A Javelin for Jonah (Mrs. Bradley)

by Gladys Mitchell

  “Your first premise is sound; your second is unsound. The students, not the murderer, buried the body. The choice of the long-jump pit as a grave-yard was arbitrary. The task of burial had to be done as quickly as possible, and the long-jump pit offered the easiest digging.”

  “But the body was found so soon. It was bound to be.”

  “That did not matter to the students. Their only concern was that it should not be found in a place with which they had guilty associations; and that brings me to my previous point. I told Mr. Medlar that the students not only buried the body, but also cleaned the point of the javelin, and then I expected him to ask me how the javelin was replaced in the locked-up, steel-fronted sports cupboard, but he did not do so.”

  “Like me, I suppose the question didn’t occur to him at the time.”

  “It is interesting, nevertheless.”

  “Yes, indeed, if it’s really true that the students had no access to that cupboard. Strengthens your theory that the murderer is one of the staff.”

  “Unless the very useful and dangerous key belonging to Miss Yale will unlock the store cupboard as well as the heating-cellar and Mr. Medlar’s office and ante-room. It is a point which may need clearing up.”

  Their conversation was interrupted by an announcement from one of the servants that the police were at hand and would be glad of a word with Dame Beatrice. They had come from attending the inquest on Jones.

  “The proceedings are adjourned, ma’am,” said the inspector, “as we knew they would have to be. We’re treating it as a case of murder owing to the body having been buried. We shall be pursuing our enquiries and hope that we can count on your assistance in sorting matters out. A psychiatrist might be very helpful to us.”

  “Supposing that the body had not been buried, Inspector? You have not identified the weapon, have you?”

  “Not as would be to the satisfaction of a jury, no, ma’am, we haven’t. To our way of thinking, though, and with the medical evidence which was given, we think that tarted-up javelin we were shown could have done the trick all right. We reckon that some of the students who were in the know, and whose names we’ve had given us, sneaked into that furnace-room cellar where they’d put him, did for Jones, buried the body and cleaned up the bloodstains, including those on the javelin. That floor had been washed, and the janitor says he hadn’t been down there for weeks.”

  “I am in agreement with you, except, of course, that it need not have been those students who killed Mr. Jones.”

  “Bit of a coincidence if it wasn’t, ma’am. Some of them might have thought locking him up like that was a sort of a joke, but others, we reckon, took advantage to pay off old scores.”

  “Somebody certainly did. That somebody had already, however, turned a sports javelin into a lethal weapon, so, to that extent, the murder must have been premeditated and could not have depended simply upon chance. In other words, Inspector, I think you are barking up the wrong tree when you cite these students as the murderers. I think the real murderer was not prepared to act until he saw a favourable opportunity. I think these students provided that opportunity and for that they are culpable, but that is the sum total of their responsibility.”

  “Then why should they bury the body, ma’am?”

  Dame Beatrice gave him her theory as to what had actually happened.

  “Oh, you think they only found the body? Could be, I suppose,” the inspector said dubiously. “Still doesn’t tell us who killed him. We shall be pursuing our enquiries, of course.”

  “Then perhaps you can save me a trip to the village. Find out whether the blacksmith knows anything about the new head which was put on the suspect javelin.”

  “Oh, we’ve done that, ma’am. Not that we expected anything to come of it. He denies it, of course, and we believe him. That job was done in one of the workshops here. They’re far better equipped than he is. He only does what I call local jobs—horse-shoes for the riding-schools and a bit of tinkering up of this and that. He’s a bit of a jack-of-all-trades. Often leaves a lad at the forge while he takes on other jobs.”

  “He had a powerful grudge against Mr. Jones, though. He credited him with the seduction of his daughter, who was one of the maids here,” said Dame Beatrice.

  “Can’t see him going into that cellar and stabbing Jones, ma’am.”

  “Neither can I, but I can see him putting that new head on the javelin and maybe putting two and two together about it, especially if he happened to know that the person who wanted the javelin altered also had a grudge against Mr. Jones.”

