Laurels Are Poison

Chapter 12

IN AND OUT THE WINDOWS

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The Cuddy Bay Secondary School for Girls was a second-grade establishment compared with the High School of the same resort. The latter had a splendid position on the cliff-top, with views of sea and moorland; the former was back in the town.

Mrs Bradley was directed wrongly at first, but one glance at the notice-board beside the front entrance decided her that this was not the place she sought, and she then found the Secondary School without difficulty.

It was half-past two, and a practice game of hockey was being carried on in the school field, and was being coached by a short, broad young woman in a gymnasium tunic and heavy sweater, the latter bearing an impressive badge. Mrs Bradley watched the game for a few seconds, and then rang the front-door bell of the school.

‘I have an appointment with Miss Paldred at half-past two,’ she said to the prefect who answered the door. ‘My name is Bradley.’

‘Oh, good afternoon, Mrs Bradley. Will you come this way, please? Miss Paldred is expecting you. I’ll tell her you are here.’

The headmistress’s room was simply but very beautifully furnished. The headmistress herself was of medium height, freckle-faced, grey-eyed and very charming.

‘This nasty business,’ she said, when they had shaken hands. ‘Have you found out any more about poor Miss Murchan?’

This propitious beginning to the conversation made Mrs Bradley’s carefully-prepared opening gambits unnecessary. She agreed that it was a nasty business, and said that she had come to ask a good many nasty questions… ‘even more than last time,’ she concluded.

‘Yes, I expect you have,’ Miss Paldred agreed. ‘What do you want to see first again — the gym?’

‘Thank you. Not that it will make any difference, I’m afraid. I think we explored its possibilities fully last time I was here.’

They saw the gym., which was like all other gyms., except that it had a long gallery running lengthwise instead of being, as at the College, at one end. Mrs Bradley evinced little interest, except in this gallery, which led from one set of classrooms and a corridor to another similar set and another corridor.

‘Is it possible,’ Mrs Bradley asked, ‘that a person passing along this gallery would be unobserved by the people below?’

‘It is probable,’ Miss Paldred replied with a slight smile. ‘I myself have been a frequent passenger when the girls have been quite unaware of my presence. If one keeps alongside the wall there is no reason whatever why one should be observed.’

‘I see. Yes. There seems reason to suppose, then, that Miss Murchan could have seen what happened here in the gymnasium if she had happened to walk along the gallery at some time after seven o’clock on the evening the child was killed?’

‘Yes, but…’

‘What did you think of Miss Murchan?’

‘Personally, do you mean?’

‘Yes, and as a member of your staff.’

‘Personally, I found her rather colourless. She was inclined to be timid and deprecating.’

‘A “burglars under the bed” sort of woman?’

‘An apt description. Also — we must be perfectly frank, I take it — I regretted having felt obliged to make her Senior Mistress, as she detested and feared responsibility. But she was so much the oldest member of the staff that I felt I had no option, particularly as I enjoy very good health, and there was little reason to suppose that I should have to be away from school for any length of time, and leave her to cope, as it were.’

‘Thank you very much. So that, if Miss Murchan had been in possession of a very horrid secret, you think she would have become very nervous about it?’

‘Good gracious, yes. But what are you telling me, Mrs Bradley? The verdict at the inquest…’

‘Suppose she knew — having walked along your gymnasium gallery after school that evening — that one of the staff was responsible — directly responsible — for that poor child’s death, what do you suppose would have been her reactions?’

‘I see you are determined to ask questions, but not to answer them, but you will forgive me if I disagree completely with your premises. However…’ She hesitated and then added: ‘One cannot, of course, be certain, but I should think she would go to that member of the staff — she was a very loyal comrade, I am sure — and tell what she had seen, and suggest, I feel, that they should both come to me about it’

‘But that did not happen? I know you will be frank. I am to take it that you know nothing except what actually came out at the inquest?’

‘That is true. But you have no evidence that Miss Murchan did see the accident, have you?’

‘Except that I cannot otherwise account for her disappearance. Didn’t you lose your Physical Training mistress at about the same time that Miss Murchan gave in her resignation?’

