“Ah, well, your customs would be different from ours, no doubt,” said Mrs Batty-Faudrey, with kindly condescension, “and, of course, they do say that there is safety in numbers”.
Mrs Gough giggled.
“Oh, dear!” she said. “I thought that only applied to love affairs!”
“Young people need a considerable amount of guidance in those,” said Dame Beatrice solemnly, “but they will seldom accept advice and frequently make what their families and friends are compelled to admit are the most mistaken alliances. A nephew of my own was continually flitting from flower to flower, if I may be allowed to use an expression which comes dangerously close to being a quotation from The Beggar’s Opera, and caused his family some anxiety, I believe.”
Laura caught the half-glance from her employer’s sharp black eyes.
“Yes,” she said, “Macheath was some sipper! How many wives with child a-piece did he finish up with?”
Mrs Batty-Faudrey looked pained; Mrs Gough giggled; Mrs Collis moaned feelingly, but whether because she deplored Laura’s levity or was sorry for Captain Macheath and his plurality of wives and offspring did not transpire; the signora leapt in where even Councillor Skifforth, a noted supporter of all attempts to limit the world’s birthrate, feared to tread.
“In Italy, my country, in our family,” she announced, “we kick out these offenders. They would be—how do you say?—not to be given their share of the riches.”
“Kicked out and disinherited? What, even though they are your own kith and kin?” exclaimed Laura.
“Family life is good, is pure, in my country. The Church does not stand for nonsense. Besides, no-one has time—not in my family—no time!”
“I think that’s the trouble,” said Dame Beatrice. “Some of the young people have too much time, and then the trouble begins. Still, I think your custom of turning offenders out of the family circle is a trifle drastic, Signora.”
“Oh, one couldn’t do it in England,” said Mrs Batty-Faudrey. “It would only draw attention to the scandal. I feel sure—although, of course, I have no experience in the matter—I feel sure that the only solution would be to hush the thing up. As for disinheriting—why, it could do nothing but create a criminal.”
“I agree, if the culprit, whether youth or young girl, is unmarried. But what of marital infidelity? Are you not in favour of divorce, then, Mrs Batty-Faudrey?” asked Dame Beatrice.
“I have never considered the matter,” said Mrs Batty-Faudrey, in slightly-thickened accents. “When a wife holds the purse-strings…” She appeared to think that the remark was an unwise one, and did not finish it, but emptied her glass instead.
“But so few wives do hold the purse-strings,” said Dame Beatrice. Mrs Gough giggled; Mrs Collis sighed; stately Mrs Skifforth said that wives had only themselves to blame if they allowed themselves to become supplicating doormats in the home.
“The only supplicating doormat I’ve ever seen,” said Laura, “is the one with Welcome on it, and, somehow, at those sort of houses, I feel one never is.”
The talk turned to the subject of home decoration, on which Kitty proved to be an expert. It went on to labour-saving devices and the impossibility, in a place like Brayne, of getting a reliable charwoman. The lunch concluded, as it had begun, in an aura of goodwill and goodfellowship. Brandy was served with the coffee, and the guests, well-fed and pleasantly tipsy, departed in a flurry of thanks and the usual vague and mostly meaningless promises of meeting again quite soon.
“Just as well that Collis and Company aren’t driving, and that the Mayoress, the Councillor and Mrs Batty-Faudrey have a chauffeur,” said Laura critically. “How did you think it all went? Am I right in thinking that, at some time before the end, you got what you wanted?”
“Yes, thank you, child, I did.”
“Oh, did you? I’m so glad,” said Kitty. “I say, the Skifforth is a bit of a battleaxe, isn’t she?”
“No, I don’t think so,” said Laura. “Anybody would seem a battleaxe compared with that poor little Mayoress. I bet she won’t be sorry when the Mayor’s term of office is over. If ever I saw a shrinking violet, she’s it.”
“Signora Brunelli didn’t shrink, though, did she? “My country, right or wrong!” That was her banner and her slogan, it seemed to me.”
