Faintley Speaking

Chapter Seven

MISS GOLIGHTLY

‘Stern Pluto shall himself to mirth betake,

And crowned ghosts shall banquet for thy sake.’

shakerley marmion – Proserpine

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Laura knew her employer far too well to ask too many questions, but she turned over Mrs Bradley’s remark about caves and ferns, and light dawned.

‘You went inside that house yourself with the police, and spotted that case of ferns,’ she said at breakfast next morning. Mrs Bradley cackled at, but did not deny, this statement.

‘We must bring our holiday to a close,’ she remarked. ‘There are various people we ought to see and various things we ought to do before we come back to Cromlech.’

‘We are coming back, then? I rather hoped we were. We’ve had less intriguing cases than this one. Ferns!’ She brooded, visualizing them growing. There was an old lady in her home town who kept the front-room window full of them to make a screen so that she could peer out but the passers-by could not peer in. There were harts-tongue ferns, shining in the Devonshire rain; ferns under dripping cascades in the north from which Laura came; ferns in damp woods; bracken fronds (not, she supposed, true ferns) in the New Forest clearings, on the sandy wastes around Sandringham, all over Surrey and Exmoor. The road from Porlock to Lynmouth was bordered with them. There were rare varieties of ferns much prized by collectors. There was maidenhair fern for bouquets or to put with carnations to make a spray for a dance frock. But all these ferns were living. They began in their infancy wrapped round by, curled up in, a sort of red-brown moss. They unfolded, prettiest before they reached maturity. They ate and drank and breathed and propagated their kind. There had been ferns before there were monkeys or men. There were ferns so tiny that only a botanist would find them; and there were ferns like trees – ferns as tall and as graceful as palms.

She found herself disliking ferns very much.

‘They’re sinister, aren’t they?’ she said aloud. Mrs Bradley cackled again, but did not answer the question. Instead she observed:

‘A letter from the Queen to play croquet.’

‘The Duchess in this case being –?’

‘Mark’s headmistress.’

‘Why her?… Oh, of course! The late Faintley’s boss. Don’t suppose she knows very much about her.’

‘We must leave no stone unturned —’

‘No avenue unexplored. Right-o. Are you coming back with me in the cruiser, or would you prefer to go by train? The weather’s cleared up again, thank goodness, so it ought to be quite a decent trip. To think, if it hadn’t been for that beastly rain, I could have got those two men identified! I’m sure they were up to no good.’

‘I always enjoy a sea-trip,’ said Mrs Bradley. ‘What a pity the boy’s mother was too nervous to allow him to join us! And don’t worry too much about the men. You certainly did everything you could, and even if you had seen their faces it is most unlikely that it would have helped.’

‘I suppose,’ suggested Laura, ‘it wouldn’t be a good idea to push along to that house again and have another look round?’

‘I hardly think so, child. The men have got what they wanted. They are not likely to take the risk of turning up there again, and you saw for yourself how little the house has to tell us. Until the men proved its value by removing it, there was nothing to suggest that the case of ferns had any significance. Now we know it has, and I am infinitely obliged to you for finding that out.’

‘You’d have found it out for yourself, later on,’ said Laura shrewdly. ‘I still don’t believe you flew to France just to find smugglers’ caves.’

‘Those were not smugglers’ caves, child, but I will admit that after I had been over that house (as you surmised) with the police, I had a long conversation over the telephone with the last known occupant of the house. I asked him what he had left behind, because it seemed inexplicable that he should have left one room more or less furnished.’

‘How did you get in touch with him?’

‘The police knew his name, of course, as the school had been advertised in all the local papers for miles around, and a scholastic agency soon put me upon his track. He replied that nothing had been left behind, so far as he remembered. Then I mentioned the case of ferns, but he was certain that the school had never possessed one. Interesting, is it not?’

‘Focus on ferns, as the B.B.C would say. But why France? We deduced you must have got hold of some information, or else had the whale of a hunch.’

