No Winding-Sheet

5

Hounds in Leash

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There have been developments, sir,’ said Detective-Sergeant Bennett a day or two later.

‘Wish I could say the same,’ said Routh. ‘Tell me.’

‘I went round to the lodgings again, as you suggested I should, but the day before I got there Mrs Buxton had had visitors. They came to collect the gear Pythias left behind him.’

‘She didn’t let them have it?’

‘Yes, she did, sir. They brought a note signed by Pythias authorising them to take the stuff — clothes she said it was, and a bag of golf-clubs — and she swears she recognised the writing and the signature. She showed me a letter she had from Pythias when he was on holiday last year.’

‘Did she also show you the letter these people brought?’

‘No. They had taken it away with them.’

‘Then her claim that she recognised the writing doesn’t help us at all. She ought to have insisted on keeping the note to cover herself for parting with Pythias’s property. Oh, well, it looks as though he’s alive all right. Did she get any clue as to where he is?’

‘Yes. He’s ill at these people’s place in Springdale.’

‘Did they give her any idea as to when he proposes to return to his digs?’

‘No, sir. According to what she told me, these people said that he thought Mrs Buxton might like to know that she could let his room for the time being. That’s why he had asked to have all his possessions removed out of the way. They took the clothes, the golf-clubs and a suitcase.’

‘He could have paid a retaining fee if he intended to come back. It seems a bit rash to pass up on good digs for what may be a short illness. Once his room is let, he may not find it easy to get back.’

‘Mrs Buxton is prepared to let it, but only from week to week. She says he has considered her, so she is prepared to consider him.’

‘All very nice and hotsy-totsy. You know what I think? I think Pythias has cut his stick after all and taken the money with him. Either that, or these two people who called on Mrs Buxton are criminals and have done for him and collected the boodle for themselves, but my first theory now seems more likely.’

‘Springdale is on the other side of the county, sir. Would people living there have known anything about the money for the Sir George Etherege school journey? I doubt it.’

‘Did you get a description of them?’

‘She said they were a swarthy man, younger than Pythias, and a good-looking young woman. She thinks they were foreigners.’

‘Not unlikely. Pythias is a Greek.’

‘The man was wearing a good overcoat with an astrakhan collar and he had a little round hat such as the Russians favour. The girl had on a musquash coat — real fur, Mrs Buxton thinks, not synthetic — and fancy knee-high boots.’

‘They sound a fishy couple to me. They could have stepped out of any romantic spy story. I hope Mrs Buxton wasn’t drawing on her imagination. If so, she is implicated. Anyway, I don’t like the sound of them, but perhaps I’m prejudiced. I don’t like astrakhan collars and Russian headgear and women in knee-high boots.’

‘All Englishmen are prejudiced against foreigners, sir. It’s partly because we’re islanders and partly because we’ve got a superiority complex.’

‘Both have come in very handy in the past. Well, nothing more we can do tonight. I’d like to give Mrs Buxton a rocket, but what good would it do?’

‘I could go round there and catch Buxton when he gets home from work, sir, and see what he’s got to say.’

‘It wouldn’t help. He won’t have seen these foreigners. He’s got his own job, so it seems that Mrs Buxton runs the lodgings without his help. I’ll report to Mr Ronsonby tomorrow morning and point out that it isn’t likely that Mr Pythias can still be listed as a missing person. Nothing else helpful, I suppose?’

‘No, sir. Mrs Buxton showed me this letter written to her by Pythias when he was on summer holiday a year ago, as I mentioned. Why she should think it would bolster up her claim that she recognised the writing and the signature on the note those visitors brought I don’t understand any more than you do, but women are not the most logical of creatures. It may have convinced her, but, without the other letter for comparison, it could hardly convince anybody else.’

‘I wonder why she had kept the holiday letter? It was dated some time back, you say. Landladies are seldom sentimental enough to preserve their lodgers’ holiday correspondence.’

‘As to that, sir, she had kept it because on the inside page there was a nice little sketch of some Greek fishing boats in the harbour of one of the islands. He was staying in the place for his holiday, the letter said. She said it was a shame to throw the drawing away, and I must admit I agreed with her. I don’t know much about art, but I would say that this was a very classy little drawing indeed.’

‘And doesn’t tally with that awful daub on his wall. So this picture was just sketched as an illustration to an ordinary holiday letter? I should like to see it. Go back and chisel it out of her. If Pythias is that much of an artist, he may have had a tie-up with that nephew of Mrs Buxton’s.’

‘Or with the art master at the school, sir, don’t you think?’

