Death of an Old Girl

by Elizabeth Lemarchand

  ‘When he knows that I couldn’t make you admit that you’d seen him when I first questioned you, and that your evidence has helped to clear him of a possible charge of murder, I think you’ll find Mr Baynes’s attitude very different,’ said Pollard grimly. ‘Besides, there’s another side to it, isn’t there? You’re his only living relative as far as I know, and it looks as though he’s going to need a good deal of help and moral support. If he’s finally cleared of the graver charge, as I hope he will be, you won’t wash your hands of him because of the thefts, will you?’

  He watched Madge struggling with the utterly unfamiliar concept of a situation in which she was at an advantage in regard to George.

  ‘No, of course not,’ she said at last, wiping her eyes and blowing her nose vigorously. ‘If he wants to have anything to do with me, that is. It won’t surprise me if he doesn’t, even if he is in trouble… Yes, I think I should like you to tell him. I feel I don’t know how to put it.’

  ‘I’ll be very glad to do that for you, Miss Thornton. Will you tell me how you have just found out that Mr John Baynes was your father?’

  She nodded, and hunted in a handbag for an envelope which she gave to him.

  ‘I found this when I went home last week. It was with some papers belonging to my adopted mother.’

  The letter was written on expensive paper headed with an engraved address in Leamington Spa. The date was December 10th 1916, the ink faded but the handwriting strong and decisive.

  Dear Mrs Thornton,

  I am writing to confirm that one of the nursing-home staff will be bringing little Madge to Warhampton next Thursday by the train arriving at 11.15 p.m.

  Now that everything has been arranged, I am indeed feeling thankful that my poor brother John’s child will be in the care of you and your husband, so long associated with our firm. I know that I can rely absolutely on your complete discretion: neither the child nor my parents must ever hear the sad story.

  With kind regards,

  Sincerely Yours,

  Beatrice A. Baynes.

  Pollard looked up to find Madge watching him.

  ‘I’ve always realised I was a — bastard,’ she said, with obvious relief at putting her sense of humiliation into words at last. ‘But I wish I knew something about my real mother, all the same.’

  ‘I can tell you that she was a music student. That’s where your musical talent comes from, you see.’

  ‘I haven’t real talent. I’d like to stop teaching music. I’m no good at it. I only get girls who aren’t any good, either. If they give me anybody promising by mistake, the parents always write and ask if she can change.’

  ‘Perhaps you will be able to give it up now… You understand that the police have to try to get all statements confirmed, don’t you? So I’m going to ask you if you saw anyone go past while you were watching Applebys on Saturday?’

  ‘The only person I knew was Miss Craythorne, the Senior Mistress. She drove past about twenty past nine, going back to the Staff House. I expect she’d been to Miss Renshaw’s coffee party… I feel a lot better,’ she went on, apparently inconsequently. ‘In spite of everything, I think I’d like to go to Aunt Beatrice’s funeral tomorrow. I mean, it’s no good going on being angry with people for ever, is it, especially when they’ve died?’

  ‘No good at all. I think you are being very wise, and generous, too, if I may say so. I suggest that you — or Sister — ring up Mr Yelland and find out what the arrangements are.’

  The door opened to admit Sister Littlejohn.

  ‘Excuse me, but Mrs Kitson has just rung through to say that Miss Renshaw would be glad if Inspector Pollard would go over to school as soon as he can, and that it’s important,’ she announced, unable to conceal the gleam of excited interest in her eye. ‘In any case, I think my patient has been talking quite long enough.’

  ‘Miss Thornton tells me that she is feeling a lot better,’ Pollard could not resist saying to her, as they left after a hasty leave-taking from Madge.

  ‘What’s your reaction to that little lot?’ he asked Toye when the Sanatorium door had closed behind them.

  ‘I think she was speaking the truth, sir, and Mr Baynes too, for that matter. Of course they could have agreed on the story between them, although I can’t see the two of them working in together, somehow.’

  ‘Neither can I,’ said Pollard as they walked across the car park. ‘In fact I think it’s a psychological impossibility.’

