Faintley Speaking

Chapter Nine

MR BANNISTER

‘A Venus’ imp thou hast brought forth, so steadfast and so sage.’

nicholas orimald – A True Love

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Laura had had, during the night watches (for she was a person who required but an hour or two of sleep) what she thought was a very good idea. She drove into Kindleford, carried out Miss Golightly’s instructions, and then, armed with the invoices, drove to Miss Faintley’s aunt and asked permission to use Miss Faintley’s car. She explained that it would cause less comment at the Junction than if she went in her own.

The aunt was in bed, however, and had been in bed ever since the last visit of the police. She was prostrate with grief and worry, declared the daily woman. As to Miss Faintley’s car, that was in the garage in Long Hill Street, and the police had the key, and the woman could not go and worry Miss Faintley about it, nor with nothing else, for the matter of that. Prostrate she was, poor thing, and who could wonder at it?

Laura drove to the police station (she was, in any case, under Mrs Bradley’s instructions to acquaint Inspector Darling with the fact that she was going to Hagford to collect stock for the school), introduced herself and gave Mrs Bradley’s message and the information that she had tried to borrow Miss Faintley’s car and had failed. None of this appeared to interest Darling. He doodled idly on his blotting-paper while she talked and then said abruptly:

‘Very good, miss. We’ll make a note of it. You’ll be going straight back to the school with the parcel, I don’t doubt.’

‘I don’t see anything else to do.’

‘No, miss. Well,’ he looked up and smiled, ‘don’t go running into trouble. I hear you’re a teacher at the school now, taking Miss Faintley’s place. We had Mrs Bradley on the telephone last night. It appears pretty certain that Miss Faintley was expecting to speak to another member of the staff that night she spoke to Mr Mandsell. We could do with knowing who that teacher was, miss.’

‘I know. I’ll do my best to find out.’

‘It may not help us, of course. May just have been somebody who was willing to do Miss Faintley a favour. Still, it would clear up one small point for us, and every little helps. According to what Mrs Bradley found out from Miss Golightly, it couldn’t have been Mr Rankin. Not that I’d ever think it could be. I know Bob Rankin well. The last man on earth to get mixed up in any funny business. Bannister, too, is a very reliable chap.’

Laura’s brief acquaintance with Mr Rankin was sufficient to cause her to agree heartily with this point of view. In another two minutes she was in her own car and making for Hagford Junction. The journey took less than ten minutes, for the road was clear and fairly straight, and Laura pulled up outside the station entrance with no idea of how she was going to approach her real objective… the gaining of information about Miss Faintley and the parcels which had not been intended for the school.

The left luggage office was in charge of a round-faced, ingenuous-looking porter who was afflicted with stammering speech.

‘K-K-Kindleford Sc-Sc-School? I’ll s-s-see.’

‘Are you always in charge here?’ asked Laura, as she signed for three large packages.

‘Y-y-yes, of c-c-course I am.’

‘Liar!’ thought Laura, who had been told about the missing brothers Price.

‘Remember Miss Faintley who used to come here?’

The porter’s blue eyes bulged.

‘M-m-murdered on h-h-holiday?’

‘Yes. What about those other parcels she used to collect? You know, the ones that were addressed to her personally, and not to the school.’

‘Oh, them! Well, there’s one h-here, but it’s marked To Be Left Till Called For.’

‘Well, I’m calling for it,’ Laura said blithely. The detective fever she had experienced during her abortive inquiries in Torbury were fired afresh. She saw herself driving triumphantly back to the Stone House at Wandles Parva bearing a parcel which, when unwrapped by Mrs Bradley, would disclose the whole secret of Miss Faintley’s untimely death, the full villainy of Tomson, the identity of the men who had removed the case of ferns, and the entire foolishness of the novelist Geoffrey Mandsell.

But the porter, stammering and nervous, refused to consider the idea that Laura should make herself responsible for the parcel, and, as she was not in a position to compel him to part with it, she had to drive back to school with nothing but the three heavy packages of stock.

On the way she rang up Mrs Bradley and reported upon her failure to secure the private parcel.

