Laurels Are Poison

Chapter 10

THE FLYING FLACORIS

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‘We’ve traced her movements over the week-end, madam,’ said the inspector, ‘and although we can’t find anybody who actually saw her enter the College grounds, she was seen, acting in a furtive manner, between the two stiles leading to the backs of your five houses of young ladies. That was at half-past nine on Monday evening. She was seen by Mr Titt, of the Watch Committee.’

‘I bet she was!’ said Miss Topas, when she heard this. ‘That man ought to be in prison!’

The two stiles referred to by the inspector were on College property. Behind the five Halls ran a drive, and behind the drive, and parallel with it, was a fairly high wall. Midway in this wall, and behind Beowulf Hall, there was a gap closed by a stile. A short footpath ran from this stile to another stile across a waste piece of ground used by the lecturers in botany as a kind of research-station for wild plants. The second stile was also set in a high wall, and beyond it stretched open fields which, in their turn, gave place to the moor. One of these fields was used by the College for hockey, but all the others belonged to farmers, and there was a right of way across to the College stile from the moorland highway, now an almost unused track since the stone-quarries there had been abandoned.

‘She went to Bradford,’ the inspector went on, ‘to her relations there. Respectable people; a man and his wife and three children. Nothing against them in any way. She stayed with them over Sunday, and then on Monday morning she told them she’d got a letter about a situation in York. They didn’t see any letter, but as she’d gone to the door herself to collect the post, they couldn’t question it.

‘And now, madam, comes a funny item. On Friday morning she went to the Post Office in Wantley — not here in the village, you’ll notice, nor anywhere near the College — and put fifty pounds into her Savings Bank account. Further to that, she put another fifty in on the Saturday before she visited her relatives, and not in Wantley this time, but in Bradford itself; and, even then, not at the branch office where her relations, living in the part they do, would be most likely to go. What do you make of that?’

‘At any rate, I know what you make of it, inspector,’ said Mrs Bradley. ‘She received half the payment before she performed some task, and the other half when the task was satisfactorily completed.’

‘Question is, what was she bribed to do?’ inquired the inspector. Mrs Bradley would have enlightened him if it had been in her power to do so.

‘A woman like Cook,’ argued Laura, ‘would have put her stays on, chance what.’

As there was no dissenting voice, she glared militantly round her small circle of listeners and then lit a cigarette and smoked it half through before she continued her argument.

‘So what do we get?’ she went on. ‘I’ll tell you.’’

‘Bad teaching, Dog,’ observed Kitty. ‘If you ask a question, you shouldn’t answer it yourself.’

‘I’ll tell you,‘ repeated Laura firmly. “”We get this: somebody drowns poor old Cook in the bath; the other servants, used to the goings-on of that idiot Cartwright, don’t take any notice; the body is then dried and clothed, but the murderer, like a chump, doesn’t put on the corsets.’

‘Why not?’ Kitty inquired.

‘Ass! Can you imagine Cook without them? I bet the murderer gave one goggle-eyed look at the mass of adipose tissue, then took a despairing flip at the corsets, decided two into one won’t go, and slung the corsets into the river after the body, never dreaming that they’d fetch up where they did. You see, allowing for drift, current, prevailing winds, seasonal variations, present height of river, mean annual rainfall and the character of the local vegetation, that garment ought to have floated down ever so much farther than the body; instead of which, it got caught in weed, and hardly drifted at all. So when the police found the body at Spot A, they didn’t bother too much to search the bank at Spots A minus x, x being the unrecorded distance between the bridge and the body. Do I make myself clear to the lower division of the class?’

‘You’re an ass, Dog,’ said Kitty.

‘I see what you mean. I wish I could work things out,’ said Alice.

‘Old Dog made up most of that,’ said Kitty. ‘What a hellish day Sunday can be. Let’s go out and sweat at something, shall we?’

‘Let’s go into the gym,’ suggested Laura, who was still childish enough to delight in forbidden pleasures.

‘May we?’ inquired Alice. Her friends regarded her anxiously, and Kitty felt her pulse.

