Murder At School

by James Hilton

  “Suspicious?” echoed Lambourne, as if weighing the word. “Are YOU suspicious, then?”

  “Perhaps I am.”

  “Of what?”

  “That’s just the point—I hardly know. It might be almost anything, but I’m pretty certain it’s something.”

  “What evidence have you?”

  “None that would stand a moment’s examination in a court of law. None at all, really. Just the coincidence of the two accidents, and the Head’s puzzling attitude, and my own feeling about it. It’s all queer, to say the least.”

  “As you say, to say the least. Why not say a little more and call it a double murder committed with diabolical ingenuity?”

  “WHAT?” Revell gasped. “I suppose you’re joking—”

  “Not at all. As a mere matter of theory, isn’t it possible? Isn’t the really successful murder not merely the one whose perpetrator never gets found out, but the murder that doesn’t even get suspected of being a murder?”

  “But, my dear man, as you said to me just now, where’s your evidence?”

  “Exactly. I haven’t got any—I’m in the same boat as you.”

  “Are you—are you—really quite serious about all this?”

  “Perfectly. I suspected it, as a matter of fact, from the moment the news of the first accident reached me. But then I’m afraid I nearly always do suspect things—I have a thoroughly morbid mind. I never hear of a drowning accident but what I wonder if somebody pushed the fellow in. And it’s such a dashed clever way of murdering anybody, you know—letting a gas-pipe fall on ‘em.”

  “And what about this latest affair?”

  “A mistake. No one, however clever, should expect to get away with more than one murder. Tempting Providence, you know. Not that it isn’t more than likely that the dear old country Coroner and his twelve good men will swallow this just as willingly as they did the first one. Only, from a purely technical point of view—the only point of view that interests me —the repetition mars the symmetry of the thing.”

  “But surely, man, if you have suspicions of this sort, you can’t be satisfied to leave things as they are?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. Hardly my business, eh?”

  Revell was indignant; he was even (a rare accomplishment) shocked. Lambourne’s attitude of cynical indifference was one he had very often adopted himself, yet now he saw it in another he reacted against it instantly. “I don’t know how you can say that,” he said.

  “No? Well, maybe I’m different from you, that’s all. After seeing three years of purposeless slaughter backed by all the forces of law and religion, I find it hard to share in the general indignation when somebody tries on a little purposeful though no doubt unofficial slaughter on his own. That’s my attitude—maybe a wrong one, but I can’t help it. I’ll talk things over with you, of course, as much as you like—give you my ideas and all that. Only don’t expect me to give any active assistance.”

  Revell laughed. “You’re almost as queer as all the rest of the business… Look here, Lambourne, I do want to get to the bottom of things, if I can. It’s building bricks without straw for the present, I know, but that doesn’t matter. You suspect a double murder, eh? Well, the first thing to look for, then, is a motive—unless, of course, we’re dealing with a homicidal maniac. Do you agree?”

  “Quite.”

  “Well, the only motive I can think of is money. Two schoolboys can hardly have had any personal enemies. But it did occur to me that since all Robert Marshall’s money went to his brother Wilbraham, it would be interesting to know where Wilbraham’s money goes now?”

  “I can tell you that—it’s fairly common knowledge, in fact. Ellington gets it.”

  “Ellington? The devil he does! I say, that’s a bit astonishing, isn’t it?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. Ellington’s his cousin and next-of-kin. He couldn’t very well leave it to anybody else.”

  “How much—roughly—does it amount to?”

  “Matter of a hundred thousand or so.”

  Revell whistled. “Quite enough to make some people commit a couple of murders.”

  “Oh, bless you, yes. Some folks would commit twenty murders for a fiver, for that matter… Anyhow, that’s one thing settled. We’ve found the murderer. The only thing left to do now is to find out whether there’s really been a murder or not.”

  “You needn’t be so sarcastic,” answered Revell, smiling. “After all, in a case like this, doesn’t everything depend on personality and motive? Find the murderer, then you know there’s been a murder. If you can’t find a murderer, then you’ll have to believe that the whole thing’s been purely accidental.”