‘I’m very glad you haven’t got it,’ said Mrs Bradley calmly. ‘Tell the police it is there. I don’t want you knocked on the head. Did you actually see it?’

‘Well, I think I know which it was. It was flat and rectangular, like a photograph or something.’

With considerable chagrin Laura rang up the police station, but it appeared that the stammering porter had been before her. He had reported that a woman teacher had called for the school parcels and that she had tried to get hold of one to which she was not entitled. A police car had already gone to Hagford. Laura was thanked for her telephone message. She returned to school, thoroughly disgruntled.

‘Takes you some time to get to Hagford and back! Car have a breakdown?’ Miss Cardillon inquired at break.

‘No. Dumped the stock and went off on a toot.’

‘Miss Golightly was rather upset. Sent a couple of kids to search the place for you. Faintley used to get back in under the hour. What have you been a-doing of? Did you get lost, or something?’

‘I’ve been to telephone, that’s all.’

‘Well, silly, there’s a telephone in the staff-room. Why on earth not pop up and use that?’

‘Somebody would have been in there marking books or a couple of kids getting coffee ready.’

‘Oh, yes, there’s always that snag. Oh, Lord! It’s time already! These breaks don’t seem to last any time at all. Coming out to lunch again to-day?’

‘Yes, of course. I say, some time or other, tell me a bit about Miss Faintley. The luggage clerk at the station… well, at the left luggage office… mentioned her when I picked up the stock.’

‘Faintley? You’d better ask Batt. She knew her better than anyone, except perhaps Franks. What did the porter say?… Naturally, we’ve all discussed the murder ad nauseam, and the thing is a complete mystery. According to the papers, robbery wasn’t the motive, but nobody can think of another. But come on. The lines will be leading in. I wish we could troop into school in a civilized sort of way, but Rankin won’t have it. Says the boys would create hell. In spite of a soft voice and respectable manners, he’s very much one of the old brigade and a bit of a martinet.’

‘ “The great thing for boys is discipline, sonny, discipline,’ ” quoted Laura under her breath. Miss Cardillon laughed and they went their ways. Four classes had games lessons that afternoon, so Laura was in a fine strategic position to inveigle Miss Batt into talking about Miss Faintley.

‘Yes, I shall miss her,’ said Miss Batt. ‘I do all the P.T. for the girls, but she used to help with the games. I’m jolly glad you’re able to step into the breach.’

‘What was she like?’ asked Laura. They were changing into shirts and shorts in the staff cloakroom, for Miss Golightly had arranged that the physical training staff should have a free half hour before they went on to the games field, where they were to spend the rest of the afternoon.

‘Like? Oh, I don’t know. Quiet and not exactly exciting. A good enough teacher, I suppose. Didn’t get on very well with the boys. She wasn’t much good at coaching hockey or tennis, either, but she volunteered to help in the games lessons because then she had only the girls. I don’t really know an awful lot about her, apart from that. I mean, we didn’t meet out of school.’

‘Did she quarrel with people much?’

‘You’re thinking about the murder. I keep on thinking about it, too. We all do, as I say. It’s a real mystery. I mean, one knows about these cosh gangs and awful people, but it doesn’t seem to have been that sort of thing at all. Not that the papers tell you much. If you ask me, the police haven’t a clue, but, of course, they won’t tell that to the reporters. As to quarrelling – no. She kept herself to herself, as they say.’

‘I suppose’ – Laura hesitated, but there seemed no necessity for finesse — ‘I suppose she wasn’t mixed up with a man?’

‘A man?’ Miss Batt looked up with a hockey boot still in her hand. ‘Good heavens, no!’

‘Not even somebody on the staff here?’

‘Well, you’ve met them all. Rankin, Trench and Tomalin are stodgily, respectably married, Taylor and Roberts share a flat and a housekeeper and care about nothing but making film-strips, Bannister is a complete woman-hater and lives for the holidays, when he goes off on his own and climbs down into potholes, and Fennison, my opposite number, is crazy about a girl called Penny Stretton who’s been steadily refusing him (or so he tells us) for the past three years, so he’s taken to table tennis and intends to win an open championship. Besides, if you’d only known Faintley…! She wasn’t any Cleopatra, I can tell you!’

