“Won’t the forensic reports tell us?” asked Berger.
“Yes. But I can’t see Miss Mabel Holland—the one that’s been described to me, that is—after she’d had her bath, coming down and peeling onions. She’d have something easy like the mushrooms Mrs Gibson brought in or tomatoes. So cooking the meal would not take long, and when somebody is alone, it doesn’t take long to eat, either. So I reckon she’d be through eating and washing up by eight. So what would she do then?”
“She’d read or watch telly,” said Mrs Gibson. “Depending on what was on. She was particular what she watched.”
“No pop or anything like that?”
Mrs Gibson pursed her lips. “Miss Holland did her job properly. Usually she watched documentaries and plays. But now and again she’d listen to a bit of pop because she thought she ought to.”
“Oh? Why?”
“Because the girls all listen to it, don’t they? And she thought she ought to try and understand or know something about it. She wouldn’t allow transistors to be brought to school, of course. Very down on that, she was. But the boarders can have them in their houses—but only to play at certain times. Not after lights out or anything like that.”
“Did any of the girls resent it?”
“How should I know? I don’t know much about what went on actually in the school. Only what I picked up in here.”
“No details. Just Miss Holland’s general attitude?”
“That’s right. What she really needed was a family to talk to, but as she hadn’t got one, she spoke to me, see. She was mostly a busy woman at nights—going here, there and everywhere on committees and speaking, as well as living her social life. But on Sundays, particularly, we were just here together. She always refused to work on Sundays, saying it was a day of rest and she reckoned she could do her job better if she really lazed about the house for one day a week. So after the morning service—she always went with the boarders—we gossiped a lot over elevenses and read the papers and such like. She never wanted me to cook big meals at weekends, so if she was in for the evening we always had a salad with bubble and squeak if we had any left-overs. She adored bubble and squeak. And that’s when she used to tell me things. Little things. Nothing about anybody in particular, but it all added up, and I got to understand what she thought about everything.”
“Such as?”
“Such as? Oh, well . . . the plans she had for getting school prizes out of people. The old prizes, she said, weren’t good enough. She wanted the girl who won the essay prize to have fifty pounds’ worth of books of her own choosing. She said the old five-pound prize wasn’t big enough to attract first-class entries. And all that sort of thing. So, you see, I got to know her attitude about prizes, didn’t I? A lot of schools, she said, want to do away with prizes for work and even stop exams. Miss Holland believed in having something to work for and to be encouraged by.”
Green grunted—whether in approval or otherwise was not apparent. “Now, Mrs G., she would have read or watched telly, you say, from about eight o’clock on. You’re sure she wasn’t expecting a caller?”
“She said definitely not, but somebody could have called, of course.”
“Did they, sometimes?”
“Not often. Not at night.”
“Let’s try to see if they did.”
“How can we do that?”
“If somebody came after dinner at night, what usually happened? Did Miss Holland offer them a drink or a cup of coffee?”
“Always.”
“Did callers usually accept?”
“Never knew one that didn’t. At that time of night you don’t call in for two minutes or to leave a message, do you? You ring up for that. No, if anybody came, they’d have stayed for a bit, I’d have said. And they’d have had a drink, too.”
“Right. What happened to the dirties after an evening drink?”
Mrs Gibson gazed at him. “You’re right. They were always left on the draining board until morning. Miss Holland always said there was no point in wasting good hot water and soap to wash up a few dishes late at night. She always laughed when she said it, because it was only an excuse for not doing it. And that went for any cups and glasses we may have used, even when there wasn’t a visitor.”
“Fine. So Miss Holland, being a creature of habit . . .”
“Not habit exactly. Not in a finnicky way. She’d worked out the best way for doing habitual things and stuck to it. I think she was so busy that she was frightened that if she didn’t have method, some things wouldn’t get done. But she did do lots of things on the spur of the moment like everybody else. Her way of ordering her life was more like having a sort of skeleton for the day, just to keep things straight. But everything else was, you know . . . different and interesting. She wasn’t an old maid . . . . Well, she was, I suppose, but she wasn’t like one really.”
“What did she look like?” asked Berger.
Without answering, Mrs Gibson got up and left the room. She was back before Green had lit a battered Kensitas, carrying several photographs. She handed each of the men two or three to look at.
“Why,” said Berger, “she was a bit of all right.”
“All right? She was lovely. A lot of people called her beautiful.”
“How recently were these taken?” asked Green.
“All since she’s been here—in the last three years.”
“I was told she was forty.”
“Forty-one, actually. She came here when she was thirty-eight.”
“I’d like to keep one of these for a day or two,” said Green. “I’d also like to know why a woman like her never married. I’d have thought she’d have had men buzzing round her like bees round a jampot.”
“She was engaged once. To a right gay spark, I think.”
“What happened?”
“He killed himself flying one of those little light aeroplanes. That’s the sort he was, apparently. Fast cars, aeroplanes, speedboats . . . She didn’t talk about him but I got the impression no man measured up to him afterwards.”
