Tom Brown's Body

14. Enter Priapus Minor

*

Poor Lad! How little does he know as yet of the Old Baily!

IBID. (Act 1, Scene 6)

A TACTFUL inquiry on the part of the local police into Gerald Conway's financial affairs had disclosed that whatever his murderer's motive might have been, it had not been greed for money. Conway had banked in the town nearest to the School, and had had no income except his salary. This had been paid into his account at half-termly intervals by the governors, and Conway had spent almost all of it, the money remaining to his credit at the time of his death being the sum of sixty-one pounds, seventeen shillings, and five-pence.

'Well, that disposes of that,' said Gavin, disclosing the facts to Mrs Bradley. 'Can't quite see what he thought he was going to marry on, but perhaps his future father-in-law was prepared to come down handsome. Let's go and visit him, and see.'

Mr Pearson, the woodwork master, lived on the further side of the village in an architect-designed, delightful, modern house with a sun-lounge, a garden pool with a fountain, and all the amenities which money could provide, for Mr Pearson had other sources of income besides his salary. The details of these other sources – all innocent and praiseworthy enough – came out during the course of conversation, for, like many people whose chief vehicle of self-expression lies in working with their hands, the woodwork master was a simple-minded purveyor, and a voracious recipient, of gossip. The adjective 'old' in front of his name was misleading. He was fifty-two, and powerfully built.

'Never liked the chap,' was his verdict on Conway, 'but admired his guts and cheek. I got to know him first when he asked me to help him over a fancy dress. Two years ago, it would have been. I was interested in his idea, and I took more trouble, in a way, than the thing was worth. Still, when we'd finished it, it wasn't bad, although I say it.'

'Where was it made?' Gavin asked. He did not want to know, but the turn the conversation had taken promised well.

'Here, mostly, although we finished it up at the School. I made some stilts for him, too, at about the same time. I never saw him in the full kit, and I don't know what he did with the outfit after he'd worn it. It was supposed to be for the Chelsea Arts Club Ball. Cost? Oh, I don't know, quite. I think we did the whole thing for about two pounds ten. I didn't charge him beyond the cost of the materials. I was interested, you know. It was good fun making the thing.'

'Now another sort of question,' said Gavin.

'You needn't bother,' said the woodwork master, with a one-sided smile. 'I was very glad to hear of Conway's death. My daughter Marion, you know. Yes, girls are rather silly. Actually, I'm quite fond of my daughter, and I believe that people, even young people, should plan their lives as they think best, but Conway was a bit of a bounder. Still, my girl decided to get engaged to him. Yes, Conway asked my consent, and got it. Sorry I've no more information, but kids don't confide in their parents, and quite right, too.

'The champagne party? Oh, well, you know how it is. Everybody knew I didn't like the fellow, so I thought it best to put a good face on things, for Marion's sake. I suppose I overdid the congratulatory side of the business, but when you dislike people you're apt to lose your sense of proportion.

'Marion? Well, naturally, she was rather upset at his death, but she'll get over it. She's a sensible girl. Takes after me, I think. Yes, you can see her if you like. No, I've no objection to your questioning her. She's twenty-five, and quite capable, I hope, of telling you to mind your own business. Who else knew I'd made the mask and the rest of the outfit? Why, nobody, so far as I know, except Marion who helped quite a bit. That's how they got to know each other, really, Conway and Marion. I was rather sorry, in the end, that I'd let her help with the thing. You see, I'd heard a fair amount of gossip about him by then, one way and another. I retailed it afterwards to Marion, hoping to choke her off, but you know what girls are like. The bigger the rascal the more exciting the lover, to their minds, I suppose. When I found what was happening I tried to persuade her to snap out of it, but it was no good, of course. Rogue elephants have nothing on girls who think they know their own minds. So I gave in gracefully, don't you know, and announced the engagement myself and threw this champagne party in the Masters' Common Room at School. It went quite well, I think, except for Jack Semple, who, I fancy, was hoping that Marion would have picked him instead of Conway. Still, possibly, as I say, I overdid it.'

'What about Kay?' asked Gavin.

'Oh, Kay doesn't drink,' said Mr Pearson, 'and anyway he wouldn't care two hoots whether Marion was engaged or not.'

'Not if a married Mr Conway stood the chance of the next House?' asked Mrs Bradley.

