No Winding-Sheet mb-65

by Gladys Mitchell

  What his wife thought she had heard he did not know, but there was no doubt about the accuracy of her statement that she had heard something. Conditioned by habit, Sparshott walked along the front of the bicycle shed towards the drive and saw immediately that there was a light showing from inside the building.

  The caretaker, with his dog’s muzzle almost touching his left knee, went round to the back entrance. He pushed the heavy tarpaulin aside, inserted himself, slipped the lead from the dog’s collar and put a warning hand on Fangs’s head. Together they walked silently down the long corridor which separated one side of the quad from the classrooms on the other side of the passage.

  When they reached the hall, electric lights illuminated the quad, for the hall on that side consisted of one long range of tall windows. Sparshott peered out, but could see nothing in the quad except that, here and there, were chunks of rubbish from the demolished farm building which had once occupied the site.

  The caretaker retraced his steps. The corridor led to the entrance vestibule of the school and to another corridor between the hall and, at the vestibule end, the secretary’s office, where the telephone was. As the man and his dog reached the corner where the two corridors met at right angles to one another, the dog growled.

  Light was now streaming out from the hall, for the swing doors were open. Sparshott halted and called out, ‘Show yourselves, whoever you are! Come on out of that! The dog’s loose!’

  At this, somebody snapped off the hall lights, Sparshott was hurled out of the way with considerable violence, the dog yelped as his paw was trodden on, and the next sounds were those of feet pounding down the corridor towards the back entrance. The dog, receiving no orders, remained where he was.

  Only one thing consoled the battered caretaker. Flying arms as well as flying feet had convinced him that when the men — there were two of them for sure — had thrust him out of their way, they were carrying nothing. He collected himself, gripped his torch more firmly and went into the hall, as that — strangely he thought — appeared to have been the centre of the intruders’ operations.

  The push-bar doors on the quad side of the great hall were open. He could feel the cold air blowing in and, as well as that, there was the information which his torch disclosed. He went across to close the doors, but then decided to do as the trespassers appeared to have done. This was to switch on the hall lights again to give better illumination to the quad than the beam of his torch could do.

  Having pressed the two sets of switches, each set just inside one of the two swing doors which led from the secretary’s corridor into the hall, he crossed the hall again and stepped out into the quad.

  So far as he could see, nothing in it had been altered. While construction work was still going on, it remained a large rectangle of rough earth with the heaps of debris from the demolished farm building still rendering it the eyesore of which the headmaster had complained, and still in the middle of it was the hole in which, presumably, the debris would one day be buried. At one side of the hole there was the heap of dirt and gravel which had been excavated.

  Picking his way, the caretaker went over to the hole. It was a gaping, untidy affair with slightly sloping sides down which the winter rain had seeped to leave a messy little quagmire at the bottom.

  Sparshott switched on his powerful torch and peered down into the hole. A few bits of brick and concrete appeared to have been thrown in, but whether by the workmen or by the recent intruders it was not possible to say. Otherwise, nothing seemed to have been touched. Sparshott wondered whether his appearance on the scene had interrupted nefarious doings, but, short of the visitors having intended to heave chunks of brick at the library, the hall or the corridor windows, it was difficult to determine any possible reason they could have had for choosing to invade the quad.

  Puzzled and somewhat worried, Sparshott returned to the hall, closed the doors which opened on to the quad, crossed the floor, switched off the lights and closed the swing doors to the corridor. Here he switched on his torch again, tested the lock on the secretary’s office, crossed the vestibule and tested the headmaster’s door, tried the big stockroom in which the television sets were kept when they were not in use, but found nothing either puzzling or disturbing. That the intruders had been up to some kind of mischief seemed clear enough, but whatever had been intended did not appear to have been carried out.

  Sparshott had made representations more than once to the headmaster (and the headmaster, he knew, had passed them on to the education committee) that, while the building was so vulnerable, a nightwatchman ought to be employed ‘on account I can’t be about all days and all night, sir’. Now, it seemed, he had been right to make the request.