Entrance (unofficial) to the gymnasium was gained by means of the gallery, for the wall-bars prevented ingress by the lower windows. It was not a difficult matter to obtain possession of the groundsman’s ladder, and Laura and Alice soon reared it against the gallery end of the building. The long windows of the gallery were always open, and even if the groundsman came up in search of his ladder and removed it, it was possible (for Alice, the most agile of the three, had tried it as a test exercise once, under the eye of the lecturer) to leave the building by one of the downstairs windows behind the wall-bars. It was tricky, and required, besides a certain amount of careful judgement, the sinuousness of a cat, a monkey or a little boy. Nevertheless, it could be done.

‘Better not make a row going in,’ said Laura, as they eyed the ladder before commencing the ascent, ‘because you never know when Miss Pettinsalt isn’t in there, having a private practice. I suppose these lecturers have to keep up to scratch, and maybe they find Sundays boring, too.’

She led the way, but, upon gaining the window-sill, she signalled the others to be silent. She herself stepped cautiously over the ledge, and made an almost soundless landing on the wooden boards which formed the gallery floor. There was certainly somebody practising in the gymnasium. If it was another student, they could proceed without fear, but if it should prove to be the india-rubber Miss Pettinsalt, then it would be better to give up the attempt and find some other way of getting through the day until tea-time.

She crept to the gallery rail. There was the performer; pretty agile, too, thought Laura, watching the smooth work and beautiful timing.

‘Golly, she’s pukka,’ she thought. She could not, however, recognize the figure, although Miss Topas would not have hesitated. It was not, at any rate, a lecturer. Laura crept back to the window and beckoned her henchmen to mount.

‘Somebody here,’ she whispered. ‘I don’t know who it is, but it ain’t Staff. You have a look, Alice. Don’t let her hear you, if you can help it.’

Alice went forward with the stealth usually associated with Red Indians, gave one glance, and then returned.

‘Oh, that’s Thingummy,’ she remarked. ‘Wizard, isn’t she?’

‘What, that —?’

‘It’s only that woman from Rule Britannia’s. The one at our Practice School. Cornflake. She looks different without her glasses.’

They watched Miss Cornflake as she finished her wall-bar exercises.

‘She’s coming up a rope,’ said Laura. ‘We don’t want to give her a fit of the vapours when she looks along and sees us all parked here like Tom Sawyer at the funeral. Might fall and break her neck. Better get on down.’

This humane suggestion was immediately carried out, so that when Miss Cornflake came level with the gallery it was empty, the Three Musketeers having descended by way of the staircase which came down at the left-hand side of the gymnasium.

Miss Cornflake did not notice them until she reached ground-level. Then her eyebrows shot up and her lip curled back like that of a snarling dog. Her whole demeanour thoroughly alarmed Alice, for whom the wrath of authority had always held that peculiar terror which is the hell of the law-abiding when, by chance, they fall from grace.

‘And what are you people doing here?’ demanded Miss Cornflake.

‘Well, I’m damned!’ said Laura, with a round frankness which astonished two of her hearers and was silently approved of by the third. ‘And who on earth might you be?’

Miss Cornflake was visibly taken aback by this spirited challenge. She appeared to be confused.

‘You startled me. You see, I haven’t permission to be here.’

‘Neither have we, so that’s all right,’ said Laura, climbing out of her skirt, beneath which she was wearing her gymnasium shorts. She climbed the rope which Miss Cornflake had just left swinging, slapped the metal fastening at the top, reversed slowly and gracefully and came down head-first until she was within five or six feet from the floor. Then she reversed again, and dropped to the floor.

‘Good,’ said Miss Cornflake, condescendingly. ‘Well, I’ll just have a short skip and a shower, and then I’m through. I take it you people don’t want your presence advertised?’

‘Up to you,’ said Laura coolly. ‘Our hands are clean.’

This odd expression appeared to disconcert Miss Cornflake. She opened her eyes wide, then opened her mouth as though to reply, but walked off, in the end, without a word. Laura, still holding the rope, gazed after her and watched her take a skipping-rope from the box under the gallery. Miss Cornflake, with lowered gaze, walked past her, and, going to the far end of the hall, began to skip to a measured rhythm and with the automatic concentration of an athlete in training.

Laura, without saying anything more, walked over to the ‘horse’ and began to push it out into the middle of the floor. Alice and Kitty went to her assistance. Miss Cornflake put back her skipping-rope and went off to have her shower.