  “I don’t think you cut much ice,” said Laura, when the inspector had gone. “He’s convinced that those students killed Jones, so what he’ll do now, I suppose, is to ferret out motive. You can’t get a conviction on the motive alone, but he can show they had the opportunity.”

  “But it may be more difficult to show that they had the means; in other words, that they knew where to lay their hands on a lethal weapon.”

  “Obviously he thinks that they put a new point on an old javelin and that the whole thing was premeditated. The trouble about that theory is that the whole College seems to have known about the rag, and those six were simply the committee chosen to carry it out. You can’t wish yourself on to a committee if the election is properly supervised.”

  “That will have occurred to the inspector, no doubt. From that he will argue that, while I may be right about the six and that, while they were responsible for the burial, they were not responsible for the murder, other students took advantage of Mr. Jones’s helpless situation.”

  “I wonder why the police are convinced that the staff had nothing to do with it?”

  “Naturally their thoughts have turned first to the students, but no doubt the staff will come in for their share of questioning and scrutiny if the inspector convinces himself that the students were not the murderers, but that may take him some time.”

  After lunch Dame Beatrice rested until the official College afternoon began, and then she went on to the field in search of Henry. She found him conducting a coaching of the shot-putters.

  “I have been talking to Mr. Medlar about the death of his wife,” she said.

  “Ah,” said Henry. (“Nuzzle it between the heel of your hand and the side of your jaw, Adrian. Keep that elbow down a bit. Get up to the stop-board, man! You don’t want to lose a couple of feet on your putt.) Sorry to interrupt you, Dame Beatrice, but this ridiculous fellow could reach fifty feet if he’d only manage to get one or two things right.”

  “He would still be something short of Randy Matson’s 1967 record,” said Dame Beatrice surprisingly.

  “You were saying?” said Henry blankly.

  “Why did you give Gascoigne Medlar an alibi for his wife’s death?”

  “I didn’t. I merely said, when they cross-examined me, that his wife was quite irresponsible and that her death could have been either accident or suicide.”

  “What caused you to give up your work and take a post at Joynings, I wonder?”

  “It’s not such very different work, and it’s better paid,” said Henry. “Maybe the people with whom I deal here are not so unfortunate as those with whom I dealt formerly, but the work, I find, is really more to my taste. Murderous young thugs are more interesting, I find, than maladjusted, difficult children. Besides, I needed a change of environment when my wife died.”

  “Talking of murderous young thugs…”

  “Yes, it wouldn’t hurt for you to take another look at one or two of them,” said Henry, smiling.

  “Hamish’s Paul-Pierre, for example, and Hamish’s guardian angel, the pugnacious Richard?”

  “Yes, and Barry’s Colin, except that he’s still in hospital.”

  “What about Mr. Barry himself?”

  “Yes, he had it in for Jones all right. You realize, I suppose, that the police have not lost interest in us? Will you be working in with them?”

  “That depends to some extent upon the inspec
tor’s attitude. By the way, I have been thinking about a fact which interested me not a little.”

  “Oh? What was that?”

  “Bertha’s father is the village blacksmith.”

  “I know he is, but I don’t see…”

  “I was thinking of the new steel point on one of the javelins.”

  “Nobody who had murder in mind would risk having a toss-pot like him to do a job like that. Besides, there is nothing to show that the javelin which was tampered with had anything to do with Jonah’s death. If that could be proved. (Leverage, Carlotta, leverage, dear!) Right from the soles of the feet! You’re not throwing a stick for a dog! If that could be proved, Dame Beatrice, we could get a whole lot further.”

  “How many students are in the javelin group, Mr. Henry?”

  “How many? Let’s see now. (Keep the shot under control, Matthew, until you actually part with it. Look, like this, old man.) Sorry, Dame Beatrice. How many javelin throwers? Can’t say exactly. It’s apt to vary, because some of them like a change from their own event and tack on to another squad for a bit. Still, on average, I should say a couple of dozen or more turn out for coaching. It’s a spectacular event, you see, and therefore popular. Showing-off is prophylactic here. That’s why we get so little trouble.”

