A Javelin for Jonah

chapter

13

A Shot in the Dark

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Martin was giving a coaching to his hammer-throwers. Noting the wide arc which some of the throws covered, Dame Beatrice advanced towards the instructor with caution. As soon as he spotted that she was heading in his direction, however, Martin ordered his squad to abandon practice and went over to meet her.

“I see that you use a standard protection cage,” she said.

“Yes. It’s necessary with tyros. Besides, it has been known for the head to fly off the wire, or the wire to part company with the handle. It’s a marvellous event, but could be lethal. It nearly did for the Lord Lieutenant one year, or so I’m told.”

“Indeed? I came not about the hammer, but about a shot which I’m told is missing. It seems to coincide with a missing student.”

“Yes. Richard told me.”

“So there is a shot missing?”

“Yes, indeed. I’ve questioned the rest of the staff, the only people who have keys to the stock-cupboard, but I can’t raise any answers that might help.”

“I imagine that a search will be instituted for the missing student. I only hope that Richard’s misgivings will not prove to be well-founded.”

“That somebody bounced the missing shot on the missing student’s head? I could believe anything after this Jonah business. And Kirk is a nasty little bit of work, you know. If he’s been doing any snooping and got on to something connected with Jonah’s death, well, I imagine murderers are not the most squeamish of people, otherwise they wouldn’t be murderers.”

“A just and logical summing up. Tell me, Mr. Martin, how did you come to seek a post here?”

“I was glad to get one anywhere,” said Martin frankly. “My mother is a widow and we were left very badly off when my father died. I got a very poor sort of degree, which wasn’t much of a return for the way she’d seen me through Cambridge, so when I came down I applied for anything which was going, and came up with this. The advertisement mentioned athletics as a useful side-line, so, as I’d got my Blue, I thought I might stand a chance.”

“And you did, it seems.”

“Matter of fact, old Gassie jumped at me. It was a very pleasant surprise, I can tell you, and the pay is much better than I ever expected.”

“Do you like it here?”

“Very much, especially since James came. I say, what’s going to be done about Kirk? Do they think he’s skipped? I hope that’s all it is.”

“Well, a search will be instituted before Mr. Medlar informs his parents that he is missing.”

“That means another film show, I suppose. Poor old Henry!”

“Mr. Henry thinks it will be unnecessary to stage a film show. As it is tea-time the students can be left to occupy themselves. Are you proposing to join the search-party?”

“Oh, yes, of course. As I say, I only hope the wretched kid has run home, though, because, if we find him here, I don’t think we’ll find him alive. He was all kinds of a little snooper and—well, murder often leads to murder, doesn’t it?”

Dame Beatrice returned to the house and encountered the searchers who were setting out in couples or threes. This was by Medlar’s instructions.

“It will be as well,” he had said, “for each of you to have at least one witness if you should come upon anything suspicious concerning this unfortunate lad. I have telephoned the police to let them know that he is missing. I dare not take chances after what happened to Davy.”

Laura was with Hamish and they were joined by Martin, who had dismissed his squad to go to their tea. It was Henry and Miss Yale who found the body, Laura who found the shot. There had been no attempt to hide either. The body was seated with its back against the only tree in a little clearing in the woods. The shot was lying in a ditch near by and had been caught up in some brambles.

Henry, who had brought a whistle, blew three blasts on it to call off the search and then he hurried back with the others to report to Gascoigne, who sent at once for Dame Beatrice.

“The police cannot be here just yet,” he said. “Nobody has touched the body. Do you wish to see it before the police arrive?”

“I think not. Matters had better be left entirely to them and their surgeon. I hope they will soon be here.”

“Yes, indeed,” said Gascoigne. “This is a most terrible business. Could there be any connection between this and Davy’s death, do you suppose? The youth was in his squad.”

“Oh, I am convinced that there is a connection.”

“We cannot be harbouring a maniac, can we?”

“I do not know. There is certainly a ruthless killer in the neighbourhood. It is too early, perhaps, to theorize, but is it possible that Kirk knew something about Mr. Jones’s death which he did not disclose?”

“I could not say. As I remarked just now, he was a member of Davy’s gymnastics squad, but that would hardly entitle him to be cognizant of all Davy’s affairs.”

“How many students are accommodated in each hall of residence?”

“There are nine huts. Each holds nine men except for Drake Hall, which houses ten.”

“I know that Mr. Richard was a member of Kirk’s hall…”

Before the conversation could continue, a maid announced the arrival of the police.

“You reported a missing student, sir,” said the inspector.