‘Yes, she decided to go. She said that although the coroner’s court attached no blame to her in the matter, she felt she could not stay. I was sorry, as I am sure she was not to blame in the slightest for what had happened. The child was very naughty and disobedient to have been at school at all at such an hour. It is true we were having a gymnastic competition during the following week, as I think I told you before, but that hardly excuses her, does it?’

‘I don’t know. I remember the point about the competition, though. Where do the grandparents live? — Or have they moved?’

‘I have the address in my Admissions. I’ll give it to you as soon as we get back to my room. I don’t think they’ve moved. The poor wretched grandfather went into a mental hospital immediately after his outburst at the inquest, you remember.’

‘Yes. Now the Physical Training mistress — her name was Paynter-Tree, I believe? — ’

The headmistress smiled.

‘Yes; Paynter-Tree. Although I happen to know that she was nicknamed Flak — Royal Air Force slang, I believe.’

‘Could you describe her to me?’

‘She was of medium height, wide-shouldered, slim, dark.’

‘She was not the only Physical Training mistress, I believe? I think you told me last time I was here…’

‘Well, she was the only one specially trained for the work. Three of the other mistresses used to help with the games; one helped with the hockey; she had captained her College for two years; one helped with the swimming (she was reserve for one of the Olympic Games’ teams) and Miss Murchan helped with the tennis; although what her qualifications were, beyond a keen interest in the game, I do not know. I believe she had learned fencing, but that is hardly the same thing.’

‘The accident itself,’ said Mrs Bradley, when they were seated in the headmistress’s room and she had been supplied with the address she had asked for, ‘was rather remarkable. I did not think sufficient was made of that point at the inquest. What are the rules about the apparatus?’

‘Well, the girls are forbidden to touch the booms unless the mistress is there. But I don’t agree with what you say. The school was sadly called over the coals at the inquest. It was pointed out — rightly, too, and I think that is what decided Miss Tree to send in her resignation — that the ropes and pulleys of the gymnasium apparatus should be tested and inspected frequently. The rope must somewhere have worn through, although I cannot think how or why, and neither could Miss Tree. Still, I think she acted hastily in resigning over a thing like that, particularly as, in the end, we were completely exonerated.’

‘I never met the child’s grandparents. Was the grandfather a widower?’ Mrs Bradley inquired.

‘A widower? Oh, dear, no! There is a very puritanical, tight-lipped grandmother. We had lots of trouble with her, as a matter of fact, whilst the child was here. She did not approve of the physical training being taken in shorts and blouses; she wanted the girl to wear stockings; she did not want her to be included in games teams, in case she became hoydenish, and a lot of old-fashioned nonsense of that sort’

‘And the grandfather? Was he equally prudish?’

‘I don’t know much about the grandfather, poor man. He went mad, as you know, after the inquest.’

‘He is recovered, I believe?’

‘Happily, yes. He’s been at home now for about six months.’

‘Which hospital did he go to?’

‘I’ve really no idea. I know his wife refused to visit him, wherever it was. That was an open scandal all over the town, where, of course, everybody knows everybody else’s business.’

‘That seems to have been unkind in the wife, does it not? Well, Miss Paldred, I must thank you again for your help, and for answering my questions. I’d like to ask just one more. Have you any idea where Miss Paynter-Tree went when she left here?’

‘Yes; to Northern Ireland. She wrote to me once from Belfast — a letter-card from the post office to say that she had arrived, and promising to send me an address as soon as she was fixed up permanently.’

‘Did you know which school she was going to?’

‘No; and I did not hear from her again. After all, we had not known one another for very long, you know. She was in her fifth term here when the accident happened. I suppose she really saw no reason…’

‘No,’ said Mrs Bradley thoughtfully. ‘There was not, I suppose, any scandal connected with her in any way here? Before the child’s death, of course, I mean.’

‘None that I ever heard. What makes you ask such a thing?’

‘I am still trying to account for the child’s death. It wasn’t accident. Gymnasium ropes don’t “wear through” in the manner suggested at the inquest. Besides, some odd things have happened since I went to Cartaret College, and if they are not connected, through Miss Murchan, with what happened here, I do not know how to account for them.’

She proceeded to give Miss Paldred details.

‘And you are sure the cook was murdered?’ asked Miss Paldred. ‘It doesn’t seem to me there was much to go on.’