“It is customary for exiles to think more highly of their native land than of the one which is giving them work and shelter,” said Dame Beatrice. “All the same, except for yourself, my dear Laura, who returned my lobs with unerring skill, the signora was of much greater help than anybody except Mrs Batty-Faudrey herself. She made it clear, I thought, that any question of disinheriting her nephew Giles, whatever his social errors, simply does not arise.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
On the Trail of a Youthful Councillor
“…one fears that the evidences supporting this assumption are much too involved, and the available materials for settling the point much too obscure and meagre to carry complete conviction.”
« ^ »
Alibis, like promises and pie-crusts, are made to be broken,” said Gavin, “so that’s where we’ll make a fresh start. We’ll line up the suspects, and then roll up our sleeves and have a go.”
“Don’t talk in that beastly way,” said Laura. “No wonder Hamish is turning into a thug.”
“With such an Amazonian parent as yourself, he could hardly escape his fate. No—pax! Hit one your own size! It looks bad if a policeman has to go about looking as though he’d picked a fight with a heavyweight champion. Now, Dame B., what have we got? The floor is all yours.”
“And about time, too,” said Laura.
“What we have,” said Dame Beatrice, “are what I may call without, I think, fear of contradiction, three plain, straightforward murders.”
“You mean we ought to ignore the way in which the bodies were treated after death?” asked Gavin. “I should have thought that might give us a clue to the identity of the murderer.”
“That is so, of course! Well, we shall do as you have suggested, and begin by making a closer study of those alibis which, so far, we have merely touched upon.”
“You don’t mean you’re going to have another go at Julian Perse?” exclaimed Laura. “I thought he was definitely in the clear.”
“Oh, I hope he is. I see no reason at present to doubt it, but perhaps we can use his alibi as a form of touchstone. You see, it was strange and a little unkind and unfeeling of him not to have attended the evening entertainment in the Town Hall. After all, his aunt was largely responsible for organising it.”
“Yes, I agree about that, and, as he was responsible for wishing the pageant on old Kitty, he might at least have had the grace to act willing and show up,” said Laura.
“Therefore, why did he not do so?”
“Well, we know why. The supercilious young hound knew it would be a dud show and he’d be bored to death, so he just simply opted out and went off on a toot with some girl he picked up on a bus. He can’t identify the girl and he doesn’t think the barmaid at the pub would remember him. If you ask me, he simply hasn’t got an alibi for the time when Falstaff was murdered.”
“Barmaids have been known, before now, to have very long memories, of course, but, unless young Mr Perse is arrested and charged (which, I am glad to say, is not likely to be the case) we shall be justified, where he is concerned, in ignoring his behaviour on the night of Luton’s death, and we will concentrate, instead, on that Friday evening when we believe that Mr Spey was killed.”
“Oh, yes, the evening when Julian claimed he stayed late at school and then went to a committee meeting at the Town Hall. That means we’ll have to question the school cleaners, but I thought we’d agreed that they wouldn’t remember that particular Friday more than any other.”
“Well, we shall see. We are also still agreed, I take it, that whoever murdered Luton murdered Spey.”
“Fair enough, I think. So if we can put paid to the idea that Julian ki
lled Spey, we shall be justified in taking it for granted that he didn’t kill Luton, either. Well, I suppose we’ll have to go the school. How do we set about that? The headmaster isn’t going to be highly delighted when we break the news to him that we’re trying to prove one of his bright young men is not a triple murderer, and are having a job to put him in the clear.”
“I have a theory that it will not be necessary to approach the headmaster, child. To contact the school caretaker will be more to the point, I fancy. He selects, governs and even pays the school cleaners, and so long as we let him know that we are on the school premises, we shall dispose of any unwelcome feeling that we are trespassers.”
“Suppose Julian himself is there, and we run into him?”
“That is a risk we must take.”
“You’ve got something up your sleeve! You’re pretty certain we won’t run into him, aren’t you?”
“Well, I thought at the time that his pious assertion that the marking of exercise books must be kept up to date was out of character. I do not intend to suggest that he does not keep his marking up to date, but I do suggest that a schoolmaster who remains in the Staff-room on a Friday evening for that purpose is merely filling in time.”