‘From what I’ve gathered, Pythias had no particular pals on the staff. I think the tie-up with Rattock at the digs is more likely. Anyway, get that letter from Mrs Buxton. We may be able to do with a specimen of Pythias’s handwriting later on. One never knows. Besides, I’d like to show that sketch to Rattock and see whether there are any reactions.’

‘I expect Mrs Buxton showed it to him when she received the letter, sir, knowing Rattock to be an artist himself.’

‘That’s true, but I shall have a go at him, all the same. It may rattle him if he thinks I find the letter important. By the way, you mentioned that these people took away clothes and golf-clubs. When I got her to show me the room there was a fair collection of books. Didn’t those get taken away as well?’

‘She only spoke of clothes, the golf-clubs and a suitcase. Perhaps a woman of her sort wouldn’t think books worth mentioning, sir.’

‘Oh, well, I think I’ll have another look at the room. If the books are still there, things look very fishy indeed. If Pythias intended not to go back there, well, he’s a schoolmaster and would never have left his books behind. You know what I think, Bennett? I think that worthless nephew has had the stuff and flogged it, and Mrs Buxton is covering up for him and has invented these astrakhan and fur-coat visitors. Still, we can’t ignore the Springdale angle, in case she is telling the truth. After all, Pythias is a Greek and may well have had foreign friends. I wonder whether the neighbours can tell us anything about the time Pythias left the house that Friday evening? He seems to have been all right then and also quite in health while he was at school. Those visitors still sound damned fishy to me. We’ll try tackling the neighbours, don’t you think?’

‘I doubt whether the neighbours saw anything, either of Pythias or those visitors, sir. The houses along there are all old Victorian family residences set in big gardens and widely-spaced from one another, and there are matured trees and shrubberies in all the gardens.’

‘That’s true, and on the other side of the road is the park, so the houses can’t be overlooked from across the street. This time of the year the park closes at half-four, anyway, so there wouldn’t have been any loiterers, even if we could trace them. Oh, well, it’s no part of our job to trace people who simply choose to disappear. If it were, we should be having nothing to do but get on the trail of missing husbands. If only Ronsonby would accuse Pythias we could take action, but he prefers to keep the good name of the school intact, it seems, and put up the money himself.’

That this was the case Mr Ronsonby demonstrated on the following morning when, the assembly hymn and prayer having been got out of the way, he addressed the whole school.

‘I know you will all be sorry to hear that Mr Pythias was taken seriously ill during the Christmas holidays. There is every hope that he will be with us again by next term. Whether he will be fit enough to lead the expedition to Greece we do not, of course, yet know, but, if he cannot do so, there will be others to take his place and see that all the arrangements are carried out just as Mr Pythias has planned them.’

The head boy accompanied him to his room.

‘Could the school send a card and some flowers, sir?’

This artless question put Mr Ronsonby in a quandary. It was impossible to tell the boy that he had no idea of where to locate Mr Pythias. He hedged in diplomatic fashion.

‘It is a kind thought, Hobson, but I think it might be better to wait a bit until Mr Pythias is in a fit state to appreciate it. He is extremely ill at present. Make it a celebration of his convalescence, eh?’

His next caller was Margaret Wirrell. She had news to impart. A number of cheques had been sent to the bank in an envelope postmarked Springdale. They were all made out to the special journey fund. The bank had just rung to say so. No covering letter and no paying-in slip had come with the cheques, but the signatures were genuine and had been compared with those of the bank’s customers whose names they bore. Among them were the names of three masters, Mr Scaife, Mr Marmont and Mr Whitby.

‘The bank,’ said Margaret, ‘are a bit puzzled. They ask whether the three masters could make it convenient to call in and verify that the cheques signed by them are genuine. They have no reason to think otherwise, but would like to be sure.’

The three young men called at the bank during their dinner-hour. They and the rest of the staff were well known there, since their salaries were paid direct to the bank and there they had to apply to get their money out. The cheques were genuine enough. Scaife asked where the rest of the tour money was.

‘I know some of my boys brought ten and twenty-pound notes and fivers,’ he said. However, apart from the cheques, the bank had received no other tour funds.

Having received the report just before afternoon school, Mr Ronsonby thought he had better get in contact again with the police.

‘It’s so extraordinary,’ he said to Mr Burke. ‘I don’t understand it at all.’

‘Well, at least we know where Pythias is,’ said Burke. ‘The people where he’s staying may not have liked the idea of sending treasury notes through the post.’

‘They could have enclosed a slip with the cheques to say so. Well, I’m going to let the police sort it out. They are far more able to track down these people than we are. I am not normally a suspicious man, but I feel there is something extremely odd about this whole business and I cannot help thinking that, whereas to guilty minds those cheques might appear to be a liability, the rest of the money would be readily negotiable and could not be traced very easily.’

