Tom Brown's Body

by Gladys Mitchell

  'I wonder whether we might have one more look over your cottage, sir, after I have interviewed the other gentlemen?'

  'Of course, if you think it's any good.'

  'Thank you, sir. Sergeant, get Mr Loveday. You'll be over here at the School for some hours, I take it, sir?'

  'For my sins, no doubt I shall,' said Mr Kay.

  'Until about six o'clock, sir, may we take it?'

  'Oh, yes, until about six this evening. I shan't return to my cottage and destroy all the evidence of my guilt before you get there again,' said Mr Kay irritably. 'Rope doesn't burn very easily.'

  The Superintendent smiled indulgently and welcomed Mr Loveday, who nodded briefly to Mr Kay as they passed one another in the doorway.

  Mr Loveday had news and views. The latter were ignored, although tactfully, by the Superintendent. The former received consideration.

  'Your bicycle, you say, sir? What makes you think it had been tampered with?'

  'As soon as I heard of the crime, I set to work to search my premises.'

  'Exactly with what object, may I ask, sir?'

  'With no particular object. Simply as a precautionary measure.'

  'What precautions did you need to take, sir?'

  'Come, come, Superintendent. I merely wanted to make certain, I suppose, that my House could present a clean slate.'

  'Had you any reason to suppose it would not have been able to do so, sir?'

  'No, no, of course not! But there it is. One's natural anxieties as a schoolmaster are not easily grasped by the public.'

  'I see, sir. You searched your premises and discovered that someone had tampered with your bicycle. I need hardly remind you, sir, that this piece of evidence may be of the utmost importance. Mr Kay heard a bicycle going past his cottage at a time when no bicycle, so far as we can find out, had any reason to be doing so. What led you to suppose that your machine had been used, sir?'

  'Well,' said Mr Loveday judicially, 'I think – perhaps I had better confine myself to that verb – I think that my tyres were in perfect order when last I used the bicycle, but there is no doubt that the back tyre has now sustained a severe puncture. My knife-and-boot boy – an expert in his way – has diagnosed the rent in the outer cover as having been caused by a large nail.'

  'Indeed, sir? May I ask how long it is since you yourself used the machine?'

  'Oh, I could hardly say. In 1945, perhaps.'

  The Superintendent shook his head.

  'Unless you've more evidence than that to offer me, sir, I'm afraid I could scarcely regard it as certain that your bicycle had been used.'

  'I applaud your caution, Superintendent. My additional evidence is that my knife-and-boot boy swears that the machine was not where he left it; also, I myself can declare to having seen three sets of tyre marks on the dust of the floor in the shed where the bicycle is stored, proving that it had, at any rate, been moved.'

  'Interesting, sir, and I don't say not valuable. But perhaps I could speak to the servant in question later on, and also have a look at the machine.'

  'Of course,' said Mr Loveday. 'Still, one cannot quite believe that the miscreant who killed poor Conway would have required to cycle to the School gate and back. It is not a very great distance.'

  The Superintendent agreed, and recalled Mr Kay.

  'Look here,' Mr Kay began angrily.

  'There is just one point, sir,' said the Superintendent smoothly. 'It seems you heard this bicycle going past your windows at, roughly, nine-fifteen. Now, sir, when did you hear that bicycle coming back?'

  'Not at all. Besides, you are assuming that it was going away from School when I heard it. I simply heard it pass, that's all. For all I know, it might have been going towards the School.'

  'I take it that you remained in your cottage from then on, sir?'

  'Certainly,' said Mr Kay, showing no hesitation and looking the Superintendent firmly in the eye.

  'You are quite sure, sir?'

  'Of course I'm sure! What do you take me for? – a cat on the tiles?'

  The Superintendent, who, so far, had left all note-taking to the sergeant, now discomfited the witness by taking out his own notebook from some secret pocket and recording this answer in longhand.

  'I should wish you to read that over, sir,' he said impressively, 'and sign it, if you will be so good.' He offered the notebook to the Schoolmaster. Mr Kay made no attempt to take it.

  'I shan't sign anything whatsoever,' he said flatly, 'except in the presence of a solicitor. You can't make me do so, and I protest at being asked.'