‘Enough,’ said Mrs Bradley. ‘She really would not have thrown her own corsets into the river and then thrown herself after them over the bridge, you know. She wouldn’t like to think of people finding her uncorseted body.’

‘Do people really consider such things at such a time, I wonder?’

‘Emphatically they do. Besides, to drown her in the Athelstan basement bathroom would have been so easy, under cover of the sound of the bath-water running out. If people thought anything of it, they would only think it was Miss Cartwright.’

‘What do you make of the ghost-noises, then?’

‘Two things. First, I think someone wanted to stampede the Athelstan students into panic, and secondly, I think they were made to bring to our notice the fact that some unauthorized person was on the premises. They were altogether interesting.’

‘But what could the cook have known, which made her dangerous, do you suppose?’

‘Beyond the feeling that it must have been something about Miss Murchan’s disappearance, one cannot tell at present. Ah, well, we shall live and learn, I hope. Oh, one more question. You said that Miss Paynter-Tree had been with you only five terms. How long had Miss Murchan been with you?’

‘Three years. Another reason I was sorry I felt obliged to make her Senior Assistant, of course.’

The child’s name had been Muriel Princep, and the maid who opened the door to Mrs Bradley said that Mrs Princep was at home.

Mrs Bradley, left in the hall whilst the girl went to speak to her mistress, gazed about her with polite curiosity. The house gave evidence that there was no lack of money on the part of the owners. It was handsomely furnished, warm, clean, polished and smelt unobtrusively of roast meat and furniture cream nicely intermingled.

Mrs Princep was a bony woman with haggard eyes. She looked sixty, but might have been younger. She greeted Mrs Bradley with a nervous smile.

‘I don’t think…?’ she said.

‘Quite so,’ Mrs Bradley replied. ‘It was thought that you would prefer me to call rather than a policeman.’

‘Norah!’ called Mrs Princep.

‘It’s of no use to order me out of your house,’ said Mrs Bradley, who had formed her plan of campaign. ‘I am sorry if I was abrupt, but I have very little time. It’s like this, Mrs Princep. You may or may not have heard of the strange and, so far, unaccountable disappearance of Miss Murchan, who used to teach at the school here. In association with the police, I am investigating the causes of that disappearance. Will you hear what I have to say?’

‘You’d better come into the drawing-room,’ said Mrs Princep. ‘Miss Murchan,’ she added, when they were seated and she had switched on an electric heater, ‘was suffering from a guilty conscience, I suppose. Some of those people didn’t tell the truth at the inquest.’

‘Not a guilty conscience; an overburdened one.’

‘You know about our trouble?’

‘Yes. I know your granddaughter died as the result of an accident in the school gymnasium. That is why I have come to you.’

‘I can tell you nothing about Miss Murchan. I had no idea she had disappeared, and I don’t care, anyway.’

‘No, but you can tell me something about your husband, if you will,’ said Mrs Bradley. ‘Is he better now?’

‘I won’t have my husband reminded of the affair.’

‘I don’t want to have him reminded of it, any more than you do, but I would like to know the address of the hospital to which he was sent’

‘It was at a place in Berkshire called Millstones. I don’t know the exact address. I never went there.’

‘You didn’t go to visit him?’

‘No.’ She looked so uncompromisingly fierce, with her thin, pursed lips and large eyes lidded like those of an eagle or even (thought Mrs Bradley) a giant vulture, that it was not easy to know exactly how to continue the conversation.

‘I am glad to obtain that address,’ said Mrs Bradley. ‘I want to confirm the impression of the police that your husband could have had nothing to do with Miss Murchan’s disappearance.’

‘I don’t see why the police should have any impression about it one way or the other, but, as a matter of fact, and to save you trouble, I can tell you that my husband came out of the mental hospital last June, on the tenth of the month. I don’t know when Miss Murchan disappeared, so I don’t know whether, if he’d wanted to have a hand in her disappearance, he could have done so.’

‘I see,’ said Mrs Bradley. ‘You blame the school, Mrs Princep, I know, for what happened. Do you happen to know whether your husband particularly blamed Miss Murchan?’