'Good Lord!' said Mr Pearson. 'Fancy your thinking of that! I suppose that would make a difference! And, of course, Kay hated Conway like poison. Never a civil word for the chap. I've often thought Kay would slug him in the Common Room. I say, that does add up! Poor old Kay! He isn't much of a hero, though. I shouldn't think he did it, you know.'

'What do you think?' Gavin enquired of Mrs Bradley when they had left Mr Pearson.

'I think it might be a good idea to see Marion Pearson,' she replied, 'particularly as her father does not appear to have any objection to your doing so. But I don't know that I'd see her just yet. Her father will have warned her.'

'Good idea,' said Gavin. 'I thought of it, too. Not that I can see what she can tell us. Of course, she was engaged to the fellow, but she hardly comes on to the list of suspects, does she?'

'We may know whether she does or not when we have heard what she has to say.'

They returned to Mr Pearson's house two days later, but had to wait until Marion returned from the village. Mrs Bradley thought she looked tired. She was very pale and her eyes were dark-circled from loss of sleep.

'No, I don't mind talking about Gerald,' she said, in reply to Gavin's first question. 'It was a shock when I heard what had happened, but now it's all over, it's as though I'd hardly known him.'

Mrs Bradley looked perturbed, but Gavin said he could understand what the girl meant. He asked how long the couple had been engaged.

'Oh, only six weeks, the actual engagement,' Marion told him, 'but we'd had an understanding for about ten months, only Daddy didn't know. He didn't like Gerald much, and I found out why.'

'Yes?' said Gavin encouragingly.

'Well, I expect you know what kind of man Gerald was, but I wasn't born yesterday, even if I do call my father Daddy. I simply told Gerald that once he was a married man and a Housemaster he'd have to behave himself, whether he liked it or not.'

'A Housemaster?' said Gavin. The girl nodded.

'I've always wanted to be a Housemaster's wife,' she said placidly, 'ever since I was six and proposed to Mr Loveday. That was nineteen years ago, but I've never forgotten it, and neither has Mr Loveday. He still teases me about it when I see him, and when the Lovedays come here to tea he always mentions it. He's an absolute pet. All he cares about in the world is his Roman Bath, and I think that's ever so sweet of him.'

Gavin laughed.

'And what did Miss Loveday have to say to your proposal to her brother?' he asked.

'Oh, Miss Loveday is as much of an old duck as Mr Loveday. I think they're both terribly quaint, don't you? – and they take ever so much trouble over looking after their boys. The Loveday boys are notably well fed. I often tell Miss Loveday that when I'm a Housemaster's wife she'll have to show me all the ropes. She's promised, too, and says she'll lend me all her diet sheets and things.'

'Which House?' asked Gavin, who was keenly interested in the turn the conversation had taken, but who realized that it would be desirable to treat the subject lightly. 'Which House did you suppose you might be going to have?'

'Oh, Mr Mayhew's,' replied the girl without hesitation. 'He's always talking about starting a prep school, you know, and he's got the money to do it. Mrs Mayhew is rather delicate, though, and the air here suits her, otherwise I think they'd have gone before. They would start the prep school in this neighbourhood if they could, and send their boys to Spey, but there isn't a suitable place for miles around. It would mean building, and there isn't a hope of that at present. Gerald and I had counted on waiting – well, perhaps five years. I shouldn't have minded that at all. We could just about have managed on Gerald's salary and the money Mother left me when she died. I believe, really,' she added, simply, 'I'm more sorry about the House than about Gerald.'

'You don't know, of course,' said Gavin, slowly, 'of any bad enemies he had?'

'Gerald? You mean bad enough to kill him? I go over and over in my mind all the people who could possibly have borne him a grudge. You must have to feel awful about anybody to do a thing like that. I mean, murder is final, isn't it? I can only think of one thing that would bring me to kill anyone, and that would be if Daddy's life was in danger, or if someone could bring him into some dreadful disgrace.'

'Or misery?' Gavin suggested.

'No, not misery. I think people have to put up with misery, don't you? But I can't think of anyone who had reason enough to kill Gerald. I mean, I know his manners were often appalling and I know he had a very bitter tongue when he liked, and I know he had this reputation of being a sort of little Don Juan, but I can't imagine anyone taking any of it as seriously as all that. Can you?' She tried to look as ingenuous as her words.

