No Winding-Sheet

8

Digging Up the Past

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Margaret Wirrell, who had gone out with the others from another staff meeting, followed the headmaster to his room.

‘I’ve looked up those garden-pond people,’ she said, ‘but don’t you think it might seem a bit like forcing the governors’ hands if we give them a list of possible firms who would do the job?’

‘Yes, I think it might. I do not intend to confront them with a list, but only to hold it in reserve in case they ask me whether I have any ideas. I do hope they will agree to the pond. I like the thought of it very much. It will be ornamental and also out of reach of the boys. I imagine, too, that these pools come within a fairly wide price range, always an advantage when you have no idea of how much the donor is prepared to spend.’

‘Maybe I’ll persuade my husband to let us have one for our own garden. I know just where I’d like it and we’ve got plenty of room.’

‘I’m sure about the pond and the fish, but I’m not too sure about the water-lilies,’ said Mr Ronsonby. ‘Don’t they need a lot of sunshine? With tall buildings all around, they may find themselves in the shade most of the time. On the other hand, the quad is a good size, so there may not be any problems. Oh, well, Filkins will know.’

Mr Ronsonby had had to inform the education committee of Pythias’s disappearance, and from them it had percolated to the governors. The first question the head-master was asked at the governors’ meeting was, ‘No news of Pythias, I suppose?’

‘I’m afraid not, Sir Wilfred.’

‘I never liked the idea of appointing a foreigner,’ said another governor.

‘Nonsense, Manning,’ said the chairman. ‘The man was well qualified and spoke perfect English. Educated over here, as a matter of fact, wasn’t he, Ronsonby?’

‘Yes, Sir Wilfred, so far as his university training was concerned. He took a good degree in geology and metallurgy.’

‘Off on a toot looking for oil, and in our country, too, I’ll be bound,’ said Manning. ‘Anyway, let’s get down to business.’

Mr Ronsonby’s suggestion that, if the governors were kind enough to make the school an opening-day present, a lily-pond would be most welcome was received with approval, especially by Mr Manning, whose brother-in-law was in landscape gardening with special interest in shrubs, greenhouses, garden chalets, paving slabs and garden pools.

Manning was not the most popular member of the governing body, for he seemed to regard himself in duty bound to carp and cavil at every suggestion put forward by his fellow-members, but on this occasion the governors realised that, so long as his brother-in-law was commissioned to supply and sink the pond and to establish the plinth of stone around the quad (this was not in the builder’s contract) they could count on some reduction in the price of their gift. As they themselves had no central fund on which to draw, the money for the pool and payment for the work involved would come out of individual pockets, so any lessening of that particular load was extremely welcome.

A week before term ended, all the actual construction work on the school building was finished. The interior decorators were still busy, but hoped to be able to report that another few days would, in the words of the foreman, ‘see us through’, and the contractors had already sent down their experts to pass judgement on what had been a vast and important project. The first floor was not a replica of the ground floor which housed the big school hall, the entrance vestibule, the cloakrooms and the secretary’s and the headmaster’s offices, but it covered the same amount of space and included the handsome library.

The second floor was a good deal smaller. The music room and the art room were up there so that the sounds of singing, instrumental discords and, from the art room, the thumping of wet clay and the general mayhem without which, it seemed, no art class could express itself, should not impinge upon the quieter, if more boring activities which were being carried out in the rest of the school. (The woodwork centre, like the gym, was a separate building, reached by a covered way and adjacent to the gym changing rooms.)

As breaking-up day drew nearer, Ronsonby said to Margaret Wirrell that he hoped he was going to muster a full staff at the beginning of the summer term.

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘We don’t want anybody else falling off the back of a lorry.’ Mr Ronsonby stared at her, but she merely picked up some lists he had given her to type out and went back to her own room.

On the following Tuesday, the caretaker brought the headmaster a report concerning two second-year boys named Travis and Maycock. The third year in any senior school is the acknowledged repository of nuisances, but the second years are still, so to speak, finding their feet, and these boys had been in no particular trouble before. Moreover, it transpired that they might be credited with praise rather than blame for their part in what had happened.