“I can see what you’re getting at, of course. You mean that if he doesn’t usually stay in the Staff-room on a Friday evening, the cleaners will remember that he did so on this occasion. The snag is that I don’t suppose for a minute they’ll be able to pinpoint the date.”
“I have an idea about that,” said Dame Beatrice briskly. “There is an independent witness whom we can contact.”
“Oh? Who’s that?”
“The school cricket captain. He is certain to have retained last year’s fixture list. All we have to do is to check the date of the match against Goodman’s School. Even if the captain has left school, the list will still be in existence. It will have been kept as a guide to next summer’s fixtures—at least, I hope so. The boy’s name is Belton, if you remember. Mr Perse mentioned it to us at the time.”
“So I look up Belton in the telephone book and obtain speech with him, do I?”
“If Robert has no objections, I think that a conversation about cricket will carry more conviction and give rise to less surmise if it is conducted by a man,” said Dame Beatrice.
“He’ll be home from school by now,” said Gavin. “Let’s hope he hasn’t gone out, and let’s hope he’s got the fixture list handy.” He rang up the only Belton living in Brayne and asked to speak to the cricket captain.
“Speaking.”
“Sorry to bother you, but can you possibly remember the date of your last summer’s match against Goodman’s School?”
“We played them twice.”
“This would be the match played on the Brayne ground.”
“Oh, yes. Hold on a minute please… Hullo!”
“Yes?”
“Saturday, June 25th.”
“Did you win?”
“No, it was a draw. We had to pack up at half-past twelve, so the game, as usual, didn’t get finished.”
“I see. Thank you very much.” Gavin rang off. “I expect the lad wondered why I rang him up,” he said, when he joined Dame Beatrice and his wife. “I was ready with some tale, but I didn’t need it. When do you propose to visit the school?”
“Next Friday, at a quarter to five. The cleaners will have begun their work by then.”
“Do I come with you?” asked Laura.
“I think not. Elderly ladies are expected to be somewhat inquisitive and eccentric, whereas younger ones who trespass on enclosed premises are apt to have their motives misunderstood.”
“What shall you say to the caretaker?”
“That I am in urgent need of a daily woman, mornings only, and that I wonder whether one of his cleaners would like to undertake the work.”
“Suppose one of them would?”
“I think we may dismiss the supposition. To travel up to Kensington on six mornings a week will scarcely appeal to a person domiciled in Brayne.”
“Hardly. I wish I were going with you. It would be an education in itself to see you being inquisitive and eccentric.”
On the following Friday afternoon George drove his employer to Brayne Grammar School and in at the double gates. One or two cars were still drawn up on the asphalt and boys were still drifting out of school. Dame Beatrice got out of the car and enquired for the caretaker. His house was pointed out by a boy who raised his cap politely when Dame Beatrice thanked him, and she walked over to the small neat building and knocked at the door.
A woman opened it and said, in response to an enquiry, that the caretaker was “in the school somewhere, probably in the art room, which the cleaners have been creating about because the art master always leaves it in such a mess. First floor, at the bend of the stairs.”
Dame Beatrice found the art room and the caretaker without difficulty. There was no difficulty, either, about contacting the cleaners once she had stated her business. They were all about somewhere or other, the caretaker assured her. He was busily writing a report on the state of the art room, this, Dame Beatrice surmised, with a view to apprising the headmaster of the cleaners’ legitimate complaints.
Dame Beatrice made for the sound of voices combined with the clatter of domestic sweeping and the dumping of chairs, and, having run to earth a couple of the cleaners, she asked to be directed to the Staff Room. Here she found another woman. She was angrily picking up teacups and saucers from the floor and dumping them on to a large table littered with exercise books and ashtrays.
“Excuse me,” said Dame Beatrice. “I have spoken to the caretaker, so he knows that I am on the building. Would you mind telling me whether you are always responsible for tidying this room?”
