Tom Brown's Body

9. An Assembly of the Elders

*

Where shall we find such another Set of practical Philosophers?

IBID. (Act 2, Scene 1)

MRS BRADLEY had not been in and around the School for more than a couple of days when she received a note from Mr Semple.

'Kay and I made rather a curious discovery on the spot, almost exactly, where we found Conway,' the note explained. With anticipatory relish, Mrs Bradley at once wrote a reply, inviting Mr Semple and Mr Kay to meet her as soon as their duties permitted. A room in Mr Loveday's House had been allotted to her as a study, and, with this as a strategic base, she was able to ask them to tea.

Only Mr Semple turned up, however.

'Kay isn't a very sociable bird,' he explained, 'so I've come along on my own. No, no tea, thanks. I've promised to go along and have it with old Pearson. His daughter's out for the evening. I just came to tell you what we found.'

Mrs Bradley summed up her guest, and decided that his looks did not deceive her; for Mr Semple looked what he was – an athletic, games-playing young man, fairly well-bred, obviously simple-minded and equally obviously kind-hearted. What seemed alien to him, therefore, was his bleak-eyed, terrified stare, a slight stammer every time he spoke, and a too-easy assurance and buoyancy with which he was attempting to cover up these nervous reactions.

Enter quite a possible murderer, thought Mrs Bradley, and one with an excellent motive. 'And this discovery of yours?' she said. Mr Semple looked distressed.

'Oh, no bearing, I daresay,' he admitted, 'but Mr Wyck indicated that you were the person to come to, don't you know. It was a headless cock, as a matter of fact. Killed in that Voodoo sort of style. Revolting, actually.'

'Details,' said Mrs Bradley, producing her notebook. Mr Semple looked more distressed than before, but replied and gave the details. They were interesting, and, as he had said, revolting. Mrs Bradley inscribed them carefully in her notebook. 'And what bearing do you suppose all this to have upon the death of Mr Conway?' she enquired. 'Have you heard that a member of the Staff has been visiting the village witch, Mrs Harries?'

'I did hear something,' admitted Semple. 'Why, do you know about that?'

'Oh, yes. I am a frequent visitor there myself. I suppose Mr Kay did not accompany you here because he has met me there.'

'Kay's doing some sort of research for some sort of Society, I believe,' said Mr Semple. 'He's one of these Folk-Dancing sort of chaps.'

Mrs Bradley did not connect folk-dancing and witchcraft very closely, but did not say so. She talked about the ballet – much to the confusion of her guest.

When he departed, she gazed after him with a certain amount of pity. The rejected lover seldom meets with sympathy, she reflected; and rightly so, for he deserves none.

She mentioned this theory to Miss Loveday, who already delighted her very much. Miss Loveday, who had been sewing, put away her workbox with great deliberation, assumed her spectacles (which, to Mrs Bradley's stupefaction, she always discarded when she sewed), and pronounced with deliberation:

'And which of us, my brother or myself, do you suspect of the murder of Gerald Conway?'

'I think (if I thought that either of you had had anything to do with it), that I should suspect the two of you of having been identical accessories,' said Mrs Bradley. Miss Loveday nodded.

'I understand you,' she said, 'and it is, of course, unnecessary to tell you that my brother and I are twins. This is not generally known, but I tell it to you because I feel that you knew it the moment you set eyes on us. What say you?'

'I am dumbfounded,' said Mrs Bradley, 'and, naturally, much enlightened.'

'I wonder whether you always speak the truth?' said Miss Loveday. 'I have noticed that doctors, whether charlatans or not, very seldom commit themselves to direct statements of fact. Do you suspect our Roman Bath?'

'Certainly,' Mrs Bradley replied. 'Your Roman Bath, the river, and every bathroom in Spey School.'

'Ah!' said Miss Loveday, nodding. 'You see? An evasive answer. As for the School bathrooms, with the exception of those in this House they are primitive and odd. "They got them into polished baths and were cleansed." So said blind Homer. I would not go bail for the cleanliness of the School House bathrooms, nor for Mr Poundbury's.'

'I am a sybarite,' Mrs Bradley replied. Miss Loveday studied her face but gained nothing from this scrutiny.

'You are a Sphinx,' she retorted. 'Now, tell me. Have you come to any conclusions about Merrys?' Mrs Bradley was on safe ground here, and they indulged in a lively discussion of adolescent boys for the next hour and a half.

'And now,' said Mrs Bradley, 'tell me all about Mr Semple. I know he hoped to marry Miss Marion Pearson and I know he plays games and has championed the cause of Mr Kay, whom now he despises and dislikes. What else is there to know?'

'Nothing,' replied Miss Loveday.

