No Winding-Sheet

3

An Addition to the List of Missing Persons

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After Boxing Day the weather had become so inclement that for the following week no outside work was done on the school buildings. However, to the disgust of the women cleaners, the painters and decorators came to do the inside jobs and, as one disgruntled cleaner put it, ‘brought in with them all the muck as would stick to their boots before it got on to our floors’. By the time term began, clear, frosty weather had replaced the sleet and the rain and outside work had been resumed. Unexpectedly, the mess in the quad had been tidied up. It was assumed that either the builders had had a change of heart or that Mr Filkins had enlisted the help of the keener members of his gardening club to do the work before the beginning of term.

On the first day of term, Mr Burke came to report to Mr Ronsonby the caretaker’s story of the break-in on breaking-up Friday night.

‘I checked very carefully,’ said Burke, ‘and nothing is missing or damaged, neither has Sparshott heard or seen anything else untoward, so far as I know. I do think, though, Headmaster, now that the buildings are so nearly finished and the official opening seems to be in sight next term, that we ought to have a nightwatchman on the premises. There are loutish types about nowadays who have only to see something fresh, clean, admirable and new to be seized by a lust to vandalise and defile it.’

‘I’ll put to the committee this evidence of illegal entry given us by Sparshott, but I’ve tried before, as you know. Still, now that the school has definitely been broken into, my arguments may carry more weight.’

However, they did not carry any weight at all. Nothing had been stolen, the education office pointed out, nothing damaged or defaced, and the property was fully covered by insurance. No nightwatchman was appointed and, when this was relayed to the caretaker, Sparshott replied: ‘Well, Mr Ronsonby, sir, I shall continue to keep ears and eyes open, but a twenty-four hour day is asking too much of a man.’

‘I agree entirely, Sparshott. The ball, I feel, is in the committee’s court, and it is up to the education office to deal with it. Please don’t worry. After all, nothing but a bit of skylarking seems to have happened. One thing, the workmen have filled in the hole in the quad.’

There was another matter which was very much on the headmaster’s mind. Ought he or ought he not to report the absence of the Greek journey money? Mr Pythias’s continued non-appearance had been reported as a matter of routine, but the money, the headmaster decided, was a different kettle of fish. The education committee left the arrangements for all school journeys entirely to the discretion of the head teacher on the understanding that the committee accepted no responsibility for insuring the party against death, accident or the theft of personal property while the journey was taking place. Not all local authorities followed this plan, but in Mr Ronsonby’s area it operated. It was up to the sponsors of the trip to make certain that the money paid to the tour company included the personal insurance of every passenger.

‘I suppose it might be thought necessary to make a report that the money is missing,’ said Mr Ronsonby to his wife, ‘but I’m damned if I’m going to give anybody the satisfaction of believing that one of my staff has decamped with the takings. I would rather put up the cash for the trip myself. In fact, it looks as though I may have to do so.’

‘It would make a pretty big hole in our savings.’

‘I know, but I’d much rather carry the can than face a scandal involving one of my staff. Besides, I can’t believe that Pythias has defaulted. There must be some other explanation.’

‘One thing; it isn’t like the school fund. That has to be audited,’ said Mrs Ronsonby.

‘Oh, if it were the school fund, I’d have to report it. As it is, so long as I make good the money, nobody need be any the wiser.’

‘Mrs Wirrell knows the money has gone.’

‘Oh, Lord! If I couldn’t trust Margaret Wirrell not to talk out of turn, I would begin to distrust myself!’

‘I’m glad Margaret isn’t young and glamorous,’ said Mrs Ronsonby, smiling.

‘She was a chief petty officer in the WRNS in her young days. She could manage the school and the staff with one hand while she was signing for the latest consignment of stationery stock with the other.’

‘So you have quite decided that you are not going to report the loss of the money?’

‘So long as I make it good, nobody can complain, and if I did report it I should gain nothing but a name for washing the school dirty linen in public’

‘What do you think has happened to Mr Pythias? Can he have been set upon and hurt?’

‘I think we should have heard if that were the case. I don’t know what to think except, as I say, the one thought I am determined to put out of my mind.’

‘It’s much the most likely explanation, you know. If he had been beaten up and robbed, surely we should have heard of it by now, as you say.’

‘Not if he had been struck on the head and is suffering from amnesia. He may be wandering about, not knowing who he is or where he is supposed to be. Margaret suggested this and it does seem feasible.’