Nothing had been said to the three schoolmasters about keeping dark the reason for their visit to the bank, so, before afternoon classes began, the staffroom was buzzing with gossip and speculation.

‘I wondered whether we were going to be charged with forgery,’ said Scaife.

‘I felt like a shoplifter,’ said Marmont, a red-haired young man who taught history.

‘The only forger on this staff would be Pythias,’ said a middle-aged man of mild aspect. At the sound of this name the exchanges became more animated.

‘Pythias?’ said Whitby. ‘So that’s the nigger in the woodpile, is it? He’s paid in our cheques, but the bank, for some reason, wasn’t satisfied. Well, they are now, I hope. We had our chequebooks on us, of course, so we were able to match the counterfoils against the cheques they showed us, as well as verifying our signatures.’

‘And emerged from the ordeal without a stain on your characters,’ said Phillips, the only master who kept his hair touching his shirt collar. This poetic affectation was tolerated by Mr Ronsonby because Phillips was not only an intolerant, fiery, rather red Welshman, but a brilliant musician and teacher whom the easy-going headmaster was wary of upsetting.

‘So all’s well that ends well,’ said Mr Burke.

‘Not by a long chalk it isn’t,’ said Scaife. ‘This here is what Marmont calls “one of the myst’ries of ’istory”. There’s something very peculiar about this continuous absence of Pythias from our midst. I’ll tell you something you may not know. Once or twice I’ve looked out of my window and spotted a plain-clothes Robert coming up the drive.’

‘Shouldn’t be looking out of windows when you’re supposed to be teaching maths, my lad,’ said Whitby, with mock severity.

‘It’s only to rest my fevered brow against the cool glass when Jenkins can’t give me the factors of x squared minus y squared. Anyway, I recognised this ornament of the Fuzz because he once gave evidence against me for speeding. He was in the uniformed branch then, so I suppose my case helped towards his promotion.’

‘I’ve always thought there was something fishy about Pythias,’ said another master. ‘Beware of the Greeks, you know.’

‘Only when they come bearing gifts,’ said Marmont, ‘and the Old Python could hardly be credited with doing that. Nobody likes coughing up the coffee and tea money — personally, I think these beverages ought to be provided free — but our Rule Britannia in the secretary’s den has more trouble digging his weekly contribution out of Pythias than out of the rest of us put together.’

‘Wonder how much Pythias is making out of this Athenian caper?’ said another man. ‘Merely a flippant and facetious observation,’ he added hastily, as he met Mr Burke’s cold eye.

‘Then keep the next one under your hat,’ advised the deputy head. ‘There’s the bell.’

‘You know,’ said Scaife to Marmont as they picked up their books and went out into the corridor, ‘I know where Pythias has his digs. I’ve a damn good mind to oil round there after school and make some enquiries about the bloke. I don’t like being summoned to the bank as though I’ve bounced a cheque on them.’

‘Forget it,’ said his friend. ‘Fools rush in, and all that, remember. If the police are interested, well, it’s better for the likes of us to stay clear.’

‘I said I’d spotted this detective chap coming up to the school. I didn’t say it was anything to do with Pythias. It’s probably something to do with the builder’s men.

‘I wish such-and-such to Pythias, anyway!’ said Marmont. ‘This is the second free period this week that I’ve had to stand in for him. Oh, well, they can draw and use coloured pencils on a map of South America while I’m getting on with my marking. My knowledge of geography is limited to where the English and Scottish golf-courses are.’

‘I thought history and geography were complementary subjects.’

‘Nonsense, my dear fellow. As Edmund Clerihew Bentley has so succinctly pointed out, geography is about maps and history is about chaps. There could not be a greater distinction drawn. Oh, well, see you at break, should we both live that long.’

‘What was that crack of yours, Filkins, about Pythias being a forger?’ asked Mr Burke.

‘Oh, I only said it because Pythias is quite an artist. His maps are the most exquisite things. I wouldn’t put it past him to design a five-pound note which would defy detection.’

‘You mind what you’re saying. There’s many a true word spoken in jest and you don’t want your nasty nasturtiums brought up against you later. Have mind upon your health, as the Bard says, and tempt providence no further.’

Mr Burke then set his boys to work and went along to confer with the headmaster.

‘I’ve seen Scaife, Marmont and Whitby,’ he said. ‘The cheques are all right, so no problem there.’

‘Yes, but where is the rest of the money?’

‘I wonder whether we ought to have warned those three men to keep their mouths shut about being summoned to the bank? The staffroom is a hot-bed of gossip.’

‘Yes. I wonder why women are always credited with being the gossiping sex? My wife always declares that men are much worse and she may well be right. Anyway, I don’t object to the idea of gossip in the staffroom. It might turn up a bit of useful information. Keep your ear to the ground. I like this business less and less the more I hear about it.’