She resumed her occupation of putting on her hockey boots.

‘Yes,’ said Laura, ‘it doesn’t sound like a crime passionel. Well, what are the alternatives?’

‘You tell me, while I recline on the sofa thing in the staff-room and put on a fag. We’ve all talked our hindlegs off about it. It just seems to be one of those things. A maniac, as likely as not. I don’t see any other explanation.’

‘Did she usually go on holiday alone?’

‘Was she alone, then? Nothing was said about that. I thought she barged about with an aunt? I know she lived with one, because she was always grousing about the aunt being extravagant with coal and electric light. Have one of these horrible fags. We’ve got plenty of time. I always give the kids ten minutes to get changed and serve themselves out with the hockey sticks and coloured bands. They make hell, but Miss Golightly can’t hear ’em!’

Laura enjoyed the rest of the afternoon. She was a good games player herself and a first-class coach. As soon as time was called, she went off to change, and, by good luck, ran into Miss Franks. Miss Franks was the art mistress. Her main emotional outlet was her bitter, unceasing warfare with Mrs Moles, the needlework teacher, for each thought that the other’s subject should be the inferior one. Miss Franks objected strongly to being commanded to improvise embroidery patterns on squared paper for the benefit of Mrs Moles’ decorative stitchery classes, and Mrs Moles considered all pure art, as opposed to applied art (i.e., embroidery and stencilling), to be a waste of time, materials, and effort.

‘I say,’ said Laura, ‘how did you and Miss Faintley correlate your subjects? As I’m taking her place I wondered whether you could give me a wrinkle or two about blackboard drawings and classroom posters and so forth.’

Miss Franks, who was a small, dark, volatile Jewess, shrugged and smiled.

‘I didn’t help Faintley,’ she said. ‘She was old-fashioned. I know what you want, though, and if you will let me send back Trumper if I have the feeling I cannot bear him any longer in my lesson, I will do the drawings for you myself.’

‘It’s a bargain. Thanks a lot. As for Trumper, I propose to deal with that youth in a manner which will stay with him for the rest of his days. He’s a prize toad, and no fate is too black for him. Send him back every time, and I’ll guarantee to make his life hell.’

‘Thank you very much. Would you like some drawings put up ready for to-morrow?’

During the ensuing forty minutes it turned out that although Miss Franks had never openly quarrelled with Miss Faintley, the budding friendship between them had withered and died.

‘Of course I am not Communist,’ said Miss Franks, ‘but who can expect I should be Nazi? Besides, she was wanting me to lend her money. Well, I am quite willing to be obliging, but to lend money to somebody older than yourself and higher up the scale of salaries, does it make sense?’

‘How much?’ asked Laura bluntly. Miss Franks looked at her appraisingly and decided to trust her.

‘Four hundred pounds,’ she said softly. ‘Four hundred beautiful pounds. I had not got it, and, even if I had —’

‘Oh, Lord! I quite agree,’ said Laura. ‘But why on earth did she want it?’

‘Some garbled story of the mortgage, but I found out she was not buying anything, only renting, do you see? So I said to myself that here comes something funny. So I don’t visit there any more. Anyway, only margarine on the bread, and nothing better than bloaters or a pot of shrimp paste for our tea. There, now.’ She stepped away from her work. ‘How does that do, would you say?’

‘Fine! Thanks a lot. I say, I couldn’t do anything like that in a hundred years! How would it be if I made some reason of my own not to send Master Trumper to you at all?’

‘That would not pass with Miss Golightly, but it is the kind thought that counts. He slings poster paint about and puts it on other children. He painted Annie Maggs blue last week.’

‘I’ll paint him black and blue,’ said Laura, on a note of sadistic enjoyment.

‘And that’s as far as we got,’ reported Laura that evening. ‘I don’t see what good I’m doing at the school, and it’s an intolerably lousy job. Thank goodness it’s only for a fortnight! I couldn’t stick a whole term.’

‘You don’t feel you have missed your vocation?’