‘I thought Mark would like the trip, child.’

Laura looked at her suspiciously.

‘Now stop pulling my leg,’ she said, ‘and come and help me overhaul the gear.’

‘No. You go and see to the boat. I’ll pack,’ her employer replied. ‘We must be off betimes in the morning.’

‘For me as well? You’re an angel. Celestine packed for me coming down. If she hadn’t I should have brought about half the things I did bring. I can’t think how she gets what she does into a suitcase. A cabin trunk wouldn’t contain it all if I did the packing!’

It was not a long run from Cromlech to the Hamble River, and the early morning was ideal. The cruiser bounced and nose-dived, flung up spray, and spread a fantail of foaming wash behind her. It was an exhilarating trip. It also seemed a long way from the magic caves of Lascaux, Mrs Bradley reflected – about forty thousand years, in fact.

‘There we are,’ said Laura, when she had brought the cruiser over from the Calshott side in order to get a good view of the buoy which marked the river entrance. She altered course from due north to north-east to follow the channel. It was not a tricky entrance, particularly on such a good day, but Mrs Bradley remained seated and silent whilst Laura performed the necessary manoeuvres, for the river was popular with yachtsmen who had to be given right of way, and, at that time of year, it was crowded.

Skilful and careful, Laura came on past Warsash and Bursledon, and at last brought the Canto Five to her usual moorings.

‘There’s George with the car,’ she said when the cruiser was tied up. ‘Good. He can help with the luggage.’

The stocky chauffeur saluted them gravely, tucked them into the back seat, stowed away the suitcases and said, ‘The Lyndhurst road, madam?’

‘Yes, George. We want our lunch. Do you know where Kindleford is?’

‘I have heard of it, madam. I will look it up on the map. The papers have made an interesting thing of the case of Miss Lilian Faintley.’

‘Was her name Lilian? Oh, yes, I remember it was Lilian at the inquest. Are you acquainted with any headmistresses, George?’

‘Only with one, madam, and she, unfortunately, is no longer among us.’

‘Indeed? And who was that?’

‘The lady who directed my infant intelligence from the age of five until seven, madam. I had an immense passion for her. I may say, without offence, that, apart from my mother, she is the only woman I have ever really loved.’

‘Present company excepted,’ said Laura, with a mischievous grin.

‘Naturally, miss,’ agreed the chauffeur with unimpaired gravity.

‘I’ve never taken the micky out of George yet,’ said Laura regretfully, as they drove off towards the green tunnels and sunny heaths of the New Forest. ‘Do you suppose he ever laughs?’

‘I have known him to do so once, many years ago, when a man laying down the law to him on the subject of types of cars, slipped and fell backwards into a tub of swill.’

‘I’d like to have been there. When do we pursue this headmistress at Kindleford school?’

‘Mark tells me that the school reopens on Wednesday – that is, to-morrow – so there is little doubt that Miss Golightly will be there preparing for the new school year, and we should be able to obtain a comparatively uninterrupted interview with her if we set off directly after lunch.’

‘She will bless us! Still, that can’t be helped. What part, if any, do I play?’

‘Time will show, child. Look! Quite a number of New Forest ponies! I owned one when I was a child.’

Laura glanced at her. She found this sudden change of subject disquieting. She said, ‘Did you?’ in a non-committal voice and changed the subject herself.

‘Are you going to the Kindleford police, as well as to Miss Golightly?’

‘Yes, I am. Some interesting news came through from them to the Inspector who is investigating the death at Cromlech. It seems that a certain Mr Mandsell, an impecunious author —’

‘Aren’t they all?’

‘I imagine so… went to the Kindleford police as soon as he read about the murder, and told them a rather interesting story which may have considerable significance. It appears that this Mr Mandsell took, on a public telephone, a call from Miss Faintley which, it had clearly been arranged, was to have been picked up by somebody else. The result was that Mr Mandsell, for a whim, went to a railway station, picked up a parcel and delivered it at an obscure and not too much above-board little shop in a back street. He had been told to ask for a receipt, forgot to do so, went back and was blandly informed that no parcel had been handed in.’