  Fourteen

  ‘Old Meldonians are making their contribution to society in many and varied spheres.’

  The Headmistress's Speech Day Report

  A spruce Estate car had arrived during their call at the Sanatorium, and was standing outside Old House. Pollard eyed it speculatively, wondering if its presence implied a quick response to one of the enquiries sent out that morning about those in residence at Meldon on Saturday night. He waited in the library with Toye, while Joyce Kitson went to report their arrival to Helen Renshaw. Looking round at the shelves he felt that years had elapsed since he had first entered the room just over forty-eight hours earlier… There was a curious elusiveness about the case … a sense that whoever you succeeded in catching up on would turn round and face you, and prove not to be the person you were looking for after all. Young Baynes, for instance, with his lies and seemingly improbable story of being followed across the park… Pollard looked at Toye who had taken down a copy of Murder in the Cathedral, and whose normally smooth brow was furrowed in perplexity.

  Footsteps in the hall announced the return of Joyce Kitson. Miss Renshaw would see them at once in her flat, she said, and led the way upstairs. As they were shown in, Pollard was astonished to see a nun in a white coif and black habit, partaking of afternoon tea from a tray. Helen Renshaw rose and took a step forward. He thought he could detect relief in her face.

  ‘Sister Felicity,’ she said, ‘may I introduce Chief Detective-Inspector Pollard and Detective-Sergeant Toye of Scotland Yard? Sister Felicity of St. Anne’s Convent, Middlebridge, Inspector.’

  Pollard took an instant liking to Sister Felicity’s rather sallow, lively face, with its upturned nose and alert brown eyes, which were fixed on him with undisguised interest.

  ‘Well, well,’ she said, when the introductions had been made, ‘I never thought that I’d meet a real, live Scotland Yard detective. If it wasn’t for this terrible tragedy, I should be really enjoying myself.’

  Helen Renshaw suggested tea, which Pollard politely declined.

  ‘Perhaps it would save time,’ she said, taking the hint, ‘if I explained that Sister Felicity is an Old Meldonian, who had permission from her Mother Superior to come to Festival and stay overnight.’

  ‘It was the last weekend of my annual Rest fortnight,’ broke in Sister Felicity. ‘We all have one, to keep in touch with our families and friends.’

  ‘Sister was one of the group who came up here to have coffee with me after supper last Saturday evening,’ Helen Renshaw went on, a faint flicker of amusement passing over her face. Pollard reflected that she was in a better position than he was to observe Toye’s reactions. ‘She left with a friend shortly before nine. Perhaps it would be simpler if she herself takes up the story here? Shall I leave you?’

  He assured her that it was unnecessary, and turned to Sister Felicity, sitting erect and full of pleasurable anticipation.

  ‘I’m most grateful to you for coming over here so promptly,’ he told her. ‘I gather you have some information for us?’

  ‘Mother instructed me to say that she much regrets the delay. Unfortunately we went into Retreat on Monday, and have been out of touch. Completely. But when the police called today just after Sext, Mother naturally went to the parlour. Knowing that I had been here last Saturday night, she felt obliged to break my silence.’

  She paused, as if to emphasise the magnitude of the step taken.

  ‘A very proper decision, if I may say so,’ said Pollard, feeling his way.


  ‘Exactly. Mother maintains that the religious life should be based on practical common sense. Among other things, of course. When I told her that I had visited the studio on Saturday evening and sat with a friend on the little platform at the top of the fire-escape, she suggested to the very nice sergeant of police who had called, that I should drive over here at once. All our sisters under fifty have passed their driving tests,’ she added.

  Pollard had a sharp sense of an impending crisis in the evolution of the case.

  ‘I’d like you to describe exactly what you did after leaving the coffee party here,’ he said. ‘Everyone who visited the studio after seven o’clock last Saturday is an important witness. Sergeant Toye will be taking notes, and afterwards he’ll transcribe them, and we’ll ask you to read your statement, and if you agree that it is accurate, to sign it.’