‘I don’t think he did, but I do know Miss Murchan promised to tell us a piece of news about it. She said she knew, and she supposed we knew, who was responsible.’

‘But she didn’t give any name?’

‘We asked her — pressed her — but she declared it wasn’t necessary. She said we must know whom she meant, and that, if we agreed, she’d take her story to the police. She said they’d know what to do.’

‘Does that mean you refused to allow her to go to the police?’

‘Oh, no. And I think she did go. What we couldn’t understand was why she suddenly left the school.’

‘And Miss Paynter-Tree, too. Still, I suppose there was felt to be some responsibility there.’

‘Responsibility!’ said the woman, with extreme bitterness. ‘Well, you can use that word by all means. Anyhow, I know what I think.’

‘We are coming to something,’ thought Mrs Bradley. ‘What do you think, Mrs Princep?’ she inquired.

‘Why, that those responsible for bringing the poor child into the world took the liberty of putting her out of it.’

‘Oh?’ said Mrs Bradley. ‘And that means…?’

But Mrs Princep was not prepared to amplify her opinion. She closed her thin lips, and then suddenly opened them again to add, apparently irrelevantly, ‘I’ve been married three times, you know.’

‘What I don’t understand at all,’ said Mrs Bradley, perceiving that Mrs Princep was not prepared to volunteer any explanation of this last remark, ‘is how the child came to be in school so late. It was surely very unusual.’

‘Thinking as I do,’ said the grandmother, ‘I’m sure the poor mite was decoyed.’

‘By the murderer, you mean, if one accepts your opinion. An opinion, I may add, which I share and which the police are beginning to investigate.’

‘Are they? Are they really?’

‘So, you see, you can speak freely to me on the subject.’

‘Yes,’ said the woman, ‘I see that. My husband was very fond of the child,’ she added. ‘Of course, he never realized who she was.’

‘Are you sure of that? You mean she was the child of one of your sons or daughters, don’t you?’

‘Illegitimate,’ said Mrs Princep, tightening her lips more than ever. ‘I had a daughter by each of my previous marriages. The younger girl went wrong, and the other would have done, too, given half a chance. Of course I couldn’t have them in the house. My husband doesn’t even know I’ve got two daughters. I never told him. I’d been widowed for nearly ten years when he married me, and the girls had left home long before.’

‘I wouldn’t be too sure he doesn’t know you have two daughters,’ thought Mrs Bradley. Aloud she asked: ‘Wasn’t the mother fond of the child? Was she willing for you to take it?’

‘It would have ruined her career. I had to have it. I told my husband it was an orphan I’d adopted. It was only five when we married. Of course, he may have found out about it later. The elder girl may have let him know. They couldn’t stand one another. Yet they took posts together to be able to see the child, and watched one another like cats. The father of the child was by way of being engaged to the elder one, Blanche, you see, and then, when Doris bore the child —!’

‘Yes,’ said Mrs Bradley. ‘An old story, isn’t it? But now, if you’ll forgive me for asking, can you tell me whether your husband had had any of his attacks previous to the inquest?’

‘Oh, yes. He had spent two years in a mental home before I married him. I knew that. I liked him none the worse for it.’

With this oddly-worded statement she seemed to have finished all that she had to say on the subject.

‘One more question, and then I’ll go,’ said Mrs Bradley gently. ‘Did the child’s mother believe that the child had been murdered?’

‘She had the best reason of anybody to believe it, as I told you,’ Mrs Princep replied. Mrs Bradley, digesting all the implications of Mrs Princep’s illuminating remarks, and also this one, which seemed a trifle obscure, she felt, went off on her third errand.

‘Mental hospital?’ said the local reporter. ‘Yes, he did. But if you want my candid opinion, he was as sane as I am. Eyewash, to get public sympathy. Been some scandal about him at some time, I should imagine. The wife hushed it up, but, hang it, there was the kid. What were people to think? She said she had adopted it, and, of course, they’ve only lived in the town about four years. But you know how people gossip, and some of it followed them here. It’s certain the child was illegitimate.’

‘That wouldn’t necessarily prove that it was his,’ Mrs Bradley retorted.