  “Good, Revell—you have, I am delighted to see, an intricate mind. Ellington’s our man, of course. But unfortunately there’s not a scrap of evidence against him. All you can say is that he comes into a bit of money through the two successive accidents. Ah, but stay—there IS just one other little matter. I’d almost forgotten it. Ellington was one of the very few people who knew that Marshall was sleeping in the dormitory on the night of the first accident.”

  “Good Lord—I never heard anything about that!”

  “No, I don’t suppose you did,” replied Lambourne, relishing his little sensation. “It was a point that didn’t come out at the inquest— although, mind you, there was no reason why it should. Young Marshall, you see, had spent the greater part of his summer vacation abroad—he’d been, I think, with his guardian in Italy. Anyhow, owing to timetables and what not, the Head had given him special permission not to return until the Monday—the rest of the School, you will remember, having re-assembled on the previous Saturday. Did they, by the way, have the system of dormitory prefects in your time?”

  “Yes.”

  “Ah, then you’ll understand how it all came about. Marshall was the dormitory prefect of the junior dormitory. Now the rule is very strict about having somebody in charge, and as Marshall was to be away on the Saturday and Sunday nights, somebody had to step into the breach, and that somebody was Ellington. I know, because the fellow asked me if I’d oblige, but I made some excuse—I sleep badly enough as it is, without the additional miseries of a dormitory mattress. Besides, as housemaster, it was his job, not mine. Anyhow, he did it on the Saturday night, and was doubtless prepared to repeat the performance on the Sunday night as well. All the staff knew about it —he’d been cursing his luck in the Common Room. But then, quite unexpectedly, about half-past five on the Sunday evening, Marshall turned up.”

  Certainly, Revell thought, Lambourne had the knack of making things sound devilishly significant, whether they were so or not.

  “Yes—he’d caught an earlier cross-Channel boat than he’d reckoned on, or some simple enough reason like that. Anyhow, he went into Chapel and Hall afterwards in the usual way. Daggat may possibly have noticed him —he was preaching that night, which was the reason, as you can guess, why most of the older masters kept away. I did, and so did Ellington. Ellington, as a matter of fact, didn’t know that Marshall had come back until nine o’clock, when the boy went to see him in his room next to the dormitory.”

  “Not in his private house?”

  “No. His wife was out visiting, so he was filling in the time marking papers, I believe. He was surprised to see the boy, naturally, though glad enough to discover he could spend the night on his own feather-bed after all. The boy went to bed in the dormitory at the usual time, and Ellington stayed up to finish his marking—at least, that’s what he said at the inquest. The point is, you see, that his wife wouldn’t be expecting him, and might well be asleep when he DID go to bed—whenever that may have been.”

  “Pretty quick work, though, to plan a thing like that at such short notice.”

  “Oh, I know. I’m not suggesting he did. It may have all been planned beforehand, and he just seized the favourable opportunity as it came.”

  “Quite. But I’m afraid it all shows how equally well the whole business MAY have been an a
ccident. Assuming it was pure chance that the boy got killed and not Ellington himself.”

  “Oh yes. Exactly what Ellington said himself the morning after.”

  “Which, of course, he WOULD say, if he WERE the murderer.”

  “Naturally.”

  “Oh Lord, what a lot of assumptions we’re making! I wish we had more evidence. Can you connect Ellington with this latest affair in any way?”

  “‘Fraid I can’t, on the spur of the moment. That’s your job—you’re the detective. If I were you, I should have a look round pretty soon— if there’ve been any clues left lying about, I don’t suppose they’ll stay there for ever.”

  It was a hint, perhaps, and Revell, who felt he would like to be on his own for a while to think things over, was glad enough to take it. “Come and chat with me again as often as you like,” was Lambourne’s farewell remark, and Revell assured him that he would.

