Tom Brown's Body

10. Hecate at School House

*

Who accuses me?

IBID. (Act 2, Scene 10)

SOME of the governors went home directly the gathering broke up, others remained to dine with the Headmaster. Mrs Bradley returned to Miss Loveday, but supper at the House was scarcely over when a message came from Mr Wyck. In response to it, Mrs Bradley was compelled to break the news to Miss Loveday that she was invited to shift quarters to the School House. This was much to the distress of Miss Loveday, who begged her to remain where she was.

'It would be unreasonable,' Mrs Bradley responded, 'to trespass further upon your hospitality.'

'Oh, I realize,' rejoined Miss Loveday, 'that you came merely to give Merrys an airing. Well, he is aired. We now know all about him. But we value you at par, and therefore, I say, remain.'

'I value you above rubies,' Mrs Bradley cordially responded. 'Nevertheless, I am bid to join the household of the Headmaster, an invitation which can hardly be disregarded.'

'Regard it by all means,' Miss Loveday replied in like tones, 'but remember that for you there is one corner in our Loveday House which is for ever Bradley.'

'I will indeed remember it,' said Mrs Bradley; 'you are too kind; much too kind. You should never cherish serpents in your bosom.' Having said this, it was with a certain sense of relief that she took leave of her eccentric hostess and moved over to the pleasant and commodious School House.

She had not been in the School House above a day and a quarter when she was asked to receive a deputation from Loveday's. This consisted of Merrys, Skene, and Takhobali.

'The thing is,' said Skene, who had been thrust into prominence partly by Merrys and partly by his own natural instincts, 'that the Tar-Baby thinks he ought to spill you something which perhaps you hadn't so far heard of.'

'Lights!' said Takhobali dramatically.

'Lights and soft music,' muttered Merrys.

'Lights?' said Mrs Bradley. 'It is full late in the day to mention lights. When and where? On the night of the death, do you mean? And over by the Roman Bath?'

Takhobali rolled his eyes.

'Do you know about the river lights?' he enquired.

'How can she know?' enquired Merrys. 'She wasn't there, was she, you ass? Tell her about them. It might be beastly important.' He looked at Mrs Bradley for confirmation of this view, and she at once supported him.

'I look forward to your revelations, Prince,' she said.

'There were lights. The Roman Bath, for Skene and Merrys. The river, however, for me,' Takhobali explained, waving his thin, long hands. 'I saw lights along the river. I told Merrys and Skene because I knew they had been out of the House one night, and I wanted to give them opportunity to forbid my telling you if they wished. But they say I should tell. It will assist, and I wish to make recompense for their kind help when I do not understand football game and wish to know. I saw the lights at about eleven o'clock. I was sick, and from the window of that place, I saw.'

'He's always sick after fish-pie. We had it for supper that night,' explained Merrys. 'Nobody takes much notice of lights over at the Roman Bath because Albert-Edward – Mr Loveday – is always doing weird things over there in connexion with the filters and the heating. But when the Tar-Baby mentioned he'd seen lights over by the river, we thought we'd bring him along. Apparently he's been in a flat spin ever since the murder, because he didn't know whom he ought to tell, or whether he ought to tell at all. He's been kicked so often he gets muddled about such things.'

'Ah, yes,' said the Tar-Baby, gleaming. 'I am not to tell tales or talk shop.'

Mrs Bradley went straight over to Miss Loveday.

'What were the lights at the Roman Bath on the night of the murder?' she enquired. Miss Loveday gazed in mild astonishment.

'They could have little bearing,' she replied. 'They were carried, I daresay, by my brother and myself. We go over occasionally to stoke the Roman furnace. We can scarcely wake our servants for such a task. The heating system is curiously unsatisfactory, although I would not care to have my brother hear me say so. The Bath is his main interest, as you know.'

'And you were there on the night of Mr Conway's death?'

'If anybody says so, yes. I suppose it was one of the boys who mentioned it? They should not have been up and about at such an hour.'

'And you did not mention it?'

'What bearing could it have?' Miss Loveday mildly enquired. 'Oh, I know that Gerald Conway was either wholly or partially drowned, but that's neither here nor there with respect to the matter under discussion.'

'So you have no objection to admitting that you and your brother were up and about that night?'

'No objection at all. Why should I have? My conscience is clear,' said Miss Loveday, closing the argument. Mrs Bradley sought the first opportunity of reopening it, but this time she attacked the weaker partner.

