A Javelin for Jonah

chapter

10

Gascoigne Medlar

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Gascoigne’s case-book was interesting and informative, and Dame Beatrice perused it carefully until the bell she had been told to expect indicated that it was time to dress for dinner. She had been told by Henry that Richard was the oldest student in College and was twenty-one years of age. As no student was accepted until he or she had passed the sixteenth birthday, she needed only to study the entries for the past five years to gain knowledge of the students who were now in residence.

Most of the entries she skipped through. It was interesting to note that most of them for the past three years referred to expulsions from school for taking or being in possession of drugs. Before that, the reasons varied and some of the offences seemed trivial. She did, however, read carefully the notes which referred to violence, but these were few and the reasons, if Gascoigne had understood the evidence and reported it faithfully, seemed, if not adequate, at least self-explanatory.

She and Laura were given seats at the high table for dinner; the conversation was nothing more than small-talk and not until the end of the meal was anything said about the purpose of Dame Beatrice’s staying in the College. It was Gascoigne himself who introduced the subject a little later in the evening.

“I suppose,” he said, taking a seat beside her when they repaired to the senior common room for coffee, “it is unrealistic to imagine that you have come to any conclusions so far?”

“I have come to one,” she replied. “It depends upon the fact that a small number of students, including a young woman, were responsible for locking Mr. Jones in a cellar which houses the plant for the central heating.”

“Oh, Henry has all that in hand. I believe he has admonished the culprits. He gave me their names, but I cannot think that they know anything about poor Davy’s death.”

“Probably not. All the same, I think I had better have a first-hand account of the matter from the young woman concerned. She is somewhere in the house itself, I assume, so it will be easier to contact her than to send over to the halls of residence for one of the young men who were involved.”

“I will find out from Miss Yale where she is domiciled. At the moment I expect she is in the women’s junior common room.” He crossed over to where Miss Yale was talking to Laura. “Dame Beatrice would like to talk to Kathleen,” he said. “Do you think you could find her and send her to what was Davy’s sitting-room?”

Miss Yale looked across at Dame Beatrice with no very friendly or approving gaze.

“I suppose so,” she said. “Not that Kathleen is going to care much about Jonah’s quarters as a rendez-vous.”

“Death comes to us all,” pronounced Gascoigne piously. “I don’t suppose poor Davy haunts the place.”

“That’s not what I meant,” said Miss Yale. She got up and went out of the room, returning in a few minutes to say in a firm, repressive voice, “Kathleen awaits your pleasure, Dame Beatrice.”

Dame Beatrice thanked her and glanced at Laura, who rose and went with her to Jones’s quarters. They found a frightened, sulky child waiting on the landing.

“I’m not going in there,” she said flatly.

“How uncompromising you sound,” said Dame Beatrice lightly. “Very well. Would you have the same objection to entering Mr. James’s room? We can go there, if you prefer it.”

“Oh, all right, then,” said the girl. “After all, Jonah isn’t here now.” She opened the door to Jones’s sitting-room and went in. “You won’t pin anything on me, you know,” she said. “You’re wasting your time.”

“Ah, well, it, like my money, is my own,” said Dame Beatrice mildly, “Do sit down. May I call you Kathleen? This, as I expect you know, is James’s mother.” Laura, who had closed the door, sat down at the escritoire, took out a pencil and provided herself with a sheet of paper.

“Everything you say will be taken down in writing and may be given in evidence,” said the girl bitterly.

“Dear me! I didn’t know you had ever been in the hands of the police,” said Dame Beatrice.

“Ought to have been. Shop-lifting. They didn’t press the charges.”

“Your mother had an account at the shop in question, of course, and she corroborated your explanation that you had been shopping on the strength of it, I suppose.”

The girl looked startled at first by this display of omniscience. Then she said, “Didn’t want a fuss. Bad for her image. You got that from Gassie, I suppose.”

“From some notes he lent me, yes. And now let me suggest that we get down to business. The sooner it’s over, the sooner to sleep, don’t you think? Will you tell me all about the kidnapping and incarceration of Mr. Jones?”

“I suppose the police told you about that! Well, they’ve spoken to me. They’ve seen all six of us. I’m not saying any more to anybody. I don’t know what happened to Jonah and I couldn’t care less, and none of us knows anything about it.”

“Convince me of that,” said Dame Beatrice. “No,” she went on quickly, “swearing at me won’t help. I’m prepared to believe your story. That is, I am prepared to believe as much of it as you are prepared to tell me. I know it won’t be the whole truth, but I think that the part you are going to tell me will be the truth. Up to a point, you see, you have nothing to hide. After that point I will tell the rest of the story to you, if you like. Come, now, what do you say?”

“Look,” said the girl uneasily, “how much do you know?”