  'Very good, sir. Perhaps you would just give me your opinion, then, by word of mouth, that I have written down your words as you would wish them to be used in evidence.'

  'If you are charging me, you had better do so in a proper manner,' said Mr Kay.

  'Come, come, sir,' said the Superintendent briskly. 'I'm sorry to have offended you. I can take it as definite, then, that you heard the sound of a bicycle at about nine-fifteen, but nothing later, and that you did not leave your cottage until half-past seven in the morning?'

  'Exactly right,' said Mr Kay, very shortly.

  'In that case, sir,' said the Superintendent smoothly, 'was old Mrs Harries mistaken in thinking that you visited her cottage last night between the hours of ten o'clock and one?'

  'Yes,' said Mr Kay. 'I don't know any Mrs Harries. She sounds to me like a criminal lunatic. Did she give you my name?'

  'No, sir. But the description fits, and we do happen to know you weren't at home at half-past ten last night because one of the other gentlemen came to borrow a book from you, and another of the gentlemen accompanied him,'

  'I must have been asleep when they knocked,' said Mr Kay, suddenly wiping his face, a sign of agitation which impressed the Superintendent deeply.

  'Very good, sir,' he said woodenly. Mr Kay wiped his forehead again when the Superintendent had gone. He did not go far, however. He went to interview Jack the Ripper, alias William Dobbs.

  'Ah. Bin rode, that there boike had. Put moi 'and on she and I knows,' said Dobbs, without hesitation. 'Ride her moiself I 'ave, see?'

  The kinaesthetic sense was no new thing to the Superintendent. He believed in it. It was not concrete evidence, to be sure, but he did not need to have read John Drink-water's Little Johnny to feel certain that touch can be, at times and with certain persons, one of the least deceptive of the senses. He understood, that Dobbs had 'borrowed' the bicycle and ridden it on more than one occasion.

  'O.K., Dobbs,' he said briskly. 'I believe you.'

  'So well you moight,' said the redoubtable William, 'bein' as 'ow I knows.'

  'Well, now for the bicycle shed,' said the Superintendent. But the shed yielded nothing in the way of concrete evidence. There was no doubt that the bicycle had been moved. For one thing, Mr Loveday and Dobbs had both moved it during their amateur investigation of the crime. Whether it had been moved on the night of Mr Conway's death was, in the opinion of the Superintendent, incapable of direct proof. He put away his notebook and went back to Mr Kay's cottage.

  Mr Kay's cottage still yielded no surprises, and was in no way remarkable, except that it was on the telephone. It did appear, however, that Mrs Kay occupied a bedroom on the first floor, whereas Mr Kay had a bed in his study on the ground floor. The Superintendent, naturally, made no reference to this domestic arrangement, but he tabulated it mentally all the same.

  'And now, sir,' he said to the fermenting Mr Kay whom once again he had recalled for questioning, 'I must ask you one thing which, don't misunderstand me, I shall be putting to every one of the scholastic gentlemen in turn, including, I may say, the Headmaster himself. What were your relations with the deceased?'

  'With the – oh, I don't know.' Mr Kay looked suddenly troubled, but he did not hesitate. 'Not altogether happy, I'm afraid. He had a sharp tongue, and I'm by way of being a bit of a black sheep here, of course.'

  'Black sheep, sir?'

  'Not an Oxford or Cambridge ma
n,' Mr Kay explained. 'Not one of the ones. Educated in, as a matter of fact, first, a primary school in Manchester until I was eleven, then in Brazil, and then at a provincial university in the Midlands. And then I always think people see straight through me to a Eurasian grandmother.' He caught the Superintendent's look of surprise, and added, 'Oh, yes, that's my heritage. I call it Portuguese, and I had a Portuguese mother and an English father, but, all the same ...'

  'And very nice, too, I'm sure, sir,' said the Superintendent awkwardly.

  'You needn't tell anyone else,' said Kay at once, lifting his chin.

  'Certainly not, sir, if it's against your wishes. It could have no possible bearing, so far as I can see, on the enquiry.'

  'Don't you be too sure,' said Kay bitterly. 'The inferiority complex is responsible for making more criminals than ever came up to the Old Bailey. And now, if you don't mind, I'm due in class.'