At the police station Routh and Detective-Sergeant Bennett were also in conference and on the same subject as were the two schoolmasters.

‘Nothing wrong with those cheques, it seems,’ said Routh, ‘but although I have indicated to Mr Ronsonby that there is not much more that we can do, I think we’ll go along and take a look round Springdale. I still don’t believe that these Greeks actually exist, you know. That was a very women’s-novelette description of them that Mrs Buxton gave.’

‘You think we’ve got a murder on our hands, sir? Well, we are not going to get any help in proving that, unless and until we can find the body.’

‘You no longer believe that Pythias defaulted, then?’

‘As we’ve said before, it wouldn’t be worth a teacher’s while to abscond with that kind of money, sir, a nice little lump sum though it might be. He would risk too much if he were found out. There’s his pension, for one thing. From what I’ve gathered, Mr Pythias isn’t all that far from the age of retirement.’

‘Isn’t — or wasn’t? I think that’s what we’ve got to find out. I agree with you that murder is more than a possibility. When we’ve had a look around Springdale, we might do a lot worse than find out what sort of a financial position the Buxtons are in. I don’t like the way that woman did not notify the school that Pythias had not returned to his digs. Besides, she certainly knew he was carrying that money. She has admitted that from the beginning.’

‘As to the first, she claims that it was no business of hers if he chose to walk out on her. As for the second, would she have volunteered the information that she knew what was in the briefcase if she intended to steal it?’

‘Good point, but, of course, by the time we got to her, the deed was done, and if she is guilty, she would have had time to cover her tracks.’

‘I reckon these landladies know all the tricks of the trade, sir, when it comes to a bit of deviousness.’

‘Perhaps they need to, if they are to keep up-sides with some of the tenants.’

‘Those would be women tenants, sir. Men are not devious. They’re merely twisters.’

‘Anyway, Springdale for me tomorrow. I don’t think there is any point in your tagging along. I’ll have a beer and a natter with the Super there. We trained together, so he’ll tell me anything he can.’

‘Anything I can do while you’re gone, sir?’

‘Unfortunately, no. I don’t want to start a scandal until I’m on safer ground. Still, somebody thought those cheques were too hot to handle, so we may get a lead later on.’

‘Springdale seems to be the clue, sir. It has been mentioned twice.’

‘If this business is as fishy as I think it is, both could be a blind, of course.’

‘Buxton drives a furniture van, sir. He can get about all over the country without arousing the slightest suspicion.’

‘Yes, I hadn’t lost sight of that fact. I think I’ll have another word with the Buxtons before I go to Springdale. No, wait a minute. Perhaps you could do that while I’m gone. Lean on Buxton as hard as you can under the regulations and take him all through his story again as to what he did and at what time he got home on that Friday evening. Oh, and have another crack at that nephew of theirs. I have an idea that he’s a nasty bit of work. If he saw a chance of helping himself out of somebody else’s pockets, I have a hunch that he’d take it. I don’t like artists, anyway. Sleight-of-hand merchants, every one of them.’

‘Thou shalt not make any graven image or the likeness of anything? Is that your view, sir?’

‘Something of the sort. There’s a kind of witchcraft about graven images. Think of Pygmalion. And there is black magic in pictures.’

‘So our cave-dwelling ancestors seem to have believed, sir.’

‘Not that I’m a fanciful or a superstitious man, of course,’ said Routh hastily.

‘Of course not, sir, but none of us can altogether control our atavistic instincts.’

Routh regarded his sergeant with surprise.

‘Are you attending evening classes at the Sir George Etherege school, by any chance?’ he asked.

‘No, sir, but I do a lot of reading in any spare time I’ve got.’

‘I must see you have less of it. Can’t have you overtaxing that brain of yours.’

Bennett was early at the Buxtons’ house next morning. He wanted to catch Buxton before the van driver set off for work. He also thought that an early morning visit to the artist might disconcert that slightly disreputable young man.

From Buxton he got nothing but a mulish adherence to what he had told the police at former interviews. He had worked late, the roads were heavy with traffic and he was sure that Pythias would have left long before he himself reached home. Mrs Buxton confirmed all this so far as her knowledge of it went. She had not actually seen Pythias leave. They had had their little up-and-a-downer about the money in the briefcase, but she had given him his high tea, ‘with no ill-feelings on either side, if you understand me’, and she felt certain he must have left immediately he had had it. Bennett tackled Rattock once more, but the artist also had nothing to add to his previous story. He was what the sergeant called ‘dumb-insolent’ and contrived to be extremely irritating.

‘The three wise monkeys rolled into one,’ said Bennett, when he reported back to Routh later.