“I see.” Green put the photograph in his pocket. “Now then, Mrs G., we’ve decided Miss Holland had no visitors. Not in the regular sense, that is. Could anybody have got in uninvited?”
Mrs Gibson shook her head. “The locals went all over the house. And it isn’t as if we had these spring locks you can open with a bit of plastic. We’ve still got the old-fashioned ones from about seventy or eighty years ago.”
“Mortise locks?”
“I don’t know what that means, but I’ve got a big key that looks like a key to put in the keyhole, and that turns a tongue which goes into the doorjamb as solid as a rock.”
“And the front door was locked when you came home?”
“Definitely. And the side door was bolted inside.”
“What about the door into the school corridor?”
Mrs Gibson frowned. “I don’t know. I didn’t look.”
“Why not?”
“Because we didn’t worry about it much. I mean, the school was all locked up. I know the police checked that, so nobody could have got in that way.”
Green did not comment for a moment, but then he asked: “If Miss Holland had rules about most things, why didn’t she have one about that school door?”
“She did.”
“But you can’t say whether it would be locked or not?”
“Look, it wasn’t locked normally. The keys are big old things and she didn’t like carrying one about with her.”
“Didn’t she carry a handbag?” asked Berger.
“Not in school. She wore suits, with a pocket for a handkerchief. She thought it looked silly carrying a handbag when wearing a gown. Besides, she wouldn’t want things like lipstick and a comb while she was teaching. All that stuff was left in the little private cloakroom attached to her school study. It was a spare lot, of course. She left her bag in the house.”
“So she left the house door unlocked so she could go t
o and fro without knocking or ringing?”
“In the daytime. Why not? It was only an internal door. We locked it at night of course. I did it, when I went round before bed. That’s why I can’t say whether it was locked or unlocked last night. I wasn’t here to do it.”
“Miss Holland didn’t do the locking up herself, ever?”
“There was none to do except the school door, because we kept the front and side doors locked all the time.”
“Very wise. Who opened the school door in the mornings?”
“I did. First thing—except Sundays—because Miss Holland would want to go out that way to Assembly. You see, I go into that passage every morning before breakfast for the apples.”
“What apples?”
“She had one every morning for breakfast. She used to say they were a lot better than senna pods and a lot cheaper because they’re grown here in the gardens. We put the apples down in a big old cupboard that’s built in that little corridor. I go and get them every morning without fail.”
“So the door was unlocked yesterday morning, but in all the fuss last night you didn’t go there so you can’t say whether the door was unlocked all evening or not.”
“Does it matter? Nobody got in there. The locals went round the school. It was all locked up and nobody had broken in.”
Green nodded to show he appreciated the point. Then he said: “You got home late from your day out, noticed the smell of vomit, found she’d been sick on the stairs . . .”
“Ever so sick. So I went up to her room. It was awful. She’d been sick again and the bedclothes were all scrumpled. I knew she was dead, of course, so I had to call the doctor, hadn’t I?”
“Of course. He and the police searched the house?”
“That’s right.”
“And they asked you to stay on?”
“Well, I live here, don’t I?”
“Yes, but . . .”
“Mr Hussey—he’s the solicitor to the Board of Governors—asked me to stay on, in any case. This morning, that was. He said Miss Holland’s stuff would have to be packed and the house would have to be kept up until a new headmistress came. She might want me or she might not, but they’re going to pay my wages till they know.”
“I see. That’s nice for you.” Green got to his feet. “Thank you, Mrs Gibson. Now, if Sergeant Berger could use your phone for a moment . . .”
“It’s in her study. Just in front of this room. The light’s just inside the door.”
Berger left to call Masters.
Green said to the housekeeper: “Now, just one thing, Mrs G. Don’t forget, tomorrow morning at the inquest, you’re to make a point of saying how cheerful Miss Holland always was and particularly on the day she died.”
“I’ll not forget. I’m not having anybody saying she did away with herself, ’cos she didn’t. She had her head screwed on too well for that and she was a good lass. A right good, lovely lass.”
For the first time since he arrived, Green saw tears brim in Mrs Gibson’s eyes. Green patted her arm and led the way to the front door. Berger joined him in time to say goodbye to the housekeeper.
“They’ll be here in a couple of minutes.”
“Good. We’ll wait outside on the road.”
As Green lit another limp cigarette, Berger said: “She’s a bit of an old gasbag—but nice with it.”
“She’s lonely and wanted somebody to talk to. She’s missing her boss, that’s what it is. Alone in a house where somebody’s just died . . .”
Chapter Three
“You were partly instrumental in getting us brought here, I understand, Sir Thomas.”
Masters, tall and powerful, aggressively well-dressed in his grey, Windsor check suit and highly polished brown shoes, stood in the centre of a large and exquisite circular carpet. It was the centrepiece, dominating a room obviously richly furnished but without even the slightest hint of ostentation or vulgarity. It suggested—rather than displayed—a high degree of refined comfort which depended on heaviness, thickness and weight in its furnishings as much as on softness and shade. Sergeant Reed, also a tall man, but slight in comparison with Masters, stood beside their host and dwarfed him. And yet Kenny seemed to have a presence almost as commanding as that of the Superintendent.