‘No. But why did he throw that fit at the inquest, then? Gave things away, people thought. Of course, people love a bit of scandal, but, after all, no smoke without fire. Anyway, into the bin he went, and was discharged last June. I interviewed him on the subject of his experiences. No good. Merely got a flea in my ear. Couldn’t stand the fellow, anyway. Unwholesome old devil, I thought him.’

‘Have you seen him since?’

‘Oh, yes, but not to speak to. He’s always about.’

‘When did you see him last? Can you remember?’

‘Not to swear to it. Mayor’s Banquet, last November — let’s see — November 3rd, I think. But what are you getting at — murder? I thought so at the time.’

‘Oh, the police have nothing to go on in the case of the child’s death,’ said Mrs Bradley. ‘They are looking for the missing schoolmistress, Miss Murchan. As she lived here, and testified at the inquest on the child, they felt bound to begin their work from this end. That’s all. By the way, the fact that she is missing is not to be emphasized. There may be no connexion between the two cases.’

‘More in that woman than met the eye,’ said the reporter, solemnly accepting the decree. ‘Definitely a queer stick. Odd, worried sort of creature. Ought to have seen a nerve specialist, I would have said. Even school concerts used to upset her for days beforehand. Had nightmares, too, I believe. Thought the doctor could cure her of it, she told me once, at one of the school do’s. Useless to tell her he couldn’t, so he made her up some harmless dope — an iron tonic, I expect — and she took it and said it improved things. Couldn’t do any harm, at all events.’

‘Did she come to you after the child was killed and offer you information?’

‘No. She left the town soon after. Seemed to think people felt it was her responsibility. Got some crack-brained idea that the child must have pinched her keys to get into the gym., and that therefore she had some moral share in the accident, or some such guff as that. All boloney, of course. The kid hadn’t touched her keys. Climbed in through a window, I expect, or else somebody else forgot to lock up that night. Miss Murchan wasn’t the only person who had a key to the gym. That came out at the inquest, but nobody else seemed worried, except the mistress who took the gym., of course. But, then, it was right up her street. Anyone could sympathize with her deciding to leave. But t’other — well, it was just her nature to brood, and magnify every little trifle, I expect. Suicide type, I shouldn’t wonder. If she’s disappeared, you’ll find her in the river or somewhere.’

For her own amusement, and by way of a minor psychological experiment, Mrs Bradley spent the night at the Grand Hotel, which was built almost on the edge of the cliff and commanded, therefore, extensive views seawards.

Next morning she walked on the promenade for an hour, so that anybody who happened to be interested in her movements had ample opportunity of discovering that she had not returned to the College. She lunched at the hotel, promenaded again in the afternoon, and at a quarter to four had tea at the hotel before sending for the car, and going back to Cartaret.

She found Miss du Mugne enjoying her after-dinner coffee. She accepted an invitation from the Principal to join her.

‘You have enjoyed your jaunt?’ Miss du Mugne inquired, as a graceful way of approaching the topic she hoped and expected that they were going to discuss.

‘Very much,’ Mrs Bradley replied. ‘But I doubt whether I have acquired any valuable information from Miss Paldred except the address of the dead child’s grandparents.’

‘No?’ The Principal looked disappointed. ‘But you hoped great things of your second visit to the Secondary School.’

‘Well, I had some hope, I think, of being able to trace the other person who left just about when Miss Murchan did — the Physical Training mistress, you know. It was odd, if both were innocent of negligence, to go off like that, don’t you think?’

‘I don’t know, I am sure. You see, except for what you have told me from time to time, I know very little of the circumstances under which Miss Murchan left the Secondary School.’

‘Well, there I did make progress. It appears that Miss Murchan was the holder of a guilty secret.’

‘Miss Murchan with a guilty secret?’ The Principal laughed. ‘I don’t believe it.’

‘Well, from what I can deduce, it seems possible that she was there when the child was killed.’

‘Then why didn’t she say so at the inquest?’

‘I don’t know. She seems to have been of a nervous, retiring, vacillating disposition. She probably decided to say nothing, discovered that these were wrong tactics, and then was afraid of becoming entangled with the law. She does seem to have made some attempt to communicate her knowledge to others, but she was not successful. She was here two years, was she not?’

‘Exactly two years. She came at the beginning of the Christmas Term, and her disappearance, as you know, dates from last summer’s End of Term dance.’