*

The meeting convened by the chairman of the governors had been intended to be a solemn and impressive affair, but it turned out that the chairman, himself an Old Boy, had known Mrs Bradley for years, and that they were not only well acquainted but were old and firm friends.

'Good Lord, Mrs B.!' he said joyously. 'Fancy finding you here! Come on, and tell me what to say. I suppose it is murder, ain't it? Who did it? Do you happen to know?'

'I think I know,' Mrs Bradley replied, 'but that has nothing to do with your meeting, which, nevertheless, I shall attend.'

The local Superintendent of Police was also present.

'You know, Beadle,' said the chairman to him confidentially, 'I should call in Scotland Yard if I were you. Mean to say, it's a bit above your weight, this sort of thing, unless you're pretty sure you can get your hooks on the fellow. Who did it, hey? Do you know?'

'Not by so much as a hair, sir,' replied the Superintendent, instinctively following a lead, 'unless, of course, it should chance to be the gentleman we've got our eye on, and I don't want to go into that. And Scotland Yard are sending their Mr Gavin.'

'By the way, Wyck, I suppose we'd better shelve the question of Housemasters until this confounded business is settled,' suggested a governor who was known to be a rabid anti-feminist. 'Wonder who –'

'Couldn't have been a boy, anyway,' broke in a retired major, another of the governors. 'I know boys out and out. No vice in 'em. What do you say, Sainsbury?' He turned to another of the party who was also an Old Boy of the School.

'Can't concur in your opinion. Boys are all thugs. Got three of my own, so I ought to know,' replied Sainsbury, a lively-looking man of forty-five. 'Besides, what about Watt in '18?'

Reminiscences of Watt led to reminiscences of Pott, and the talk passed to Bott, Cott, and Gott.

'Talking of Gott,' said Mrs Bradley, seizing her opportunity, 'isn't there a boy at the School named Issacher?'

'Yes, there is an Issacher in Mr Loveday's House,' said Mr Wyck, looking up from the notes he was writing. He glanced at her gratefully, for he wanted to get the meeting over, and all the Potts, Botts, Cotts, and Gotts had been. before his time as Headmaster, and he was not particularly interested in any but his own Old Boys.

'We must interview him,' said Mrs Bradley, at once. 'This boy Issacher, I mean.'

The governors were surprised by this suggestion, but Issacher was sent for hastily by the Headmaster, who now saw a chance of getting on with the meeting. Issacher kept it waiting for fourteen minutes. He was a thick-set boy in a bad temper which his racial background caused him to hide at first. He sidled in, looked at the Headmaster, and bowed to the chairman of the governors, who had been on his father's board of directors at one time.

'Ah, Issacher?' said the chairman.

'Sir?' said Issacher.

'Sorry to have dragged you from your studies and all that,' put in the major, laughing heartily at his own wit.

'I was taking my practice time. I am a pianist, sir,' said Issacher, with deadly meekness. 'Last week I was interrupted for a routine dental inspection when my teeth are perfectly sound.' He showed them. 'This week I had hoped to be allowed at least the hour allotted to me on my timetable.'

'Don't be impertinent, boy,' said Mr Wyck, mildly. 'Stand at the end of the table and reply clearly and exactly to what is asked you.'

'But, sir!' protested the youth, his fine hands beginning to flutter. 'Really, sir, I have done no wrong! I only ask for a little time to practise my music! But no! I am accused and browbeaten! There is no justice anywhere! Of what am I accused?'

'Don't act in this terrified way,' said Mr Wyck. 'You are being foolish, my boy.'

'And talking of accusations,' said Mrs Bradley, before anyone else could speak, 'what of your book, Mr Issacher?'

Issacher dropped his eyes, and there was a pause.

'I don't make a book during term,' he said slowly, his expressionless eyes on hers as soon as he raised them.

'Oh, nonsense!' said Mrs Bradley briskly. 'Tell all, and I'll go bail for you. But, in telling all, be truthful and succinct. We have no more time to lose than you.'

'Very well,' said Issacher slowly, 'I'll tell everything.' He paused again, glanced round at the expectant faces, and then burst out with some suddenness, 'Yes, Merrys and Skene did break out at night! Yes, they did go to the Dogs, but they did no good! Yes, Mr Conway was murdered, but it was nothing to do with me! Yes, I did make a book on whether they would be found out and when! Yes, I made another book on which of the masters did the murder! So what?'

'Go and play the piano, Issacher,' said the Headmaster, still speaking mildly, 'and return to us when you are calm and can speak in a proper manner.'

'And ask Mr Poundbury to spare us a word,' said Mrs Bradley. She wagged her head sorrowfully at Issacher's retreating back.