“I was, and it frightens me,” replied Kenny, indicating by a movement of a small hand holding a cigar that they should sit. As they sank into what felt like a sea of down, he continued: “Yes, it frightens me. On two counts. First, that had I not been convinced that Miss Holland would neither commit suicide nor be ignorant enough to make a fatal mistake such as the one that killed her, the local police would not have pursued the matter. And second, that had I not been Chairman of the Watch Committee, they wouldn’t have listened to me, anyway. I find it disturbing—if not worse.”
“Whilst not being prepared to disagree, sir,” replied Masters, smiling at the little man who seemed overwhelmed by the armchair he occupied, “I don’t think you should either despair or cling to the idea that local police forces are inefficient in these rather odd cases. Almost inevitably, when one of them crops up, something happens to make the investigating officers pause and think again. This time it was you and—to be fair, Chief Superintendent Hildidge—who had doubts. Another time it could be an anonymous letter, a whisper from a contact or an unlikely coincidence which tips the scale. I am personally doubtful whether many cases are tackled in the wrong way. The fact that they are frequently not brought to a successful conclusion is a different matter.”
“You think so?” asked Kenny sceptically.
“It must be so, sir. Take us as an example. We are here, now, investigating Miss Holland’s death, and nobody can deny that we are presupposing murder. So we shall treat it as such. Nobody—including you, sir—will be able to say that we shall have neglected to treat it seriously, even thought we can give no guarantee of success in solving the problem.”
“You’re not trying to prepare me for failure, are you?”
“Far from it. I’m here to pick your brains and your memory with the intention of progressing towards an acceptable, proven solution. That is my aim.”
“Have a cigar,” said Kenny. “You’re the sort of man I like. Here, Sergeant, help yourself.”
“I’ll stick to my pipe, sir, if I may,” said Masters. “And I’d like to get down to business straight away.”
“Good. You go ahead while I pour us a drink. Whisky will do for everybody, won’t it?”
“The first question,” said Masters, “is how did you hear of Miss Holland’s death?” He was watching Kenny as he spoke and thought he detected a slight pause as their host tilted the decanter over an exquisitely cut pony-glass.
“I heard it from Raymond Hussey.” He turned to carry two glasses to his guests. “Hussey is the school’s solicitor as well as my own lawyer.”
Masters accepted his glass.
“You were away on business?”
“Holiday.”
“Where?”
“Just outside Guildford. No distance away.”
“Your solicitor knew your address and movements?”
“No.”
“Which means you rang him from your hotel near Guildford.”
“Right.” Kenny returned to the tray on the sideboard to pick up his own glass.
“When?”
“As soon as I’d finished breakfast this morning. Before half-past nine.” When he was once again sitting in his armchair, he continued: “Mrs Gibson had rung the deputy headmistress earlier—at her home—to tell her the news. She naturally informed the Board’s solicitor—at his home, before he left for his office.”
“You rang before half-past nine,” mused Masters. “Forgive me, Sir Thomas, but I find it strange that a man on holiday should have cause to ring his solicitor, particularly so early in the day, and then to discover that the call should be so fortuitous as it turned out to be.”
“You’re a smart man,” said Kenny. “You’re a suspi
cious one, too. Are you starting a case against me?”
“I think not. I’ve no wish to waste my time at the moment. So please tell me the circumstances in which you called Mr Hussey.”
“Personal affairs.”
“As opposed to business matters?”
“Quite. I was about to go off for the day, so I decided to call him before I went. It was that simple.”
“What was your personal assessment of Miss Holland as a headmistress?” asked Masters, changing his line of questioning.
“Without a doubt, she was the best headmistress Bramthorpe ever had. A year or two ago, the school was beginning to slip from its former high standards, due to the present-day attitudes of the whole of this country. Miss Holland was appointed. Not only did she arrest the slide, but she had got the school back to the top of the hill. All in three years. Appointing her was the best bit of work the Governors had done in years.”
“And your assessment of her as a person?”
“Marvellous. And lovely.” He rose from his chair and crossed to a small bureau. From the top drawer he took a photograph wrapped in tissue paper. It was a large studio portrait, mounted on board and protected by a semi-opaque cover. “See for yourself.” He handed the photograph to Masters.
“A beautiful woman, sir.”
“Surprised?”
“A little. I must admit I had expected to see a picture of a strong character.”
“But not one quite so good-looking.”
“No, sir,” confessed Masters.
Kenny took the photograph and returned it to the drawer. As he sat down again, he said: “So now you can see why I could answer your last question in one word: marvellous.”
Masters sat back. “So what do you say to the news that Miss Holland was about to resign her post?”
There was a long silence. At last—
“How did you know that?” asked Sir Thomas quietly.
“It is true, then?”
“Partially.”
“Please explain.”
“You’re a damn sight too perceptive for my liking,” said Kenny. “I don’t know whether I feel safe with you about. You’ve been here in Bramthorpe no more than a few hours and you are asking questions that would never have occurred to Hildidge and his men.”
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