“Oh, so it’s come to the ears of the Board of Governors, has it?” said the woman. “And about time, too, I reckon. If I’ve left a note once to ask these dratted teachers to clear away their cups and saucers and empty the teapot of an afternoon afore they goes home, I must have done it a dozen times or more. And what happens? The day after I leaves the note the place does get tidied up a bit, and, after that, not, till I leaves the next note. Sick and tired of it, I am. What their poor wives have to put up with I don’t hardly dare to think.”
“I understand that there have been complaints about the state of the art room, too,” said Dame Beatrice.
“Same with the woodwork room; same with the science lab. Really, call theirselves schoolmasters! Just look at this Staff Room! I never seen a pigsty in a muckier state nor this!”
“But don’t the masters who stay after school to mark books do a little clearing up? Surely they don’t attempt to work in this muddle!”
“Them do a little clearing up! Don’t make me laugh! Not as they often stay behind. The bell hasn’t hardly gone to finish school when half of ’em’s halfway down the drive and the other half revving up their cars. You don’t catch them putting in no overtime marking books. Oh, they’ll stop on and show films or rehearse a play or ref. a match or play tennis and badminton—oh, yes, they’ll do them sort of things, but put theirselves out in any other sort of way they will not, without they’re catching up on their exam. papers and report forms, and that’s only because the headmaster won’t have them sort of things took home for fear of ’em getting lost.”
“I had an idea that Mr Perse often stayed to mark books. The Chairman of the Governors seems to think so,” said Dame Beatrice, unblushingly taking that gentleman’s title in vain. The cleaner banged another cup on to a saucer and picked up an ashtray in each hand. She flung the cigarette ends into a bucket—most of the ash seemed to have been flicked on to the floor already—pushed an overflowing wastepaper basket into the corridor, clumped back into the Staff-room and seized the broom.
“It’s not for me to tell tales,” she said, “but I’ve no recollection of Mr Perse staying regular after school, not only the once or twice, no more than the rest of ’em. The only time he
ever stops on to do any work is when there’s a Council meeting earlier than usual. On the Council he is, as I daresay you know, and very surprised I was when my husband told me. My husband keeps the Town Hall, you see.”
“Ah, yes, the last early meeting was held at some time near the end of June, I believe.”
“That’s right. I remember it because it was in the next week as they found a man teacher had been murdered. I was ever so upset, because my two children goes to that school—the Primary it is—and I didn’t want them to get to know about it, but, of course, they did. You can’t keep other kids from talking, and bad news soons gets round.”
“And Mr Perse was in school that evening? I wonder how long he stayed? I have to make a report, you see. Which day of the week would it have been?”
“Same as today—a Friday.”
“Oh, yes. Have you any idea how long he stayed?”
“I couldn’t say, I’m sure. Four times I looked in to see whether I could do the room out, that’s all I know. I got fed up with it in the end, and I sets to and cleans all round him. That got him out of it. Wished I’d thought of it sooner.”
“At what time do you finish work?”
“It all depends. We’re paid by the hour for two hours and we don’t reckon to stay longer nor that. On a good day we can get all round the school in an hour and a half. Mr Robbins don’t care, so long as the work gets done, but he’s a rare one for seeing as it is done. He’s fair enough, mind you, but he been a petty officer in the Navy, so it’s got to be all bull and bush or else you’ve had it.”
“And you do not remember at what time you finished work on that Friday in June when Mr Perse stayed late?”
“I couldn’t really say, not to ten minutes or so. I clocks on at half-past four, which is to say I puts my head in at the hall door—Mr Robbins always does the hall and the stage hisself—and then I ups to here and hangs up my hat and coat in the lobby next door and gets my overall on and fetches my things and starts in on the lobby before I comes in here. Well, I suppose I must have popped my head in on Mr Perse about every quarter of an hour, but that’s as near as I can tell you. I does my three classrooms and after I done each one I pops my head in here, this being one of the worst jobs, so I likes to get it over and done with. You can make up a bit of time in the classrooms if you happen to get a bit pushed, but there’d soon be a to-do if this room got neglected, for all they makes such a pigsty of it theirselves.”
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