'Jewish, I suppose?' said the major. 'Artistic race. Wonder who scooped the pool? Whether they'd be found out or not, eh? Not a bad flutter. Intelligent idea.' He developed it, whilst Mr Wyck pretended to make more notes and Mrs Bradley actually did make some. Mr Poundbury was then shown in by the butler. 'Is Issacher in your House?' demanded the major, as soon as the butler had gone. 'Boy's got brains, but he wants a sound thrashing. You'd better see to it.'

'Alas, no, he is not in my House. I wish he were. I can't find a boy to play Hamlet to save my life,' said Mr Poundbury. 'And there's Mr Loveday, who cares for nothing but Roman Baths, and Miss Loveday, who cares for nothing but ferreting out other people's business, with a boy like that on their hands. A genuine talent wasted, wasted, wasted! He is even fat enough for Hamlet – "too, too solid flesh" you know. Oh, by the way, did you send for me, Headmaster?'

'Mrs Bradley sent for you,' replied Mr Wyck. 'If you have no objection, I should be obliged if you would answer her questions, keeping closely to the point, if you follow me.'

'I have only one question to put to Mr Poundbury,' said Mrs Bradley, 'and I wish to put it in front of the governing body. Mr Poundbury, what can you tell us about Mr Conway?'

'I?' said Mr Poundbury, surprised. 'Do I know him? – Oh, Conway! I'm so sorry! Of course! Conway! What do you want me to tell you?'

'Anything which comes into your head.'

'I scarcely know where to begin,' said Mr Poundbury, smoothing his very sparse hair from his scholarly brow. 'I suppose I had better begin at the beginning. When was that? Let me think, Oh, yes, I know. No, I don't . . . What exactly am I talking about?'

'Hadn't we better have our meeting first?' muttered one of the governors, a bishop. 'My train –'

'You are telling the governors all about Mr Conway,' said Mrs Bradley firmly to the witness. 'We should like to hear what you had against him. That is all.'

'Had against him? Oh,' said Mr Poundbury, 'I know! You are thinking of my wife. But I wouldn't rake up past history, if I were you. She's got over it, of course. People do. Not easily, but they do. Yes, yes, there's no doubt of that. They do, do, do. ... What do they do? Oh, yes –' He glanced down at his heavily-bandaged right hand.

'And have you got over it?' Mrs Bradley enquired. Mr Poundbury shook his head.

'I could have murdered him,' he said simply. Then the meaning of these words seemed to dawn on him. 'Oh, I'm so sorry! Of course, he was murdered, wasn't he? I'd forgotten that again for the moment. Well, I must be going, I'm afraid. My wife will get you anything you – Oh, no, of course not. How foolish of me. Really, I do apologize! What did you want me to tell you?'

'You've told us what we wanted to know,' said Mrs Bradley.

Mr Poundbury nodded, said, 'Good night, boys. Lights out at ten sharp,' and went out, looking benign. Mr Wyck looked enquiringly round the table.

'An able man,' he said, forestalling criticism. 'Easily the best Classical scholar on the Staff, and with a curious and acceptable gift of coaching the backward boys. No trouble with discipline, either, strange to say. His wife runs the House, of course,' he added to Mrs Bradley. 'She is a gifted person, and is very beautiful. I think you will have to meet her. And, by the way, Poundbury is not usually quite so absent-minded. His wife –'

'What's this tale about her?' demanded the major, 'Nothing scandalous, I hope? Can't have that sort of thing with the boys around. Impressionable age, you know. Once saw that "Young Woodley" thing they put on. Makes you think a bit. I say, you don't think he murdered Conway, do you?' he added suddenly. 'I should call him absent-minded enough to be capable of anything.'

'I don't think absent-mindedness in murderers is a sign of capability,' said Mrs Bradley. 'But I would say that a beautiful wife is excuse enough for anything. An old-fashioned idea, perhaps.'

'But what's this funny stuff about her and Conway?' persisted the major.

'You had better ask her,' said Mr Wyck.

'I didn't think of it in time,' said the major.

'And now, Wyck?' said the chairman. The governors hitched up their chairs. The Headmaster looked at the assembly, glanced at his notes and then gave a short, clear account of what had happened and what steps had been taken after the discovery of Mr Conway's body by Mr Kay and Mr Semple.

'And there is more evidence to be disclosed at the resumed inquest,' he added, 'but you will all appreciate that I am not at liberty to distribute facts which the police do net want advertised.'

'If I had anything to do with the conducting of this case,' said the major, 'I should want to know a great deal about that boy Issacher.'

