Ellery Queen’s Anthology. Volume 12, 1967

Phyllis Bentley Miss Phipps Goes to School

Carious little incidents were happening at Star Isle College, a boys’ boarding school in England — as if a noisy and obstreperous ghost were mischievously or maliciously at work. Was it a supernatural manifestation? Or were they merely boyish pranks? Or was there really a more sinister force at large? Seesaw of suspense, criminological crossruff, ’tec teeter-totter...

“Miss Phipps Goes to School” is a fascinating novelet by Phyllis Bentley, the noted regional novelist who, we are proud to say, never lets a year pass without sending a new Miss Phipps story to “Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine” — Miss Phipps, the spinster-sleuth and detective-story-writer-detective who seldom loses her aplomb and never loses her charm...

“Diddle diddle dumpling, my son John,” sang Mary Tarrant happily, “went to bed with one shoe on.”

Young Master John Tarrant, agreeably clad in his own charming birthday suit and held firmly round the waist by his mother’s loving hands, laughed and crowed and stamped gleefully about her knee. Miss Phipps watched smiling from a nearby chair.

“My darling,” whispered Mary fondly, kissing him. “Well, I guess I’d better go and make that coffee. Mrs. Brooke did say she’d call for you at eleven, didn’t she, Miss Phipps?” She laid her son down on her lap and began what appeared to the detective novelist the impossible task of inserting his waving arms and legs into various small garments.

“Yes, at eleven,” agreed Miss Phipps, looking at her watch. “Let’s hope she’ll be late. I don’t want to tear myself away from your offspring’s antics.”

“Yes, isn’t he precious? Such a piece of luck, your being invited to lecture at Star Isle College, Miss Phipps,” said Mary. “I was so anxious for you to see the baby as he is now. He changes almost every week, you know.”

“My dear, I only accepted the engagement because it gave me the chance of visiting you in Brittlesea en route,” said Miss Phipps truthfully. “Boys’ boarding schools, however well-known and reputable, are not really in my line.”

“But Star Isle is really a very fine school,” said Mary, clasping a safety pin. “John says so. The buildings have all been modernized, and they have a beautiful beach. The new Headmaster, Dr. Brooke, is very progressive and energetic, and his wife is young and intelligent, and she coaches the boys in drama. And the Brookes have a baby about the same age as Johnny,” concluded Mary triumphantly, offering this last fact as a supreme token of the Brookes’s desirability.

It occurred to Miss Phipps to wonder whether Detective-Inspector Tarrant had ever been over to Star Isle College in his professional capacity, and if so, why; but knowing his discretion on all matters connected with his work, she fore-bore to put the question, and just then the doorbell rang. Mary placed the baby on the settee, wedging him in with cushions, then went to answer it. Miss Phipps, shy but determined, crossed over to the settee and did a little baby worship on her own, and was rewarded by having one finger tightly clasped in a delicious miniature fist. She was thus in a good position to observe the look which young Mrs. Brooke turned on the baby when she entered the room. This look startled, even shocked Miss Phipps, for it was of fear and anguish.

Introductions were performed. Mrs. Brooke’s hand trembled in Miss Phipps’s clasp.

“I’ll just slip out and fetch the coffee,” said Mary.

“No! No, thank you,” said Mrs. Brooke hastily. “It’s most kind of you, Mrs. Tarrant, but I’m afraid I really can’t stay. The ferry across to the island, you know, has only limited service on Saturday mornings. We shall just have time to catch the 11:50 boat if we leave now.”

“But couldn’t you stay and catch the next boat?” urged Mary.

“I’m afraid it’s impossible,” said Mrs. Brooke.

She spoke with so much authority and decision that there was nothing to do but obey, although Mary was upset by the rejection of her hospitality and Miss Phipps was grieved on Mary’s account. Miss Phipps’s overnight bag was hastily thrown into the back of Mrs. Brooke’s car, Miss Phipps herself was hustled into the front seat, farewells were curtailed, Mrs. Brooke took the wheel, and they were off for Star Isle.

During the next twenty minutes Miss Phipps, observing her companion with the shrewd eye of a novelist and listening with a novelist’s ear, discovered that Mrs. Brooke was tall, slender, dark, neat, dressed in good tweeds, intelligent, a University graduate, and a skillful driver. But she wore an angry frown down the center of her forehead, and snatched every advantage on the road which offered itself. Her story about the ferry was clearly not a mere snobbish excuse to refuse Mary’s hospitality; she was obviously motivated by some painful urgency.

The ferryboat — no doubt a landing-craft from wartime days, reflected Miss Phipps — was at the pier with its blunt bows open and lowered when they arrived. Mrs. Brooke jumped the queue of waiting cars and drove up to the boat, at which the attendant seaman and policeman gaped in astonishment. She made no comment on her action to the sailor who collected her ticket, although he gazed at her reproachfully. As the ferry waddled slowly along the winding course marked out by numerous posts and buoys, she tapped her foot impatiently.

“A sandy coast?” said Miss Phipps politely, merely making conversation.

“Yes — with quicksands here and there. Very treacherous.”

“Is it like that all around the island?”