  “And you muster only a dozen javelins.”

  “Expensive items, you know, and Gassie will only buy the best. Says it’s false economy, if you want results, to fob people off with inferior materials. Our javelins cost up to twenty-five pounds apiece. That’s why it’s so annoying that somebody has mucked one of them up by putting a new head on it. Hang it all, the heads are made of best Swedish steel, anyway.”

  “What about ‘practice javelins,’ so-called?” asked Laura. “They wouldn’t cost more than about five pounds each, would they? And do the girls use the standard eight-hundred grammes, eight-foot-six javelin as well as the men? And what about the boys?”

  “Dear me!” said Henry, amused. “Well, to answer your knowledgeable questions, Mrs. Gavin, Gassie will not buy ‘practice’ javelins. Probably mere snobbery on his part, but there it is. Out of the twelve javelins we have in stock, eight are of full length and weight, and four are six hundred grammes in weight and seven-foot-six in length. These are for women and juniors. As nobody here is under sixteen, the youngest ones rate as juniors, not as boys. What happens is that I take my coachings in groups of six, so that no more than half a dozen javelins are in use at one time.”

  “So that the over-weighted javelin need never have been used since it was altered,” said Dame Beatrice. “That certainly clears up one doubtful point.”

  “Mind you,” said Henry thoughtfully, “it can’t have been on the rack very long, or surely somebody would have drawn my attention to it.”

  “This elusive somebody!” commented Laura. “Who picks out the javelins which are to be used?”

  “Each student, under my supervision—we never let anybody loose in the stock-room—chooses his or her own. They pick up a javelin, weight it by the grip, shake it a bit and then decide upon it or select another. Naturally a wrongly-balanced javelin would be returned at once to the rack.”

  “So that’s the way the cat jumps,” said Dame Beatrice. “And no student is unsupervised when he selects his javelin, but you don’t dictate his choice.”

  She nodded, leered kindly at him and went off to find Miss Yale. She discovered the head of the women’s side closeted with two students to whom she was giving tea. Dame Beatrice accepted a cup and very soon after her arrival the students, who seemed to find her presence alarming, took their leave.

  “I take it you’ve come about something important,” said Miss Yale. “The police were here again, I saw. Don’t know what they’re bothering about. Who cares what happened to blasted Jonah? The man was an absolute menace. But I don’t suppose you came to me for a character sketch of him. Anyway, I’m glad he’s dead—and that goes for most of us here. If I’d thought of it soon enough, I’d have murdered him myself, so if you’re giving a hard look at the possible starters, you had better count me as one of them. But I’m wasting your time.”

  “Not at all. I did come, however, on a particular errand. I have been talking to Mr. Henry and he confirms something which I had already gathered.”

  “Oh, yes?”

  “I understand that no man-student is ever allowed to go unsupervised to the cupboard where the javelins are kept. Does that apply equally to the women students?”

  “Yes, of course it does. It’s Gassie’s unvarying rule. The girls haven’t the record for violence that comes with some of the men, but Gassie spends the earth on buying the very best sports apparatus obtainable and we’re sworn to cherish it.”

  “Does that key of yours unlock that particular cupboard?”

  “You can try it, if you like, but it certainly does not. The lock on that cupboard is a special one. There are far too many clever apes in this college for Gassie to risk them picking locks and collecting, for instance, Jerry’s starting-guns.”

  “I see. So if the murder weapon was that javelin with the lethal point, only a member of the staff could have returned it to the rack.”

  “Well, you didn’t think the students killed Jonah, did you?”

  “Have you heard the result of the inquest?” Dame Beatrice enquired. She felt it unnecessary to reply to the last question.

