Death at the Opera

chapter v: interrogation

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For nearly the whole of the next morning Mrs. Bradley was closeted with the Headmaster, and the “engaged” notice was hung on the outside of his study door from nine-fifteen until just after twelve.

“It seems to me,” Mrs. Bradley remarked, “that the evidence in support of the theory that Miss Ferris was murdered in the lobby is sufficiently strong to warrant further investigation, but not sufficiently tangible to offer to the authorities. I have reason to believe”—she took out her notebook—“that, as the result of a collision in the corridor, Miss Ferris had her glasses broken and sustained a small deep cut just beneath one eye. She went into the water-lobby to bathe the cut, and I have not found out yet that anyone went with her.”

“Who collided with her?” the Headmaster demanded. “The way boys rush down these narrow corridors is most dangerous.”

“It does not seem to have been a boy,” replied Mrs. Bradley. “It was Mr. Smith.”

“Smith?” The Headmaster looked astounded. “Surely not! Why, this is serious!”

Mrs. Bradley did not ask why. She fixed her twinkling black eyes on those of the Headmaster and waited for enlightenment. After a moment or two, it came.

“You remember, perhaps,” said Mr. Cliffordson, “the clay which was effectually stopping up the waste-pipe so that Miss Ferris’s head was still immersed in water when she was discovered dead?”

Mrs. Bradley looked intelligent, and nodded.

“That clay, it was established at the inquest, came from the art-room. Smith is the Senior Art Master. Furthermore, modelling clay was used, I believe, as part of his facial make-up.”

“Where is the art-room?” asked Mrs. Bradley, who had not been in the school long enough to have learned all the ramifications of its ground-floor plan.

“Almost opposite the prompt side of the stage.”

He drew a rough sketch on his blotting-pad, and Mrs. Bradley nodded.

“So that anybody who knew there was a lump of modelling clay in the art-room could have slipped in and taken enough to stop up that waste-pipe,” she said. “Cheer up, child! Mr. Smith isn’t hanged yet.” She cackled. “This brings me to a particularly important point,” she went on. “How many people were in a position to go into the art-room and/or into the water-lobby that night? Who was allowed behind the scenes—that is to say, apart from those people who were taking part in the opera?”

The Headmaster began to write on a scribbling-pad which was close at hand on the desk.

“I am not going to trust entirely to my own memory,” he said. “Mrs. Boyle was in charge of everything that went on behind the scenes, so in a moment, when I have made my list, we will send for her to confirm it. Now, let me see.” He wrote, after two pauses for consideration, a list of six names and handed it to Mrs. Bradley. She took it, and read aloud, with a questioning note:

“Madame Berotti?”

“An ex-actress, very old and frail now, who comes to all our school entertainments and makes up the principal characters. A delightful person. An artist to her fingertips. She used to produce for us at one time?”

“Mrs. Boyle?”

“Senior English Mistress. The producer,” said the Headmaster. “An ex-actress, too, incidentally. Shakespeare, repertory—all the usual high-brow stuff.”

“Mr. Hampstead?”

“He is our Senior Music Master, and was the conductor of the orchestra. He was behind the scenes before the beginning of the opera and again during the interval.”

“The electrician?”

“The lighting was important, and our home-made footlights have their disadvantages, so we had the electrician in attendance. I don’t know how long he stayed behind, I’m sure. I know one of the lights went wrong—apart, I mean, from the one in the water-lobby where Miss Ferris was found.”

“Who found her?” asked Mrs. Bradley.

“The girl Malley, poor child. She went to get a drink, it seems, found that the switch was out of order, groped in the darkness, and touched Miss Ferris’s body.”

“No wonder she is in a highly nervous state, poor girl,” commented Mrs. Bradley. She no longer wondered at Moira’s hysterical refusal to accompany her to the water-lobby on the previous evening. “The next name on the list is that of Mr. Browning,” she continued.

“Yes. Our Junior English Master. He was acting as prompter. He would have been about behind the scenes before the commencement of the opera and during the interval, unless it proves that he left his post as prompter at any time during the performance. Otherwise he would have been seated in the wings, with the script.”

“I shall have to see these people,” said Mrs. Bradley, and continued to read from the list.

“The curtain operator?”