  Sister Felicity folded her arms inside the voluminous black sleeves of her habit, and proceeded with a combination of great seriousness and childlike enjoyment. One of her special pleasures in attending Festival, she explained, was a meeting with her greatest friend outside the Community, Hilary Fleming, who had been at school with her, and was now married and living in Manchester. Dear Miss Renshaw would quite understand that while they had greatly enjoyed coming up to coffee in her lovely flat, they felt they still had a lot to say to each other, and were among the earlier leavers, as just a minute or two to nine. As neither of them had managed to see the art exhibition during the day, they had decided to go up to the studio on the chance that the work had not yet been taken down.

  ‘Just a minute,’ interrupted Pollard. ‘Which way did you go? Through School Wing itself, or across the Quad?’

  ‘Across the Quad, Inspector, going out of the door from the entrance hall downstairs.’

  ‘Take your time over this question, Sister, won’t you? Did you meet anyone, or see anyone about in the Quad, or on the stairs up to the studio?’

  Sister Felicity closed her eyes.

  ‘We didn’t actually meet anyone,’ she said decisively, opening them again, ‘but as we went out into the Quad I noticed two of the girls carrying a lot of odds and ends and talking to an O.M. or one of the staff. They were just disappearing under the archway leading to the car park. Nobody else, I’m quite sure. Shall I go on?’

  ‘Please do.’

  The two friends had gone up the staircase to the studio, only to find it stripped and tidied for the holidays. The door on to the fire-escape was open, and they had wandered out to find a magnificent sunset in progress. Fetching a couple of stools from inside, they had settled down to enjoy the spectacle, and have a long, leisurely conversation. It was a very warm evening, and they had sat on while the splendour built up to its zenith and slowly faded, until at last a sheet of white mist over the playing fields below made them realise that they were beginning to feel a bit chilly.

  Pollard struggled to keep his mind strictly on the course of Sister Felicity’s narrative. Its full implications must wait for the moment.

  ‘Weren’t you surprised,’ he interrupted, ‘that no one had come to lock up School Wing?’

  Yes, they had both remarked on it. Then, just as they switched on the light and were putting the two stools away, there had been the sound of a door being locked and bolted, and footsteps coming upstairs, and Bert Heyward came in… Yes, she knew Bert Heyward well by sight. She came to Festival regularly. He’d seemed quite surprised to find them there, and they’d had a little chat while he locked the fire-escape door, and then they had all gone out together into the corridor. Yes, she distinctly remembered him locking the studio swing doors on the corridor side.

  ‘Which way did you and Mrs Fleming leave School Wing?’

  ‘Along the top corridor, and down the stairs at the Old House end. The door at the bottom of the studio stairs had already been locked, you see.’

  ‘Did you hear Bert Heyward return to the studio by any chance?’

  Sister Felicity, who clearly saw the implications of the question, looked Pollard squarely in the face.

  ‘I’m quite sure he didn’t, Inspector. He was only just behind us, opening each classroom door, and flicking on the light to make sure all the windows were shut. He was just behind us on the stairs too, and went off along the first floor corridor, doing the same thing. By the time we were out in the Quad, making for New Wing where our rooms were, he was working back to Old House on the ground floor. The lights were going on and off one after the other.’

  Mentally consigning Bert Heyward to uttermost perdition, Pollard thanked Sister Felicity for her clear statement, and sent Toye down to the library to type it out. As they waited, he questioned her about the possibility of anyone having entered or left the studio while she had been sitting on the fire-escape platform.

  ‘I’m quite sure that would have been impossible,’ she said without hesitation. ‘Those swing doors on the corridor make a special little thud when they open and shut. And we weren’t talking loudly. People were still about, down in the gardens, and crossing the Quad, you see. It was such a lovely evening. But we could go and try, couldn’t we? You and Miss Renshaw could be talking outside, and I’d come in and go out as quietly as posible.’

  Rather taken aback by this practical and matter-of-fact suggestion, Pollard agreed that the experiment would be worth making… After that unspeakable fool Heyward never mentioned these women, he thought, I’m leaving absolutely nothing to chance.