‘Of course, yes. Now, how was it that Miss Murchan became Warden of Athelstan as soon as she arrived? Is it usual to make new lecturers Wardens in their first term? — I except myself, of course!’

‘Oh, but Miss Murchan had a year here before she was given Athelstan, you know.’

‘What was the reason for promoting her?’

‘It was not so much a promotion, in her case, as the fact that she was really not such a very good lecturer, I am afraid. She was altogether too timid and deprecating. I cannot think how she was able to stand the life at a Secondary School. I should have thought it much too boisterous for her. She seemed to go in fear and trembling of everything and everybody.’

‘It seems that she had good reason,’ said Mrs Bradley dryly, ‘if what I suspect is true.’ The Principal started, and spilled a little coffee.

‘I beg your pardon? Oh, yes, I see. But I understand that it was her general manner.’

‘I understand so, too. That emerged clearly during my interview today with Miss Paldred. Interesting. So when she was a Warden, Miss Murchan gave fewer lectures?’

‘And no Demonstration lessons. These seemed to be her particular terror, and so I arranged that the junior lecturer should do them.’

‘There was never any question of dismissing Miss Murchan for incompetence, I suppose?’

‘Oh, no, nothing of the kind. I don’t choose lecturers who have to be dismissed for incompetence the next moment. Miss Murchan was learned and talented. She had an Arts degree as well as her Science qualifications, you know. She lectured here in English.’

‘Having taught Biology at the school. Very interesting. Thank you,’ said Mrs Bradley.

‘There is that very close affinity of dates between the release of that child’s grandfather from a mental hospital and Miss Murchan’s disappearance. It seems to me that a fruitful field of investigation lies there, but that is a task for the police, I suppose,’ went on the Principal. ‘And, of course, she did change her occupation, there is no doubt, because of the death of the child. I think we are justified in making the connexion. But, dear me! It is rather a terrifying discovery that the College has been visited by a madman!’

Mrs Bradley ignored this remark, and asked casually:

‘How much do you know about the students before they come up for interview?’

Miss du Mugne seemed surprised at this abrupt change of subject, but answered briskly: ‘A good deal. We need to be careful in our choice. Most of the students come up with a school record, of course, and that simplifies matters considerably. Then we have to consider the financial circumstances of the parents a little, although we keep that side of our inquiries from the students as far as we can. But some of these girls’ families are very poor, and even if the girls borrow the money for their fees from their County Authority, they can’t manage at all comfortably up here. Were you thinking of anybody in particular?’

‘Yes. I was thinking of the One-Year Students.’

‘Ah, well, there, of course, the financial difficulty is different. Sometimes it does not exist. The One-Year Students, for the most part, are self-supporting, and pay their fees out of their savings. Some are given grants by the local education authority, and some…’

‘I was not thinking about their finances, but of their characters,’ Mrs Bradley observed. ‘The young students who come straight from school bring records with them, you said. How do you select the One-Years?’

‘Quite frankly, we don’t. We accept the first forty who apply.’

‘Oh? You make no choice at all?’

‘Often we don’t have the full forty apply.’

‘I see. So that if I wanted to know something of the antecedents of any particular One-Year Student, you could not help me?’

‘Well, actually, yes, a good deal. We correspond with such students before they present themselves for interview.’

‘Well, I want to know everything you can tell me about Miss Cornflake of Columba.’

The Principal smiled and rang the bell for the secretary. But Miss Cornflake’s dossier was of the briefest.

‘Except that she came here from a Church of England Senior Girls’ School in Betchdale, and proposes to return there when she has obtained her Certificate, there seems to be nothing about her in our records,’ said Miss Rosewell, tidying the file, ‘except for her home address, which is Two, Elm Villas, Betchdale.’

‘I am sorry it is so unsatisfactory for you,’ said Miss du Mugne, looking, however, rather pleased, Mrs Bradley thought.

‘On the contrary, it is just what I wanted,’ she replied. She looked at her watch. ‘Very many thanks for your patience, and a happy Christmas if I do not see you again before next term.’

Betchdale was only thirty miles by car from the College, and George made the distance in an hour over a bumpy moorland road and through the long, tram-lined streets of the outer town.