“Otherwise the schoolkeeper,” said the Headmaster. “Yes. He was in position in the wings at just before the commencement of the performance, but I do not imagine that he stayed there during the whole of the First Act, which, at our rate of playing the opera, lasted for about an hour and twenty minutes. He is certain to have gone away during that time. I don’t know where he went. Probably to the back of the hall to watch the performance. He had been well drilled at three or four rehearsals, and knew exactly when he would be wanted. He takes great interest in everything connected with the running of the school, and is even more enthusiastic and partisan than I am where the boys and girls are concerned. He has been with us since the opening of the school.”

“That is the last name on your list,” said Mrs. Bradley. “Can we see Mrs. Boyle now?”

“Surely.” The Headmaster touched an electric buzzer which brought his secretary from an adjoining room.

“Ask Mrs. Boyle whether she can kindly spare me a moment,” he said. He consulted the large time-table. “She is in Room K.”

In less than four minutes, Alceste Boyle appeared, and Mrs. Bradley and she exchanged glances. Mrs. Bradley saw a tall, well-made woman on the threshold of middle-age, with beautifully dressed dark hair, dark-blue, wide-set eyes under arched eyebrows, a sweet mouth and a broad, noble forehead; it was a gracious and pleasing face, and Mrs. Bradley smiled and nodded as her eyes met those of its owner.

Alceste Boyle saw a woman in the middle sixties, with sharp black eyes like those of a witch, an aristocratic nose, a thin mouth which pursed itself into a queer little birdlike beak as its owner summed her up, and, lying idle for the moment, for Mrs. Bradley had returned his scribbling-tablet to the Headmaster some two minutes before the entrance of Alceste Boyle, a pair of yellow, claw-like hands, the fingers of which were heavily loaded with rings. Alceste’s non-committal cardigan, jumper and dark skirt— a costume which was almost the uniform of the women members of the staff—contrasted oddly with Mrs. Bradley’s outrageous colour scheme of magenta, orange and blue. Notwithstanding all physical and sartorial evidence to the contrary, however, Alceste decided that the queer little old woman was attractive.

“You wanted me, Mr. Cliffordson?” she said.

“Yes. Take a seat, Mrs. Boyle. Look here.” He handed her the list of names. “All those people were behind the scenes on the night of Miss Ferris’s death. Is the list complete, or can you add to it?”

Alceste scanned the list, thought for a moment, and then said:

“I had a Fourth Form girl behind with me. She acted as call-boy and general messenger. I sent her on one or two unimportant errands, I know, and she also helped in the search for Miss Ferris.”

“Who was she?” inquired the Headmaster.

“Maisie Phillips.”

“Oh, I know the girl. Nobody else?”

Alceste shook her head. “Nobody else,” she said. “I was very strict about not allowing unauthorized people behind the scenes. They only want to gossip and get in the way. I’m sure that was everybody, except the boys and girls in the chorus—and the principals, of course.”

“Thank you.” He turned to Mrs. Bradley. “Mrs. Boyle is my head assistant. I think she should be taken into our confidence.”

“If you mean that you believe Miss Ferris was murdered—why, so do I,” said Mrs. Boyle, surprisingly. “She was delighted—thrilled—to be taking part in the opera. It’s true she made a hash of the dress-rehearsal, but so did several others, and we all knew it would be different on the night. Besides, at the last rehearsal, which was not a dress-rehearsal, she did ever so well. The pity is that nobody was there to see the difference. But, goodness knows, there are plenty of people who would have been pleased to see her dead! Anyway, I am certain in my mind that she was the last person to commit suicide.”

“Plenty of people would have been pleased to see her dead?” repeated the Headmaster incredulously. “But surely—she was such an extraordinarily inoffensive woman…”

He halted, uncertain of what to say. That Mrs. Boyle believed what she was saying, and had foundation for her belief, he had no doubt whatever.

“I think you will have to tell us everything you know,” he said at last. Alceste folded her large, well-shaped hands in her lap, and nodded.

“Mrs. Bradley is here to investigate the circumstances of the death, of course,” she said, “and advise us how to proceed if it proves that Calma Ferris was murdered?”

The Headmaster nodded. He opened a drawer in his desk and produced a box of cigarettes.

“Excuse me one moment,” said Mrs. Boyle. “My form. I’d better set them some work.”

“Oh, let ’em rip,” said Mr. Cliffordson easily. “Who goes in to them next? Poole? Oh, that’s all right. He’ll blow the flames out. They won’t hurt for half an hour. Do ’em good to be on the loose for a bit!”