  'I say,' said Norris, of the Science Side, in an audible aside to Scrupe, 'Spivvy looks a bit green about the gills. I bet he's Suspect Number One.'

  'That would surprise me very much,' replied Scrupe in an even louder tone. 'I don't think he has the guts to commit a serious crime.'

  'Murder isn't a crime,' said Biggs, whose father was a well-known barrister. 'The only crime is being found out.'

  Mr Kay did not even lift his head from the essays he was correcting. Lewis, another member of the form, raised his hand and dexterously flipped a note on to Scrupe's open exercise book.

  'His missus has left him for good,' Lewis had written. 'I bet it's only a matter of days before he's arrested.'

  Scrupe scribbled on the bottom of this note:

  'Then his missus is a heel. Fancy deserting a man at the foot of the gallows!'

  He flipped this back so clumsily that it fell on the floor. Lewis bent to pick it up. Mr Kay lifted his head.

  'Bring it here, Lewis, please.'

  Lewis, as in honour bound, took out a piece of paper not completely innocuous in that it bore a reasonably recognizable cartoon of the Headmaster, and laid it on the desk. Mr Kay glanced at it, and then said quietly:

  'I am afraid, then, Scrupe, that I must trouble you for a verbatim report of what Lewis wrote to you and what you replied to Lewis.'

  'I can't quite remember, sir,' said Scrupe. 'But, roughly speaking, it was an estimate of your chances with the police. I should not have thought of telling you this in cold blood, sir, but since you ask me –'

  'I see,' said Mr Kay. He corrected a couple more lines of an essay on economics. 'I am afraid, Scrupe, that I must trouble you to see the Headmaster.'

  'Be not afraid with any amazement,' said Scrupe, 'and I regret this as much as you do.' He rose, and went quietly out.

  The news that Scrupe had been flogged for telling the Headmaster that Mr Kay ought to be hanged had spread round the School before nightfall.

  'Did you really, Scrupe?' asked an admiring member of his House. 'And did the Old Man really tan you?'

  'My dear fellow,' said Scrupe loftily – for the news had enhanced his prestige – 'the major prophets have always been subject to ill-usage, calumny, and lies. In this case, I was subjected to a certain amount of ill-usage, and am on view Tuesdays and Thursdays, on presentation of a visiting card. However, Mr Wyck and I parted on cordial terms, as gentlemen of honour, whatever their passing differences, always may, and I still steadfastly maintain –'

  'But did you really say Kay ought to be hanged?'

  'Certainly not. I indicated to the Headmaster that I was not prepared to say what I thought. And what I think is your guess, and your guess is as good as another's. And now I have a letter of apology to write, and could contrive to word it better without so much babbling.'

  'But what do you really think, Scrupe? Do you really think Kay's got it in him?'

  'I think the Headmaster is a sensible and discreet man, my dear fellow, but that, in my time, I shall make a firmer Headmaster than he does. I shall hit harder, for one thing.'

  'You are an ass,' said his interlocutor, in even more admiring tones than before. Scrupe shrugged, and settled to his task.

  'Dear Mr Kay,' he wrote, 'I regret that any ill-considered words of mine should have added to the harassing nature of your thoughts. Yours sincerely, P. W. Scrupe.'

  The Headmaster did not pass it on. Neither did he send for Scrupe again. It is not only in the East that madmen are feared and respected.

  *

  Mr Kay's troubles were not only caused by impudent and unkind boys, the Superintendent's patient, polite but incessant thirst for information, and the somewhat odd glances he received from his fellow masters.

  During the evening of the day succeeding the death of Mr Conway he telegraphed to his wife to suggest that she should return home at once.

  She had not left him; that was merely a romantic interpretation put upon her absence by some of the boys. Their relationship, although not a happy one, had not been so far strained that Mrs Kay was inclined to neglect her duty.

  She was a cheaply-smart, ignorantly-sophisticated woman of twenty-nine, good-looking, selfish, as extravagant as Mr Kay's not unlimited means would allow, but generous enough to return at once when she heard that her husband was in trouble.

  When she heard the particular nature of the trouble, she was, not unnaturally, horrified. What upset Mr Kay, however, was her doubt, somewhat baldly expressed, as to his innocence.

  'You did hate the poor perisher,' she said. 'Couldn't you make it accidental death in a fight?'