‘Surely the police would have picked him up before this if he were found wandering.’

‘One would think so. Anyway, I shall have to report to them that he is missing. We can’t go on in this state of uncertainty. It’s over three weeks since his landlady saw him last.’

‘That is the trouble, I suppose. The whole of the Christmas holiday and now these early days of the term have had to go by before anybody realised that he was missing. I blame that landlady. She must have known that something was wrong when he did not turn up again at his digs after Christmas. He would have gone to collect his things, even if there had been a row.’

The police took the same view. A plain-clothes detective turned up at the school and introduced himself as Detective-Inspector Routh. He brought a sergeant with him. Mr Ronsonby soon found that he had better revise his plan of saying nothing about the missing money.

‘We have visited the address you gave us, sir. The landlady can be of no help. Says the missing gentleman went away for Christmas and she hasn’t set eyes on him since. Thinks he took umbrage when she refused to accept responsibility for some money he was carrying. Do you know anything about that, sir? Would the money have amounted to anything in the nature of a considerable sum?’

‘I imagine so. I cannot give you any figures. It had been paid by boys, parents and staff to cover a school journey to Greece next summer. Mr Pythias preferred to keep everything in his own hands, as the trip was entirely his own idea. He is of Greek extraction and has travelled widely in his own country. He is also the senior geography master here. I was entirely happy to leave everything in his hands, but as to the actual amount—’

‘May I ask whether you parted from him on amicable terms, sir?’

‘Oh, yes, very much so. The senior staff always pop into my room on the last day of term to say goodbye and Pythias came in as usual with the others.’

‘To the best of your knowledge, did he get on with the other masters?’

‘So far as I know, yes, he did. My staff are a very united and friendly bunch.’

‘Can you tell me anything more about this money the landlady says he was carrying? You cannot name the exact sum, but is there anything else you know about it?’

‘I know people were very slow at paying it in to him. Practically all of it, I believe, came in on his deadline, which was the last day of term. He was occupied during that last school dinner-hour, and that meant that he took the money home with him, no doubt with the intention of placing it in a safe deposit for the weekend, as the bank would not be open to receive it over the counter until the Monday morning. That was too long a time to leave it unprotected.’

‘How many persons had opted to make the trip, sir?’

‘According to the figures I was given, sixty boys, ten parents and six staff. It was a package deal, of course, and three members of staff went free of charge, as each was responsible for twenty boys. The other three opted to accompany them and I imagine there was some arrangement about sharing expenses and all six taking equal responsibility.’

‘But not only those who were to make the journey would have known about the deadline for payment, I take it? The rest of the staff would have known, too, and the rest of the boys. A good many parents, too, whether they were going or not.’

‘Undoubtedly. So far as I am aware, the whole town could have known. It is the first time we have embarked upon quite so ambitious a project, and I have no doubt that, in a town of this comparatively small size, a great deal of general interest has been taken in it.’

‘It’s a pity about the lapse of time before the disappearance of the gentleman was reported, sir.’

‘I agree, but if the landlady did not report it, I hardly see who else could have done so. When the school is on holiday one hardly keeps tabs on the staff.’

‘These friends with whom I understand he was to spend Christmas. You wouldn’t know anything about them, I suppose? The landlady doesn’t seem to have seen anything of them at any time.’

‘I know neither their name nor where they live. My assumption, for what it’s worth, is that Mr Pythias never got to them.’

‘In that case, wouldn’t they have reported him as missing, sir? Presumably they would have been expecting him.’

‘One would think they would at least have made contact with the landlady, although my secretary tells me that she may not have been very anxious to encourage visitors to her rooms.’

‘Well, it’s all rather unsatisfactory, sir. If you don’t mind my asking, haven’t you a senior member of staff who might have his finger on the staff pulse, so to speak, somebody in touch in a different way from yourself with the other schoolmasters? It might be helpful to get his views.’

‘Somebody who is constantly in the staff room with the other men, you mean. Yes, there is Mr Burke, my deputy.’ Mr Ronsonby went to the secretary. ‘Margaret, could you page Mr Burke? He should be with the sixth in the library.’

‘Very good, Mr Ronsonby. Have you decided what I’m to do about this letter from the travel agents which came this morning?’