“They’ll have the roof off,” said Alceste, uneasily. She had never entirely accommodated herself to the free-and-easy methods at the school.

“My dear girl, don’t worry yourself. I don’t care, so why should you? Take a cigarette, and do let us hear a little more about this frightful business,” said the Headmaster, who firmly believed that a noisy child is a good child and that silence breeds sin.

“Well, Mr. Cliffordson,” Alceste said, studying the burning tip of her cigarette, “to explain myself I shall have to tell you a story, and then throw myself on your mercy. I shall also have to refuse to answer a question which you are certain to ask me.”

“Carry on,” said the Headmaster.

“When the school was first opened I applied for the post of English Mistress, and got it,” Mrs. Boyle began. “I was a childless widow, and was content. My married life, without being in the least sensational, was not an unqualified success, and when my husband, an Irish doctor, died in Limerick during an influenza epidemic there, I had no desire, I discovered, to return to the stage, so I came to England, and for some time was very happy in this school. Then I fell in love with a man who was not free to marry me. We have spent every holiday— Christmas, Easter and Summer—together, and when I say ‘together’ I mean that we have lived in every sense— physical, mental, spiritual—as man and wife. This has been going on for the past eleven years. I was young, hopeful, headstrong, passionately in love when all this began. Now, at the end of eleven years of it—eleven years of treasuring it up, keeping it secret, looking forward, even in the dreariest term, to the coming holiday-time when I could be myself and fulfil myself—I discover that it has not been a secret at all. For several years Miss Ferris knew of it. When I heard that she was dead I went to her lodgings and asked to rent her rooms, because I wanted to find her diary and destroy it. I communicated with the —the man, and he tried also to rent the rooms when they were refused to me…”

Mrs. Bradley had a mental audition of the landlady’s voice, a trifle high-pitched and peevish, saying: “Several people have been after the rooms, but they were all these nosey-parkers who only wanted a thrill out of staying a week or so where a suicide had lived…”

“… but the landlady wouldn’t have him either. So I never got hold of the diary.”

“Had you seen the diary previously, do you mean?” asked Mr. Cliffordson. “Had you seen it before Miss Ferris’s death?”

Alceste shook her head.

“She let out by accident that she knew. It was after she had ruined Mr. Smith’s clay figure on the night of the dress-rehearsal.”

“What?” exclaimed the Headmaster. “She ruined Smith’s model? Not his Psyche, surely?”

Alceste Boyle nodded.

“Wasn’t it dreadful?” she said. “It was absolutely an accident, of course, and I know she was terribly distressed. But the point is that she brought me in to comfort Smith —as though one could!—and it was then that I learned she knew the truth about me and about my affairs. Smith isn’t the man, by the way, although I believe he loves me.” Her dark-blue eyes challenged the world. “Oh, and I lent him two hundred and fifty pounds to compensate for the loss of the little Psyche.”

“Did Miss Ferris attempt to make capital out of her knowledge of your affairs?” inquired Mrs. Bradley, interestedly.

“Not in the least. She made the most off-hand remark about them, as though she had known for ages and took it for granted that I should have a lover. She was a bit like that, you know. She was so meek and docile and colourless herself that she took it for granted that other people were different. I never had the slightest idea that she would make capital out of her knowledge, but as soon as she was dead I could not help wondering whether she had left some record of her discovery. I didn’t want my secret to be broadcast, and she was just the type to keep an elaborately written and thoroughly indiscreet diary— indiscreet in the gossiping sense, I mean. And people are not scrupulous when they are going through dead people’s belongings, are they? I was afraid of what might be said.”

Mrs. Bradley had taken out her notebook and pencil and was rapidly filling a page with her own personal shorthand signs. The Headmaster was leaning back in his chair, his pipe between his teeth, and his eyes fixed on the top row of volumes in his book-case.

“Then there was Miss Camden and the netball match,” Alceste went on. “I don’t suggest Miss Camden killed Miss Ferris. I am sure she didn’t; but she could have done, over the result of that match.”

“What match was that?” Mr. Cliffordson inquired, for the incident of Miss Ferris, Miss Camden and the girl Cartnell had entirely faded from his mind. Mrs. Boyle reminded him of the occurrence.

“Oh, that business—yes! But, my dear Mrs. Boyle, it had no real importance. A most trivial affair?”