  'But I didn't do it, Brenda!' yelled her exasperated husband. 'Get that into your head, for goodness' sake! If I'd felt as bad about the fellow as all that, I'd have got another job! Good heavens, one doesn't go about murdering people! Whatever next!'

  'Oh, well, sorry I spoke,' replied his wife, tossing her head. 'But if you didn't do it, and if Johnny Semple was with you when you found him, what have you got wind-up about?'

  'Look here, Brenda,' said Mr Kay, dropping his voice, 'you've got to stick to me over this. The trouble is . . .'

  'Well?'

  'The trouble is,' said Mr Kay unhappily, 'that – oh, well, never mind.'

  'Well, really!' exclaimed Mrs Kay, with justifiable fury. 'Of all the misleading, contemptible idiots. You mean you did do it, don't you? Why not be a man, then, and say so? I shan't give you away. I've too much self-respect.'

  'Brenda,' said Mr Kay desperately, 'listen to me. I did not kill Conway. The trouble is, though, that I did tell someone I should.'

  'Who?'

  'Sanderson,' replied Mr Kay, referring to a retired Indian Clivil Servant whom he sometimes visited.

  'Well, what of that? He won't give you away, either. You've let off hot air to him before. He's not a bad old stick.'

  'I know. It isn't Sanderson I'm afraid of. But while I was there one night two boys came to the house, and I shouldn't be a bit surprised if they overheard what I was saying. I know hanging came into it – or was that after they'd gone?'

  'What two boys?'

  'That's the trouble. I don't know.'

  'Boys from this School, do you mean?'

  'I don't even know that, for certain. It was pretty dark, and they didn't stay a minute. It was all over and done with very quickly.'

  'I can't see what you've got to be afraid of. I don't suppose the boys recognized you, any more than you recognized them.'

  'Don't you think so?'

  'No, I don't. It's no use your getting cold feet. Apart from that, why should anyone suspect you?'

  'It isn't just anyone. It's the police. I don't see why they should, but I think they do.'

  'Then make a clean breast of everything. Tell them you yelled out in a temper, and may have been overheard. Get Sanderson to confirm what you say.'

  'It would look pretty black if I did. It would be playing straight into that Superintendent's hands. He's found out I hated Conway . . .'

  'Well, you weren't the only one.'

  'No, but. . . oh, well, I'll have
to wait and find out what happens, that's all there is to it.'

  'You're sure it was Sanderson you went to see?'

  'Why, yes, of course.'

  'Pity he wasn't at home. I happen to know he's on holiday in Cornwall,' said Mrs Kay sweetly and with venom. 'If you're going to trust me, trust me. If you're not going to trust me, take your dirty lies elsewhere and get somebody else to save your filthy neck for you.'

  'Brenda!' called Mr Kay after her retreating figure, as she stepped on to the School drive. 'Brenda, for God's sake ...'

  His wife stopped, paused, and then came back to him.

  'Who were you with?' she said, with a calmness more threatening than her outburst of spiteful fury.

  'Oh, go to hell!' said Mr Kay, also changing his tactics. He had his own reasons for not mentioning Mrs Harries.

  *

  'I say,' said Merrys to Skene, 'are you coming with me to find that confounded fountain pen?'

  'No,' said Skene roundly. 'I'm not. If you're ass enough to have lost the thing, you can jolly well be ass enough to go and find it. You know we've all been gated except for the Helston match.'

  'That's the point,' said Merrys, who was pretty sure that his friend would not finally fail him. 'I thought we might manage. The train stops at. . .'

  'We're going in motor coaches, fool.'

  'Oh, well .. . oh, well, I hadn't thought of that. Any chance we could sort of drop off the coach, and . . .?'

  'Good Lord, no! There are to be at least a couple of beaks in charge of each coach.'

  'I ... see ... yes ... hm! Well, I shall have to think it out. I must get that bally pen back. Can't you think of anything?'

  'No, I can't,' said Skene crossly. 'And if I could, I jolly well wouldn't.'

  'Well, hang it, I've got to find it. It simply isn't safe to leave it all over the county for Kay to pick up.'

  'Well, what about telling him you've lost it? I should think he'd be as keen as anyone to get it found and returned.'