'What were you doing at your Roman Bath on the night of Mr Conway's death?' she enquired of Mr Loveday with considerable abruptness, going out to where he was embarrassing Cartaris by personally conducting and supervising a House football practice.

'Put your head down, boy!' yelled Mr Loveday; and then he replied vaguely, 'Doing? Oh, stoking the furnace, you know; the hypocaust. A tricky business. Just stoking, but it requires an expert hand, and is a disagreeable business because the roof is low. Slaves did the stoking for the Romans, as you are aware, but I cannot ask my servants to undertake it at night, although my knife-and-boot boy can see to it during the daytime, and usually does so.'

'How often do you go out at nights for the purpose?' Mrs Bradley enquired.

'Feet I Feet!' yelled Mr Loveday. 'Every now and then,' he added maddeningly.

'So that when the Superintendent of Police asked you what reason you had for setting your House in order,' said Mrs Bradley, paraphrasing a conversation which the Superintendent had rehearsed to her and of which she had been quick to see the point, 'your reason was really a very good one indeed?'

'How do you mean?' Mr Loveday enquired; but his body had stiffened, Mrs Bradley noticed.

'You yourself, not to mention your sister, had actually been out of the House and at the Roman Bath that night,' she gravely explained, 'and therefore you wanted to be sure that the police should not suspect you of having murdered Mr Conway.'

'Oh, nonsense!' said Mr Loveday, with unusual vigour. 'We could scarcely have known that somebody would attack and drown poor Conway on a night when we were out of the House! By putting my House in order, as I believe I termed it, I merely wished to be certain that none of my boys could be held blameworthy. It was a very great shock to me when I was told that Merrys and Skene had been absent from the House one night not long before the event.'

'By the event, you refer to –'

'Well kicked, boy!' cried Mr Loveday. 'Coincidences are bound to occur,' he added, turning again to Mrs Bradley, 'and it is coincidence, pure and simple, that our expedition that evening should anticipate Conway's death, but there is nothing very strange about it, surely? – particularly as Miss Loveday and I were in the habit of stoking the furnace.'

'I suppose not, if you put it that way,' Mrs Bradley agreed. 'Who composes the menus for the House suppers?' she demanded suddenly.

'My sister, of course, as my housekeeper. Or, rather, she keeps or delegates that privilege, as she chooses.'

'Does she often give the boys fish-pie?'

'They have it sometimes, except for Takhobali. He never eats it.'

'He did, on the night of the murder.'

'That was foolish of him, then,' said Mr Loveday. 'The boy knows perfectly well that it makes him bilious. Although why it should – pass, boy, pass! – I find it impossible to imagine. A simple, light, nourishing dish like – that's better, Forrester! Hand him off, man! – like fish-pie would not, one would fancy, upset anybody.'

'Some people are allergic to fish,' said Mrs Bradley. 'No doubt that is the case with Prince Takhobali. And I wonder who talked of eels to Mr Micklethwaite?'

'I suppose Takhobali saw the lights at the Roman Bath that night and thought the spot was haunted,' said Mr Loveday, turning thoughtfully away from his House practice and accompanying Mrs Bradley along the edge of Big Field towards the School House. 'And how do you react to our culinary miracles?' he enquired, almost in his sister's feminine idiom, but with an ironic note in his voice which rather surprised Mrs Bradley. She praised the cook's resourcefulness, remarked upon what a problem meals now provided for hapless housekeepers, and instanced her own French cook's difficulties and exasperations.

'Tell me', she said to Mrs Wyck, as they sat at dinner in the Headmaster's private dining-room – for Mrs Wyck dined only once a term with the School House boys – 'what you think of Mr and Miss Loveday.'

'What do I think of them? – as possible murderers, do you mean?' asked Mrs Wyck, who combined, as a Headmaster's wife had need to do, great simplicity and great perspicacity in unpredictable proportions. 'Well, I think they've been rather clever, so far, haven't they? – if they did it, I mean. Of course, I don't really think they did, for a minute. But do let's talk about them as though they did do it. I'm so sick of policemen's questions that it will be a change to have a straightforward discussion without any questions at all.'

'But there will be heaps of questions,' said Mrs Bradley promptly. 'Heaps and heaps. And I shall ask most of them,' she added. 'First, tell me why you don't suspect the Love-days.'