Laura, however, was thoughtful. When she and her companions had taken their showers, put their towels in the drying cupboard, and gone back to Hall for tea, she would not listen to the chatter about her, but sat with hunched shoulders and ate large quantities of bread, butter and fish paste, obviously brooding so darkly that no one dared interrupt her thoughts.

At five she went abruptly to Mrs Bradley’s sitting-room and found Miss Topas there.

‘Come in,’ said the Warden’s exceptionally beautiful voice. ‘Ah, good afternoon, Miss Menzies! I hope you have come, as is meet, to confess your sins.’

‘Confess my — oh, you don’t catch me that way, Warden,’ responded Laura, grinning. ‘You name the sin, and I’ll confess it.’

‘Unlawful entry into the gymnasium by means of the groundsman’s ladder and by way of the gallery window,’ said Mrs Bradley, closing her eyes and reciting in a police-constable’s righteous but carefully expressionless voice.

‘Golly!’ said Laura, over-awed by this display of omniscience. ‘Anyway, Warden, it cuts the cackle, that’s one thing.’

‘You know,’ said Mrs Bradley, ‘you should not allow yourself to fall into Miss Trevelyan’s slip-shod methods of speech.’

‘I know. Never mind that now. Come back to it later. Warden, do you know anything about a Columba student named — although you won’t believe it — Cornflake?’

‘I’d like to,’ said Mrs Bradley. ‘Can you talk in front of Miss Topas?’

‘Yes, if you’ve no objection. Anyway, as she’s in Columba, perhaps Miss Topas ought to know. Mind, I’ve got nothing to go on, but these various little stunts which have cropped up from time to time during the term are obviously inside work, and, in my opinion, this bird Cornflake could bear watching. She isn’t what she seems. Moreover, she’s a red-hot gymnast, and can do all the things the average fly can do, and more. If she couldn’t oil into Athelstan, nobody could. Come over to the gym., if you don’t mind. There’s something I’d like to show you.’

Miss Topas supplied footnotes to Laura’s description of Miss Cornflake, and, when Miss Topas had gone, Laura said, a little shyly:

‘I say, I don’t want to put ideas into your head, Warden, but I wish you’d ask Miss Pettinsalt what she makes of our friend.’

‘Good idea,’ said Mrs Bradley, whose thoughts were moving even faster than Laura’s, for the reason that Miss Cornflake, if what she suspected was a fact, would make so complete a missing link that she seemed too good to be true. She rang up Bede, which had the honour, at that time, of Miss Pettinsalt’s company.

‘Out,’ said Mrs Bradley. ‘But it is only a pleasure deferred. We’ll get her later. Now, let’s have the rest of the information.’

‘Some of it’s in the gym. The rest isn’t information; it’s merely surmise. The three of us — as apparently you spotted from your window — got into the gym. this afternoon to do a turn on the ropes and rings, and this woman Cornflake was there.

‘Well, granted we may have startled her a bit, would you expect a student — even from Columba, where, granted, they’re all as old as the hills and most have done teaching before they came here — but would you expect the following?’ (Here she gave a passable imitation of Miss Cornflake’s tones and bearing.) ‘ “And what are you people doing here?” This, Warden, being said haughty, as indicated.’

‘Curious,’ said Mrs Bradley, her opinion crystallizing into certainty.

‘More than curious, Warden; a dashed give-away. What’s a Secondary School mistress doing at Columba? And a P.T. specialist at that? And why does she go about, according to Miss Topas, practically dumb and half-witted, and yet does that most amazing P.T. in School Prac.? Dirty work somewhere, Warden. That’s what I think.’

Mrs Bradley cackled, and suggested that they repair forthwith to the gymnasium.

‘But how are we to get in, if you haven’t a key?’ demanded Laura. ‘And that’s another thing. How did that blighter get in? Because we had the only ladder. Likewise, how did she get out? These are deep waters, Warden.’

‘You certainly seem to be up to the neck in them,’ Mrs Bradley remarked, with a chuckle. ‘Let us go across to Bede Hall, and see whether Miss Cornflake did not borrow a key.’

‘She said she was there without permission.’