‘Very fishy. Whom did Miss Faintley think she’d been talking to on the phone? Did that come out?’

‘No, it did not, and the police have no clue to his identity. But for Mr Mandsell’s having picked up the call by mistake, they would not even know that this man existed.’

‘Mandsell may be lying?’

‘The Kindleford police do not think so. They have made inquiries, and there is no reason to doubt that he had never so much as heard of Miss Faintley before. My own view, from what little I know at present, is that Miss Faintley’s correspondent was one of the men teachers at the school.’

‘A teacher? What makes you think that? Teachers, on the whole, are not given to mixing themselves up with fishy parcels and grimy, two-purpose little shops, are they?’

‘No, decidedly they are not, but one or two things in Mr Mandsell’s evidence struck me as pointers to Miss Faintley’s collaborator. First, although there was this arrangement to call some man up on a public telephone at a given time —’

‘You’d think it would have been more practical for him to have called her up, under those circumstances, wouldn’t you?’

‘You certainly would… but I’m coming to that. It all fits in with my theory that he was a teacher. Well, now: Miss Faintley lived with an aunt in this little provincial town of Kindleford, but we know from the police that the aunt’s house is not on the telephone. Therefore, wherever she was, Miss Faintley was not at home when she spoke to Mandsell. The time, incidentally, was round about nine in the evening. All the shops, including the post office, were shut, and had been, all the afternoon.’

‘Yes, she must have been at school,’ said Laura, ‘but wasn’t it rather late in the evening for that?’

‘It was the end of the term, remember. It is likely that some festivity was going on… a tennis dance, perhaps. It is a mixed school with a mixed staff, you see.’

‘Oh, yes. And that would account for her having never known when she was likely to be interrupted on the telephone, I suppose.’

‘Then, there were references to people being about in the vestibule.’

‘Yes, that does, perhaps, sound rather schooly. Oh, but, look here, if you’re right, it ought to be easy enough to find out who her correspondent was supposed to have been! If there was a dance on, or some other school function, you’d only have to check with the staff to find out which master wasn’t present. I mean, whoever he is, he must know by now that Miss Faintley was murdered, and he must be guilty of the murder, I should say, or he’d have come forward by this time.’

‘That last is not a warrantable assumption. He may be abroad for his holiday and, if so, he may not have seen the London papers. But you are right to suggest that we may be able to discover his identity by checking whether he was present or not at the school on that particular evening.’

‘Of course, he may not be one of the masters. I still think that.’

‘I think he is. If Mr Mandsell reported the conversation correctly, the woman’s voice told him that it was Faintley speaking. He, quite naturally, thought she was using the adverb “faintly” and assured her that her voice was not faint! But you see what the implication is?’

‘Just giving her surname, you mean? Yes, most women put Miss or Mrs in front if they don’t give their Christian name, don’t they?’

‘Yes, that is the whole point! She did not put anything in front of her surname until he misunderstood, therefore it is almost certain that she was talking to someone to whom habitually she was known as Faintley, and not as Miss Faintley. That surely suggests a colleague. The only other kind of person who calls women by their surname is the employer of a domestic servant, and that, in the case of Miss Faintley, would scarcely apply —’

‘Unless the parcel was part of a dark and criminal deed, and Miss Faintley was, although not a domestic, definitely the servant of the man she thought she was speaking to.’

‘Quite true, but the school is the likeliest and certainly the easiest starting-point for our investigations in Kindleford, and Miss Golightly is the person to tackle. As I say, she is almost certain to be on the premises, for there is always much to be done when the school year opens.’

‘It’s bound to be a nasty sort of place,’ said Laura, wrinkling her nose, ‘and she’s certain to be busy, she won’t thank us for calling, will she? I wonder how much she’s upset about Miss Faintley’s death?’