“That I am not disposed to tell you at present, any more than you are disposed to pay me the same compliment, so that is fair enough. Here goes, then. I know that six of you, yourself and five young men, arranged and conspired together to kidnap Mr. Jones and shut him up in a cellar. Taking advantage of the fact that all the rest of the staff were occupied, some with a film show, some on a cross-country run, and so on, you followed Mr. Jones to his lock-up garage, took him prisoner and incarcerated him. You left food with him and planned to release him on Thursday night or last Friday morning.”

“Yes, but he wasn’t there.”

“No, he was dead by then. What is more, you knew he was dead. I will go even further. You even knew that he was to be buried in the long-jump pit.”

“No! No, we didn’t! We thought somebody else—one of the staff—had let him out. We didn’t know he was dead!”

“Then why did you hold a council, the six of you, and, in a panic, decide to tell Mr. Henry that you had kidnapped and imprisoned him? It was quite unnecessary, if you really thought he had been freed. Can you not see that?”

The girl was silent. Dame Beatrice waited. At last Kathleen muttered, “I don’t know. He—Jonah—he wasn’t at lunch, so I suppose that’s why.”

“I don’t think that will do, you know,” Dame Beatrice said gently. “Mr. Jones was often absent from lunch. He used to drive into the village or the town and obtain lunch and a drink at a public house. There was no secret about this, was there?”

“I suppose there was not.”

“I know there was not. So why should the six of you have decided to own up to the kidnapping unless you knew perfectly well what had happened to Mr. Jones?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well, in that case, perhaps I had better tell you.”

“No! I don’t want to hear! I won’t listen!” Kathleen got up, rushed to the door, flung it open, and ran.

“Want me to chase after her?” asked Laura.

“No, no. She will keep, as the police would say.”

Laura went over and closed the door which the girl had left wide open.

“You’ve scared her stiff,” she remarked, resuming her seat. “I’ll transcribe my shorthand, shall I?”

“By all means. Meanwhile, I think I would like a word with Mr. Medlar.”

“They don’t run to an inter-com. system here. I’ll go and page him for you.”

“We will both go, then. The notes can wait.”

“Are you going to voice your suspicions to him?” Laura gathered up her shorthand notes and pushed them into her handbag.

“I think not, but that depends upon how our conversation goes. Let us try the senior common room. He may still be there.”

The senior common room, however, was deserted except for a maid who was gathering up empty coffee cups.

“Mr. Medlar, madam,” she said, “I expect he’s in his office. He usually works there of an evening. I have orders to take his whisky and soda in there at half-past ten.”

“Ah, then,” said Dame Beatrice to Laura, “we must not disturb him.” They returned to Dame Beatrice’s room to find Hamish loitering outside the door.

“Hullo,” he said. “I knocked, but you weren’t there, so I thought I’d hang about. I didn’t think you’d be long, as you could hardly be with Gassie.”

“Why not? We went along to see him, as a matter of fact,” said Laura.

“To find out, rather, whether it was possible to see him,” amended Dame Beatrice. “We found that it was not. He had retired to his office to work.”

“He’d retired to his office to go into a huddle with Henry, Miss Yale and the girl Kathleen,” said Hamish. “She came to the senior common room in no end of a taking. What have you been a-doin’ to her? She was racked with sobs and, from what I could interpret, was demanding your head on a charger. Gassie then called a council of war and led the weeping Niobe off to his den, followed by his faithful henchmen.”

“Why the support?” asked Laura.

“He never sees the women students in his office or his sitting-room unless Miss Yale is there. It’s like in a police station, where they always have a woman P.C. in the room, I believe, when they’re questioning a female suspect. It looks more official and averts disadvantageous comment. Besides, the women students don’t give a fig for Gassie, but they’re terrified of old Nokomis. Why Henry was hauled in I don’t know.”

“Well,” said Dame Beatrice, “I thought I had upset the girl, but I hardly expected that she would go to these lengths.”

“I thought I’d made it clear in my letters that they always run to Gassie if they have any complaints.”

“I did not know that it included complaints about casual visitors. By the way, do you remember talking over with me the suggestion that you should take up a temporary appointment here?”

“Yes, of course. You told me that Medlar had once been second master at Isingtower School. I mentioned it to him on my first day here. He didn’t seem altogether overjoyed to think that I knew. Instead of discussing it in a cosy manner, he jettisoned the subject with some abruptness, I thought. Wasn’t he a success at Isingtower?”

“As a schoolmaster? I have no idea. As a kindly husband, however, quite a number of people seem to have decided that he was wanting. His wife was drowned in the bath and there was a great deal of unpleasant talk. The wife left a good deal of money, you see, and all of it went to Gascoigne Medlar.”

“Did he ever come to trial?”

“No. The case went as far as to the magistrates and they dismissed it—or so Ferdinand told me. That was when he knew you were coming here. He thought Medlar was guilty.”