Arrived at the market-place, Mrs Bradley went into a small café, ordered coffee (whilst George had some beer at the public house next door but three) and, upon leaving, inquired for Elm Villas. She was interested but not surprised to learn that they had been pulled down some eight years previous to her visit, and the space used for a garage.

‘I expect you knew old Mrs Banham,’ went on the proprietress of the café. ‘A dear soul, she was. Gone to live on the Madderdale Road now, with her nephew’s family. I don’t know the number, but it’s about ten houses past Roote’s, the little general shop on the Turlfield Corner. Anybody would show you, and everybody knows Mrs Banham.’

Resolved to pursue the mirage of Miss Cornflake’s private address, Mrs Bradley was driven out to the Madderdale Road, and by inquiring at the little general shop on the Turlfield Corner, she soon found the house that she sought.

All inquiry for anyone named Cornflake, Paynter-Tree, Tree, or even Flack, proved useless, however, as she had guessed it would. The slender chance remained that the people who kept the garage might be able to supply some information.

The garage seemed at first to be in sole possession of a youth of about seventeen who was cleaning a car. George made the inquiries this time.

‘Don’t know. Boss in the office,’ said the youth. The boss was searching a ledger. George waited patiently for nearly ten minutes.

‘Name of Cornflake?’ he said, when George was able to state his business. ‘Sure!’ He began to laugh. ‘Fellow as worked for me for a week or two about five or six months ago. I still get his sister’s letters sent here sometimes, although not so many lately.’

‘And I suppose you have to re-direct them,’ said George.

‘Re-direct ’em? Ah. But what’s it to do with you?’

‘Cousin of mine,’ George replied. ‘Family trying to find him. Come in for a bit of money when his Grandpa died, but he cut his stick along with quarrelling with ’em back home, and they don’t know where to catch up with him, that’s all. We heard he’d worked in this town, so I thought I’d ask, on the off-chance, and it seems as if I’ve struck oil. Mind if I have that address, mate? The sister’s address, I mean.’

‘Well, I can’t see it can hurt to give it to you, like,’ said the proprietor of the garage.

He tore a piece of paper from the bottom of an invoice slip, looked up in a small, shiny note-book the reference he required, and wrote out the address in a neat and business-like hand.

‘Shouldn’t like the young fellow to miss what’s coming to him,’ he observed as he handed George the paper, ‘although he served me not so good. Told me he’d got a job near Bradford, and hopped it, all in a morning.’

‘ ’T’ain’t a lot, between you and me,’ said George. ‘Matter of sixty-five quid. Still, it means a lot to a young fellow starting out in life, I reckon, and he’d ought to have it. It’s his. There’s five of ’em, and they all share alike — three girls and the two young chaps. Well, thanks for the help. So long, mate.’

‘You’re welcome,’ replied the garage proprietor, opening the ledger again. George walked round the corner and into the street where he had left the car and Mrs Bradley in it.

‘I fancy the address may interest you, madam,’ he said. ‘I haven’t looked at the paper since he gave it to me, but I couldn’t help seeing what he was writing down.’

The address was that of the local post office of the College.

‘Webbed like a fish, and his fins like arms,’ said Mrs Bradley, with a grimace and a satisfied chuckle. ‘This grows interesting, George. What was one of Cartaret’s young ladies doing as a garage hand, I wonder?’

‘The old chap certainly hadn’t rumbled he was employing a young woman, madam, anyhow.’

‘No. That’s interesting, too. Probably confused the unusual with the impossible, a practice against which we are continually being warned by classic writers. Well, George, there is nothing more now, once I have been to the school. We shall have to ask the way again, I’m afraid.’

Saint Faith’s Senior Girls’ School lay in a little clearing amid some riverside slums. It was not on the telephone, and Mrs Bradley took it by surprise.

The headmistress was taking a class, and had to be brought out of it to answer Mrs Bradley’s questions. Fortunately Mrs Bradley did not need to keep her very long.

‘A Miss Cornflake?’ she said, looking puzzled. ‘No, we have never had an assistant of that name, I’m sure.’

‘This girl I am trying to trace went to Cartaret Training College last September,’ said Mrs Bradley. ‘She may have called herself Flack, or even Paynter-Tree or Tree.’