They made the cross-country journey by car, with Laura driving. The school, which was well away from the centre of the town, looked pleasantly clean and modern and was surrounded by gardens and its own playing-fields.

Butters, the caretaker, whom Darling had already interviewed, was superintending the unloading of coke for the school furnaces when Mrs Bradley and Laura arrived.

‘Did you want someone?’ he asked warily, for it was not unknown for the myrmidons of the Education Office to descend upon the school with extraordinary queries and sheaves of official forms just when the head teacher was busiest. ‘And don’t stick that next load down there, mate,’ he added to one of the coalmen. ‘That there’s a means of egress, if you don’t mind me pointing it out, and if you goes and blocks it all up —’

‘I would like to speak to Miss Golightly,’ said Mrs Bradley. ‘Will you kindly direct me to her room if she is in the building? My name is Lestrange Bradley.’

‘Very good,’ said Butters. He led the way along a short stone corridor and into a cool, dim vestibule. ‘That there’s her door. You have to knock and then wait for the buzzer.’

Mrs Bradley carried out these instructions and the buzzer’s discourteous invitation took her into Miss Golightly’s presence. The headmistress was tall, spare and extremely well dressed. She gave an immediate impression of stonyhearted efficiency, her armour, Mrs Bradley supposed, against a world less sensitive than herself.

‘Good morning,’ she said, looking from Mrs Bradley, small, alert and elderly, to Laura, big, well-built and youthful.

‘I have come for some information about the late Miss Faintley, who, I believe, was on the staff here,’ Mrs Bradley began.

‘Miss Faintley’s case is in the hands of the police and they have already been to the school, I understand. May I ask for what purpose you require information about Miss Faintley?’

‘Certainly. I am consulting psychiatrist to the Home Office, and there are certain aspects of Miss Faintley’s case which I find interesting and which the police are willing that I should investigate.’

‘Yes, I see. Won’t you sit down? Excuse me just a minute.’ She went out of the room and closed the door behind her.

‘Gone to her secretary’s room to use the other phone and dig up our reputations,’ prophesied Laura. ‘Sensible woman, that. Tactful, too. Don’t want to hurt our feelings.’

‘No. And now you’d better leave me alone with her, I think.’

‘Right,’ agreed Laura cordially. ‘I’ll go and stroll round the games field. It comes to me with a blast like the crack of doom that I shall find myself on the staff here very shortly!’ She cocked an inquiring eye at Mrs Bradley. ‘Is that what you were thinking as we came home?’

‘I don’t know yet,’ her employer answered. ‘It depends upon what I learn about Miss Faintley to-day.’ She waved Laura out into the sunshine and took stock of the room while she awaited Miss Golightly’s return.

This was somewhat delayed. When the head teacher reappeared she apologized briefly for leaving her visitor alone so long.

‘It wasn’t that I doubted you at all, of course, but I get such a number of what I can only feel are casual callers, that I don’t really want to waste time on those who don’t matter.’ She smiled to take the sting out of this home-truth, but Mrs Bradley expressed entire agreement, and plunged straightway into business.

‘This, of course, is a co-educational school,’ she said. ‘May I ask whether the late Miss Faintley had any particular friends among the men on your staff?’

‘So far as I am aware she had not. In fact, as soon as I received the news of this dreadful business I sent to Mr Rankin, my first assistant, to ask him the very same question. His reply is here. It came by the next morning’s post.’

‘What made you send to him, I wonder?’

‘I wanted to be prepared for eventualities. I was naturally deeply shocked to learn what had happened, and I realized that the school was bound to be involved. I have noticed that when a woman is found murdered for no apparent reason, the police ask first whether she had any men friends. I have also noticed,’ she added tartly, ‘that the dead woman never seems to have heard of such creatures as men!’

‘Indeed, yes,’ agreed Mrs Bradley. ‘And Mr Rankin’s letter?’