'Well, people vary so much,' said Gavin. 'Where levelheaded citizens like you and me would either laugh it off or sock him in the jaw, others, less level-headed, might possibly see cause for bumping him off. That's all I can make of it. By the way, I suppose you were here, at home, when it happened?'

'No, I wasn't,' said the girl, quickly. 'I was staying in London with my aunt. I should have come back on the Monday, but auntie particularly asked me to stay for a dinner party she was giving the next week-end.'

'Yes, I see,' said Gavin. 'Well, now, Miss Pearson, one more question. You've probably seen a good bit of the School and its life, and you may be acquainted with some of the boys. Will you tell me? – I've asked some of the masters, but, as you can imagine, they're a prejudiced lot where their boys are concerned, so I'm wondering whether you can help me.'

'In what way?' she enquired; and he watched her face change.

'Will you tell me of any boy who might conceivably have had sufficient grudge against Mr Conway to have killed him – or helped to kill him?'

Gavin, watching her, saw the struggle going on in her mind.

'Well,' she said, 'I suppose I'll have to tell, although I promised secrecy. But it's too important for me to think of that.' Gavin still watched her, and waited. 'It's Scrupe, you know,' she went on. 'You know Scrupe, I suppose? He's one of Mr Mayhew's boys, and – of course it sounds ridiculous – it is ridiculous – but he's in love with me. I found him in Gerald's cottage. I had a key which Gerald had given me when we got engaged – well, actually, a few weeks before that – and I'd gone along there to get some letters I'd written to Gerald. Our engagement hadn't been made public, and I didn't much want people to know about it after he had – died in that way.'

'By "Gerald's cottage," I suppose you mean the room he rented from old Mrs Harries?' interpolated Mrs Bradley. For the first time, Marion looked scared.

'Well, yes,' she admitted. She turned to Gavin, as though to a sympathetic presence. 'Daddy didn't like Gerald, so I had to meet him somewhere by mutual arrangement. I couldn't go to his room at the School, naturally, and I couldn't very often have him here. So he found this way.'

'Did you know,' asked Mrs Bradley, 'that somebody else had previously met him at Mrs Harries's cottage?'

'Oh, yes,' Marion replied, readily. 'It was Mrs Poundbury. He was a very silly boy. He tried to get rid of her by giving her old Mrs Harries's anti-love potions.' She laughed heartily, and then looked enquiringly from one to the other of her hearers. 'You don't think that's funny?' she enquired.

'Not very, you know,' said Gavin apologetically. 'In fact' – he hesitated a moment – 'in fact, I rather think that you are well out of a very dirty business. Well, good-bye, Miss Pearson. If you think of anything else we ought to know, I'm sure you'll come and tell us.'

'You don't like Miss Pearson very much,' said Mrs Bradley when, for the second time, they had left the house.

'I like her so little,' said Gavin deliberately, 'that, if she had the physical strength, I'd suspect her of murdering Conway herself. I said she's well out of it, but I'm not sure I'd have cared to be in Conway's shoes, either. Chelsea Arts Club Ball? Wonder whether there's anything at the London end which would help us?'

This seemed to Mrs Bradley doubtful. Conway's London life, so far as Gavin had been able to make out in his previous researches, could have been summed up as Love Among the Intelligentsia. In a Bohemian and rootless society he had flourished like the green bay tree. His easy conquests and even easier retreats had left no more than a tolerant memory of themselves, for no such fluttering of the dovecots had attended his amoral and amorous adventures in London as had caused so much havoc in the monastic seclusion of Spey.

He had not been much liked by the beards and berets of the colony, but then, as they explained, waving paint and nicotine-stained fingers, they had never got to know him very well. He came and he went. For instance, said they, they had never realized that he was, among other things, a Schoolmaster; on the other hand, they had never enquired, of course. Live and let live was their motto.

'Glad you can live up to half of it, anyhow,' thought Gavin; and went on to interview the ladies of the little colony. These spoke well of Conway. He was inclined to be sadistic in his love-making; all were agreed upon that. But he was healthy, strong, vigorous, wilful, and amusing. They had been sorry to hear that he was dead. Some jealous husband, they surmised, had gone outside the canons of good taste and had done for him, once and for all. Good and proper, they added, their tones congratulating the jealous but manful husband.

'I should like to have painted Gerald dead,' said one lady, dreamily. 'He must have looked like Itylus.'

'Icarus,' said her friend.