‘Ring them and say we’ll settle with them before the end of the week. It will take me that time to arrange to pay them the money.’

Mr Burke, a black-haired, blue-eyed man with a chin as blue as close-shaving of his face could make it, presented himself and greeted the inspector as an old friend.

‘Rodney is a pushover for his A-level English,’ he said. ‘Maths less certain, but stands a fair chance if he’s lucky with the questions, I’m told.’

‘That’s very gratifying, sir, but I haven’t come up about Rodney. You will know, I’m sure, that there is some anxiety about the non-appearance of Mr Pythias this term.’

‘Lord, yes. Speculation is rife. All sorts of rumours are flying around.’

‘How do you mean, sir?’

‘I’ve heard all shades of opinion expressed, from murder with intent to rob down to (from a graceless lad in the fourth year whose form master repeated it in the staff-room) “The Old Python has done a bunk with the boodle.” ’

‘Could there be any substance in such an opinion, sir?’

‘From what I know of Pythias, there is not a miserable milligram of weight in it, and I cautioned the staff about retailing jokes of that kind. Still, there it is. These things are bound to be said when a man disappears without leaving any tracks and was carrying a considerable amount of ready cash. Some of the money was in the form of cheques, but quite a lot was in big coarse banknotes. I told Pythias at the time that, if only he’d mentioned the matter, I would have found somebody to take on his dinner duty or seen to it myself so that he could get to the bank that Friday morning, but he said he hadn’t thought of it and that the money would be put away safely.’

‘So he didn’t seem perturbed to have a large sum of money, some of it easily negotiable, in his charge?’

‘Lord, no. He said he had only got to bung it in a night safe as soon as he’d had his tea and I’m sure that’s what he intended to do. He said Mrs Buxton — that’s his landlady — didn’t like him to keep tea waiting, as she always cooked him a bit of fish on Friday evenings, so he would go home to tea and then park the cash.’

‘So you talked to him quite a bit, sir, on that breaking-up Friday afternoon?’

‘Only casually, during the afternoon break. There were the usual jokes from the others to the effect that he would be worth robbing, of course, but there was nothing in that.’

‘And he seemed perfectly normal, so far as you could judge?’

‘Oh, yes, absolutely normal. Just smiled at the jokes, that’s all.’

‘Was he popular with the boys, sir?’

‘Neither popular nor unpopular, like most of us. He was an experienced teacher and nobody took any liberties, but I don’t think the boys either liked or disliked him; they simply accepted him for what he was, a man capable of doing his job and getting them through their exams.’

‘And the staff, sir?’

‘Much the same. He had no close friends on the staff, but I’m sure he had never got up against anybody. He wasn’t the quarrelsome type.’

‘You wouldn’t know anything about the friends he proposed to visit for Christmas, sir?’

‘Not a thing. We’re a friendly, co-operative lot in the staffroom, but we know almost nothing of one another’s private lives. Wives turn up to the school play and on sports days and are introduced to the rest of the staff or not, as the case may be and as opportunity offers — which isn’t often, because we are all so busy on these occasions. I imagine it’s the same at most schools — friendly atmosphere in the staffroom, but little or no contact once we’re off the premises.’

‘And I have little opportunity, either,’ said the headmaster, ‘to meet the staff’s visitors. There are always the mayor and mayoress and, of course, the hordes of parents, who, like the poor in the Bible, are always with us, especially on these occasions.’

‘Well, if that’s all Mr Burke can tell us… ’ said the inspector.

‘Afraid it is,’ said Burke. ‘Anything more, Headmaster?’

‘Oh, no, no. Sorry to have interrupted your lesson.’ When Burke had gone, Mr Ronsonby said to the inspector that he hoped ‘this worrying business’ could be kept dark, at any rate for the time being, ‘There is no problem about the money,’ he said, ‘It will be made good. I hope, therefore, that it won’t be necessary to put emphasis on Pythias’s disappearance.’

‘You can rely upon our discretion, sir, but I can’t go bail for the press. Somebody will have leaked things to them, I’m afraid. There is bound to be speculation among your scholars, too, and that will soon reach the parents.’

‘Perhaps I can find a way of dealing with that situation. I will make an announcement at tomorrow’s assembly that Pythias is ill, but that I fully expect him to be back in school before the end of term. Surely we shall know something about him by then.’