  The grounds of Oakington School were roughly circular, and round them ran a pleasant tree-sheltered pathway popularly known as the Ring. Four successive generations of Oakingtonians had found that to make its complete circuit, at strolling pace, was an agreeable way of spending a quarter of an hour when there was nothing else to do, and upon this Wednesday afternoon in June Revell followed almost instinctively the familiar trail. The sunlight blazed bountifully through the washed air; the scents of moist earth and dripping vegetation rose around him in a steamy cloud. From time to time he passed groups of strolling boys who stared at him with that slight and politely disguised curiosity that is, perhaps, the “fine fleur” of the public-school tradition. He could well guess the chief subject of their conversations. He could imagine the sensation that the double affair of the Marshall brothers would have caused at the Oakington of his day. It was, undoubtedly, the most spectacular of sensations—only less so, perhaps, than Lambourne’s theory if it could be proved correct. But WAS it? That, naturally, was the all-engrossing problem that occupied his mind during the half-mile circuit.

  The chief trouble, of course, was that it was so fearfully difficult to verify anything that might or might not have taken place nine months before. People so easily forgot details, or even if they didn’t, they could easily say so if they were asked awkward questions. He quite saw that there was very little he could hope to discover about that first affair.

  He thought a little cynically of the bright new electric fittings that met the eye all over the School. That had been the Head’s doing—natural enough, in a way, but a pretty efficient method of clearing up traces if there had been anything wrong. Had the Head, by the way, known of Marshall’s sudden and unexpected arrival at the School that night?

  He lit a cigarette as he began the second circuit of the Ring. The easiest thing, undoubtedly, was to believe that things were just as they seemed. Two fatal accidents to two brothers—well, it was unusual, even remarkable, but was it more so than any conceivable alternative supposition?

  Anyhow, as Lambourne had said, he had better tackle the more recent affair, since not only was there a greater chance of discovering things from it, but also his inquiries could be made more openly, as springing from the mere natural curiosity of an Old Oakingtonian about an affair that was for the time being on everybody’s lips. And so, as he came round to the School buildings again, he made his way to the low, squat, red-bricked erection, some distance away from the rest, in which, ten years before, he had splashed about on many a summer’s afternoon.

  His lips tightened irritably as he turned the handle of the door and found it unlocked. The place ought not, he felt, to have been thus left open to any casual sensation-seeker, though of course it suited him well enough to be able to enter so easily. He walked through the small entrance-hall, past the shower-baths and the drying-room, and into the main glass-roofed building. Four elderly charwomen were kneeling on the floor of the bath, busily engaged in scrubbing the white porcelain tiles. At the farther end, by the diving-platforms, a rough-looking fellow in grey flannels and a brown cardigan was noisily dismantling an improvised grandstand consisting of several tiers of wooden benches. Revell watched the scene for over a minute before anyone saw him, and even then no one took any particular notice. It was only too obvious that there had been many previous visitors. At length he walked along the edge of the bath and approached the man at the far end. “Busy cleaning up, I see?” he commented, with the air of the fatuous sightseer.

  The man nodded deferentially, noticing the Old Oakingtonian tie. “Yes, sir, and not a pleasant thing to ‘ave to clear up, neither.” How eager they all were, Revell thought, to discuss the little tit-bit of tragedy that had fallen into their midst! He offered the man a cigarette, which he took with a half-knowing salute. Another of them wanting to be told all about it, Revell fancied him thinking. “Yes, sir, I reckon I don’t want to see a thing like that again. Fell right off from the top, and you’d think so, too, if you’d seen what _I_ saw. Terrible thing, ain’t it? An’ ‘appenin’ just now— right in front of Speech Day. Of course there ain’t goin’ to be no swimmin’ gala—natchrally THAT’S been put off.”

  Revell inclined his head in melancholy agreement. “I suppose the poor chap must have taken a plunge in the dark?” he hazarded.

  “Looks like it,” replied the other. “The fuses was all gorn… I daresay you ‘eard about ‘is poor brother larst Autumn Term, sir?” The man’s eyes quickened with ghoulish pride.

  “Yes, I read about it. By the way, what are you going to do when the cleaning’s finished? Fill the bath up again?”

  “Yes, sir. Though I don’t suppose there’ll be any swimmin’ till next week. You don’t ‘ardly feel you’d like to go in it now, some’ow, do you, sir?”

