Cat Sitter Among the Pigeons

Cat Among the Pigeons

V

Inspector Kelsey started his interviewing of the staff with Miss Vansittart. A handsome woman, he thought, summing her up. Possibly forty or a little over; tall, well-built, grey hair tastefully arranged. She had dignity and composure, with a certain sense, he thought, of her own importance. She reminded him a little of Miss Bulstrode herself; she was the schoolmistress type all right. All the same, he reflected, Miss Bulstrode had something that Miss Vansittart had not. Miss Bulstrode had a quality of unexpectedness. He did not feel that Miss Vansittart would ever be unexpected.

Question and answer followed routine. In effect, Miss Vansittart had seen nothing, had noticed nothing, had heard nothing. Miss Springer had been excellent at her job. Yes, her manner had perhaps been a trifle brusque, but not, she thought, unduly so. She had not perhaps had a very attractive personality but that was really not a necessity in a games mistress. It was better, in fact, not to have mistresses who had attractive personalities. It did not do to let the girls get emotional about the mistresses. Miss Vansittart, having contributed nothing of value, made her exit.

“See no evil, hear no evil, think no evil. Same like the monkeys,” observed Sergeant Percy Bond, who was assisting Inspector Kelsey in his task.

Kelsey grinned. “That's about right, Percy,” he said.

“There's something about schoolmistresses that gives me the hump,” said Sergeant Bond. “Had a terror of them ever since I was a kid. Knew one that was a holy terror. So upstage and la-di-da you never knew what she was trying to teach you.”

The next mistress to appear was Eileen Rich. Ugly as sin was Inspector Kelsey's first reaction. Then he qualified it; she had a certain attraction. He started his routine questions, but the answers were not quite so routine as he had expected. After saying no, she had not heard or noticed anything special that anyone else had said about Miss Springer or that Miss Springer herself had said, Eileen Rich's next answer was not what he anticipated. He had asked:

“There was no one as far as you know who had a personal grudge against her?”

“Oh, no,” said Eileen Rich quickly. “One couldn't have. I think that was her tragedy, you know. That she wasn't a person one could ever hate.”

“Now just what do you mean by that, Miss Rich?”

“I mean she wasn't a person one could ever have wanted to destroy. Everything she did and was, was on the surface. She annoyed people. They often had sharp words with her, but it didn't mean anything. Not anything deep. I'm sure she wasn't killed for herself, if you know what I mean.”

“I'm not quite sure that I do, Miss Rich.”

“I mean if you had something like a bank robbery, she might quite easily be the cashier that gets shot, but it would be as a cashier not as Grace Springer. Nobody would love her or hate her enough to want to do away with her. I think she probably felt that without thinking about it, and that's what made her so officious. About finding fault, you know, and enforcing rules and finding out what people were doing that they shouldn't be doing, and showing them up.”

“Snooping?” asked Kelsey.

“No, not exactly snooping.” Eileen Rich considered. “She wouldn't tiptoe round on sneakers or anything of that kind. But if she found something going on that she didn't understand she'd be quite determined to get to the bottom of it. And she would get to the bottom of it.”

“I see.” He paused a moment. “You didn't like her yourself much, did you, Miss Rich?”

“I don't think I ever thought about her. She was just the games mistress. Oh! what a horrible thing that is to say about anybody! Just this - just that! But that's how she felt about her job. It was a job that she took pride in doing well. She didn't find it fun. She wasn't keen when she found a girl who might be really good at tennis, or really fine at some form of athletics. She didn't rejoice in it or triumph.”

Kelsey looked at her curiously. An odd young woman, this, he thought.

“You seem to have your ideas on most things, Miss Rich,” he said.

“Yes. Yes, I suppose I do.”

“How long have you been at Meadowbank?”

“Just over a year and a half.”

“There's never been any trouble before?”

“At Meadowbank?” She sounded startled.

“Yes.”

“Oh, no. Everything's been quite all right until this term.”

Kelsey pounced.

“What's been wrong this term? You don't mean the murder, do you? You mean something else -”

“I don't -” she stopped. “Yes, perhaps I do - but it's all very nebulous.”

“Go on.”

“Miss Bulstrode's not been happy lately,” said Eileen slowly. “That's one thing. You wouldn't know it. I don't think anybody else has even noticed it. But I have. And she's not the only one who's unhappy. But that isn't what you mean, is it? That's just people's feelings. The kind of things you get when you're cooped up together and think about one thing too much. You meant, was there anything that didn't seem right just this term. That's it, isn't it?”

“Yes,” said Kelsey, looking at her curiously, “yes, that's it. Well, what about it?”

“I think there is something wrong here,” said Eileen Rich slowly. “It's as though there were someone among us who didn't belong.” She looked at him, smiled, almost laughed and said, “Cat among the pigeons, that's the sort of feeling. We're the pigeons, all of us, and the cat's among us. But we can't see the cat.”

“That's very vague, Miss Rich.”

“Yes, isn't it? It sounds quite idiotic. I can hear that myself. What I really mean, I suppose, is that there has been something, some little thing that I've noticed but I don't know what I've noticed.”

“About anyone in particular?”

“No, I told you, that's just it. I don't know who it is. The only way I can sum it up is to say that there's someone here, who's - somehow - wrong! There's someone here - I don't know who - who makes me uncomfortable. Not when I'm looking at her but when she's looking at me because it's when she's looking at me that it shows, whatever it is. Oh, I'm getting more incoherent than ever. And anyway, it's only a feeling. It's not what you want. It isn't evidence.”

“No,” said Kelsey, “it isn't evidence. Not yet. But it's interesting, and if your feeling gets any more definite, Miss Rich, I'd be glad to hear about it.”

She nodded. “Yes,”she said, “because it's serious, isn't it? I mean, someone's been killed - we don't know why - and the killer may be miles away, or, on the other hand, the killer may be here in the school. And if so that pistol or revolver or whatever it is, must be here too. That's not a very nice thought, is it?”

She went out with a slight nod. Sergeant Bond said:

“Crackers - or don't you think so?”

“No,” said Kelsey, “I don't think she's crackers. I think she's what's called a sensitive. You know, like the people who know when there's a cat in the room long before they see it. If she'd been born in an African tribe she might have been a witch doctor.”

“They go round smelling out evil, don't they?” said Sergeant Bond.

“That's right, Percy,” said Kelsey. “And that's exactly what I'm trying to do myself. Nobody's come across with any concrete facts so I've got to go about smelling out things. We'll have the Frenchwoman next.”