‘No, I jolly well don’t! Look here, what is the explanation of that man who came out of the telephone-box that night when Mandsell agreed to collect the parcel? And why wouldn’t that porter give me one? Scared about the murder, I suppose.’

‘Ah, the parcel!’ said Mrs Bradley. ‘Yes. The police collected it, and Inspector Darling was good enough to call me up this afternoon and tell me what was in it.’

‘No! Say on! What is it that’s so fascinating about parcels?’

‘Their mysterious and secret nature. There was a statue in the parcel… a piece of plaster representing a slightly inebriated young gentleman in evening cloak and opera hat. When you are at school to-morrow I shall drive in to Kindleford, I think. There are three things I want to do. I want to see the statue and talk to the Inspector; I want to talk to Mr Mandsell, and I think I would like to visit the wicked shopkeeper.’

‘Too bad! And there shall I be teaching wretched kids about the lesser hogweed and the greater bladderwort! Our botany syllabus belongs to the age of faith and not of reason. In other words, it’s at least forty years out of date. I suspect that Miss Faintley botched it up from what she remembered of her own schooldays. You never knew such silly muck!’

‘Never mind. There is something else you can do. Find out, as circumspectly as possible, exactly which of the staff did, and which did not, put in an appearance at that end-of-term party. Somebody on the staff knows that Miss Faintley used to deliver those parcels, and I’d rather we found out than the police, and so would you.’

‘You’d be far better than I at that sort of game. Couldn’t we change places for the day?’

‘No. I have forgotten all I ever knew about the lesser hogweed. Besides, the Inspector won’t talk to you as he is going to talk to me. But be of good cheer! At the end of next week, unless our problem is solved, we are going back to Cromlech to continue our investigation from there.’

‘Lovely! All right, then. I’ll continue to wrestle with kids and conscience for another few days. I know now why T.G.I.F. is the harassed teacher’s favourite slogan! I wonder…’

‘Yes?’

‘I wonder whether Bannister could help us? He’s supposed to be a woman-hater, so he may have a line on Faintley that the others haven’t got.’

‘You could try, but I think the first step will be to establish which of the staff were and which were not at that end-of-term dance.’

‘All right. I can pump Cardillon on that. I’d have done it before, but she’s rather intelligent and I want to do it so that she doesn’t realize I’m pumping her. Any suggestions?’

‘Yes. Take her into your confidence if you discover that she herself was present the whole time at the dance. If she was not, she won’t be of very much help. She may, however, be able to tell you of somebody who was there the whole time.’

Laura tackled Miss Cardillon on the following morning before school began. She was lucky enough to find her alone in her classroom. It was a golden opportunity.

‘I say,’ she said, ‘when is half-term?’

‘I don’t know. We haven’t had the list round yet.’

‘I hope this isn’t a school where we’re expected to take parties of kids out, or run an Old Scholars’ evening, or something of that kind, in the half-term break?’

‘Oh, no. We have the Old Scholars twice… just before Christmas and at the end of the summer term.’

‘Does everybody turn up? I shouldn’t know any Old Scholars, you see.’

‘It’s optional… although, of course, Rankin does push it a bit to make sure that enough of us are here to make the thing go.’

‘How about you? Do you roll along?’

‘Oh, yes. It seems part of the job. We’re not asked to do much in the way of outside activities. Miss Golightly’s pretty reasonable like that, and I’m one of those who can be led but hates being driven, so I feel it’s the thing to show willing.’

‘Pity everybody doesn’t think the same, but my experience is that the willing horses always do the pulling for the slackers, especially in jobs like this.’

‘Yes, that’s pretty true. We don’t have much bother here, though. Miss Ellersby and Mr Trench are the only ones who never turn up to anything. She’s got an ancient father and he’s got an invalid wife, so we can’t say much, although we feel sometimes that their troubles aren’t really our business.’

‘Were they the only two who didn’t come to the end-of-term dance, then?’

‘Oh, well, except for Bannister. He never comes to dances. Says he hates them. Everybody else turned up either for the whole or part of the time, and on the evening in question Mrs Moles stayed on to help in checking the needlework accounts. But what’s all this in aid of? There’s something behind it. I’ve an instinct in these matters.’