‘Ah, yes. Here it is.’ Miss Golightly produced a letter post-marked Torquay. Mrs Bradley thanked her and opened the envelope.

‘I am most upset,’ Mr Rankin had written in a plain, unscholarly hand, ‘but can offer no suggestions. Our unfortunate colleague had no entanglements, so far as I am aware, but you will appreciate that her private life was a little outside my scope. As her death occurred on holiday there is every chance that the excitement will soon die down. It would be very bad for the school if it did not. But I really think we need not worry too much, particularly as it all took place such a distance away from Kindleford.’

‘It did not take place at such a very great distance away from Mr Rankin’s holiday address,’ said Mrs Bradley. Miss Golightly looked at her very sharply.

‘I hope you are not thinking along those sort of lines,’ she said firmly. ‘I assure you that Mr Rankin is the best of husbands and fathers, and is the last man on earth to entangle himself on holiday, or at any other time, with the women teachers!’

Mrs Bradley nodded. ‘I was merely remarking on a coincidence,’ she said. ‘What can you tell me about a boy of thirteen named Street? He attends this school, I believe.’

‘Street? Mark Angus Street? Why, certainly he does. His father is an accountant, and quite comfortably off as our parents go. Mark is an intelligent but somewhat indolent boy. We are hoping he will wake up later and do well. He is between thirteen and fourteen and in the A stream of his year. What did you wish to know about him?’

‘He stayed at Miss Faintley’s hotel in Cromlech. He was taken by her (at her suggestion) to visit the cathedral city of Torbury, but he lost trace of her there and was present when her body was discovered by my secretary at the top of Cromlech Down.’

‘Really? I had no idea of this!’

‘No, the boy’s name was kept out of the papers. He was not the person who actually discovered the body, and it seemed much better not to involve him.’

‘That was extremely thoughtful. Have you seen the boy?’

‘Yes, indeed. My secretary and I were staying at the same hotel as the Streets and Miss Faintley herself, although I never saw Miss Faintley alive.’

‘Oh, I see! No wonder you are interested in the case.’

‘Yes.’

‘That would seem to make a difference, Mrs Bradley, of course. I wonder how best I can help you?’

‘By allowing me to ask you one more question. I don’t think for a moment that you will be able to answer it, and it is highly confidential, if you don’t mind.’

‘I am accustomed to regarding myself as a repository of secrets,’ said the headmistress with a smile.

‘I expect you are. Well, then, do you happen to know whether Miss Faintley was in the habit of collecting parcels from Hagford railway station?’

‘In the habit? That is a little too sweeping. She always collected the school stock from there.’

‘But you have a station here, haven’t you?’

‘Yes, but Hagford is a big junction and we are only on a small branch line, and, after some very important material went hopelessly astray once, it was decided that we would leave it at Hagford luggage office and collect it at our convenience. It helps at holiday times, too, if we know it’s safely stored and just waiting to be picked up.’

‘And Miss Faintley was the collector?’

‘Yes. It should be the caretaker’s job really, but he has nothing but his bicycle, which isn’t any good for the size and number of the packages we get — stationery for the whole school, text-books, art, craft and needlework materials, new hockey sticks by the dozen, and so on – so Miss Faintley, who had her own car, used to act as school carrier. I think the fact that she used to make the journeys in school time made attractive what might otherwise have been a tiresome business. Sometimes she would make the trip three or four times in a single morning, and so, of course, be freed from her classes.’

‘That is extremely interesting.’

‘I suppose I mayn’t ask what makes it interesting?’

‘Why not? You have agreed to be discreet, and, besides, as we are to collaborate, I will be as frank with you as the police case will permit.’ She gave Miss Golightly a concise account of the story told to the police by young Mr Mand-sell. ‘And now you see why I asked you whether Miss Faintley had any particular men friends on your staff,’ she said in conclusion.

‘As to that, neither Mr Rankin nor I seem able to help you. But when school reassembles you had better come along and talk to some of the women on the staff. They will know. And that reminds me of the gap that hasn’t been filled yet – and won’t be until the next meeting of the Staffing Committee.’