'I thought we'd agreed to suspect them. Oh, well, never mind. I don't think they're the sort of people to do anything wrong. Not anything as wrong as murder, anyway. I can't explain what I mean, but – well, just that.'

'I know exactly what you mean. And yet, you know, somebody killed Mr Conway.'

'Oh, good! We're going to suspect them, after all! But, you know, Gerald Conway had some very queer acquaintances, hadn't he? Some rather odd things have come out about him since his death. Don't you think it's much more likely – ?'

'Have some odd things come out? – Still, the police would look closely into all that sort of thing.'

'Yes, they have. They told Christopher so. Their own opinion is clear. They think somebody here did it. But, speaking seriously, I can't believe that. I keep going over everybody in my mind, and I can't fix upon a single person capable of such an act except –'

'Except?'

'I ought not to say it, even to you, but the only people I can think of are Brenda and Louis Kay.'

'Is his name really Louis? I was given to understand –'

'His name is Bennett Arturo Kay, and his wife calls him Benny, when she calls him anything. Anyway, I think they are the likeliest, because they've got the biggest motive, except for the Poundburys. Motive always counts most with the police, doesn't it? Of course, in real life, as I say, I don't believe anybody here did it, but if I were writing a detective story, or reading an account in the paper, I should plump for the Kays. Louis was an enemy of Gerald Conway, and with good reason, I believe.'

'And the Poundburys?'

'Oh, well, I like the Poundburys, and, between ourselves, I don't really like the Kays at all. Besides, I think the balance would have to be on the side of the Kays because, if what I suspect is true, they both had a motive, whereas, in the case of the Poundburys, only he would have had one. That's old scandal, of course, and I ought not to repeat it, but I expect everybody knows all about it by now. Even the police know, which is rather dreadful, but I believe they are very discreet.'

'I know something about it myself, as the result of the Governors' meeting,' said Mrs Bradley. 'But would you say that Mrs Poundbury had no motive? She might have had her own reasons for jealousy, particularly as his engagement had been announced. But we're losing sight of the Lovedays. Now what do you make of this?'

She recounted to Mrs Wyck the story of Takhobali and the fish-pie.

'But why on earth did the silly boy eat the stuff if it always makes him ill?' demanded Mrs Wyck. Mrs Bradley shrugged.

'That is one of the things I want to find out,' she said. 'But I don't want the boys to think it has any importance beyond the importance they already know it has.' And she told Mrs Wyck the story of the river lights on the night of Conway's death. 'Then, you see,' she added, 'there is the fact that the Lovedays were both out of the House on the night of the murder.'

'That looks so bad that it must be a proof of their innocence, though,' said Mrs Wyck. 'What else is there against them?'

'I was hoping that you could tell me that,' said Mrs Bradley. 'Their behaviour since the murder has been what one would expect. What I would like to know is how their behaviour since the murder compares with their behaviour before the murder. I cannot be more explicit, for it is only since the murder that I have been privileged to make their acquaintance.'

'I don't think I can help. They seem just the same to me,' said Mrs Wyck. 'I know what you mean, though. You want to know of any actions which seemed innocent enough in themselves at the time, but now would look rather different if the Lovedays come under suspicion of having committed the crime.'

'I knew you would understand me,' said Mrs Bradley. 'Exactly that. Cannot you think of anything?'

'No, I can't. Besides, we are regarding this as a planned murder, aren't we? Do you really think it was? – seriously, I mean.'

'I really think it must have been. You see, there's not much doubt that if it had been done on the spur of the moment it would have been done differently.'

Mrs Wyck turned very pale, and Mrs Bradley apologized.

'The dog with the brick tied to its neck, you mean,' said Mrs Wyck, waving away Mrs Bradley's expressions of concern, and very rapidly pulling herself together. 'It does seem dreadful, and, as you say, probably planned; otherwise . . .'

'Miss Loveday referred to Mr Conway as a puppy,' Mrs Bradley went on. 'It was, perhaps, a revealing description. Our choice of words can disclose our secret thoughts in a way we do not always intend.'

'I see. You mean that her saying it that way provides, in itself, a clue,' said Mrs Wyck. 'I do see what you mean.'

Her tones were serious. Mrs Bradley nodded slowly and rhythmically.

'Mind you, there is no more reason, in a way, for suspecting Mr and Miss Loveday than for suspecting half a dozen other people,' she said, 'but they interest me very much. By the way, I wonder whether I might ask Mr Wyck an impertinent question?'