  As he and the limping dog traversed the long corridor which led to the open back of the building, he half wondered whether the two men would be lying in wait for him. He gripped his torch more firmly. They had not been carrying anything, but, then, there was nothing in the hall or the quad worth stealing. He wondered whether they could have been two of the young workmen up to some sort of lark, or even two of the biggest schoolboys — there were some hefty young fellows in the football team — working off a dare.

  Nobody interfered with his egress from the building, but, all the same, he was upset and he said as much when he returned to his wife. She, admirable woman, had come downstairs and was making a cup of tea.

  ‘There was two of them,’ he said. ‘Up to some sort of mischief, I reckon, and I don’t like it much. It’s too easy for people to get in while there’s no back doors. Mr Ronsonby was going away for Christmas this evening, but I’ve got Mr Burke’s phone number, so I’ll try to get him first thing in the morning and make my report. It’s the first time we’ve had interlopers, so far as I know, but it only needs somebody to start this sort of thing and we’ll be in trouble. I can’t be on guard twenty-four hours a day. I’ve told Mr Ronsonby I reckon we need a nightwatchman as well as me, and he quite agrees, but, so far, he says the committee won’t stand for the extra expense. Once a couple of TV sets and half a dozen of them new typewriters have been whipped, maybe they’ll think again.’

  His wife, attending to the dog’s paw, pointed out that it was morning already, so at half-past eight Sparshott telephoned the deputy head. Mr Burke promised to come round as soon as he had had his breakfast.

  The workmen were on Saturday overtime, so Sparshott next accosted the builders’ foreman and asked him to find out whether any damage had been done to the fabric or anything belonging to his work party sabotaged in any way.

  ‘I reckon it was a couple of the bigger lads up to mischief,’ he said, ‘not as we gets trouble of that sort, not as a general rule. But I got Mr Burke coming in half an hour or so, and if there’s anything to report, I’d be glad to have notice of it to tell him, it being my responsibility, if you get my meaning.’

  There was nothing to report except what Sparshott himself had noticed. The quad was a little tidier than it had been when the workmen had seen it last, and some of the broken stone, the litter of roof slates and the heap of damaged bricks which had resulted from the demolition of the farm outbuilding had been tossed into the hole, as Sparshott himself had already seen.

  Mr Burke turned up at half-past nine. He received Sparshott’s report and then said briskly, ‘Well, I’ve got a full list of the school equipment in my room. We had better check to find out whether anything is missing.’

  ‘I doubt if it is, sir. Nobody that barged into me wasn’t carrying anything. By the look of the quad, sir, I reckon it was just a couple of louts getting up to their larks. Couldn’t have been a couple of our own bigger boys, could it?’

  ‘It doesn’t sound like anybody in the upper school to me. Any boys capable of exercising the violence you say was used on you could only have been sixth-formers or two members of the first eleven. However, let us do the rounds and see whether there is anything more we can find out. Have you contacted the police?’

  ‘Thinking it mi
ght be boys, no, sir.’

  ‘Thank goodness for that. Oh, well, I’ll get my list and then we can check and find out whether anything has been taken. The two TV sets are locked up in the big stationery cupboard near the headmaster’s room, so, unless the lock has been forced, they should be all right. Fortunately the orchestra were allowed to take their instruments home with them, so no problems there.’

  ‘The big stockroom seemed all right last night, sir.’

  They began with the secretary’s office. It was still locked, but Sparshott had a master key. Her desk was locked, too, and they left it untouched. Next came the room where all the stationery stock was kept. It also was still locked, as Sparshott had claimed. Burke, as senior master, had the key to it. He opened up and assured himself, with the caretaker as witness, that the television sets were there and that nothing had been disturbed since he himself had supervised the stowing away of the sets the day before.