“Oh, no! To the south, by the College, we have cliffs and bays.”

“Is it far from the harbor to the College?”

“About four miles,” said Mrs. Brooke. Her foot kept tapping, and her hands clenched themselves about the wheel of the car.

Miss Phipps was so affected by this impatience that whereas ordinarily she would have much enjoyed the process of disembarkation — the throwing and securing of lines, the dignified lowering of the stern, the parade of foot passengers along a gangway surrendering tickets, the laying of planks for the car’s wheels, and the bumpy ticklish drive from ship to shore, solemnly superintended by an elderly policeman — today she found it almost unbearably slow and tedious. Once they were on land, however, they flew along the russet autumn lanes, rushed through the old stone gateway of the College, and drew up sharply with a squeal of brakes in the gravel circle in front of the Headmaster’s residence. Mrs. Brooke leaped out and ran up the shallow steps to a handsome cream perambulator with a fringed awning, which stood on the terrace beside the door. Bending over this she lifted out a sleeping infant, then returned to Miss Phipps with the baby in her arms and the frown quite gone from her face, which now looked very young and yearning.

“Will you come in? They’ll fetch your bag later,” she said, and led her guest into a large, pleasant sitting room with French windows on two sides, one set overlooking the terrace with the baby carriage, the other, on the opposite wall, having an agreeable view of beach, cliff, and sea to the right, with the long row of gray College buildings on the left.

Miss Phipps sat down, feeling a trifle ruffled. A middle-aged woman with bluish hair, a rather superior expression, and dressed in white, was arranging a large tray of glasses and sherry on a table nearby; it appeared that a rush of masters, invited to meet the great lecturer, was imminent. The older woman was introduced to Miss Phipps as Miss Bellivant, the College housekeeper.

“I’ve read one or two of your books, Miss Phipps,” said Miss Bellivant in a condescending tone. “Just as light reading, at night.”

“I hope you enjoyed them,” said Miss Phipps, commending herself for keeping her temper.

“Oh, yes, quite. Other people enjoy them too — I can’t seem to keep them on my shelves,” said the housekeeper in a rather puzzled fashion. “They keep disappearing.”

“I do beg your pardon, Miss Phipps,” said Mrs. Brooke when Miss Bellivant had gone, and still rocking her sleeping child gently in her arms, “for rushing you along like this. It was unforgivable. And that sweet Mrs. Tarrant. I’m afraid I was rude to her — I am most truly sorry. But you see — I was so anxious about Tommy.”

“Why?” said Miss Phipps bluntly.

“Leaving him alone,” said Mrs. Brooke, hanging her head.

“But surely you have plenty of staff here,” objected Miss Phipps, “to keep an eye on him?”

“Yes, in a way. But... oh, well, a young mother, you know,” said Mrs. Brooke, laughing falsely. “One gets these fancies.”

“What fancies?” said Miss Phipps. Mrs. Brooke was silent. “What kind of fancies?” pressed Miss Phipps. “You’re too intelligent, too well-educated, to indulge in groundless fancies, I’m sure,” she continued. “You feared some danger for the child?”

“It was so strange,” began Mrs. Brooke hesitantly. “Such a mysterious little incident.” She stopped. “I’m ashamed to trouble you with it.”

“What did your husband say when you told him of the incident?” inquired Miss Phipps.

“Henry? He laughed. But I think he was worried. He’s rather worried about a good many things just now,” said Mrs. Brooke.

There were occasions when Miss Phipps, usually the mildest and most modest of women, found it useful to play the celebrated novelist. She did so now.

“My dear,” she said in the commanding resonant tone which she used to impress fans at literary cocktail parties, “you had better tell me all about it. I have had a good deal of experience in solving these small mysteries, both as a detective novelist and as an occasional assistant to the police. Confide in me. You may trust in my discretion absolutely.”

“Well,” said Mrs. Brooke, still hesitating; then she plunged: “It was like this. It sounds so silly, but really it was strange. Last Sunday morning I’d just put the baby in his pram on the terrace. I was upstairs in our bedroom, putting on my hat and coat, meaning to slip late into Chapel. I heard the baby begin to cry. I looked out and saw that he had thrown his rattle out of his pram.”

“They often do that,” said Miss Phipps, nodding her head wisely. “Throw things away and then want the discarded objects back again. Just like adults.”

“So I ran downstairs and out to the terrace,” Mrs. Brooke went on, “and the rattle was in his pram.”

“In his pram?” exclaimed Miss Phipps stupidly.

Mrs. Brooke nodded. “Lying on the coverlet.”

“But somebody must have put it there!”

“Agreed. But who? All the boys, the teaching staff, the secretarial staff, Miss Bellivant, and several of the masters’ wives — everybody, in fact — were in Chapel. We have our own College chapel, you know. We had the Bishop of Southshire over here that morning, as a matter of fact, and he’s a very good preacher, so everybody was there.”

“One of the domestic staff?”

“We have no domestic staff of our own; nowadays all that work is done by the College domestic staff.”

“Then one of them?”