“He seems to have followed the proceedings pretty closely. How about you? Do you think, from what you were told, that Medlar was guilty?”

“Again, I have no idea. All I gathered was that Mr. Henry’s evidence may have turned the scale.”

“Henry? What on earth had he to do with it?”

“He affirmed in cross-examination by the defence—he was the prosecution’s witness—that Mrs Medlar’s mental health was such that she might have decided to end her own life. In fact, she was a dipsomaniac—I suppose nowadays it would be more fashionable to call her a confirmed alcoholic— and was subject to severe attacks of alcoholic depression. Mr. Henry, I am afraid, proved a thorn in the flesh of his (supposedly) own side.”

“But is Henry qualified to express that sort of opinion?”

“Oh, yes. Until he accepted a partnership at Joynings he was a well-known psychiatrist.”

“You knew him, then, before you came to see me?”

“That argues a degree of acquaintanceship to which I do not aspire. I have seen him at conferences occasionally. I do not remember that I ever spoke to him until I came here.”

“And he’s Medlar’s partner? Well, I’m hanged! I say, I suppose that doesn’t stink a bit, does it?” asked Laura.

“Mr. Henry—I know his surname, of course—has always been interested in young people. At one time he was psychiatric consultant to a county education authority, I believe. I should imagine that he finds his work here very interesting and rewarding.”

“And profitable, I imagine,” said Laura.

“Now, mamma, not a word against Henry,” said Hamish. “I like him very much.”

“What was the evidence on which Mr. Medlar was taken before the magistrates?” asked Laura.

“According to Ferdinand, who furnished me with such facts as I know, it was asserted that he was alone in the house with his wife when it happened.”

“Didn’t they live at the school, then?”

“Yes, but there was some sort of jamboree which involved all the boys and which the servants had leave to attend.”

“Why didn’t Medlar attend it?”

“He said that he dared not leave his wife in the house alone, and Henry concurred in this. Mrs Medlar, because of her disability, never attended school functions, so the police took the view that opportunity had knocked at Mr. Medlar’s door and that it was too much of a coincidence that his wife had been drowned under such circumstances.”

“And under such water,” said Laura. “Personally, I agree with the police. I think it was fishy in the extreme.”

“Your choice of metaphor, mamma, may be exact, but it is unfortunate, perhaps,” said Hamish. “Anyway, if Henry ever did have any doubts, I’m wondering whether the murder of Jonah hasn’t resolved them.”

“How do you mean?”

“Well, there is such a thing as blackmail. Suppose some evidence was available which showed that Medlar was guilty and that Jones had come across it? After all, Medlar had never been brought to trial and acquitted. A case against him could still be made to stand up, couldn’t it? Don’t you think Jones could have been blackmailing Medlar for years and that Medlar got sick and tired of it? I really believe that if anybody blackmailed me I’d do my level best to lay him out. But if Henry’s evidence could save Medlar from being sent for trial, why did the prosecution call him? Naturally the defence wouldn’t, not at a preliminary hearing.”

“The police intended that he should assent to their lawyer’s submission that Mrs Medlar’s condition was as I have described it and that it was in Mr. Medlar’s interests, emotionally as well as financially, that he should be rid of her. The defence, however, cross-examined Mr. Henry with intent to show that she was quite capable of drowning herself, because she was either too drunk to know what she was doing, or too lacking in mental stability to reject the idea of suicide.”

“Didn’t the prosecution call any other witnesses? The police are usually cautious about prosecuting a man unless they’re pretty sure of their case.”

“There was also the question of the will. It was argued by the prosecution that Mrs Medlar was of sound mind when she made the will and that therefore it was valid and that Mr. Medlar knew this and had killed her in order to get hold of the money. Unfortunately for them, they then called Mr. Jones, the deceased wife’s brother and only surviving relative.”

“Pickled, I suppose,” said Hamish.

“I should hope not! All the same, there is no doubt that he appears to have told a garbled story and the magistrates decided that what they had heard was insufficient to justify a committal.”

“So, between them, Henry and Jones saved Medlar’s bacon,” commented Hamish.

“And both have been substantially rewarded,” said Laura. “Up to the time of Jones’s death, that is to say. And the will stood up all right, did it?”

“Oh, yes. Two doctors agreed that the poor woman was compos mentis when she made the will eight years earlier and this meant that Mr. Medlar inherited the money.”

“Why was Jones brought into it?”

“He was supposed to testify that he had heard Mr. Medlar utter threats against his wife. By the time his cross-examination was over, however, it seemed just as likely, on the face of it, that Mr. Jones had drowned his sister in exasperation because she was leaving nothing to him, as that Mr. Medlar had drowned his wife because she had left everything to him.”

“A sort of non-proven, in fact,” said Laura.

“But was Jones anywhere in the neighbourhood at the time?” asked Hamish.