  From here the two men went up by the front staircase, opened the door of the staffroom, which was on the first floor, made a brief survey of the staff lockers and then Burke led the way along the corridor to the commercial room. Here were the typewriters, each hidden under its protective dustcover.

  Burke took off every cover and made certain that all the typewriters were present and undamaged. Another thought had occurred to him while he was doing this.

  ‘I suppose it couldn’t have been a couple of evening-school students who hustled you?’ he asked.

  ‘Could have been, easy enough, sir, and likelier, p’raps, than our own boys, and also I did give a thought to some o’ them young workmen.’

  ‘Well, everything seems to be all right, so far, but we may as well make a thorough job of it.’

  Across the corridor and opposite the commercial room was the handsome library. On one side of it the windows looked down on to the quad. Three young workmen were busy there, but their efforts appeared to be confined to throwing a few more chunks of rubbish into the hole and to make a pile of the rest of it against the outer wall of the corridor below the library.

  ‘Can’t see what they get paid overtime for, sir,’ said Sparshott, as he accompanied the senior master to the front door, which he unbolted and unlocked to let Mr Burke out.

  ‘Nor I, but we are in the contractor’s hands and, well, friends at court, you know.’

  ‘All the same thing on these local councils, I reckon, sir, but when they’re your employers, it don’t do to say too much, do it?’

  He closed, but did not lock, the great front gates behind Mr Burke’s car. There was still the builder’s truck to leave by that exit. The men knocked off at twelve, however, and when he had seen them off and made the great gates secure, he went into the school and locked and bolted the front door, then went into the hall and had another look at the quad.

  There were footprints around the open hole, but there was nothing to indicate whether they were the workmen’s prints or those of the night’s intruders.

  3

  An Addition to the List of Missing Persons

  « ^ »

  After Boxing Day the weather had become so inclement that for the following week no outside work was done on the school buildings. However, to the disgust of the women cleaners, the painters and decorators came to do the inside jobs and, as one disgruntled cleaner put it, ‘brought in with them all the muck as would stick to their boots before it got on to our floors’. By the time term began, clear, frosty weather had replaced the sleet and the rain and outside work had been resumed. Unexpectedly, the mess in the quad had been tidied up. It was assumed that either the builders had had a change of heart or that Mr Filkins had enlisted the help of the keener members of his gardening club to do the work before the beginning of term.

  On the first day of term, Mr Burke came to report to Mr Ronsonby the caretaker’s story of the break-in on breaking-up Friday night.

  ‘I checked very carefully,’ said Burke, ‘and nothing is missing or damaged, neither has Sparshott heard or seen anything else untoward, so far as I know. I do think, though, Headmaster, now that the buildings are so nearly finished and the official opening seems to be in sight next term, that we ought to have a nightwatchman on the premises. There are loutish types about nowadays who have only to see something fresh, clean, admirable and new to be seized by a lust to vandalise and defile it.’

  ‘I’ll put to the committee this evidence of illegal entry given us by Sparshott, but I’ve tried before, as you know. Still, now that the school has definitely been broken into, my arguments may carry more weight.’

  However, they did not carry any weight at all. Nothing had been stolen, the education office pointed out, nothing damaged or defaced, and the property was fully covered by insurance. No nightwatchman was appointed and, when this was relayed to the caretaker, Sparshott replied: ‘Well, Mr Ronsonby, sir, I shall continue to keep ears and eyes open, but a twenty-four hour day is asking too much of a man.’

  ‘I agree entirely, Sparshott. The ball, I feel, is in the committee’s court, and it is up to the education office to deal with it. Please don’t worry. After all, nothing but a bit of skylarking seems to have happened. One thing, the workmen have filled in the hole in the quad.’