“Miss Phipps,” said Mrs. Brooke very earnestly, “believe me, it was nobody. I’ve asked everybody. After all, it was kind action; nobody need be ashamed to own up to it, need they? But nobody admits to having put the rattle back in the pram.”

“My dear,” said Miss Phipps in her most soothing tone, “don’t be vexed with me when I tell you I really think you are making a mountain out of a molehill. The postman passed by, perhaps — oh, no, not on a Sunday. The milkman — no, not by your private front-entrance. Well, somebody,” concluded Miss Phipps pettishly. “It’s a very small matter, after all.”

“Not when taken in conjunction with other small matters which have been happening here,” said Mrs. Brooke. “There seems a jinx on the school this term. And Henry cares so much, you know. Everything was going so well — till now.”

“What other small matters?” demanded Miss Phipps.

“Here we are, my dear,” said Henry Brooke, entering the room with a flock of masters behind him.

He was one of the new type of Headmasters, Miss Phipps observed with interest — short, slight, fair, utterly unpompous, but with a dynamic energy informing his whole personality. His gray eyes were shrewd and bright.

“Ah, Miss Phipps,” said he, shaking hands.

His tone was courteous but noncommittal; it was clear to Miss Phipps that his judgment on his visiting lecturer was as yet suspended.

“And why not?” thought Miss Phipps honestly. “He knows nothing of me as yet.”

She exerted herself to make intelligent conversation.

“My dear boy,” said old Mr. Pryce in mild, sad, mellifluous tones. “My dear Deighton, if you would only understand that I am not reproaching you in the least for upsetting the pile of reports. It’s the easiest thing in the world to do, especially as my desk stands under the common-room window. I entirely acquit you of any desire to wound or annoy me.”

“But, Mr. Pryce,” began young Mr. Deighton, who was short and gingery, wore a pullover stained with chemicals, and spoke with a decidedly less well modulated accent, “I give you my word—”

“I am well aware,” Mr. Pryce flowed on, his long gray mustaches quivering with wounded feeling, “that to young scientific men like yourself, classics masters are mere useless survivals, a sort of dinosaur. I have no quarrel with that attitude. I understand well how it can be so. I do not complain. Also, I appreciate your desire for fresh air. Young people like open windows; they do not suffer from draughts as we old fogeys are apt to do. In opening the common-room window, you dislodged the pile of my half-term house reports, which, no doubt in complete conformity with some law of dynamics familiar to you, fell to the ground in hideous confusion. They had been carefully, alphabeticized in order of the boys’ names; this order was destroyed by the fall and some forty minutes were required to restore it. But what of that? Such an accident might happen to anyone,” said Mr. Pryce with noble acceptance. “I do not claim exemption from misfortune. But—”

“Another glass of sherry, Pryce?” put in Henry Brooke, proffering the decanter.

“Thank you, Headmaster. I am aware that you are trying to divert me from a painful subject,” said Mr. Pryce. “But your sherry is good and your thought a kind one, tee-hee!” He laughed gently and held out his glass, his innocent old eyes beaming. “So I accept with gratitude.”

“He’s rather a pet, after all,” thought Miss Phipps, who from her place beside Mrs. Brooke on the settee was watching the uncomfortable little scene.

“But, Mr. Pryce, I assure you I did not upset your pile of reports,” said young Deighton in a tone of greatly suppressed exasperation. “I never went near your desk. And I didn’t open the window.”

“It was open when I entered the common-room,” said Mr. Pryce with a mild, meditative air. “It is your lack of trust in my good fellowship which grieves me, Deighton. Have I proved myself so harsh a colleague that you cannot confess to me a small peccadillo, an accidental injury? That wounds me, my dear boy, wounds me deeply. I had not thought that my younger colleagues held me in such dread.”

“Mr. Pryce, I don’t hold you in any dread. I feel for you only respect and affection!” shouted young Deighton. “But I didn’t knock over your reports!”

“Well — let us dismiss the matter. Let us forget it,” said Mr. Pryce sadly. His sadness was genuine, Miss Phipps noted; the gleam in his old eyes faded, his mustaches drooped. “I raise my glass to you, Deighton. I drink to you and Science.”

“Mr. Pryce,” began Deighton in a high shrill voice, which reminded Miss Phipps of steam escaping from an overcharged boiler, “I—”

Henry Brooke laid a hand on his arm, and the young man turned away, crimson with rage.

“But wouldn’t it be better not to forget the incident? To probe it to the core?” said Miss Phipps boldly, rising and going toward the group.

On all their faces, as they turned to her, she read that male expression of distaste which means “Women!” Nevertheless, she persevered. She liked kind old Pryce, able Brooke, and struggling young Deighton; she wished them all well, and in her opinion the truth is the best gift one can wish for anyone.

“Such little mysteries, at first sight inexplicable, are my stock in trade as a detective story writer,” she went on blandly. “Could I have the details of this one, please?”

