected empty glasses during rush hours in return for a free drink, came along and began to mop up their table.

“Hullo, Morgan,” said Hamish. “Mr. Jones been in tonight?”

“Ain’t seen ’im, sir, not for some time, nor yet tonight. Us thought maybe he was took bad,” said the rheumy-eyed old man. “Not like ’im to miss us out, it ain’t.”

“Quite,” agreed Henry. “Any special reason why you thought he might have been taken ill?”

“No, only just as he don’t appear to be around, like. A rare one for his regular two or three doubles, is Mr. Jones. Not as nobody ’ceptin’ the till ever benefited.”

“That shall never be said about me. Your reproachful tone touches my heart, Morgan.” A tenpenny piece changed hands. “And that is all you can tell us?”

“Now, then, Morgan!” called the landlord. “Glasses wanted!”

“Think ’e paid me, wouldn’t you?” grumbled the old man. “All right! All right! Comin’ over,” he savagely responded. He left Hamish and Henry and shambled to the bar counter with his thick fingers thrust inside half-a-dozen empty glasses which he dumped down in front of the landlord. At the same moment a second barmaid, in all her evening finery and with a tremendous corsage of artificial flowers pinned to the front of her dress, came out from behind the scenes and joined the landlord at the counter. With a word or two in her ear, the landlord left her and her companion to cope with the customers and came over to Hamish and Henry. He leaned over and spoke in low tones.

“Mr. Jones owes me fifteen nicker,” he said. “Carted off a car-load of stuff and five hundred fags last Monday. Asked him to pay me when he come in here Tuesday evening, but he said I’d have to wait ’til next day, as he hadn’t got his cheque book with him. ‘You know as I don’t take cheques,’ I said. Well, he agrees about that. ‘I mean the bank,’ he says. ‘I can’t get your money ’til I’ve been to the bank, and I can’t go there tonight, of course. You’ll get your money all right,’ he says. ‘What’s more, I’ve never welshed on you yet. I’m a good customer,’ he says, ‘so I don’t think much of your attitood.’ Well, he has been a good customer. I don’t say nothing about that, but I likes my money on the dot. You can’t afford to run up a slate in a pub, not to the tune of fifteen quid at a time. ‘I let you have the stuff as a favour yesterday,’ I said, ‘and I expected the money this morning.’ Well, he promised it faithful, but, like I’m telling you, I’ve never seen no more of him, and now you gents comes along here enquiring after him. When am I going to see my fifteen quid? That’s what I want to know.”

“Oh, you’ll get it all right,” said Henry. He turned to Hamish. “The College will pay it,” he said. “I’ll make myself personally responsible for bringing it here tomorrow,” he added, addressing the landlord.

“God bless tomorrow, in case it ever comes,” said the landlord sardonically. “But what brings you gents here? Don’t tell me he’s done a bunk!”

The next news of Jones’s whereabouts was dramatic and shocking. A white-faced student—a blameless type who had been expelled from his school for being in possession of pornographic literature which had been palmed off on him by some unknown addict who must have heard that fifth-form studies were to be searched for drugs—came bursting into Hamish’s room just as he was preparing to go down to breakfast on the morning following the visit to the inn.

“James,” the boy said, “the dogs! They’re digging up the long-jump pit.”

“Buried a bone there, I suppose,” said Hamish, but with a horrid premonition of the truth.

“No!” said the boy. He made a retching sound. “We think they’re digging up Jonah.”