Assembly was over. Margaret Wirrell was in her office looking through the morning’s correspondence and Mr Ronsonby was in conference with the music master to make a final selection of the songs and orchestral pieces to be rendered on opening day, when there came a tap at the headmaster’s door.

‘Just see who that is,’ said the headmaster, ‘and, if it’s a boy, send him away.’

It was not a boy, but Sparshott. He closed the door behind him, advanced to the headmaster’s desk and said he had come to report another break-in.

‘Good gracious!’ said Mr Ronsonby. ‘Sorry, Phillips, but perhaps I had better look into this. Now that the buildings are finished we don’t want any vandalism.’ Mr Phillips removed himself and the headmaster turned to the caretaker. ‘Was it a nuisance break-in or was there intent to create damage or to steal?’ he asked.

‘It’s a kind of tricky story, Mr Ronsonby, sir, and I can’t do nothing but relate to you my end of it. I was having a bit of an early supper round about eight o’clock last night before making my last rounds of the premises before an early retirement, me having had a bit of a chill on the innards over the weekend with subsequent inconvenience and weakness, when there comes a knock at the front door.

‘ “See who that is, Ron,” I says to my boy, so he goes to the door and comes back to say as two boys named Travis and Maycock had come to report as somebody unauthorised was in the school. They reckoned they could hear him.

‘Well, sir, of course I goes to the front door myself to see what it’s all in aid of, but the two boys had scarpered. However, Ron had their names and said they was second years, but not knowed for any particular devilment and he reckoned they could be telling the truth, being as we had them other miscreants in the quad earlier on, so I takes him and the dog and we makes a recce and I opens up. Sure enough, there was somebody in the quad, or, rather, there was two somebodies, and it’s my belief, sir, as they was the same two parties as the last time, only this time they hadn’t risked the lights in the hall, but was working by the light of two hurricane lamps or something of that kind.

‘Well, sir, we crope up on ’em, me and the dog, leaving Ron on the front steps, and I lets the dog loose. I reckon he got one of ’em by the trousers, but the cloth tore and the two of ’em — the interlopers, I mean — made a dash for it out the door that leads into the vestibule corridor what I reckon they had left open in view of having to make a getaway. I noted as the swing doors into the hall and the crash-bar doors into the quad was open as the last time we had trespassers. I reckon the dog got a kick in the ribs from the second man, not the one whose trousers he tore, because I heared him, the dog, give a sort of yelp.’

‘And you were on the spot as the result of a report from two boys, but what on earth were boys doing on the school premises at eight o’clock at night?’

‘As they had scarpered by the time I got to my front door in the first place, sir, I could not say, but I have left a bit of evidence outside your room, sir, if you would wish to inspect it.’ Without waiting for an answer, he went into the vestibule and returned with a storm lantern, explaining that he was sure there had been a second one, but that the trespassers must have carried it away with them.

‘But what were they up to in the quad?’ asked Mr Ronsonby.

‘I investigated at first light this morning, sir, and I reckon they was only having a bit of a game roughing up the surface of the quad after Mr Filkins and his gardening club had got it all nice and smoothed over. If you ask me, sir, I reckon it’s a couple of no-goods among the Old Boys what are jealous of the new building what they never had in their time, sir.’

‘Extraordinary things people will do to make nuisances of themselves! I will get Mr Burke to check again that nothing has been stolen from the building itself and then I shall question the two boys.’

He interviewed Travis and Maycock in break, an unpopular practice with the boys, but which had the advantage, in his own view, of not interrupting lessons. Two young boys who had hastily combed their hair presented themselves at his door and were bidden to enter his sanctum.

‘Well?’ said Mr Ronsonby, who was a firm believer in putting the ball into an opponent’s court. ‘What have you to say for yourselves?’