“My dear madam,” said old Mr. Pryce, bowing courteously, “I shall of course be most happy to serve you in any way. Without troubling you with the details of our routine, let me give you the essential facts. Yesterday morning during a free period just after break, I was working on a pile of reports in the common-room. I was alone in the room. The window was shut. I left the room, for a few moments only, to go out to ring a certain bell. As I went out, I encountered Mr. Deighton coming in. As I returned, I met Mr. Deighton coming along the passage from the common-room, which is, so to say, situated in a cul-de-sac. I entered the common-room and found my reports scattered over the floor, and the window slightly open.”

“Perhaps the draught from the window scattered the reports?” suggested Miss Phipps.

“A substantial paperweight rested on them,” said Mr. Pryce with his air of serious musing.

“And now you, Mr. Deighton,” said Miss Phipps in a friendly tone.

“Well — I don’t know anything about his reports, though I don’t suppose you’ll believe it,” snapped Deighton in his brash, aggressive manner. “I went into the common-room to fetch a dictionary from the shelves. It took me a minute or two to find it. I found it and left with it in my hand. I met Mr. Pryce in the corridor. That’s all.”

“Were the reports on the floor when you left the room?”

“No. Emphatically, no.”

“Was the window open?”

“I don’t know. I think not, but I couldn’t swear to it. At any rate, I never went near the window.”

“Perhaps you banged the door, and the vibration upset the reports?”

“I don’t bang doors, even if I didn’t go to Oxford or Cambridge,” cried Deighton angrily. “And on my word of honor I never touched Mr. Pryce’s reports.”

“An interesting little problem,” said Miss Phipps in her blandest tone. Apart from the possibility that one of the two men was mistaken, she had not the faintest idea of any solution, but she did not intend to let the staff of Star Isle College know this. “It is these everyday minutiae which offer the greatest scope for keen ratiocination,” she continued.

The Headmaster gave her a shrewd look.

“And what would you suggest,” he began in a quizzical tone, when suddenly to Miss Phipps’s relief the sound of an immense bell clanged long and loud through the air. “Ah, lunch. On Saturdays we lunch in hall with the boys,” said the Headmaster. “Are you coming, Ella?”

His wife shook her head. “I’ll stay with the baby,” she said nervously.

The Headmaster was not pleased, but accepted her refusal with an urbane little bow, then ushered Miss Phipps out of the seaview windows. He took her at a smart pace along a path, under an archway, up some steps, across a huge kitchen — where Miss Bellivant amid rows of steel cookers and enameled refrigerators directed a scurrying crowd of white-coated girls — and through a pair of swing doors.

“Short cut,” he said briskly as they emerged on a dais by a long refectory table.

Miss Phipps nodded, too breathless to speak. The other masters streamed in their wake. Evidently punctuality was de rigueur at Star Isle College.

In the large dining hall, however, there was a long pause. Something, thought Miss Phipps, glancing down from the dais to the long rows of boys standing silent and attentive by the tables on which dishes already steamed, seemed to have gone wrong. The other masters did not look in the direction of Dr. Brooke, who stood silent and motionless, his face carefully blank. Then suddenly in the gallery at the far end of the hall appeared an older lad with a silver badge in his buttonhole. He was crimson and breathless, but managed to utter a Latin grace without stumbling. At its conclusion the school sat down and fell to, and several silver-badged lads sitting on the opposite side of the high table from Miss Phipps passed her meat, vegetables, and gravy with great politeness. Dr. Brooke’s brow remained frowning, however, and he did not speak.

The lad from the balcony now appeared at the Headmaster’s elbow.

“Well, Crawford,” said Dr. Brooke in a chilling headmasterly tone.

“I must apologize, sir, for being so late,” said Crawford, who was still somewhat breathless. “I was working in the library, and my watch disappeared.”

“Disappeared, Crawford?” said the Headmaster with a tinge of irony.

“Yes, sir. I was taking notes at the table at the far end, and I’d laid my watch in front of me so as not to be late. Then I went up the iron stairs into the gallery, sir, to look for an old issue of Nature, and when I came down, my watch was gone. I was still busy hunting for it when the luncheon bell rang. I ran all the way, sir.”

“Very well, very well,” said the Headmaster in a forgiving tone. “Sit down and eat your lunch. Miss Phipps, this is F. X. Crawford, our head prefect,” he went on as the lad went round the table and seated himself opposite Miss Phipps. “Scholarship boy. Native of the island. Captain of football. Mathematician. Going up to Cambridge when he’s done his national service — just won a place.”

Miss Phipps bent her writer’s eye on the lad. He was strongly built, with broad shoulders, a pleasantly plain face, straight dark hair, and highly intelligent brown eyes. Not wishing to keep him from his meal she contented herself with a smile at the introduction, and did not speak until after the first course.

“It must be agreeable to have such a fine swimming beach so near the school,” she said then.

“Yes. It’s actually part of the school grounds,” said Crawford in a friendly tone. “The beach and the cliff on the left, that is. But the cliff is out of bounds except with a master. There’s a cave there which is rather dangerous — it has an inner chamber with a very low entrance; you can get cut off in there at high water.”

“And how is the swimming arranged?” pursued Miss Phipps. “By house or class?”

“By class.”

“I suppose you prefects,” said Miss Phipps, smiling at the row of silver badges opposite her, “are allowed to swim whenever you’re free.”