‘Quite so. I’ll come clean on two conditions.’

‘This sounds interesting.’

‘It is. I’m not really a teacher, as you’ve probably guessed by now, although I was properly trained, but, before I say more, you’ve got to promise that not one word of this goes a step further… Miss Golightly knows it already, so that needn’t trouble your conscience… and, then, you’ve got to give me the names of at least two people who can swear that you were here the whole evening at that dance.’

‘Heavens alive! It sounds like a spy story!’

‘That’s just what it may be. I’m not, as I say, quite what I seem.’

‘Well, of course, I won’t breathe a word, and, as for the witnesses, well, Batt, Fennison, and I were running the thing, so we could all swear to one another. Then Welling, as cookery teacher, was in charge of all the refreshments, so she, and her helper, Franks, would have been on the premises all the time, too, if that’s any good to you. And now, do relieve my curiosity or I shall burst! It’s about Faintley, isn’t it? Are you a female sleuth? I don’t believe it!’

‘I am and I’m not.’ Laura gave a full account of how she and Mrs Bradley had first become involved in Miss Faintley’s affairs, and she had only just finished when it was time to go to her classroom. She was delighted, however, with the information she had received. It seemed that most people on the staff could be written off so far as the telephone call was concerned. Of the others, it was in the highest degree unlikely that the plump and shrill-voiced Miss Ellersby, the rather unsuitable music specialist, could have impersonated a man, so Laura decided that she also could be passed over. There remained, as possible, collaborators with Miss Faintley over the affair of the parcels, Messrs Taylor, Roberts, Bannister, Trench, and Tomalin. Therefore it had been a real man, and not a masquerading woman, who had walked away from the telephone on the night when Mandsell had taken the call intended for somebody else… not that Laura had ever thought otherwise. One thing only nagged at her. She felt that if Miss Faintley had expected to hear the voice of a colleague, she must have been surprised when Mandsell answered, particularly as he had made several attempts to explain that he was not the person who had arranged to take the call.

The surprise of the day was to come. Just after the mid-morning break a girl came in with a note. Laura opened it and read:

Can you go out to lunch to-day? Something important.

H.H.T.

Laura recognized these initials as those of Mr Tomalin. Full of zeal for her task, she decided at once that he had something to contribute about Miss Faintley, so she scribbled at the bottom of the note:

Many thanks. See you at 12.15. L.M.

She felt contrite. Obviously she had misjudged Mr Tomalin. He must be much more intelligent and perceptive than she had supposed. He had tumbled to the reason for her presence at the school and was prepared to offer important information. It was in the friendliest spirit that she greeted him after morning school.

‘Oh, yes,’ said Tomalin, shortly, ‘but it isn’t me, of course. It’s Bannister. I said I’d ask you on his behalf. He wouldn’t ask you himself in case you refused.’

Laura laughed, and said she never refused an invitation to eat. Three minutes later the misanthropic Mr Bannister was blurting out that he thought they had better go to Hagford. ‘If you don’t mind using your car,’ he concluded. ‘That would give us nice time.’

‘I’m going to drive, then.’

‘Oh, yes. I can’t, anyway. It’s like this,’ he went on, when they were in the car and Laura was on the straight road for Hagford, ‘I’ve been thinking about that woman Faintley and I want to give you a bit of advice, if you wouldn’t think it cheek. Anyway, I felt I ought to warn you that she wasn’t everything she seemed, not by a long chalk, either. Don’t you go getting mixed up in her affairs. If the school stock has to be called for at Hagford station, you let somebody else call for it. I don’t like to see a young girl taking risks, if you don’t think it impudent to say so.’

‘To begin with,’ said Laura, ‘I’m not my own idea of a young girl. But, be that as it may, I’m glad you’ve mentioned Miss Faintley and the parcels, because I had an idea that Miss Golightly was a bit diffident about my going and getting them. Actually it was rather nice, because of getting the time off from school. But what do you mean about taking risks? It was nothing to do with the school stock that Miss Faintley got killed.’