‘It’s to be hoped so, sir. We shall do our best to trace his movements after he left his lodgings last December, but it may be a long job unless we strike lucky, especially as you want to avoid publicity as much as possible.’

‘Gone missing, with all that money on him?’ said the sergeant who had accompanied Routh. ‘Looks a pretty open case to me, sir, though we could hardly say so to the headmaster.’

‘I know, nor he to us. We couldn’t expect a headmaster to foul his own nest, but the man and the money have both disappeared and there’s been no report of any violence. I think you had better go round and lean on that landlady. She knows more than she’s said, I’ll be bound. There’s a husband. Find out where he was and what he was doing on that Friday night. His wife told me he works as a van man for Foster’s the furniture removers. Later on we may have to see what they’ve got to say about him.’

‘There were some cheques as well as money, it seems, sir. Wonder whether they were made out to the tour people or to Pythias himself?’

‘Good point. I’ll get on to the teachers who were going on the trip. They will have paid by cheque, no doubt. As for finding the chap, my opinion is that he’s probably in Greece by now. For a man with money and a passport and, as far as we know, no ties, it’s the simplest of matters to disappear. More than three weeks have gone by since the fellow was last seen by anybody who knew him. The trail is dead cold.’

‘A good many people knew about this expedition, sir, and that Pythias had the money.’

‘If he’s as honest as he is supposed to be, I can’t think why, if he couldn’t get to the bank himself on that Friday, he didn’t ask one of the other masters to pay in for him. Surely one of those who had paid up for the trip would have done him that much of a favour, if only to make sure that his own contribution was safe. It looks very bad indeed for Pythias, I’d say. I’m pretty certain in my own mind that, underneath all this loyalty to a member of his staff, that headmaster thinks as we do.’

‘You mean that Pythias has cut his stick and taken the money with him? I don’t believe there is any other reasonable way to look at it, but is there any chance the head will admit that’s what he thinks, sir?’

‘I doubt it. It isn’t so much Pythias as the good name of the school which is involved. Well, we’ll make a few enquiries, but if nobody will make a move to charge Pythias, or his body doesn’t turn up, or the man himself with a complaint of being mugged, there isn’t a lot we can do. All we know for certain is that he had the money and both he and the cash have disappeared.’

‘I certainly think the Buxtons need leaning on, sir.’

‘Well, have a try, but don’t go too far. We have never had any complaints about the woman from any tenants of hers or from any of her neighbours. It’s a perfectly respectable boarding-house and has been going for years. Oh, well, you go and have a word with her. I’m going back to the school. They won’t be expecting me again so soon, and an element of surprise is often effective. I’m going to sort out some of the masters who opted to go on this trip to Greece and see whether I can’t turn up a lead from one or other of them.’

This tactic met with little success. The only morsel of information which seemed to offer Routh any kind of a lead came from the junior geography master who, because he and Pythias shared the same subject, was not only going on the tour to Athens, but was in closer touch with Pythias than was any other member of the staff — although, as he himself admitted, that was not saying very much.

What his information amounted to was that Pythias had mentioned no plans to leave his bedsitter at Mrs Buxton’s house to stay with friends, either on that breaking-up Friday or on the following Monday, the day Mrs Buxton asserted that she had expected him to go on holiday for Christmas.

‘He told me he expected to get in some indoor putting practice to improve his game, that’s all,’ said the young schoolmaster, ‘but had not really decided. It sounded more like staying at his digs to me.’ Routh went back to his office and waited for his sergeant’s report on the visit to Mrs Buxton.

‘Buxton wasn’t home from work,’ said Detective-Sergeant Bennett, ‘but we don’t need him at present, so far as I can see, sir, because, according to his wife, he wasn’t home when Pythias took himself off that Friday night.’

‘No, we don’t need him yet, if we need him at all. I’ve just heard, though, that Pythias wasn’t expecting to leave his digs for Christmas, so either he had a worse row with Mrs Buxton than we know about or else he was lying to that young colleague of his and was deliberately laying a false trail about his movements, both to his colleague and to Mrs Buxton. I’m going to that house again and I’m going to find one of the lodgers — more than one, if I can manage it — who saw Pythias go out on that Friday night and can give me some idea of what time it was. Then it will be hard if we can’t turn up somebody who saw him in the street or at the railway station or somewhere. I don’t like all this double talk he seems to have indulged in. It sounds mighty suspicious to me, with all that money involved.’