“Oh, no!” said Crawford. “The rules are very strict—”

“Never less than three boys are allowed to be in the water together,” boomed the Headmaster in her ear. “And to become a three-swimmer, as we call them, a boy has to pass very severe swimming tests. We have a swimming pool as well, you know. He has to do two lengths of the pool, two breadths underwater, and a lifesaving test.”

“And are you a three-swimmer?” inquired Miss Phipps of Crawford.

“Only this term — I’ve never had time before to work up for the tests,” said the lad without embarrassment.

“Life is real, life is earnest, for those who want to reach scholarship standard in mathematics,” said the Headmaster. “Isn’t that so, Crawford?”

“It is indeed, sir,” said Crawford, laughing.

“However, there are compensations. Football match this afternoon,” continued the Headmaster.

“Yes. It’s strange about my watch, sir, isn’t it?” said the boy.

“We’ll have a word about that this evening, Crawford,” said the Headmaster, dismissing the subject.

“Yes sir,” agreed Crawford readily.

“Star Isle! Star Isle!” shouted Miss Phipps encouragingly. “Well passed, sir! Good heavens, what a fumble! Look out, Star Isle! Oh—” her voice changed to satisfaction — “Crawford’s got it. A very reliable player, Crawford,” she added in her normal tone, turning to the Headmaster.

Muffled to the eyebrows, she sat between the Headmaster and his wife, watching the football match. The Brooke baby lay asleep in his pram behind the white-painted seat. The College buildings provided shelter on the sea side of the field, but the other sides were open to the briskly blowing breeze.

“Crawford,” said the Headmaster with emphasis, “is very reliable in any activity he undertakes. A strong, steady character. Humble circumstances at home, you know. Excellent head prefect. Very much respected. Good bowler, too. Ah!” he exclaimed.

“He’s hurt!” cried Miss Phipps in a tone of anguish.

Indeed, in tackling an opposing forward, Crawford seemed to have suffered an injury, for a group had gathered round him as he lay on the ground. He got to his knees and tried to rise, but bent double again in evident pain.

“Oh, dear!” wailed Miss Phipps.

“Probably just winded,” said the Headmaster.

A group of boys wearing First Aid armbands now ran up bearing a stretcher. Crawford waved them impatiently aside and again tried to rise, but again fell to his knees. The First Aid detachment, obviously eager to show their skill, stood no more nonsense from him, but rolled him onto the stretcher and carried him off. The Headmaster laughed.

“Poor Crawford!” he said. “He’ll be furious.”

“But isn’t he hurt?” cried Miss Phipps. “Look, there’s an ambulance!”

“Yes. They’ll take him off to the Sanatorium for a check-up,” said Dr. Brooke. “Being winded can be a trying and painful experience, you know — I’ve been winded myself in the days when I played scrum-half. But it isn’t serious. He’ll be all right tomorrow. He’ll be the first case in the San this term, won’t he, Ella?”

“Yes. So far we’ve been lucky in that respect,” said Mrs. Brooke.

“Where is the San?” enquired Miss Phipps.

“Up there toward the cliff,” said Dr. Brooke, pointing.

“Odd about Crawford’s watch, wasn’t it?” said Miss Phipps.

“Very,” said the Headmaster shortly.

The whistle sounded. Star Isle had won handsomely. Miss Phipps walked off the field with Mrs. Brooke, assisting her occasionally with the pram. The Headmaster, accosted by several friends, parents, and well-wishers, fell behind.

At the entrance to the College, Mrs. Brooke and Miss Phipps were met by Miss Bellivant. The housekeeper was in such a state of agitation that for a moment Miss Phipps feared that Crawford was seriously hurt after all, and Mrs. Brooke obviously thought the same, for she quickly spoke his name.

“No, no, he’s just winded — he’ll be all right tomorrow, they say,” said the housekeeper. “It’s the ice cream, Mrs. Brooke. I’m sure I’m most terribly sorry — I know how much the boys look forward to it. I’d made it striped with the College colors as a special treat — just for the two competing teams, you know — we do so like to give our visitors a really good tea, Miss Phipps. It’s all so disappointing, I could cry!” Her face quivered, tears actually came to her eyes, and her usual superior, martyred expression had quite vanished. She looked genuinely distressed.

“I don’t quite understand, Miss Bellivant,” said Mrs. Brooke soothingly. “Has something gone wrong with the ice cream?”

“Ruined!” exclaimed Miss Bellivant dramatically. “The door of the small refrigerator has been left open, and the ice cream is all melted.”

“Who left the door open? Surely it was very careless,” said Mrs. Brooke, frowning.

“That’s just it, Mrs. Brooke! I can’t find out who left it open,” wailed Miss Bellivant. “It was closed at half-past two when I put the ice cream in — I closed it myself. And all the girls are off duty this afternoon until four. I put the ice cream in, I made sure the door was closed, and I set the freezer,” she detailed, performing the movements with her empty hands. “Then I went out to watch some of the match. I left a few minutes before the end and went straight to the fridge. The door wasn’t latched and I pulled it open wide and there was all the ice cream completely melted. All the stripes run into each other,” she wept, “they look really horrid. I hardly think we shall be able to use the ice cream even after it’s frozen again, it looks so horrid! So wasteful, Mrs. Brooke! It seems like carelessness on my part, but really the door was closed when I left it—”

Her lamentations continued.