But this suggestion met with no response from the headmistress.

‘I have only three assistants,’ she said. ‘Their names are Smith, Wakefield and Cotts. They have been with me a number of years now. They are all certificated teachers.’

Mrs Bradley thanked her, apologized for taking up her time, and departed, well satisfied. The darker the horse, she concluded, thinking of Miss Cornflake and her apparently mysterious antecedents, the better. The problem now seemed to be to choose the best time at which to show her hand, confront Miss Cornflake with the evidence, such as it was, and ask her to explain herself.

The holiday, at any rate, was not the right time. She drove back to Athelstan. The motives for the death of the child and of Miss Murchan’s disappearance seemed to be coming to light. The means used to accomplish the child’s death had never been in question. The means used to kill Miss Murchan, if she had been killed, were still obscure, and were likely to remain so until, for one thing, the time, place and fact of the death had been established. Opportunity in both cases was also difficult to show. The child had been killed at the (in the circumstances) extraordinary hour of seven in the evening, or later. Miss Murchan had disappeared during or after the College dance. Had both been decoyed? And by what agency?

Mrs Bradley sat at her desk and unlocked the top long drawer. She drew out her notebook and shook her head at it. There was much to do, much to discover, before this curiously baffling task she had undertaken could come to an end.

She opened the notebook. There was also Cook’s death to be investigated. The police had been persuaded that it was murder. She glanced out over the Cartaret grounds, now becoming misty in the dusk. The College was a pleasant place, on the whole. She wished she could have come there on some more savoury errand. She sighed, affected to make another entry in the notebook and closed the drawer. A curious sixth sense, which she trusted, was informing her that all was not as it should be.

‘Reach for it,’ said a voice.

‘I beg your pardon?’ said Mrs Bradley, blessing the sixth sense, not for the first time in her life.

‘You heard! Stick ’em up,’ said the voice. Mrs Bradley turned her head as she put up her hands. There was still that bulge behind one of the long dark curtains.

‘Now pick up that notebook with your right hand and chuck it this way,’ the voice went on. ‘I know you can aim accurately if you want to. Hip it across, and no funny business. You’re covered, and I shan’t miss, mind.’

‘I’m sure you won’t,’ said Mrs Bradley courteously. She was not unaccustomed to homicidal maniacs. ‘But may I suggest, first, that you are mixing up two entirely different American accents, to wit, that of the Bronx with that of Chicago; secondly, that you are superimposing upon the mixture a kind of stage Cockney which — forgive me — you don’t do terribly well, and, thirdly, that even if…’

‘Stow the gab and shoot the loot!’ said the voice. The curtains quivered slightly.

‘Even if, I was about to remark,’ Mrs Bradley continued, in her deep, agreeable voice, ‘I do toss you my notebook, I can’t see that it will benefit you at all, since I am prepared to declare that you will not be able to read a word of my writing.’

‘That’s my funeral,’ said the voice, ‘and I’m getting impatient. Don’t you know who it is that you’re keeping waiting?’

‘Can you really see me through that curtain?’ asked Mrs Bradley. ‘I should scarcely have thought…’

‘Near enough to plug you if you don’t stow the gab and up with the…’

Mrs Bradley suddenly moved faster than could possibly have been expected of an elderly lady. She seized, not her notebook, but a beautiful little bronze which she used as a paper-weight. It represented the shepherd boy David.

‘Down with Goliath,’ she said with an unearthly cackle, as the heavy missile found its mark and she, like a tigress, leapt after it towards the bulge. The bulge fell forward with a crash which shook the room.

‘My own revolver, too. I knew there was something wrong with the look of that drawer,’ she said to the police when they arrived. Her victim, who was seated in an easy chair with bandaged head and an expression of extreme misery due to the most oppressive headache he had ever had in his life, looked dully at her.

‘You will be Mr Princep, no doubt,’ said Mrs Bradley. ‘How did your wife know where you would find me?’

Mr Princep refused to answer this question. His head fell back, and he began to moan. Foam appeared at the corner of his mouth.

‘Looks like a loony,’ said the sergeant.

‘His looks, poor man, do not belie him,’ said Mrs Bradley.