  Revell expressed a limited sympathy with this extreme of delicacy and then, with a farewell nod to the man, walked back towards the entrance. The same trick as before, he reflected ruefully—all traces obliterated, and in quite the most natural manner, too. He flung down the stump of his cigarette and ground it under his heel. Really, if there were anything in Lambourne’s theory, it had all been managed with devilish ingenuity.

  As he descended the outside steps of the swimming-bath a small female figure on a bicycle suddenly dismounted in front of him and greeted him with a bright smile. “Hullo, Mr. Revell—how are you? I didn’t know you were up here.”

  The encounter relieved him momentarily of his load of doubts and apprehensions. “Hullo, Mrs. Ellington—delighted to meet you again. Yes, I thought I’d come up for Speech Day. Not going to be such a joyous festival, though, is it?”

  “It’s just frightful,” she answered, her dark eyes clouding over instantly. “Have you been brave enough to look where it happened? _I_ haven’t. It was a terrible sight for poor Wilson, I’m afraid. And, you know, I feel particularly awful about it myself, because—in a sort of way —I was responsible. I know it’s foolish of me to think so, but really I can’t help it.”

  “But how on earth—”

  “You see, Mr. Revell, it was _I_ who suggested having the bath cleaned. It wasn’t very dirty, but I happened to be looking in on Monday afternoon in connexion with the seating arrangements for the gala display, and it just occurred to me that the bath might be a little bit cleaner. So I mentioned it to my husband, and he mentioned it to the Head, and the order was given to Wilson almost immediately. And but for that…” She shuddered and stared miserably at the handle-bars of her bicycle.

  “But really, Mrs. Ellington, I don’t think you can possibly feel responsible—there was no real negligence on your part or anything like that. The whole affair was just a most frightful accident—” He said it before he realised what he was saying.

  “Oh yes, I know, but that doesn’t stop me from feeling how I do about it… Will you come along to tea, by the way? I’m just putting my bicycle in the shed before I go in. I’m sure my husband will like to see you again.”

  Revell accepted the invitation and, taking her machine away from her, wheeled it to its allotted space i
n the covered bicycle-stand. It would not be a bad idea to meet Ellington, he reflected, and to observe him from the standpoint of one who already suspected him of being a double murderer. Apart from which, Mrs. Ellington’s company was itself sufficient to make the suggestion attractive.

  Ellington was not in when they reached the house, so they prepared the tea themselves, chatting pleasantly meanwhile. She was, he decided once again, a charming little creature—full of elf-like vivacity and so childishly frank as well. “You know,” she said, “we come into an awful lot of money through that poor boy being killed. It sounds terrible to be thinking of it even before he’s buried, but it’s hard not to. Tom’s his nearest relative, you see—there was simply nobody else to leave it to. We shall be quite rich.”

  Revell assumed polite surprise. “Will you leave Oakington, do you think?”

  “Oh, I do hope so. The life of a schoolmaster’s wife isn’t all fun. Have you seen that play Young Woodley, by the way, that’s on in town?”

  “Yes, several times. I liked it immensely.”

  “Oh, so did I. And I do sympathise so much with the schoolmaster’s wife —not so much in connexion with the boy—but just generally. I mean—oh, I don’t know quite how to express it in a way that you won’t misunderstand, but—”

  And as if to illustrate the inexpressible, Ellington himself came in at that moment in an obvious bad temper. Really, thought Revell, for a man who, whether by accident or design, was about to inherit a hundred thousand pounds, he was remarkably peeved. He shook hands perfunctorily with Revell, planked himself down in the most comfortable chair, and told his wife, when she handed him a cup of tea, that it was disgustingly weak. A boor as well as a bore, Revell reflected. A few mouthfuls of buttered tea-cake made the man more talkative, but only to air his grumbles. “Speech Day to-morrow, by Gad!” he muttered. “And the Lord knows what’s going to happen—everything either altered or cancelled—no definite plans—no method —and in the meantime the whole discipline of the School going absolutely to pot!” He gulped down a half-cupful of tea. “Boys seem to think that because a fatal accident’s happened they can all run riot. I had to thrash several of them to-day for being late, and the excuse they gave me, if you please, was that they’d been in the swimming-bath talking to Wilson!”