“His body has been found since first I telephoned,” said Gascoigne.

“His body? Where, sir?”

“I will send for Miss Yale. She was present when it was discovered. The Dean is on guard at the spot, and Miss Yale will guide us to it. I waited for you to get here, so I have no details to give you. The assumption is that the boy was hit over the head. We have reason to think that a sixteen-pound shot was the weapon. One is known to be missing from our store and one has been found not far from the body.”

“Well, there’s one thing,” said the inspector, “if ever we had any doubts about Mr. Jones—not that we had—there doesn’t seem any doubt about this one being culpable homicide, I take it.”

“To drop a heavy weight—our shots are of turned bronze of the kind which were first introduced at the Commonwealth Games—on one’s own head, seems a bizarre way of committing suicide, Inspector, I must admit.”

“May I use your telephone, sir? I had not realized that I should need a photographer and a doctor, to say nothing of a finger-print man. Turned bronze, you say? It ought to yield some useful evidence unless the chap wore gloves, as I expect he did.”

Gascoigne led him to the telephone and in a very few minutes he joined them again.

“Will you wait, or shall we go over to the woods?” asked Gascoigne. “I have sent for Miss Yale.”

“I’d like to take a look, sir. Perhaps you would post Miss Yale, after she has guided us, at some convenient spot where she can flag down the police-car and bring my men along. Was the young chap known to have any enemies, sir?”

“He was not popular, but I can think of nobody who would go to the length of killing him, Inspector.”

Miss Yale materialized and guided the small party into the woods and up to the clearing. The dead boy was still seated with his back against the only tree and, except that the top of his head was grievously misshapen, he might have been deeply asleep.

“I can’t do anything until the doctor gets here,” said the inspector. He squatted down and looked closely at the dead face. “Looks as though he’d been given a good crack on the jaw as well,” he said, “a boxer’s knock-out, or something of that sort. I’d say he was killed somewhere else and carried here and positioned before he could stiffen, but that’s only theory. Where did you say you found the weapon?”

“We could do with some help from you, Dame Beatrice,” said the inspector, on the following morning. “Is there anywhere we could talk?”

“Come to my sitting-room, Inspector. I’m sure Mr. Medlar will excuse us.”

“Yes, yes, of course,” said Gascoigne, with whom she had been talking. “I have much to do. I am expecting poor Kirk’s stepfather, and must prepare myself for the interview. It is bound to be difficult. He will have expected me to take better care of the boy. How could I have known, though? How could I have known that a terrible thing like this would happen to him? And what are other parents going to think? This could be the ruin of Joynings, the end of all my work.”

“I wouldn’t take too gloomy a view, sir,” said the inspector. “There must be a reason for the young gentleman’s death which would not apply, I daresay, to the majority of your students. All the same, sir, I shall have to question you and your staff as soon as I have had a talk with Dame Beatrice.”

“Yes, of course, Inspector. I am sure that any help any of us can give will be vouchsafed to you freely and willingly.”

“I hope so, sir, I’m sure.” With this not altogether optimistic remark, he opened the door for Dame Beatrice and they repaired to what had been Jones’s sitting-room. “Well, now, ma’am,” he said, when they were seated, “you’ve been acquainted with all the circumstances here as long as I have, and you’ve had the advantage of living among these people since Mr. Jones’s body was discovered. Is it any good asking whether you’ve come to any conclusions or got any pointers for me?”

“I think one might begin by asking some questions of the eight young men who shared a hut with Kirk.”

“Oh, yes, I agree about that. Before I leave here today I’ll put them through the usual routine. If they don’t come up with anything which helps me, perhaps you’d have a go at them. Any other suggestions?”

“Well, I am convinced, Inspector, that both the deaths were concerned with the staff, not with any of the students except the dead boy.”

“You don’t think he killed Jones, ma’am?”

“I am sure he did not, but I think he brought about his own death because he knew—or thought he knew— the identity of Jones’s murderer. I mentioned the staff because, so far, all my enquiries lead me to the conclusion that nobody except a member of the faculty could have obtained access to the store where the javelin and the shot were kept.”

“I’ll do my own checking on that, ma’am. Some of these youngsters are as clever as a cartload of monkeys, and I wouldn’t put it past them to rifle any cupboard or store they’d a mind to take a peek at. After all, it’s established that some of them kidnapped Jones and buried his body. I’ve still got that one to sort out. I heard this morning, before we had this latest development to look into, that the forensic lads have at last got a positive result with that doctored javelin. They got a blood-sample—tiny, but enough for their purpose— which had got trapped between the head of the javelin and the shaft, and it corresponds with Jones’s blood-group, so we’re assuming with confidence now that it was the murder weapon. The next thing is to find out who put the new head on that javelin.”