“Not for Miss Camden,” said Alceste. “She’s a tortured, warped, ambitious sort of girl, and this is the fourth year she’s tried for the inter-school trophy. We have never got into the semi-final before, and, with the girl Cartnell in the team, she thinks we might have figured in the final, and even won it. Considering there wasn’t a netball team at all in the school when she came, I think she’s worked wonders. It was very hard luck to have a team girl kept in on the day of the match.”

“Well, I don’t believe in competitive sports,” said the Headmaster heavily; “and as long as I am in command here they will be relegated to their proper place. It’s a lot of nonsense, pitting teams of children one against the other, and fosters entirely the wrong spirit. And if it reacts like this upon the staff, well, the least said in its favour the better.”

He was evidently riding a hobby-horse, thought the sharp-eyed listener with the notebook, and made a note of the Headmaster’s prejudice against competitive sports.

“My point is this,” said Mrs. Boyle, after a short pause. “Even if Miss Ferris was inoffensive, yet she did manage to upset one or two people rather seriously. There might be others, of whom we know nothing, and who had far more reason to bear her a grudge than had Miss Camden, Mr. Smith or myself. After all, even inoffensive people have to make some contacts, and it is quite possible that the result may be that fur will fly or sparks set fire to tinder. Don’t you think so?”

Mr. Cliffordson nodded gloomily. Then he said abruptly, because he felt he was exceeding his rights as a Headmaster:

“Who is the man with whom you spend your holidays?”

Alceste Boyle stubbed out the end of her cigarette on an ash-tray and rose to her feet. She smiled. No wonder two men were in love with her, thought Mrs. Bradley sympathetically.

“I told you there would be a question I should not answer,” Alceste said. “You need not worry about him, though. He wouldn’t hurt a fly.”

As soon as she had gone the Headmaster said morbidly:

“Well, there’s the solution, I suppose. I’m not going to do anything about it. Smith’s not a murderer. He’s a temperamental fellow who flew off the handle in a fit of rage. People shouldn’t go about ruining other people’s work. The man she’s in love with is Hampstead. I’ve known that for years.”

“You think Mr. Smith was the murderer?” asked Mrs. Bradley innocently.

“What else can one think?” demanded Mr. Cliffordson.

“Well, I haven’t seen Mr. Smith yet, except at a distance of about forty-five feet, you know,” said Mrs. Bradley. “Besides, if he is as temperamental as you say, why should he wait from Tuesday until Friday to take vengeance on a Philistine? The whole trouble about temperamental people, of the kind you mean, is that they act swiftly, heedlessly, in the sudden heat and under the sudden compulsion of the moment. I should say that by Friday, Mr. Smith was getting over it. But I had better see the gentleman.”

The Headmaster pressed the buzzer again.

“Please ask for Mr. Smith. The art-room,” he said to his secretary.

The first thing Mrs. Bradley noticed about Mr. Smith was that he was obviously ill-at-ease. He looked from the Headmaster to Mrs. Bradley, and seemed inclined to turn tail and run.

“You sent for me, Headmaster?” he got out, at last.

“Ah, Smith. Yes. Come in, and shut the door, my dear fellow.” Mr. Clififordson, thoroughly embarrassed, was more genial than the occasion warranted, and the wretched Art Master, his tie askew, his lank black hair in an untidy flop over his left eye, looked more hunted and miserable than before. He did not appear to have noticed the Headmaster’s suggestion, so Mrs. Bradley said gently, in her deep, full voice: “Shut the door, dear child.”

Smith started, brushed the back of his hand across his eyes and than obeyed.

“Now sit down over there,” said Mrs. Bradley, pointing to a chair. “Now tell us why you wanted to kill Calma Ferris.”

Smith blinked.

“Did I want to?” he said. Then his face cleared. “Oh, yes, so I did. She walked into my Psyche and shoved her on to the floor. Ruined her, of course. Yes, I was angry. But it was all right. Alceste lent me the money to pay Atkinson. I didn’t care awfully for the Psyche, as a matter of fact. She was commissioned. I hate working on a commissioned figure.”

“I see,” said Mrs. Bradley. “So you didn’t kill Miss Ferris?”