“The question was not asked. The magistrates retired and conferred and I imagine that Mr. Medlar’s excellent reputation came up for discussion and that one of the justices who, as chairman of the school governors, had been obliged to declare an interest and retire from the bench while the case was being heard, may have put in some powerful pleading behind the scenes.”

“Yes, I suppose that can happen,” said Laura, “because, naturally, the school governors wouldn’t want their second master tried for murder. It was bad enough that he was even brought before the Bench. Enough to blot any school’s copybook.”

“Fortunately the governors and the headmaster were saved from further embarrassment,” said Dame Beatrice. “It appears that Mr. Medlar finished the school term, which had only a week to run, and then forfeited six months’ salary in lieu of giving the proper amount of notice and retired from his post at Isingtower.”

“And took on Joynings, whereby we now find ourselves in this mess,” said Hamish.

“Dame Beatrice was asking for you, sir, while you were engaged,” said the maid, when she took in Gascoigne’s night-cap of whisky and soda.

“Was she? Oh, well, I expect it is too late now, but perhaps you will go along and find out. If she has not retired, and is at liberty to receive me, let me know and I will go along.”

Laura and Hamish made themselves scarce when the maid brought the Warden’s message and, as soon as he received her invitation, Gascoigne went to talk with Dame Beatrice in what had been Jones’s sitting-room.

“I am glad to have the chance of talking with you,” he said. “One of the women students has been to me in great distress of mind. She appears to think that you have accused her and others of being responsible for poor Davy’s death.”

“She exaggerates, as no doubt you have decided,” said Dame Beatrice. “Please sit down, Mr. Medlar. To be plain with you, I think Kathleen and her friends do know more than they have told you, although I have accused them of nothing more than of withholding information.”

“What more do you think they know?” There was anxiety in Gascoigne’s voice.

“I think they know where Mr. Jones was killed and I think they buried the body. No, no,” she added, noticing that Gascoigne was about to speak. “I do not think for one single instant that they killed him. I think they buried the body merely out of panic, fearing that they would be blamed for the death if the body was discovered in the place where they found it.”

“Then that must have been in that cellar when they went to release him! But the police made a careful search. There was nothing to suggest that Davy died there. The inspector told me so.”

“It is rare for the police to make known all their findings in a case of this kind, is it not?”

“But what makes you think that those six students buried the body? I simply cannot believe it.”

“It is the only theory which seems to accord with the facts. Do you care for me to recapitulate them?”

“In the light of what you suspect, I should think it just as well.”

“Very well, then. I begin from what was my own point of departure. Having kidnapped Mr. Jones on the Wednesday afternoon, the six students, who were in a panic by the Friday morning, then went to Mr. Henry and confessed to what they had done.”

“Yes, I know, but that was because they had discovered that Davy was no longer where they had left him.”

“I hardly think that was the sole reason for their reaction. It is true that they had obtained possession of a key to the cellar, but it seems common knowledge that there was a second key and one which was readily available, not only to them, but to anybody who chose to filch it.”

“You mean the one which hung just inside Miss Yale’s door? I cannot think why, if they had decided upon this ridiculous and, as it has turned out, this fatal escapade, they did not take Miss Yale’s key in the first place.”

“One of two circumstances might account for that. Either the key was not there when they went to get it, or else they were afraid that Miss Yale would miss it and would institute enquiries. I incline to the first of these theories.”

“Well—granted. Pray continue.”

“Very late on the Thursday night, Mr. Henry and Hamish, concerned by some hints they had received from students who were not among the six chiefly involved, instituted a search for Mr. Jones.”

“Yes, but they found that Davy had already been removed from the cellar.”

“As I understood their account, that is uncertain. Having no key, and being unwilling, I imagine, to disturb either the janitor or Miss Yale at that time of night, they attempted to attract Mr. Jones’s attention by calling to him.”

“And received no reply.”

“For what I believe was a good and sufficient reason: Mr. Jones was already dead.”

“What!”

“And the students knew that. I think the girl Kathleen was probably the prime mover. I think she was anxious to let Mr. Jones go. Most girls (I do not say all) are notoriously more tender-hearted than boys, and I think she, having the janitor’s key still in her possession, made a journey to the door of the cellar and called out to know whether Mr. Jones was all right. Receiving no reply, she went in search of some, if not all, of the others, and reported that Mr. Jones might be in a state of collapse. As I imagine that he may not have given in to his kidnappers without a struggle, they may well have thought that they had gone too far, and that it would be well to release him forthwith. That is when they found his dead body and also the weapon with which he had been stabbed to death.”

“No, no! It couldn’t have been like that!” said Gascoigne. “They couldn’t have found him murdered!”

“I have not finished,” said Dame Beatrice. “Pull my story to pieces when you have heard the rest of it.”