  A rather silent trio walked through the echoing emptiness of School Wing, and up the stairs to the studio, still locked and in a state of squalid disorder. Sister Felicity clicked her tongue.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ she said briskly to Helen Renshaw. ‘Redecoration, and a move round of the equipment, and they’ll soon forget all about it. The young are so resilient… Anyway, it’s a thrill to them… we had a murder at my school… a splendid bit of one-upmanship among their contemporaries.’

  Helen Renshaw agreed rather wryly. Pollard stared at them, and wondered if women would ever cease to surprise him in one way or another.

  Out on the platform Helen Renshaw asked how much longer the police would need the studio. He was replying when they heard the distinctive sound of the swing doors opening.

  ‘It’s impossible to do it more quietly,’ Sister Felicity said, after the third experiment. ‘Try it yourself, Inspector.’

  Pollard tried.

  ‘It’s conclusive,’ he said, as much to himself as to them. ‘No one entered or left this room from the arrival of Sister Felicity and Mrs Fleming just after nine, until Bert Heyward came in to lock up…’

  ‘You again?’ said Mrs Heyward, opening the door and finding Toye outside. ‘You know tea-time, don’t you? Come along in.’

  As on his earlier visit Bert Heyward was seated at the kitchen table, this time consuming fish and chips. He looked up without a trace of apprehension.

  ‘Ain’t you caught the chap yet?’ he enquired. ‘You Lunnon blokes an’ all?’

  ‘Not yet,’ replied Toye patiently. ‘Thank you, Mrs Heyward, but I daren’t stop even for a cuppa: the Inspector’s hopping mad. I just want to clear up one point. When you got up to the studio to lock up on Saturday night,’ he said addressing himself to Bert, ‘was anything out of the ordinary at all?’

  ‘Well, the electric was on, and two Old Girls up there. Bin sittin’ out on the escape, so they said. But you wouldn’t call that anythin’ out of the ordinary for Festival. You comes on ’em all over the place, talkin’ their ’eads orf.’

  A pregnant pause was broken by an explosion from Mrs Heyward.

  ‘Bert Heyward! You great daft stupid lump!’

  ‘What’s wrong now?’ demanded her husband, setting down his knife and fork with a clatter. ‘One of ’em was that Sister in nun’s get-up. She comes every time. Nuns don’t go round murderin’ folk. Anyway, I never gived either of ’em another thought from that day to this. Nobody ever arst me if I’d found Old Girls up there…’

  Mrs Heyward gave
Toye a long look compounded of exasperation, apology, and utter relief.

  In the library Pollard listened to Toye’s account of his second visit to the Heywards, and relieved his feelings by fluent and uninhibited comment on the mentality of Bert. Toye apologised miserably.

  ‘I ought to have asked the direct question, sir.’

  ‘We’ve both tripped up. I ought to have spotted it myself from your report… We’ve wasted the heck of a lot of time, but it’s no good moaning over it… If this Mrs Fleming confirms Sister’s statement, as she doubtless will, we’re just about back where we started.’

  ‘There’s still that bit of time between eight-thirty and eight-forty, sir. George Baynes is cleared, but Madge Thornton still hasn’t an alibi. There’s only her word for it that she was strolling about the park.’

  Pollard extracted the latest version of the time-table, and pushed it towards Toye.

  ‘Let’s have a look at this bit,’ he said, stabbing with a finger.

  approx.

  8.30 Mrs Heyward returns home. Cartmell and Torrance come down to Quad.

  8.32 Torrance returns to studio (A.C. and C.T.)

  8.33 Cartmell reaches office (Kitson)

  8.35 Torrance reaches office (Cartmell and Kitson)

  8.38 Torrance drives off (A.C., Kitson, and Eccles)

  ‘Eccles…’ Pollard flicked through his notes. ‘In his statement to you he said he saw Torrance drive away while he was in the Lodge garden. It’s just possible he saw Madge come across from Applebys at 8.20… You know, Toye, we seem to have overlooked this chap… Let me see, yes, Miss Renshaw said Beatrice Baynes was always snooping on the gardeners. Wasn’t there something about it in your report on the Heywards?’