'Yes, I meant Icarus.'

'He hadn't exactly grown wings, had he?' said Gavin, grinning. 'And he was dressed, when he was found, in flannel bags and a sports jacket. Still, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and, no doubt,' he added gallantly, 'at the end of her paint-brush, too. Did anyone ever paint him, by the way? Alive, I mean.'

'Oh, yes,' was the immediate response from the first of the two. 'We all painted him, of course, at different times. He was terribly paintogenic'

It was at this point that Gavin had one of those irrational hunches which are the gift of the gods to deserving, intelligent, open-minded policemen.

'Was he ever painted in fancy dress?' he enquired.

'Oh, yes, of course. He made a divine Bacchus, and most of us at one time or another did him as Hamlet, too.'

'Laertes,' said the friend who had corrected her before.

'Oh, well, Laertes, then. It comes to the same thing.'

Her friend, who had experienced a normal education before she had received the urge to paint, smiled at Gavin and did not reply. He did not reply to the smile.

'And, of course, there was that thing Camelot Eager did of him,' said the first girl, doubtfully, 'but it wasn't Gerald, if you know what I mean. What with that horrible mask, and the stilts and things, it could have been simply anybody. Still, there's no doubt that Gerald was a great success at the Chelsea Arts Ball. The rest of us just crept under his huge legs, and all that sort of thing. He was on stilts, you see.'

'Ah!' said Gavin, on a note of deep Scottish reverence. 'Was he really? And did he bring anybody with him?'

'Did he!' replied the girl in a tone which blended annoyance with unwilling and rueful self-depreciation. 'I'll say he did!'

She proceeded to give a portrait-in-words of Mrs Pound-bury. Gavin was delighted. 'And how long ago did you say this was?' he demanded. The answer dashed his hopes.

'Oh, it was the one they had in the year before last.'

'Too far back,' he thought despondently. 'It doesn't get us any further.' He had reported the information to Mrs Bradley, however, and before he returned to London to make further enquiries she suggested that he might try to get hold of the pictures of Conway which his friends had painted.

He came back to Spey with two portraits.

'Interesting, but not helpful, I fancy,' he said. 'Now what about this boy Scrupe and Marion Pearson?'

'There was nothing much in the letters,' said Marion, at this next interview.

'I know. We read 'em,' said Gavin. 'The signature didn't mean anything to us at the time, although we supposed we should have to contact this Marion sometime or other. But the letters, if you don't mind my saying so, were so innocent, and sort of prattle-y, that we weren't particularly interested in the writer, especially as the letters were undated and there was no hint of – forgive me! – passion and all that. We thought, as a matter of fact, that they might have come from a cousin of his, or someone.'

'Yes, I expect they were pretty ordinary,' said their author. 'Lucky for me, I suppose.'

'More about Scrupe, please,' said Gavin. 'He's one of the boys you particularly liked, I gather – apart from his embarrassing fondness, I mean. He's rather a clever boy, isn't he?'

'Yes, he's a most entertaining, attractive boy. I found he'd broken into the cottage and I caught him with a mask in his hands. He didn't seem a bit surprised to see me. "Hullo, Marion, darling," he said. "What are you doing here? – and what the devil's this I've got hold of? Did Mr Pearson make it! It looks like his work. I say, I couldn't borrow it, I suppose? I'm going to a fancy dress dance at my aunt's this Christmas and my aunt's been chivvying me to write and tell her what sort of costume I want. This would be a smasher, wouldn't it? How do you think I'd look with my manly torso all painted an irresistible deep chocolate colour, and with a garland of pussy's-tails round my slim and connubial middle?"'

'And what did you say to that?' enquired Gavin, fitting this portrait of Scrupe into the frame already supplied by Mrs Bradley, and reflecting, in his crude, masculine way, that six with an ashplant would do the youth very little harm.

'I pointed out that everything in the cottage belonged neither to him nor to me, and that, in any case, he had no business to be there. Then Scrupe very cheekily asked me what I was doing there, then. "And letting yourself in with a key, too, as large as life," he finished up.'

'But how did the young devil know that the mask was there?' demanded Gavin.