Travis, eyeing the storm lantern which was on the headmaster’s desk, said, ‘Please, sir, it was my ballpoint, sir, rather a decent one, sir, I was given it for Christmas with my name on it and I didn’t want to lose it, sir.’

‘Well, go on. So far I remain in the dark.’

‘Please, sir, it fell out of the library window on Monday afternoon, sir. It fell into the quad and I asked Mr Scaife if I could go and get it, but he said the quad was out of bounds and always would be, and whatever of mine was in the quad would have to stay there unless some authorised person found it and returned it to me.’

‘I do not understand, Travis, how your property came to fall out of the library window. Most of the windows remain closed at this time of year to conserve the central heating, do they not?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘So how did your writing implement get out of a closed window into the quad?’

‘I don’t know, sir.’ Mr Ronsonby did not know, either, but he could guess. He knew a great deal about boys and it seemed to him that the likeliest explanation was that some irresponsible and playful classmate had impounded the ballpoint and had taken advantage of the enormous possibilities of playing the fool in the library, partitioned off as it was into bays. This meant that most of the class was never in view of the teacher-in-charge at any one time, so that it was possible to sneak to a window, open it and throw something out.

‘So this precious object fell out of a closed window into the quad. How mysteriously these things happen, do they not?’ said Mr Ronsonby.

‘Yes, sir.’

Mr Ronsonby addressed himself to the party of the second part.

‘And what was your interest in all this, Maycock?’

‘We thought we would go and get the ballpoint, sir.’

‘Even though Mr Scaife had quite rightly vetoed such a course?’

‘We knew we couldn’t go and get it in school time, sir, but we thought after school would be all right.’

‘My sister saved up her pocket money, sir, to give it to me. You can get them at Baker’s, sir. They were special for Christmas. She would be rather cheesed off if I lost it, sir, so we thought it wouldn’t do any harm to go round and pick it up after school.’

‘I see. So you broke into enclosed premises at night —’

‘Please, sir, we only climbed over the fence into the field, sir. Lots of boys do it, sir, not our boys, but —’

‘But now that all the outer doors to the building are in place and, if I know Sparshott, securely locked each day when the cleaners have gone, how did you propose to get into school and into the quad?’

The boys looked down at the floor and were silent. Mr Ronsonby waited a full minute and then said that this was not the end of the matter, but that the bell had gone and they would be wanted in class. Then he sent a prefect to find the caretaker.

Appealed to to furnish a likely explanation, Sparshott said, ‘A long acquaintance with the criminal classes when I was in the force, sir, has left me with the thought that they can be devious, sir, very, very devious, and boys, to my way of thinking, being born criminals at heart, sir, until they reaches man’s estate, is the same and behaves according.’

‘You have something there, Sparshott. So?’

‘Well, sir, I been turning last night over in my mind, sir, and what I asks myself is why two boys what must of necessity be miscreants, sir, else they wouldn’t have been of no disposition to invade the field and come knocking at my front door at eight o’clock at night, sir —’

The headmaster did not need to hear the rest of the explanation.

‘Ah,’ he said, ‘these boys employed a Machiavellian ruse to lure you from your cottage on the plea that there was somebody in the school —’

‘And got me to unlock the school, yes, sir, so’s they could slip in behind me without my knowledge and consent, sir. That’s about the size of it. They banked on me going the whole rounds of the school, I reckon, while they done whatever it was they come to do, havin’ no knowledge as they had told the truth without knowing it, meanin’ as there was intruders on the premises.

‘I unlocked the front door to get in, because that isn’t bolted now, whereas the back door and the door at the end of the washroom corridor was both bolted up by me when I makes my rounds after the cleaners have finished for the day, which is my routine, sir —’

‘So you went up to the front door of the school, unlocked it—’

‘And found as I had not been misinformed by them two boys, sir. There was men in the quad, not as I believe the boys knew that, as 1 say, when they come and knocked on my door. I reckon that was only a try-on to get me to open up the school.’

‘So the boys slipped into the building behind you, but the intruders escaped, it seems.’