  “Yes. Gassie attended and so did the poor kid who first saw Celia’s dogs digging up the body. Open verdict,” stated Miss Yale.

  “As a matter of fact, the inquest has been adjourned so that the police can continue their investigations.”

  “That’s the story, of course. Means they know it was murder and now they’ve got to pin it on somebody.”

  “What made you offer me your own name as, let us say, one of the possibles?”

  “Oh, I hated the poisonous reptile. I wasn’t the only one, of course, but I had a key to that stock-cupboard, so I could have got hold of the doctored javelin…”

  “But most of the staff had a similar key, had they not?”

  “Yes, but they weren’t all interested in the javelins, were they? I say, though, I do wish you’d stop involving yourself in our affairs. I mean nothing personal, but I don’t want bloody Jonah’s murderer brought to book, that’s all. Whoever stuck a spear into that inebriated swine did a public service. That’s the way I look at it.”

  “Yes, I see. However, with regard to murder, I cannot really approve of it. I will suggest a thought to you in order to cause our conversation to steer a slightly different course, though. You mentioned just now that the staff are not, all of them, interested in the javelins.”

  “Well, they’re not, are they?”

  “I rather fancy, you know, that we can eliminate Mr. Henry, yourself, and Mr. Martin. It seems to me that the last weapon the murderer would have chosen is one which would be connected with him and therefore would seem to point to him as the guilty party. If I thought that the murder was unpremeditated and was done on the spur of the moment, I might think differently, but the lethal point which, to make assurance doubly sure, the murderer had put on to one of the javelins disposes of any such idea. Granted that the students played into the murderer’s hands, there remains the fact that the means of committing the murder must have been provided before the students planned their unkind prank.”

  “The killer might have known in advance what their plans were, though.”

  “I think not. Their plans could not have been made until they knew that Mr. Henry was going to stage his film show, and that seems to have been proposed very much on the spur of the moment.”

  “Yes, I suppose it was. I don’t know whether to ask this, but are you getting anywhere with your investigation?”

  “I am relying upon help from the staff.”

  “But if any of us knew anything we’d have come across with it, wouldn’t we? I mean, surely everybody wants the wretched business cleared up as soon as may be?”

&n
bsp; “That is not what you indicated a few moments ago. However, I have studied Mr. Medlar’s notes on the reputations and personalities of the students, and they have given me no help. Since Mr. Medlar shows no sign of wanting me to leave I have begun a different line of enquiry.”

  “Oh, I guessed from the very beginning that you weren’t here just to vet the students. You were hobnobbing with that police inspector and I happen to know that James is your godson and that his father is an Assistant Commissioner of Police. Anyway, in spite of what I said, I think Gassie is wise to have you here, provided he didn’t do the job himself.”

  “Why should he have done it?”

  “Because Jonah was a pot of poison to him. Did his best to ruin the College, you know.”

  “Mr. Medlar could have dismissed him from his post.”

  “I’m not so sure about that. Some of us think that Jonah was in a position to blackmail poor Gassie.”

  “Had you any grounds for thinking that?”

  “Well, some of us thought it was obvious.”

  “I think I know what you mean. Mr. Jones retained his highly paid, comfortable post although he neglected his duties, interfered with those of other people, drank to excess, caused bodily injury to students, seduced one of the maids…”

  “And tried it on with some of the women students, the loathsome animal! But I’m afraid I interrupted you.”

  “Not at all. I was only going to add that, in spite of all his sins, Mr Jones was not only given a permanent post here and a large salary—larger even than Mr. Henry’s or your own…”

  “Oh, I’m not complaining. Gassie is a most generous employer. I didn’t know Jonah got more than we do, though. I do know he was given a sitting-room as well as a bedroom. It’s a suite which I used to envy him and which, when you’ve moved on and things have blown over, I shall apply for, unless Henry particularly wants it. I would waive my claim in his favour. I’m very fond of old Henry. But I’m babbling on, and you still haven’t reached the climax of your disclosures. What were you going to say?”