“Miss Bellivant,” interrupted Miss Phipps, “have you missed any food from the College kitchens lately?”

Miss Bellivant, tear-stained and disheveled, gazed at her.

“Well, Miss Phipps, when you cater for three hundred boys three meals a day, it’s not easy to say whether any food’s missing or not,” she said. “I mean, what’s a bun or two among three hundred? But once or twice I have thought — but I couldn’t say for certain. But the ice cream! I’d made it striped in the College colors as a special treat—”

It was some minutes before Miss Phipps could detach herself. She went up to the room that had been assigned to her thoughtfully.

That evening Miss Phipps lectured to the boys on The History of the Modem Detective Novel. The lecture proved a huge success, and as Dr. and Mrs. Brooke and Miss Phipps sat together round the fire afterward, sipping coffee, the Headmaster’s manner was a good deal more cordial than it had been earlier in the day.

“You know Detective-Inspector Tarrant pretty well, I believe?” he said, passing Miss Phipps the sugar.

“Yes.”

“Did he happen to tell you that we recently consulted him at the College?”

“No, he did not,” said Miss Phipps.

“But you have helped him on some of his cases, haven’t you?”

“When he has asked me, I have offered one or two suggestions,” said Miss Phipps in her primmest tone.

“I perceive you are a woman of intelligence and discretion, Miss Phipps,” said the Headmaster, smiling.

Miss Phipps bowed her head in acknowledgment, curious to know what the Headmaster wished to confide to her.

“I should be very grateful for your advice,” Dr. Brooke went on. “We have had here lately — we have suffered — really if one could credit such nonsense, one might imagine a poltergeist has been at work here.”

“I had a case once, in your cathedral city of Starminster, in which an alleged poltergeist figured,” said Miss Phipps. “But of course the agency proved to be human — very human. But please go on.”

“We have had in Star Isle College during the last few weeks a series of curious happenings,” said Dr. Brooke, speaking in a quiet, precise way, as though teaching a class constitutional history. “To begin with, there were several thefts.”

“Of what?”

“Small sums of money. An odd feature of the thefts was this: the whole of the sum available was never taken. If it was money from the pocket of a boy’s coat, only one or two coins would be missing; if it was notes from a master’s wallet, again, some notes would always be left.”

“As if the thief hoped the theft might not be noticed,” said Miss Phipps thoughtfully.

“The same sort of thing happened with sweets and biscuits in the boys’ tuck-boxes and lockers,” continued the Headmaster. “It was then that I asked Inspector Tarrant’s advice. But he couldn’t attempt to find the thief, he said, unless I would give him freedom to tackle the boys openly. I was considering this, when the thefts ceased. Then odd things began to happen.”

“The replaced baby’s rattle, the upset reports, Crawford’s missing watch, the ruined ice cream, for example,” said Miss Phipps.

“Yes — and all the contents of our drama wardrobe wicker baskets tumbled about and creased,” added Mrs. Brooke.

“It is certainly difficult to reduce such varied incidents to any orderly motivation,” said Miss Phipps thoughtfully. “They appear to lack coherence.”

“There is no sense whatever in the incidents,” said the Headmaster warmly. “Stealing money and sweets is detestable, but at least it is understandable. But why upset poor old Pryce’s reports? Why ruin the ice cream? Why steal a watch you’d never dare to wear? Even supposing some items of the theatrical wardrobe have been removed, what could a boy do with period clothes?”

“And why pick up, then put back the baby’s rattle?” said Mrs. Brooke with a shiver.

“I own that perplexes me particularly,” said the Headmaster. “All the other incidents might be attributed to some form of malice — but to do any hanky-panky with a baby’s rattle seems — well, I confess I’m disturbed.”

“Yes, it is queer,” said Miss Phipps slowly. “To get to the truth in this affair, we must distinguish, I believe, between actions which accomplish their object, actions which failed or were left uncompleted, and actions which were merely incidental. Sometimes one can discover the motive for an action quite simply by considering its effect.”

“But what effect had the replacement of the rattle, in heaven’s name?” said the Headmaster impatiently.

“Ah, I think it didn’t have the desired effect,” mused Miss Phipps. “It was done too late — it was one of the failures.”

The Brookes gazed at her open-mouthed.

“Miss Phipps,” said the Headmaster at length, “you alarm me even more.”

“I think you have every right to be alarmed,” said Miss Phipps gravely. “I believe it would be well to summon Inspector Tarrant at once.”

“I’ll ring him up immediately,” said the Headmaster, starting toward the telephone.

The Brittlesea police station said that Inspector Tarrant was engaged in conference with the Governor of the County Gaol and could not be disturbed, but he would come out to Star Isle first thing next morning.

Miss Phipps wondered if that would not be too late...

First thing next morning, Miss Phipps was wakened by Mrs. Brooke, bearing a cup of tea in her hand and a look of disaster on her young face.