‘Miss Faintley’s post, of course. What did she teach?’

‘Nature study to the younger classes and she helped with the girls’ games.’

‘Could you arrange for my secretary to take the post for a couple of weeks? Miss Menzies was trained as a teacher.’

‘I should be very glad to have her. It would tide us over nicely. I’ll ring the office at once and let them know. They’ve already told me they can’t promise me a Supply, so, if Miss Menzies could cope, that would —’

‘Kill two birds with one stone.’

‘Yes, yes, of course.’ But the headmistress did not look happy. ‘I deprecate the choice of metaphor.’

‘I wonder,’ remarked Mrs Bradley conversationally, ‘what school gathering was being held here at the end of the term?’

‘Gathering? Oh, the Leaving Dance, you mean! We hold it at the end of the summer term and invite old scholars, the staff past and present, and the two top forms. It is quite informal.’

‘Yes. Do all the staff turn up?’

‘I have no idea. I’m always extremely busy at the end of the term and although I pop in now and again because the old scholars sometimes like a word and because the children are disappointed if one does not sample the cakes and lemonade, I never inquire who is there or who is not. There is no obligation to attend, as it is not an official school function.’

‘Would Mr Rankin know who was there?’

‘This year Mr Rankin and Mrs Moles were in here with me checking the stock lists and the needlework accounts. They did go into the hall two or three times, but I doubt whether either of them would know whether the whole staff was there. People drift in and out, you know, come late, go early – that sort of thing. It would be difficult to keep a check, particularly as the hall was crowded. The dance is popular with Old Scholars, and then there were fifty boys and girls there as well.’

‘In your opinion, could Mr Rankin have left the building long enough to get to the Park Road telephone-box and back?’

‘Definitely not. It takes twenty-five minutes of brisk walking to get to Park Road from here, and the telephone is half-way down – say another six or seven minutes’ walk – and he possesses neither car nor bicycle.’

‘Thank you. That is most helpful. Was the staff-room in use during the evening?’

‘Oh, yes, of course. There is the cloakroom question, for one thing. And, then, I usually have some special sandwiches and some coffee prepared for the staff. Many of them do not care about cakes and lemonade, and, in any case, need a respite from the revels!’

‘And there is a telephone in the staff-room?’

‘Yes, there is. The Education Committee were not at all co-operative over that, but I insisted. I was not going to have my teachers feel that I did not trust them to put in their threepences without being watched by me! You would be astonished, Mrs Bradley, at the indignities which certain members of local councils will put on their teachers unless the interests of those teachers are closely watched. “A telephone in the staff-room,” I said, “or this is the very last time I make use of mine, and then you will have to write me letters about every little thing.” Hard luck on the office, of course. It was not their decision. However, I obtained their co-operation and the staff obtained their telephone, so that was that.’

‘Admirable!’ said Mrs Bradley. ‘Would you be surprised to learn that Miss Faintley may have made the journeys to bring back the school stock a cover for less reputable activities?’

Miss Golightly looked troubled but not surprised.

‘I had never thought of such a thing, naturally,’ she replied, ‘I trust my staff implicitly. One must. But the news of her death has been so disturbing, and the reason for it so mysterious that I am prepared to believe almost anything of her now. You mean that she was not necessarily an innocent victim? There were… reasons for her death?’

‘It begins to look like it. She is known to have taken parcels from Hagford to a small shop kept by a man named Tomson, who does not appear altogether to be persona grata with the police.’

‘Oh, dear! This is worse than I thought. It will be very bad for the school if all this comes out, as I suppose it is bound to do.’

‘I don’t know. Miss Faintley may have been a cat’s-paw. That is the theory at present.’

‘Then it doesn’t say much for her brains and character. Well, as I cannot be of further assistance…’

She smiled, to terminate the interview, and opened the door. Mrs Bradley collected Laura and informed her of the fate in store.