‘Not to do with the school stock, no. But that wasn’t the only thing she used to collect from Hagford Junction, you know. Turn left here. We’ll go to the Crown. It’s quite the best pub for lunch. I do hope you don’t mind my inviting you out? I know you usually go with some of the women, which would naturally be more fun for you than this, but I didn’t see any chance of talking to you at school. Well, here we are. It’s all right to park outside.’

He took her into the saloon bar, and asked what she would drink.

‘Mustn’t be long,’ said Laura, accepting sherry and glancing at her watch.

‘It’s all right. I booked a table on the off-chance that you would come, and Williams knows me. He’ll see we get served nice and quickly. Now, look, this woman Faintley. I happen to know that she used the school parcels to cover another activity. I found it out by accident one day last term. A boy, fooling about while I was out of the room, got a jab with the point of a compass. It was so near the eye that Miss Golightly thought I’d better take him over to the hospital. On the way back by myself I saw Miss Faintley get out of her car and go with a parcel into a small shop. She didn’t see me because I was behind her. I glanced into the shop as I passed it, and there was rather an unsavoury specimen behind the counter who was shelling her out some pound notes. Just as I glanced in he leaned across and gave her a ringing slap in the face. I didn’t like that much, so I charged in and bellowed at him. But Faintley wasn’t grateful. She said, “Don’t interfere in family disagreements,” but I said I didn’t like to see women knocked about, even by their fathers. The chap turned suddenly very civil and said he did not often lose his temper with his niece, and he asked me whether I was a master at the school, and Miss Faintley told him I was, and invited me to go back with her in her car. As we were driving back she begged me not to mention that she had called to see her uncle, as she was out on school business and had had no business to have gone into the shop at all. I promised, of course, but I wasn’t satisfied. I couldn’t believe that he was her uncle, so, on the quiet, I made a few inquiries. The police superintendent is by way of being a pal of mine. He said the police suspected this shopkeeper… Tomson his name is… of being a burglars’ fence. It didn’t square at all with what I knew about Faintley, and then, of course, she got murdered. As soon as I heard about that, I went to the police station and told them about this parcel and pound note business, but it was too late to do any good, of course. Still, when I found that you’d been sent to the station for the goods, I thought it was very unfair if you got let in, unknowingly, for anything fishy, so I thought I’d like to tip you off, so to speak. Any more sherry? Then perhaps we’d better go in.’

Laura enjoyed the lunch. It became more and more apparent that Mr Bannister, far from being a woman-hater, was simply and solely terrified of the whole sex. He was obviously chivalrous and kindhearted, and she began to like him and to hope that her suspicions about him were unfounded.

‘I suppose,’ he said hesitantly, when they were on their way back to school, ‘you wouldn’t care to come out with me on Saturday? We could walk over the hills, if you liked, and have tea somewhere, and perhaps have a bit of dinner afterwards and do a film. There’s quite a decent one this week over at Dashford Mills, and the kids don’t get out as far as that on a Saturday night, so there wouldn’t be any comment.’

‘I know a scheme worth two of that,’ said Laura, suddenly inspired. ‘You come and stay with us for the weekend. You’ll like my boss, I know.’

‘Your boss?’

‘Yes. Miss Faintley was not all she seemed, and I’m not, either. Will you come to Wandles Parva and make the acquaintance of Mrs Lestrange Bradley?’

Before she drove back that evening she telephoned her employer: ‘Bringing home suspect number one. Kill the fatted calf. He stood me a very good lunch to-day in Hagford. There’s something up his sleeve which I expect you’ll find some way of shaking down. He told me a most unlikely yarn about himself and Faintley. I’m dying to know the truth about him. It’s Bannister.’

‘Mr Bannister?’ Mrs Bradley replied. ‘You have indeed done well. Do you remember that I took Mark to visit Lascaux?’

‘Where the ferns grow?’

‘No, not ferns, but many more horses than the four horsemen of the Apocalypse ever dreamed of. Mr Bannister is well known at Lascaux. How lucky for me that I took Mark along with me that day!’

‘Kind hearts are more than coronets,’ said Laura ironically. She still did not believe that Mrs Bradley had had no ulterior motive in taking Mark to France.