“The baby?” queried Miss Phipps in alarm, shooting upright. “Your husband?”

“No. Crawford.”

“You don’t mean his... er... being winded has taken a serious turn?”

“No. He was perfectly all right when Henry went over to see him late last night. No, it’s not that. He’s disappeared.”

“Disappeared? This is very serious indeed,” said Miss Phipps, throwing back the bedclothes. “What clothes has he disappeared in? He had pajamas and bedroom slippers and a dressing gown in the sanatorium, I suppose?”

“Yes. They’re all gone. But, oh, Miss Phipps,” said young Mrs. Brooke, weeping, “we’ve found them all on the beach just above high-water mark.”

“We must get Inspector Tarrant here at once,” said Miss Phipps. “I will dress instantly. How does your husband explain the matter?”

“He thinks Crawford must be responsible for all the strange things which have been happening this term—”

“Nonsense!” exclaimed Miss Phipps with vigor.

“—the poor boy must have had a breakdown from overwork.”

“Do you mean you think he has drowned himself?”

“That seems most likely. Or, of course, he may just have decided to take a swim in the middle of the night, being nervously unbalanced.”

“Preposterous! A boy who is head prefect, to break one of the strictest rules of the school! I don’t believe it,” said Miss Phipps. “Besides, my dear, consider. Crawford was in Chapel when the baby’s rattle was replaced. He was on the football field when the refrigerator door was opened.”

“He could have done the other things,” said Mrs. Brooke doubtfully.

“Yes. But not the rattle or the fridge. A problem is not solved unless the solution fits all the conditions.”

Mrs. Brooke’s face cleared a little. “I do so hope you’re right,” she said. “It would be terrible to have to tell his parents he was a thief. They were so proud of him.”

“Let us hope they will continue to be,” said Miss Phipps, energetically donning her dressing gown. “The tide is pretty high, I see, but on the ebb.”

By the time she was dressed and ready to go downstairs, Inspector Tarrant had arrived from Brittlesea. The large police car, she noticed from the staircase window, was standing in the gravel circle by the Headmaster’s terrace, with a plainclothes constable at the wheel. She entered the sitting room and found Dr. and Mrs. Brooke and Inspector Tarrant in grave consultation, with a sergeant taking notes.

“Dr. Brooke,” rapped out Miss Phipps sharply. “Is there a room available which does not look onto your terrace? Your study? Then please let us go there.”

The Headmaster colored a little at being thus ordered about in his own school, but said politely, “This way,” and led the party along a corridor.

“Meanwhile, John,” said Miss Phipps to Inspector Tarrant, “oblige me by summoning your constable indoors on some pretext.”

Inspector Tarrant raised his eyebrows.

“Have you some idea about this troubling affair?” he said.

“Yes. It may be wrong, but if it’s right, it will be much better for your constable to come in here for a few moments,” said Miss Phipps firmly.

Tarrant sent the sergeant on the errand.

“Now,” said Miss Phipps when they were all assembled, “as I said just now, my solution to this problem may be completely wrong. But it is worth trying. I write detective stories. One of my methods is to invent a series of strange incidents — at first sight, inexplicable — and then try to think out a set of circumstances which will explain them. That is what I have done here. I set myself to invent something or somebody that will explain every strange incident that has happened at Star Isle College.”

“And you have succeeded?” inquired the Headmaster, obvious irony in his tone.

“Yes,” said Miss Phipps with quiet confidence. “Here is the solution I have deduced. The thefts of food and money are easily explained by the presence of somebody on the College premises who is without resources. He is hiding here. He needs food. He needs money for later on — after he has escaped from the island. He needs a watch, so as to know when he may expect the various classrooms to be empty. He is a man, I think, belonging to a lower income bracket, for he is unaccustomed to refrigerators, he cannot drive a car or manage a boat. He likes the lighter forms of literature to read. He climbs in and out of the masters’ common-room, opening the window and upsetting poor old Mr. Pryce’s reports, on the chance that the masters have left some coffee over from their elevenses — something to drink during the day,” said Miss Phipps thoughtfully, “and even something to drink from, may well have been one of his most serious problems.”

“Why did he pick up the baby’s rattle?” said his wife.

“And why does he stay here?” said the Headmaster.

“How do you know he can’t drive a car?” said Tarrant.

“He is a small man,” continued Miss Phipps, “and Star Isle is an island.”

“For heavens’ sake, Miss Phipps!” exclaimed the Headmaster. “Please explain yourself.”

“The channel of water between Star Isle and the mainland,” said Miss Phipps, “is too deep to wade and too wide for any ordinary man to swim. Moreover, it has dangerous currents, and quicksands near the mainland shore. As I said, it must be postulated that this man cannot manage a boat. So how is he to get off the island?”

“How did he get on it in the first place?” asked Tarrant grimly.

“My dear John,” said Miss Phipps, delighted. “From the tone of your question I gather that my deductions are not totally wide of the mark. Am I not right?”

“Possibly,” said Tarrant. “But please answer my question. How did this man get on the island in the first place?”