‘They had both them doors on to the quad open, sir, likewise, as I reported to you, the door on to the vestibule corridor. One run one way and the other run another way, but I reckon they met up again in the vestibule. The front door was wide open because me and my lad come in that way. They pushed past Ron and that there hurricane lamp, sir, is the only evidence they was ever in the quad at all except for a bit of roughing-up as they give to the ground, sir, like as if they was going to dig it up.’

‘I see. I wonder how they got into the quad?’

‘I makes my inspection this morning, sir, before school goes in, and there’s a broken window in the boys’ washroom, sir.’

‘Couldn’t that have been done by Travis and Maycock?’

‘I don’t reckon they done it, not for a minute, sir. It had been done with treacle and brown paper, sir, which is why I never heard the sound of breaking glass. It’s an old burglar’s trick, sir. If them two boys had done it there would have been no need for them to come to my cottage, sir, and inveigle me into opening up the front door of the school.’

‘I wish, Sparshott, that you would go out into the quad again and look for a ballpoint pen with Travis’s name on it.’

‘Which is the object as I was just a-going to present to your notice, sir. It had fell just under the library windows and I reckon as there was some larking about and somebody throwed it out. It wasn’t nowhere near where them trespassers had roughed up the ground, sir. I never noticed as the biro had a name on it, but that accounts for the two boys, sir, I reckon, although, not noticing the name, I never connected it with young Travis. I seen it laying there and I picked it up and put it in me pocket and forgot all about it till you mentioned it just now.’

‘You had better see at once about getting that washroom window mended.’

‘Which I have already put it in hand, sir, knowing the necessity, sir.’

Travis got his Christmas present back coupled with dire warnings to both boys of what would happen if they stepped out of line again, but Mr Ronsonby was puzzled. He called Mr Burke into consultation after he had asked him to check on all stock which might attract a thief.

‘It’s been the quad both times,’ he said. ‘What on earth can these intruders be after?’

‘I can’t imagine,’ said Mr Burke. ‘I’ve checked, and again there is nothing missing or damaged. If they really wanted to play merry-come-up, they would have smashed the pictures in the hall or broken into the canteen or thrown paint all over the place. Merely to scuff up the middle of the quad doesn’t make sense. Of course, they did break a window to get in.’

‘I have a deep distrust of things which don’t make sense,’ said Mr Ronsonby. At school dinner, where he presided over the staff table, he mentioned the matter.

One of the men said, ‘Morbid curiosity, Headmaster. All sorts of rumours have been going round the school.’

‘Rumours, Carter? What rumours?’

‘A boy in my form named Fanshawe is the son of a close friend of one of the governors and has got hold of the story that the governors are to give the school a present for opening day. It seems reasonable to suppose that, if speculation as to the nature of the governors’ present is going round the school, it is going round outside in the town, and that may have attracted the attention of vandals.’

‘I still don’t see why that should inspire anybody to attempt to dig up the quad.’

‘Perhaps, Headmaster,’ said Filkins, always anxious to bring the gardening club into the limelight, ‘my squad could investigate.’

‘I think not, thank you, Filkins. Any day now I expect notification from the contractors that they are ready to make the excavation for the pond. They will carry out any necessary investigation, I’m sure. They propose to get the foundations of the pond dug and made secure during the holiday and then you and your boys can amuse yourselves — under expert guidance, of course — in working out a list of suitable water plants and in planning where they are to be planted when the pond is completed.’

Breaking-up day came at last. The parting hymn, ‘Lord, dismiss us with Thy blessing’, sung at afternoon instead of morning assembly — a hymn which is rendered in every school at the end of every term, but the words of which, except for the opening line, have never been memorised by any generation of schoolchildren yet — pursued its mumbled course because all the hymnbooks had been collected, counted and locked away. Then the school streamed joyously out to enjoy nearly three weeks of freedom.