'Poor Issacher! I am afraid he's had an unsatisfactory life, and then, even the best of Jews are upset by the troubles in Palestine, I believe. I don't like the boy as a boy; I'm sorry for him, though. Conway was no friend of his,' said Mr Wyck, thoughtfully. 'I always had a suspicion that he baited the lad. If I'd been certain, Conway would have gone. I won't have that sort of thing. As you know, Conway was held under 18B for a bit at the beginning of the war. They had to release him, of course, and very soon, but you will remember that I was not very much in favour of his appointment.'

'How long had Mr Conway been a master here?' Mrs Bradley enquired.

'Oh, for four years and the fraction of this term that he was with us,' said Mr Wyck. 'I didn't want him, as the governors, I know, will agree, but we were all glad enough to get a master at that time, as you can imagine. As the alternative was to employ a young woman – highly qualified and very charming – from Newnham, I was persuaded to agree to his appointment. But I didn't like it, and I wish now that I had plumped for the girl. At least she wouldn't have been murdered, although' – he smiled sardonically, an expression which gave his face a Satanic and startling charm – 'although I think she might have committed suicide after a bit.'

'That's all very well,' said the major, 'and you may remember I was as dead against Conway's appointment as you were. But what I say is this –'

'You were against appointing the girl, too,' put in Mrs Forrester, the only woman governor. 'You said she wouldn't be able to manage boys.'

'Neither would she!' retorted the major. 'And talking of that –'

'I don't think we had better,' put in the chairman firmly, 'otherwise we shall never get through. Now, Wyck, what further steps are you proposing to take?'

'I should explain first what further steps I have already taken,' said Mr Wyck. 'I have taken the step of inviting Mrs Lestrange Bradley to watch the School for a few weeks. Some boy or boys know something of this unhappy business. That is a fact which must be faced.'

'Just so, sir,' put in the Superintendent, before the major could reaffirm his faith in boyhood generally and in the boys of Spey in particular. 'We have some evidence already that one of the master's bicycles had been used on the night of the crime.'

'Good heavens, man!' exploded the major. 'Think what you're saying!'

'I am well aware of what I'm saying, sir,' returned the Superintendent, with the indulgence often shown by large men to smaller ones, 'and please don't think that we have the slightest suspicion, let alone evidence, that any of the young gentlemen of the School are connected in any way with the crime.'

'I should think not, indeed!' growled the major, in furious resentment of the Superintendent's good-natured attitude. 'I should jolly well think not!'

'However, there's been larks, of a kind, if the Headmaster will excuse the word as applied to his scholars, and what larks they were have got to be found out, and, when found out, sifted and pinned down. Now, I don't say –'

'But I do,' said Mrs Bradley. 'I say that we know the identity of the boys in question, and, although they were out after hours, and although they impounded a bicycle, and even punctured one of its tyres, I am going to ask Mr Wyck, to whom I shall give their names presently, to exercise his discretion on their behalf and to take no action against them, particularly as –'

'I appreciate the necessity of obtaining their evidence,' said Mr Wyck firmly, 'and am prepared to promise to overlook their conduct. This,' he added, for the benefit of the major, 'is in order to assist in the detection of Conway's attacker, and for no other reason whatsoever.'

'Quite so, sir,' agreed the Superintendent. 'We can't afford to lose valuable evidence because the witnesses are afraid to come forward.'

'Oh, well! Oh, well!' said the major, waving the point aside. 'Now what was all this mud about Mrs Poundbury, and why weren't we told about it before?' His eyes gleamed hopefully.

'There is nothing to tell,' Mr Wyck replied. 'It was not anybody's business at the time except that of the two concerned, and, of course, Poundbury himself. There was no scandal attached to it. Mrs Poundbury was very sensible and, in any case, it occurred during the summer vacation and on board ship. It was nothing to do with the School, and I am sorry it ever came out.'

'Oh?'

'Yes.'

'But it left Poundbury pretty sore?'

'You heard what he said just now.'

'And you think he might have been the murderer?' The major spoke excitedly.

'I can think of nobody less likely,' replied Mr. Wyck, with his usual calmness.

'Well, we don't seem to have got very far,' said the chairman, 'and as the – the death was the only item on the agenda, I propose, unless Mr Wyck or Mrs Bradley has anything more to tell us, to declare the meeting closed.'

'I'd like to ask a question,' said the major. 'No offence, of course.'

'None,' said Mrs Bradley, perceiving that the question had been addressed principally to her.

'Right. Well, what I mean to say, what's your position with regard to – I mean, are you to be appointed officially by us, or what? Position ought to be made regular, you know, what!'

'My position has not, so far, been irregular,' Mrs Bradley answered. 'I am here in the capacity of guest to Mr and Miss Loveday. Simply that, and nothing more.'

'Oh, well, that's all right, then. Just like to get these things straight. Meeting closed? Vote of thanks to the Chair? Right . . . .'