‘Ah, well, there are ways and other ways of borrowing, are there not?’

‘If that’s a dirty dig, Warden, then I’m justified in saying I don’t know.’

‘Touché,’ said Mrs Bradley, with a polite grin. ‘By the way, I may have to commit assault and battery on Miss Cornflake. There might be some point in having witnesses. Bring Miss Boorman and Miss Cartwright.’

‘Not Miss Trevelyan?’

‘Not Miss Trevelyan. She is one of my favourite students, but she has little or no discretion.’

‘Has Cartwright, then?’

‘Miss Cartwright’s standing with the Principal is, fortunately, so questionable that I can terrify her into silence,’ replied the Warden, with a leer of evil joy.

‘Hot dog, Warden!’ said Laura; and went to beat up the escort.

‘But why not me?’ wailed Kitty.

‘You’ve got the morals of a sieve,’ responded Laura. ‘At least, that’s what she said.’ Leaving her friend to fathom the implication of this allusion, she took the meek but excited Alice in tow, and went off to find Miss Cartwright

That amphibious lady was lying on her bed, smoking and reading. She rose with alacrity, and put on her frock, a coat and some shoes.

‘What’s she want me for?’ she asked.

‘Spot of bother about the gym.’

‘Nothing to do with me. Hate the place, anyway. Why should she pick on me?’

‘How should I know? She merely sent me to find you.’

Miss Cartwright’s anxieties were not diminished when the party, instead of bearing south-west towards the gymnasium, turned due east for Columba. Mrs Bradley had vouchsafed no explanation, and offered none as they walked along, herself and Laura in the lead, Miss Cartwright and Alice following.

‘Miss Cornflake?’ said the Warden of Columba. ‘I’ll send for her at once. I expect she’s in her study-bedroom.’

‘Look here, Warden,’ said Mrs Bradley. ‘It would be less embarrassing, both for you and me, if you were officially out of this. I have to make some accusations against Miss Cornflake, but as they do not come strictly under the heading of College discipline, perhaps — ’

‘Oh, dear,’ said the elderly Warden of Columba. ‘It seems a little irregular. Can’t I know —?’

‘Certainly, if you’ll agree to take no action. It’s nothing very serious in itself. She’s a keen gymnast, and makes entry into the gymnasium for practising, at times when the students are not expected to be in there. I’ve caught these wretches of mine’ — she met Laura’s eye squarely — ‘and I thought I’d find out whether Miss Cornflake has unauthorized possession of a key. It’s really a question of the discipline of my own Hall, rather than yours.’

‘Oh, in that case — ’ said the Warden of Columba. ‘Look here, have this room, and I’ll go and sit with Miss Topas.’

It was clear that the visitors were not at all welcome to Miss Cornflake. She knocked, came in, and, casting one swift glance about her, seemed inclined, to back out again, but Laura had placed herself, gangster-like, with her back to the door.

‘Ah, Miss Cornflake,’ said Mrs Bradley. ‘I wonder whether, by any chance, Miss Pettinsalt happened to leave the key of the gymnasium with you before she went out this afternoon?’

‘Yes, she did,’ replied Miss Cornflake, after a slight pause.

‘Then may I borrow it?’ Mrs Bradley inquired.

‘Yes, I suppose so. I’ll go and get it. It’s in my room.’

‘Thank you,’ said Mrs Bradley.

‘But she said she was there without permission,’ said Alice, under her breath. Mrs Bradley caught the whisper and smiled.

‘Do not mention that fact,’ she said. ‘Now, students, I am going to do some very curious things. Ready, Miss Cartwright?’

Before Miss Cartwright could reply, the Warden had slipped behind her and was holding her in a firm grip.

‘Do you mind struggling quite hard? I’ll try not to hurt you,’ went on Mrs Bradley. ‘Harder, Miss Cartwright. Try to get away.’

Miss Cartwright, inhibited at first by a mixture of chivalry and awe, was very soon fighting her hardest. Mrs Bradley released her, pushed the panting girl into an arm-chair in a dark corner, and waited for Miss Cornflake to return. She had to wait for two or three minutes, and once or twice glanced at her watch. When Miss Cornflake came back, key in hand, Mrs Bradley gripped her round the waist, imprisoning her arms. Then, holding her firmly, she said: ‘Now don’t be alarmed, Miss Cornflake. Repeat after me these words: “For heaven’s sake, Warden, don’t report me! It was only a rag. I shall be sent down for certain if you report me.” ’

The victim, standing perfectly still, said quietly: ‘I don’t understand all this. Have you all gone mad?’