“I don’t think so, you know,” replied Smith. “Did Moira Malley say I did? I like that girl. She’s got a sense of perspective. More than you can say about most of these oafish kids here. You’d scarcely believe,” he continued, turning to Mrs. Bradley as though he found hers a sympathetic presence, “how few of these boys and girls can draw. And I can’t teach ’em. I’m a first-rate artist and a rotten teacher. I wouldn’t stick it if it weren’t for Alceste. She thinks I’d starve if I didn’t draw a regular salary, you know, so I stay to please her. Besides”—he blinked rapidly and clawed the air—“I must be near her! I must! I must!”

“Why did you ask Moira Malley not to say anything about the way you cannoned into Miss Ferris and knocked her glasses off and cut her face?” demanded Mrs. Bradley. Smith blinked again.

“Did I say that?” he asked. “I can’t remember. I remember barging into Miss Ferris round a corner… Oh, yes! I know. I was afraid it was my fault she committed suicide. You see, she’d spoilt my Psyche, and I thought perhaps the sight of me, coupled with the fact that she had to go into the water-lobby to bathe her face, might have given her the idea that she should drown herself, and I didn’t want to be asked a lot of questions. It’s just an act of lunacy to ask me questions, because I never remember things five minutes after they have happened.”

“I see,” said Mrs. Bradley. “Go on, child.”

“I’ve nothing more to say,” said Smith. He glanced up at the portrait of a florid, self-satisfied man-looking over the table.

“You took the name-part in the opera, I think?” said Mrs. Bradley. She produced a programme from her skirt pocket and flourished it at him.

“The name-part? Oh, yes, I was the ‘ Mikado,’ ” answered Smith.

“Yes. You had not to make your first entrance until the beginning of Act Two,” said Mrs. Bradley.

Smith nodded.

“And during the interval Miss Ferris was found dead.”

“But was she dead?” asked the Art Master.

“Oh, yes,” said the Headmaster quickly, before Mrs. Bradley could speak. “You remember the medical evidence at the inquest?”

Smith shook his head.

“Oh, well, it was definitely established that Miss Ferris had met her death at least two hours before the doctor examined the body. That means that she died before the interval, you see.”

“I didn’t know that doctors cared to commit themselves to the extent of giving an exact time of death,” protested Smith. He held up his thin long hand before either of the others could speak. There was a slight flush on his high cheekbones, but his voice did not change as he continued: “Please don’t mistake me. I do know what you’re driving at. You think Miss Ferris was murdered. So do I. And you think”—he turned and addressed Mrs. Bradley —“that as I had the whole of the First Act with nothing to do, I filled up the time by revenging myself on Miss Ferris for damaging that clay figure of mine. You weren’t joking a few moments ago when you asked me why I wanted to kill Miss Ferris. You meant that you thought I had killed her. Well, I didn’t.”

He smiled very nervously. Mrs. Bradley could see that his hands were trembling.

“Very well, Mr. Smith,” said Mrs. Bradley soothingly.

“May I go, Headmaster?” asked he. Mr. Cliffordson was about to answer when Smith continued: “By the way, perhaps you would advise me. Really, I know very little about the law and crime… Ought I to get into touch with a solicitor about all this? Ought I to tell him my version of the story and get him to watch proceedings, or anything?”

Mrs. Bradley grinned mirthlessly and waved a skinny claw.

“One moment, Mr. Smith. I understood you to say that you agreed with us in our belief that Miss Ferris was murdered?”

“I do believe it,” said Smith.

“Can you give us any reason for your opinion?”

“Only that I’m certain she did not commit suicide,” said the Art Master. “I think one is sensitive to that aspect in people. The only person on this staff at all likely to commit suicide, except for myself, is Miss Camden, the Physical Training Mistress.”

“Then it is merely surmise on your part that Miss Ferris was murdered?” asked the Headmaster. He sounded disappointed. Mr. Smith shrugged. He appeared less nervous.

“It’s the electric light going wrong,” he said slowly. “Something more than coincidence, don’t you think, that the electric light should go wrong in the place that houses a dead woman?”

“Indeed, yes,” said Mrs. Bradley. She wrote swiftly for a moment, and then intimated that the interview was at an end by saying:

“And consult a solicitor if it will relieve your mind, dear child, but if your conscience is clear and your mind at rest, I shouldn’t think you will need to consult anybody.”

“Well,” said Smith, with a wry smile. “I hope the wrong man won’t get hanged.”

“Stranger things than that have happened,” said Mrs. Bradley, as the door closed behind the Senior Art Master. “I suppose you didn’t see the electrician?” she asked suddenly. The Headmaster shook his head.