  There was another matter which was very much on the headmaster’s mind. Ought he or ought he not to report the absence of the Greek journey money? Mr Pythias’s continued non-appearance had been reported as a matter of routine, but the money, the headmaster decided, was a different kettle of fish. The education committee left the arrangements for all school journeys entirely to the discretion of the head teacher on the understanding that the committee accepted no responsibility for insuring the party against death, accident or the theft of personal property while the journey was taking place. Not all local authorities followed this plan, but in Mr Ronsonby’s area it operated. It was up to the sponsors of the trip to make certain that the money paid to the tour company included the personal insurance of every passenger.

  ‘I suppose it might be thought necessary to make a report that the money is missing,’ said Mr Ronsonby to his wife, ‘but I’m damned if I’m going to give anybody the satisfaction of believing that one of my staff has decamped with the takings. I would rather put up the cash for the trip myself. In fact, it looks as though I may have to do so.’

  ‘It would make a pretty big hole in our savings.’

  ‘I know, but I’d much rather carry the can than face a scandal involving one of my staff. Besides, I can’t believe that Pythias has defaulted. There must be some other explanation.’

  ‘One thing; it isn’t like the school fund. That has to be audited,’ said Mrs Ronsonby.

  ‘Oh, if it were the school fund, I’d have to report it. As it is, so long as I make good the money, nobody need be any the wiser.’

  ‘Mrs Wirrell knows the money has gone.’

  ‘Oh, Lord! If I couldn’t trust Margaret Wirrell not to talk out of turn, I would begin to distrust myself!’

  ‘I’m glad Margaret isn’t young and glamorous,’ said Mrs Ronsonby, smiling.

  ‘She was a chief petty officer in the WRNS in her young days. She could manage the school and the staff with one hand while she was signing for the latest consignment of stationery stock with the other.’

  ‘So you have quite decided that you are not going to report the loss of the money?’

  ‘So long as I make it good, nobody can complain, and if I did report it I should gain nothing but a name for washing the school dirty linen in public’

  ‘What do you think has happened to Mr Pythias? Can he have been set upon and hurt?’

  ‘I think we should have heard if that were the case. I don’t know what to think except, as I say, the one thought I am determined to put out of my mind.’

  ‘It’s much the most likely explanation, you know. If he had been beaten up and robbed, surely we should have heard of it by now, as you say.’

  ‘Not if he had been struck on the head and is suffering from amn
esia. He may be wandering about, not knowing who he is or where he is supposed to be. Margaret suggested this and it does seem feasible.’

  ‘Surely the police would have picked him up before this if he were found wandering.’

  ‘One would think so. Anyway, I shall have to report to them that he is missing. We can’t go on in this state of uncertainty. It’s over three weeks since his landlady saw him last.’

  ‘That is the trouble, I suppose. The whole of the Christmas holiday and now these early days of the term have had to go by before anybody realised that he was missing. I blame that landlady. She must have known that something was wrong when he did not turn up again at his digs after Christmas. He would have gone to collect his things, even if there had been a row.’

  The police took the same view. A plain-clothes detective turned up at the school and introduced himself as Detective-Inspector Routh. He brought a sergeant with him. Mr Ronsonby soon found that he had better revise his plan of saying nothing about the missing money.

  ‘We have visited the address you gave us, sir. The landlady can be of no help. Says the missing gentleman went away for Christmas and she hasn’t set eyes on him since. Thinks he took umbrage when she refused to accept responsibility for some money he was carrying. Do you know anything about that, sir? Would the money have amounted to anything in the nature of a considerable sum?’

  ‘I imagine so. I cannot give you any figures. It had been paid by boys, parents and staff to cover a school journey to Greece next summer. Mr Pythias preferred to keep everything in his own hands, as the trip was entirely his own idea. He is of Greek extraction and has travelled widely in his own country. He is also the senior geography master here. I was entirely happy to leave everything in his hands, but as to the actual amount—’

  ‘May I ask whether you parted from him on amicable terms, sir?’

  ‘Oh, yes, very much so. The senior staff always pop into my room on the last day of term to say goodbye and Pythias came in as usual with the others.’