“And when it was done, of course. My own theory was that the javelin was altered only shortly before Mr. Jones’s death and was especially prepared with his premeditated murder in mind. I have made enquiries, however, and can prove nothing because, although the College possesses twelve javelins, of which eight are reserved for the students of mature strength, only six are ever in use at one and the same time, and the altered javelin would be automatically discarded when the students chose their implements, so the new steel head may have been put on it weeks ago.”

“Yes, I see, ma’am. Well, I’ll institute my own enquiries as to that, as well.”

“What about the shot which was found in the woods?”

“Oh, it was the murder weapon all right. The doctor is certain of that. Head injuries seem to take the shape, to a large extent, of the object which caused the injury. In this case, a depressed fracture of the skull corresponds closely enough with the shape of the shot to clinch matters. The young chap was knocked unconscious by a heavy blow to the jaw and then crowned with the shot. He was killed in the lock-up garage which used to belong to Mr. Jones, we think. There’s no blood about, but the doctor says a blow from an instrument as large and globular as the one used here, need not necessarily cause much bleeding, or not such bleeding as would cause blood to spurt. The boy’s hair was matted and there was blood on his jacket-collar, but that was all.”

“And you think the body was carried from the garage to the woods. What made you think of the garage if there are no bloodstains?”

“Because Mr. Jones’s car had been moved out and then put back, ma’am. The marks are plain to see and we’ve also found other marks which indicate that a car was halted at the end of the drive nearest to the woods. Our theory is that the boy was murdered in the garage, conveyed in a car to as close as possible to where the body was found, and then the corpse, probably not quite cold, was placed on the ground as the searchers first saw it. Any of the staff, or any student who had managed to get hold of a staff key, could have unlocked the door of Jones’s garage. The locks are all identical. It wasn’t Jones’s car which was used to convey the body, though.”

“So again the staff, rather than the students, seem to be involved. You could not identify any footmarks in the woods, I suppose?”

“With all this dry, hot weather, there wasn’t much chance of that, ma’am, and, in any case, the searchers would have made it practically impossible. Those woods have been searched twice since Jones first was missed. We’ve looked at the tyres of the other staff cars, but haven’t hit on the car which must have carried the body. Well, I’ll go and get a list of the students in Kirk’s hut, and then perhaps you’ll give them the onceover if I don’t get as much out of them as I should like.”

“You have made enquiry at the village blacksmith’s about the head which was put on that javelin, have you not? I was about to go and see him myself yesterday afternoon, but I postponed my visit when we knew what had happened to Mr. Kirk.”

“Oh, the blacksmith—his name is Potts—denies, as I told you, all knowledge of the javelin, and I’ve thought all along that whoever did it used one of the College workshops.”

“Nevertheless, while you are talking to the hut-companions of Mr. Kirk, I think I will still go to the village. If you will allow me to mention the death of Mr. Kirk, Mr. Potts may be more forthcoming to me than he was to you.”

“What makes you so sure he did the job on the javelin, ma’am?”

“I am not sure, but I think it most unlikely that the alteration was carried out on the premises. The students might not have reported upon the strange activities of another student, but I think there would be rumours, by this time, if anyone else had been seen putting a new head on a javelin, particularly as I have a theory that the murderer may not have had any official connection with the javelin, the shot, the discus or the hammer.”

“So that lets out Miss Yale, Mr. Henry, and Mr. Martin,” said the inspector, consulting a list, “and leaves in Miss Lesley and Miss Celia (although, by the nature of the two crimes, I’d hardly think of considering ladies, anyway), also Mr. Medlar himself, Mr. Barry, Mr. James and Mr. Jerry. Might as well stick a pin in a list like that and just hope for the best, wouldn’t you say, ma’am?”

“No, Inspector, not altogether. There are four outstanding names on your list. They are Mr. Medlar, who, it seems pretty certain, was under Mr. Jones’s thumb to some extent; Miss Yale, who is fiercely protective where the women students are concerned; Mr. Barry, who is known to have entertained feelings of the deepest animosity towards Mr. Jones because of a serious accident suffered, through Mr. Jones’s direct agency, by one of the men-students, and Miss Lesley, who is known to have uttered threats of a lurid and comprehensive kind on her own behalf and also on that of some of the women students.”

“Yale and Lesley in collusion, you think?” hazarded the inspector.