“I can give you his address,” he said. “ ‘The light that failed,’ of course?”

“No,” replied Mrs. Bradley succinctly. She drew her chair closer to the small table at which she was seated. “It comes to this,” she said. “If we think that Miss Ferris was murdered, the murder could only have been committed by some person or persons”—she cackled—“who had business in that part of the building during the performance. I spent a good deal of time yesterday evening in reading the script of The Mikado, and, granted that the actual drowning could have been done in two minutes, we have the following interesting data:

“1. The ‘Mikado,’ Mr. Smith, had the whole of the First Act in which to commit the murder.

“2. The curtain operator, who happened to be the schoolkeeper, had almost as long.

“3. The electrician had at least as long as the curtain operator.

“4. Madame Berotti, the make-up woman, was in a similar position.

“5. ‘Pish-Tush,’ Mr. Kemball, had the smallest male part, and so might have had plenty of time during his offstage periods.

“6. Mrs. Boyle, the producer, is at present a dark horse.

“7. ‘Ko-Ko,’ Mr. Poole, had until his first entrance, but once he had made his first appearance he was on the stage a great deal, and may or may not have had the opportunity for murder. I should be inclined to count him out if it could be proved that Calma Ferris was alive when he first came on the stage, because there were no stage waits, I imagine?”

“None at all. All the actors were ready on every occasion,” replied Mr. Cliffordson.

“Good. That simplifies things,” remarked Mrs. Bradley.

“Does it? I am glad to hear you use the word ‘simplifies’! I never knew a more complicated business,” said Mr. Cliffordson.

“ ‘Pooh-Bah’ (yourself, Mr. Cliffordson) had little opportunity to commit the murder. He was on the stage a great deal during the whole of the act, with, on the whole, too short an interval between any two of his stage entrances for him to have been able to risk leaving the wings in order to kill Miss Ferris. I think we might almost count you out, you know.”

She gave vent to her harsh cackle.

“Thank you,” said the Headmaster.

“Not at all. ‘Nanki-Poo,’ Mr. Francis Henry Hurstwood, Sixth Form boy, had as much opportunity, perhaps, as anybody else to commit the murder, for he had a lengthy interval after his exit just before the first entrance of ‘Ko-Ko.’ Mind you, that delayed first entrance of ‘Ko-Ko ’ may be important. If that little man had any motive for killing Miss Ferris—”

“Yes, yes,” said the Headmaster, a trifle impatiently, “but what about this boy? You don’t really imagine he could have had any hand in the affair, surely?”

“Meaning,” said Mrs. Bradley shrewdly, “that you do! Come, out with it, dear child. What about the poor boy?”

“I—don’t—know,” said Mr. Cliffordson. “In fact, I wish you’d have a talk with the lad. Mind, I don’t really imagine for one moment that he did have anything to do with Miss Ferris’s death, but he is highly strung and rather . unbalanced and emotional. For instance, I happen to know —although neither of them suspects that I do know it!— that the unfortunate lad cherishes a hopeless passion for my niece, Miss Cliffordson, the Junior Music Mistress. You’ve met her, of course?”

“Yes,” replied Mrs. Bradley, a vision of Miss Cliffordson’s challenging prettiness coming into her mind.

“I believe Gretta is handling the thing sensibly, mind you,” the Headmaster added. “But these affairs are always painful for the boy and embarrassing to us. Coeducation has its drawbacks for the co-educationists, you see.

Mrs. Bradley nodded.

“The other members of the cast are not under suspicion for the moment,” she said, “therefore perhaps it might be a good plan to have the boy next.” Mr. Cliffordson pressed the buzzer and consulted the timetable.

“Ask Mr. Poole, in Room C, whether he will be kind enough to excuse Hurstwood for a few minutes,” he said to his secretary. A little later a discreet tap at the door announced Hurstwood’s arrival. The Headmaster invited him in, and he stood on the threshold, tall, fair, slightly, embarrassed, a likeable boy, with thin hands and a broad low forehead.

“Shut the door, Hurstwood,” said Mr. Cliffordson. “you remember the night of The Mikado?”

“Yes, sir.”

“You weren’t the person who collided with Miss Ferris and broke her glasses, were you?” asked Mrs. Bradley, before the Headmaster could speak again. Hurstwood raised his eyebrows.