It was the Friday before Good Friday, so the landscape-gardening experts moved in on the following Monday and spent the rest of the week, up to the Thursday afternoon, measuring and levelling the quad, working out exactly where the pond itself was to be sunk and in doing the preliminary excavating. The governors had decided to do the school proud. The pond was not to be prefabricated, but constructed on the site and was to measure four metres by three, roughly thirteen feet by ten.

Over the Easter weekend there was another unsightly heap of soil and gravel in the middle of the quad, and at the instigation of Sir Wilfred, who was not only the chairman of governors but a personal friend of the Chief Constable, a policeman had been detailed to patrol the alley which ran along the end of the back gardens of those houses which bordered two sides of the school field. This patrolling, paid for by the governors, was to continue until the pond was completed, although what precautions were to be taken to guard it after that, nobody knew.

Guided by hindsight, Mr Ronsonby felt that he had guessed all along what would happen when the excavations began, but at the time he was as surprised, horrified and incredulous as everybody else. The first notification he received of the terrible news came in the form of a telegram from Mr Burke, sent to his holiday hotel in Cornwall.

Remembering that precious time had gone by during the Christmas holidays before it was realised that Pythias was missing, Mr Ronsonby had left his holiday address with Mr Burke, and Mr Burke, since he was not going away for Easter, had checked, as usual, that Sparshott had his telephone number in case of any emergency which affected the school.

The news, therefore, had to go from the contractors to Sparshott and from him by telephone to Mr Burke before it reached Mr Ronsonby by telegram. The men digging out the foundations for the pond had called at the caretaker’s cottage on the Tuesday after Easter Monday and had brought him the news.

‘Something nasty turned up, mate. Better come and have a dekko for yourself. It’s a police matter, us reckons.’

Like Mr Ronsonby, Sparshott felt that he also had always known what was to be brought to light. He walked across to school with the man who had brought the message and they went into the quad. Here a little gang of workmen were standing round the hole they had dug. They were leaning on picks and shovels, but otherwise they might have passed for a group of mourners standing around an open grave. The comparison with an open grave was fair enough. At one end of the hole and on top of the rubbish which, mistakenly, it had been taken for granted that Mr Filkins’s gardening club had tidied away, was a very dead man.

During his time in the police force Sparshott had seen a number of dead bodies. Only one of them had been caused neither by accident nor suicide. It was that of a woman who had been struck down by a drunken husband and had caught her head on the angle of the stone surround of a fireplace. She was battered but recognisable enough, and the hysterical husband had gone straight to the police station to report what had happened.

Sparshott had also seen the bodies of suicides, one of whom had taken an overdose, another who had thrown herself into the little local river, and there had been a man who, with no consideration whatever for the squeamish person who had found his body, had decided to cut his own throat — but, again, each corpse was recognisable. The body in the quad was not recognisable. It had been in the ground too long. Sparshott turned away and said, as unemotionally as he could, ‘I reckon that must be poor Mr Pythias.’

‘You’ll need the police,’ reiterated the workman who had called at the cottage to give him the news.

‘I’m going to ring ’em straight away. You don’t need to advise me. I’m ex-police myself,’ said Sparshott.

‘We’re knocking off for today. Can’t go on while that’s there,’ said the foreman.

‘I reckon we’ll be knocking off for a good long time to come,’ said another of the men. ‘Once the police gets on to this, no knowing when they’ll let us come back. Want us to shovel some earth back on to the poor bugger, mate, just to show a bit of respect, like?’

‘No, certainly not. I been a copper, I tell you, so I knows the ropes. They’ll want to see things exactly as they are,’ replied Sparshott firmly.

The men collected their jackets and put them on. They loaded their implements and themselves into the truck which had brought them to the school and drove away through the front gates which Sparshott had opened for the truck when it arrived. No farewells were said. The truck could have been a funeral car. Sparshott unlocked Margaret Wirrell’s office and went to the telephone. ‘We reckon we’ve found poor Mr Pythias, sir,’ he said. ‘Could you make it convenient to come along, seeing as Mr Ronsonby ain’t available?’