'I don't believe he did. I believe he was just snooping round. I accused him of it, in fact, and he just put his head on one side and said, "That's all very well, you know, precious, but I adhere to my previous question. If I'm snooping so are you. Now, why?" I was idiot enough to get angry at that, and I told him pretty sharply to mind his own business. "If you were a gentleman," I said, "you'd go away at once. My private affairs are nothing to do with you." He just grinned like a monkey at that, and – well, I had to tell him. At least, I thought I had to. "I am engaged to Mr Conway, if you want to know," I said, "and I'm here to take back my letters." He sobered down at that. I've never seen such a sudden change in anybody. He is really a very nice boy. "I say, old thing," he said, "you are a fool! You'd better get out of that, you know. I don't want to speak ill of my mentors and preceptors, but Conway is a tick." I boxed his ears, hard, but he just shook his head, like a horse shaking off a fly, and said, "Your guilty and disgraceful secret is safe with me; is mine with you if I just borrow this head?" Then he climbed through the window and ran away.'

'With or without the head?'

'Without. I suppose he must have come back for it later when I'd gone home.'

'And you think that the news of your engagement was such a shock that this boy laid for Mr Conway?' demanded Gavin. Marion shook her head.

'I've been answering your question, that's all,' she said. 'You asked me what I knew about Scrupe.'

'The devil I did!' thought Gavin.

'And another thing,' he added to Mrs Bradley. 'Now that I know the girl was away from home that night, I shall have to see whether Pearson's got any sort of alibi for the time of the murder.'

'I should tackle Scrupe first,' said Mrs Bradley, 'and leave Mr Pearson's alibi to simmer.'

Gavin took this advice on the principle that a nod was as good as a wink to a blind horse.

'Now, Scrupe,' he said, having obtained Mr Wyck's permission to talk to the boy and having disposed of Mr May-hew's objections to this course, 'I'm going to ask you some questions which it may seem well to you that you should refuse to answer.'

'Not at all, sir,' said Scrupe, squinting modestly downwards.

'Well, we'll see,' said Gavin good-humouredly. 'Sit down.'

'I never sit in the presence of authority, sir.'

'Perhaps, in the presence of authority, you are usually in an almost recumbent position?'

Scrupe hitched his trouser knees gracefully and sat down.

'At your service, sir.'

'Right. What made you go to old Mrs Harries's cottage?'

'When would that have been, sir?'

'Why, did you go more than once?'

'No, sir.'

'All right. Answer the question, then.'

'I am interested in the occult, sir.'

'Yes?'

'Yes, sir.'

'Would the occult, in your view, include reading other people's letters?'

'Certainly, sir. Why not?'

'You don't think it wrong to read other people's letters?'

'I thought we were discussing the occult, sir.'

'Well?'

'The occult is neither right nor wrong, sir. Shakespeare has a phrase – "but thinking makes it so."'

'I see. So you thought it was all right to read letters which Miss Pearson had written to Mr Conway?'

'No, of course not,' said Scrupe, speaking patiently. 'I'm not talking about those sort of letters. I met Miss Pearson there one day when I was really after something else. She told me she had come for some letters. I advised her not to marry Mr Conway. I escaped by way of a downstairs window.'

'I see,' said Gavin. He hesitated a moment, and then said, 'Look here, Scrupe, I don't suppose you'll believe me, but I would like to tell you that if you could add anything to all this, you'd be doing Miss Pearson no harm.'

Scrupe got up.

'If I think of anything, I'll let you know,' he said grandly.

'No, no,' said Gavin. 'Don't go yet. You know, I suppose, that I have every reason to suspect that Mr and Miss Pearson are responsible for the death of Mr Conway?'

'You're bluffing,' said Scrupe.

'Have it your own way. You must please yourself what you believe. What was all this about borrowing a fancy dress?'

'I was commissioned to borrow it for the School plays, sir.'

'By whom?'

'By Mr Poundbury. I told him I thought I could lay hands on a suitable costume.'

'The one belonging to Mr Conway?'

'Yes, sir. Marion – Miss Pearson – had told me of the one her father helped to make.'

'And did Mr Conway – I mean, was he prepared to lend it?'

'I didn't like to ask him, sir. On the other hand, Mr Poundbury is a very enthusiastic sort of man, so I thought –'

'Oh, rot!' said Gavin. 'You saw the mask by accident when you visited the cottage and –'

'Yes, sir.'

'And that's all I could get out of him,' said Gavin, retailing the conversation. 'I wish you'd have a go at him.'

Mrs Bradley shook her head.

'Where fools rush in, angels fear to tread,' she unkindly observed.