“It is a possibility. How heavy would you think the boy was?”

“Kirk? Oh, not a lot to him. I wouldn’t say he was more than nine stone and could have been less. Two women, or a powerfully-built lady like Miss Yale on her own, could have carried the body easily enough.”

“As could Mr. Medlar or Mr. Barry, then.”

“Yes, oh yes, I should say so. Well, I’ll go and check out that hut, ma’am, while you go into the village.”

Before calling for her car, Dame Beatrice sought out Henry. This involved prising him out from his lecture-room, for which she apologized.

“I won’t keep you a minute,” she concluded, “but has there been any time when you have only counted eleven javelins instead of the usual twelve?”

“No,” Henry replied, “I don’t count them each time and I don’t believe I would have noticed if one had been missing.”

“Thank you. That is all I wanted to know.”

“I can’t be absolutely sure, of course. My custom is to unlock the cupboard, bring in my six men, let them make their selection and return the extra javelins; then I lock up again, and conduct my coaching. I don’t touch the javelins myself except at stock-taking.”

“Supposing,” said Dame Beatrice, struck by another idea, “that Mr. Medlar’s own javelin, the one found in the covered baths, had ever appeared among the collection, would you have recognized it?”

“Not if the metal tag with the inscription had been removed from it, and neither would the students, I think.”

“Would that be an easy task?”

“To remove the tag? Perfectly simple, I imagine.”

“And without it the javelin would look like any other javelin?”

“Oh, yes, of course. Gassie’s javelin is of full standard length and weight. But the inscription was still on it when it was found in the cubicle.”

“Yes, of course.” She took leave of Henry and went to her car, and in a matter of minutes she and Laura were heading down the College drive en route for the village and the forge. It was a good twelve miles from Joynings—far enough, in fact, to discourage the students from walking there and back—but it took less than twenty minutes in the car. The forge seemed to be in the sole charge of a lad of about sixteen, but no work was being done, although the fire was alight. When he saw the visitors the lad said, “Dad won’t be long. He’s down the pub.”

“Where’s the pub?” asked Laura. The boy jerked a dirty thumb.

“Thataways, past the post-office.”

“I’ll go in and winkle him out,” said Laura, when the car reached the inn. “You can’t talk to him in there.”

There were only three men in the bar, including the landlord. Laura went up to the counter.

“I’m looking for the blacksmith,” she said. A short, thickset man turned his head.

“That’s me,” he said. “What did you want done? This is my time for elevenses. Be with you in ’arf an hour.”

“Could you knock off your elevenses for just a minute or two, Mr. Potts? There is somebody outside who would like a word with you. There is no job involved.”

“If it’s somebody after Joe Potts they won’t get no word with ’im. ’E’s in ’orspital.”

“Who are you, then? It was Mr. Potts we wanted.”

“Name of Benson. I’m a specialist, see? I does the fancy ironwork at the forge. I pays Potts for the use of his gear when I has a job on hand.”

“Well, Mr. Benson, you might be able to help us. Won’t you please step outside for just a moment?” The man grunted, turned his back on Laura and finished his beer. Laura put down money on the counter. “A pint for Mr. Benson when he comes back,” she said, “and perhaps this other gentleman will join him. You, too, landlord?”

Benson followed her out to the car, but when Dame Beatrice put her first question he shook his head.

“I wouldn’t know nothing about it,” he said firmly. “Potts told me about it next day. Said a chap brought in a longish bit of smooth wood with as it might be a bit of cord round the middle—well, near enough the middle—and says as how he’d had an accident and snapped off the steel point. He wanted another point put on it, that’s all, but Potts says he can’t manage a job as needs tempered steel and advises him to chuck the stick away and get a noo ’un.”

“So you cannot describe the man?”

“I wasn’t working at the forge that day, so I never set eyes on him. Potts only told me afterwards what he come for. ‘One of that lot up at the College, I reckon,’ Potts says. ‘Ten to one that’s who ’e is. Wants a job done on the cheap, that’s what, but it wasn’t a job I could do; and so I explains to ’im,’ Potts says.”

“He didn’t put a name to the man, by any chance?” asked Laura.

“Not to me he never. ’Cos why? He didn’t know ’im. The only Colleger as we knowed down in the village was Mr. Jones, and it certainly wasn’t him, because Potts would ’ave said so. Not as he knowed, not then, as Jones had got his daughter into trouble. That come a bit later on. But if it had bin Mr. Jones, he couldn’t have obliged him, not even knowing him at the pub and not knowing then about Bertha being in trouble because of him.”