Mrs Bradley began to haul her towards the window.

‘Open that window, Miss Menzies,’ she commanded. ‘I’m going to throw this student out’

At this Miss Cornflake began to struggle violently. Mrs Bradley exerted a good deal of strength to hold her. Then she let her go.

‘What is all this?’ demanded Miss Cornflake, panting.

‘Psychology tests,’ said Mrs Bradley unblushingly. ‘I am sorry to have inconvenienced you. I shall award your reactions a mark of Beta.’ She grinned ferociously, took up the gymnasium key, which Miss Cornflake had dropped in the struggle, and which had been picked up by Alice, and led her myrmidons away.

‘And now, Miss Cartwright, not a word of this to a soul,’ she said, when they were out on the drive once more. ‘I suppose, by the way, you wouldn’t care to confess to me that you were the Miss Morris in trousers whom I captured on bonfire night, and the snake-charmer who so much annoyed Miss Harbottle? Never mind, child. But, remember, these tests of mine must be secret, or I can learn nothing from them at all.’

‘I shouldn’t dream of saying anything, Warden,’ said Miss Cartwright, giving a half-glance at Laura.

‘Very well, child. And I shouldn’t smoke quite so much, if I were you. You make odd, gasping sounds, which displease my medical ear, when you become short of breath, as you did just now when we struggled.’

‘She took long enough to get the key, Warden,’ said Laura, as she and Mrs Bradley, having sent the other two off, walked briskly towards the gymnasium.

‘The inference is that she took it off a key-ring.’

‘Not to lose it, I suppose; although you’d hardly think she’d bother, just for an hour in the gym. Anyway, why not lend you the whole caboosh?’

‘She may have keys on the ring which she didn’t want us to see, including a key to the doors of the passage that runs from Hall to Hall,’ said Mrs Bradley. ‘And, of course, this key may be one she had cut for herself when she did borrow Miss Pettinsalt’s key one day.’

‘Shall you ask Miss Pettinsalt whether she lent it?’

‘Not at present, child. It isn’t necessary. Here we are. I don’t think I’ve been in here since I went all over the College when first I came.’

She opened the door, and they went in by a door which led into a short passage past the dressing-rooms and shower-baths.

‘Better put these on, Warden, not to spoil the floor,’ suggested Laura, handing Mrs Bradley a pair of rubber-soled shoes. ‘They’ll be pretty big for you, but I daresay you can slop about in them. I can go in in my stockings.’

Mrs Bradley changed her shoes, and Laura led the way to the space under the gallery where the movable apparatus was stored.

‘You’ll want a clean handkerchief, Warden. I brought one in case. See that skipping-rope? The one with my shoe-lace tied round it? I haven’t touched the handles. Those are Cornflake’s prints. Superimposed on a good many others, I expect, but an expert might do something with them. On the top of the wall-bars — here — they ought to be good. Nobody’s used the wall-bars since yesterday, except her, and they get cleaned on Saturday mornings. On the shower-tap, cleaned yesterday with metal-polish, hers again. I wouldn’t let Kitty or Alice touch the tap. Gave them their showers with the fire-bucket and we used the tap from the floor, and I took my shower the same way. We’ve done it before, and it’s more fun, actually, so they didn’t tumble to the true inwardness of the proceedings.’

Mrs Bradley put her hand in her skirt pocket and took out her small revolver.

‘Put it back, Warden. It makes me nervous,’ said Laura. ‘A rounders stick will do twice as well, and makes a lot less noise. Are you going to phone the police?’

‘Why should I?’ inquired Mrs Bradley. ‘However, I am going to send Miss Trevelyan and Miss Boorman to keep you company, and the three of you will keep out all intruders. Here are your shoes again, child. On no account is anybody, even Miss Pettinsalt herself, to come in until I have given permission.’

‘Atta-baby!’ murmured Laura, going off to select the three heaviest sticks she could find.