'Christopher would be prepared – more than prepared – to answer any question that would help to clear up this wretched business,' said Mrs Wyck, who had dropped completely her first assumption of lightheartedness and now looked the worried woman which Mrs Bradley knew her to be. 'He'll be down to dinner in a minute – yes, here he is, with the sherry. Christopher, Mrs Bradley has something to ask you. It has a bearing.'

Mr Wyck made no attempt to appear light-hearted. He poured sherry from the decanter, handed the glasses round, put his own glass on a small table, and dropped wearily into an armchair.

'A man from Scotland Yard is coming early to-morrow,' he said. 'I don't see what he can find out now. I'm sick to my soul of the police!'

'I wonder whether I know the man they are sending?' Mrs Bradley enquired.

'Detective-Inspector Gavin,' Mr Wyck replied.

'Good. He is engaged to my secretary. I am glad he is the one to come,' said Mrs Bradley, without betraying the fact that she had told the Chief Constable to ask for him. 'Now, look here, Mr Wyck, what I want to ask you may have some bearing on the case, and it is this: supposing there were a vacancy for a Housemaster – suppose, for example, it had been Mr Loveday, Mr Mayhew, Mr Reeder, or any other Housemaster who had been killed, and not Mr Conway – who would have received the appointment to the vacancy?'

'Well, it is a point I can only deal with unofficially, in a way,' replied Mr Wyck, betraying no surprise at the question. 'Officially, the governors fill the vacant posts here, from my own to that of the most junior member of the Staff. Unofficially, however, my own suggestions are almost invariably adopted. In the case which you postulate, my own choice would have fallen upon Kay. He is a sound fellow, a capable and quiet disciplinarian, and, although he is not particularly popular with the boys at present, I think time would tend to adjust matters, since there is nothing in his character, so far as I have been able to observe him, which boys would persistently and inherently dislike. Conway made a set at him, you know, and some sycophantic boys have followed that very ill-advised lead. Of course, John Semple is the man I myself should prefer as a Housemaster, but he is too young at present, and, besides, the governors do like our Housemasters to be married.'

'They take no exception to Miss Loveday's acting as her brother's housekeeper, though?' Mrs Bradley asked. Mr Wyck glanced sharply at his wife, but she smiled slightly and shook her head.

'Well, it is curious that you should raise that point,' said Mr Wyck, apparently reassured by his wife's reactions, 'because there has been considerable discussion at recent meetings about the position of Miss Loveday in that House. It has been remarked upon that she seems to be in charge of it and that her brother occupies a secondary position. I have argued against this theory, of course, but I have encountered a certain amount of scepticism which, I am compelled to admit, is not unjustified. However, Loveday's is not an altogether satisfactory House, as the fact that those two boys, Merrys and Skene, were able to break out at night would seem to indicate.'

'So that Mr Conway, even after the announcement of his engagement to Miss Pearson, would not have been your choice of a Housemaster?'

'No,' answered Mr Wyck decisively.

'Would it be impertinent to ask your reasons?'

'I have two reasons. The first is that poor Conway was most improperly biased towards boys. A boy such as Issacher, for example, and a really brilliant but somewhat eccentric lad, such as Micklethwaite, would have stood no chance with him. I should hesitate to place Prince Takhobali in his House, or any other Eastern, near-Eastern, or Southern boy.'

Mrs Bradley, who had not before encountered these tactful adjectives, nodded solemnly.

'I see,' she said. 'Sound. Very sound, if I may say so.'

'My second reason,' pursued Mr Wyck, disregarding the compliment, which he had applied to himself years previously, 'is that a master who confuses the married state with a merely temporary liaison is not the man to place in charge of immature natures.'

'I agree entirely,' Mrs Bradley replied. 'And now I wonder whether you would connive at deceitfulness?'

'Certainly,' Mr Wyck replied without hesitation. 'The morals of the head of a school are always elastic. What do you want me to do?'

'I should like to be present at the School plays, and then I want you to pretend that I am going away a couple of days before the end of term; but I mean to sneak back here again without a soul except David Gavin and ourselves being the wiser. Is that possible?'

'It can and shall be done. This means that you have definite suspicions of someone here?'

'Yes, I'm afraid it does.'

'I see. A little more sherry?'

Mrs Bradley accepted gratefully.