“I? No,” he replied. “I—knew she had broken them, though, because I lent her my handkerchief to bathe a little cut she had on her face.”

“When was this?” asked Mrs. Bradley. The boy considered the question and then answered:

“Very near the beginning of the opera, because I was just ready to take my cue, so I pulled out my handkerchief —I had stuck it in my sash—and shoved—er—pushed it into her hand, and in about ten seconds my cue came and I went on.”

“H’m!” said the Headmaster.

“Sir?” The boy’s face was flushed, and he had thrust his jaw slightly forward.

“What did you do when you came off the stage the first time?” inquired Mr. Cliffordson, this time managing to forestall Mrs. Bradley.

“I went into the dressing-room and had a look at my make-up, sir. Then I went round to the other side of the stage to see whether Miss Ferris had finished with my handkerchief, because it was the only one I had, sir, and I was suffering from a slight cold.”

“But you must have realized it would be wet, if Miss Ferris had been bathing her face with it?”

“Oh, yes, sir, but things soon dry on the radiators. I thought I would spread it out on one so that I would soon be able to use it if I required it.”

“Go on,” said Mrs. Bradley, as the boy paused.

“I went into the lobby,” said Hurstwood. “At least,” he added, correcting himself, “I should have gone into it, but everything was quiet round there, and when I pressed the switch the light wouldn’t act, so I thought nobody could possibly be in there, and I went back to the dressing-room and found Mr. Smith and the electrician. We talked a bit, and then I had to go on again.”

“You know where Miss Ferris’s body was found, Hurstwood?” said Mr. Cliffordson.

“Oh, yes, sir. It almost seems as though she might have been—”

The Headmaster shook his head.

“Not when you went to the lobby the first time,” he said. “We’ve proved that.”

“Yes, sir?”

“Yes, my boy.” Mr. Cliffordson leaned forward impressively. “Miss Ferris was murdered, Hurstwood.”

There was dead silence. Then the boy said simply:

“Yes, sir. I know.”

Even Mrs. Bradley, although she managed not to betray the fact, was startled by this admission. The Headmaster was frankly astounded.

“You what?” he shouted. Hurstwood remained silent. “What do you mean, boy?” demanded Mr. Cliffordson. Hurstwood cleared his throat.

“Well, sir, the modelling clay.”

“What about it?”

“She—Miss Ferris wouldn’t have done it, sir. Ladies don’t stop up things like that. She would have used the plug. In any case, sir, why shouldn’t she use running water? You—one generally does for a place that’s bleeding, sir, and her face bled quite freely.”

The Headmaster nodded. Mrs. Bradley nodded also.

“Go back to your form, then. That’s all I want to ask you,” said Mr. Cliffordson.

“Yes, sir.” He turned to go. “And, by the way,” said Mr. Cliffordson pleasantly, “my niece is at least seven years your senior, my boy. Remember that when you are twenty-five she will be thirty-two, and don’t make a fool of yourself any longer.”

The boy, who had turned as the Headmaster had gone on speaking, went white. He put his hands to his head and swayed from side to side.

“Quick!” said Mrs. Bradley; but the Headmaster was in time, and got to him before he actually fell.

“Silly fellow,” said Mr. Cliffordson, smiling at him when he had regained his normal colour and was sitting upright and looking rather foolish. “Did you think I didn’t know? There! Don’t worry about it, my boy. We all make fools of ourselves at your age. There’s no harm in it, but don’t take it too seriously.”

But to his embarrassment the lad burst into tears. Mrs. Bradley got up and went out, closing the door behind her. She detached the “engaged” notice from its little brass hook on the wall, and hung it from its little brass hook on the door. Then she went in again and beckoned the Headmaster outside.

“I want to see Miss Camden,” she said.

“It’s her free time, I believe,” the Headmaster answered. “Come with me and we’ll invade the staff-room. But she wasn’t in the cast, you know. A queer girl. Very enthusiastic—about all the wrong things.”

“By the way,” said Mrs. Bradley, “what can there be that is familiar to me in the face of the gentleman in the frame over the table?”

“Oh, I expect you saw it in the newspapers last year,” replied Mr. Cliffordson. “That’s Cutler, the man who was acquitted of drowning his wife. Smith painted him immediately the trial was over, and, a humorous gesture which I confess I still do not fully appreciate, presented the portrait to me.”