“In the luggage compartment of a car, of course,” said Miss Phipps triumphantly. “He was a criminal, you see — a prisoner escaping from the County Gaol — and being hard-pressed by his pursuers he climbed into the trunk compartment of a temporarily unoccupied car. The car then moved off and came to this island. Imagine the poor little man’s horror when he cautiously peeped out, perhaps, and found himself on the ferry! The car brings him to the College. So here he is, with plenty of food in the kitchens, and money to steal for his needs to come — but in moderation, for he doesn’t want to excite suspicion while he’s here by taking too obviously or too much. Clothes from a heap of old wicker baskets would seem to him unlikely to be missed. He has a handy cave to hide in when it’s low tide, and the extensive College buildings to roam in at night. When the tide is high in the daytime, life isn’t quite so easy for him; it’s dark and damp and eerie in that inner cave, so he has to risk coming ashore in daylight. Naturally he’s anxious to get off the island and rejoin his friends. But how is he to get off the island? If he tries the ferryboat, there will be the ticket collectors to face, perhaps even the police. His best chance is to get off the same way he came on. So he is continually on the lookout for cars.”

“But all this doesn’t explain the baby’s rattle!” cried Mrs. Brooke.

“Yes, it does, my dear. The Bishop of Southshire preached here that morning, you said.”

“Yes, yes.”

“He came over in a car — a large car?”

“Yes!”

“He drove himself?”

“No — his young chaplain drove him.”

“Same thing from our point of view,” said Miss Phipps. “The chaplain attended the service in your Chapel, of course. The car stood unattended in the circle of gravel by your front door. The criminal approached. And then your baby dropped his rattle and began to cry. Now what happens when a baby cries?”

“One goes to the baby, of course,” said Mrs. Brooke.

“Exactly. So the criminal puts the rattle back in the pram to stop the baby crying — for crying is bound to bring someone to the pram, and he will be seen. But unfortunately — from his point of view — he is too late! You are already running down the stairs to your baby. The criminal quickly hides himself — it is touch and go, a matter of split seconds — so he has no time to open the trunk compartment.”

“Ah!” said Mrs. Brooke with another shudder. “To think of that odious little man being so near to the baby!”

“My dear,” said the Headmaster, “remember, this is all mere supposition. And how,” he added, turning to Miss Phipps, “does your theory explain the disappearance of poor Crawford?”

Miss Phipps shook her head gravely. “I’m afraid poor Crawford saw the criminal. You see, the Sanatorium has been empty save for the staff, hasn’t it? There have been no previous cases this term, you said, Headmaster. The criminal has been accustomed to regard the Sanatoium sickrooms as safe. Crawford saw him there.”

“The criminal ran off to the cave,” suggested the Headmaster, interested now in spite of himself.

“And young Mr. Crawford followed him,” put in Tarrant. “The tide would be at halfway.”

“The criminal knocked Crawford out and tied him up there.”

“But he knows he has to make a getaway before the next low tide, when Crawford, having recovered consciousness meanwhile, will come back and reveal the criminal’s presence.”

“So the escaped prisoner may make an attempt in your car, now that it’s unobserved,” warned Miss Phipps.

“Surely not in a police car,” objected Tarrant.

“None of you is in uniform,” said Miss Phipps. “He may not notice the small blue police sign. And besides, he is now desperately anxious to get off the island.”

“So all we have to do,” said Tarrant, smiling, “is to arrest Simthwaite in the trunk compartment of my own car—”

“Simthwaite!” exclaimed the Headmaster. “Who’s Simthwaite?”

“He’s a petty thief, a kind of cat burglar — he escaped from the Southshire County Gaol a few weeks ago,” began Tarrant.

“What!” cried the Headmaster. “Do you really mean there is such a man as Miss Phipps describes loose on the premises?”

The men were glaring at each other when suddenly all four of them hurled themselves from the room. Shouts and a high yell in an unfamiliar Cockney voice seemed to indicate that something exciting was taking place outside. The two women ran to the front door.

The trunk compartment of the police car stood open; half in, half out, a chubby, balding little man with the beginning of a fluffy beard, clad in a pair of tight black Victorian trousers and a frogged velvet smoking jacket, was just having handcuffs clasped on him by the sergeant, who had removed a watch from the thief s wrist to facilitate the operation.

“But what about poor Crawford?” cried Mrs. Brooke. “Has that little brute hurt him?”

“No, no, lady,” said the little man earnestly. “I ain’t ’urt ’im. Never no violence from Slippery Sim. Just knocked ’im out and left ’im in that inner cave — ’e’ll be as right as ram when the tide goes down. Shouldn’t wonder if ’e ain’t hollerin’ out there right now. I didn’t do no ’arm to your baby neither — just give ’im back ’is rattle. I didn’t wanter stay in your highfalutin’ College, I can tell you. I’ll be glad to see the back of it, and that’s the truth, lady.”

“Allow me to congratulate you, Miss Phipps,” said the Headmaster, shaking her hand warmly, “on an admirable piece of ratiocination.”

“Elementary, my dear Doctor,” said Miss Phipps, smiling brightly.