A Question of Proof

by Nicholas Blake

  ‘Behind the sacks, against the right-hand wall of the hut as you go in,’ interposed Nigel nonchalantly. The boys’ eyes rounded. Ponsonby said, ‘Gosh, sir, how did you know that? You must be a jolly good detective. Are you head of Scotland Yard?’

  Nigel was unaccustomed to the point-blank praise of small boys, and blushed a little, ‘No, far from it. But do go on, this is frightfully interesting.’

  ‘There isn’t really anything more. We talked for a long time. You see, my brother had asked me about the gang’s beating up Wemyss, so we had that to arrange too. Then we hurried back into school just before changing time.’

  ‘Why, Stevens wanted to tell you, sir –’ broke in Ponsonby.

  ‘Put a sock in it, Pongo! We thought we ought to tell you, sir, because the policeman asked if anyone had been outside the house after lunch and of course we couldn’t tell him because it was the Black Spot and deadly secret.’

  ‘I see,’ said Nigel, thinking that they had been very lucky in not giving away their secret to Armstrong, for it could not have failed to put them under official suspicion. ‘So I take it you didn’t set eyes on Wemyss while you were going in or out.’

  ‘No, sir, I’m afraid we haven’t been much help,’ said Stevens, with pathetic eagerness.

  ‘You’ve cleared up one difficulty, and I rather think that if you will answer some more questions, you will have done more than anyone else could to solve the mystery.’

  ‘Oh, whoopee! Ask me, sir!’ ‘Ask me!’

  ‘Well, then, first of all, I suppose Wemyss wasn’t a member of the Black Spot?’

  ‘I should think he jolly well wasn’t, slimy little chizzer!’ Stevens clearly did not subscribe to the de mortuis doctrine.

  ‘Is it possible that he could have thought he had a chance of being elected?’

  ‘Oh, I should think so; he was sidey enough, anyway.’

  ‘Now I want to get it quite clear. How do you go about the business of deciding on new members?’

  ‘Stevens generally decides himself,’ put in Ponsonby, with a certain air of grievance. Nigel could well imagine it.

  ‘Slit your gullet, Pongo! We have a general meeting of the gang, sir – there are supposed to be six besides the dictator and the lieutenant – then, if every one agrees on a person, we give him an ordeal, like we did you.’

  ‘Supposing the person doesn’t want to be a member? I mean, how do you find out if he wants to be? Do you sound him about it beforehand?’

  ‘Sometimes, sir. Generally we just give him the instructions straight away.’

  ‘But do most people in the school know about the Black Spot? What I mean is, when you just give the instructions without talking to the person beforehand, how does he know it’s not a leg-pull? Would he have heard about the society’s method of initiation?’

  ‘Oh, yes, I think so. At least, he’d know about the Black Spot. Of course, it’s supposed to be absolutely secret, but I expect most of the school know about the sort of things we do.’ The realist spoke again.

  ‘So if a boy got a set of instructions, and wanted to become a member of the society, he would follow them out without telling anyone about them?’

  ‘Mm. Rather.’

  Nigel sat back and lit a cigarette. So far, everything seemed to be bearing out his bizarre theory. He went on again, approaching the crucial question.

  ‘You said yesterday that you made up a different test for each new member. What sort of tests have they been?’

  ‘Oh, all sorts of things. Playing jokes on the masters, altering the school clocks, hiding Sweeny’s bell, scouting about the country like you did, sir, and so on.’

  ‘Stevens had a jolly nippy idea for one last term, sir,’ said Ponsonby, ‘only it never came off. He was going to tell a chap to disappear for an hour. He could go anywhere he liked in the school or the grounds, but no one must see him.’

  Nigel’s heart leapt strongly. So he had been right, after all. His fantastic theory was vindicated. He controlled his voice and said carelessly:

  ‘That was a good one. Why didn’t it come off?’

  ‘Well, sir, you see, it was like this. We’d written out the instructions, and folded them up and passed them along to the chap in form, but the master saw it and confiscated it.’

  Glory be, thought Nigel, this is too good to be true. He went on, ‘But didn’t the master make a fuss about it? I should have thought that would have been the end of the Black Spot. Or did he just tear it up without reading it?’

  ‘No, sir, Simmie was jolly decent about it. He’s not a bad sort of beezer at all, if he wasn’t such an absolute ass. I didn’t see him tear it up, but he can’t have reported it to Percy or we should have got tanned. Percy is frightfully down on all that sort of thing. Simmie just gave us some lines for passing notes in form and didn’t say anything more about it.’

  Sims! Good Lord, Sims! Well, well, well. ‘Why does every one rag Mr. Sims, if he’s a decent kind of man?’

  ‘Oh, well, sir, he is such an ass. I dunno. You just can’t help it. It’s quite safe, too, he never does anything but set you some lines, and he generally forgets to collect them; at least, he used to; but now he writes them down in that black book he carries about with him. “Doomsday book,” he calls it.’

  ‘It doesn’t always seem quite safe to rag in his room,’ remarked Nigel meaningly. Stevens and Ponsonby shifted uncomfortably on their seats.

  ‘That was just bad luck. We’d forgotten Percy was in school that hour. I say, my bim’s jolly sore still. Isn’t yours, Pongo? Old Pedantic swings a pretty hefty cane.’

  ‘Well, here’s a bob to buy some medicine. Chocolate, applied internally, is quite a good remedy, I’m told.’

  ‘Thanks awfully, sir.’ ‘Thanks frightfully, sir. I say, sir, have we really been any help?’

  ‘Don’t let out a word of our conversation to anyone. You’ve as good as told me how the murder was committed.’

  ‘Gosh!’

  IX

  Retrospects and Prospects

  AS SOON AS the boys had left, Nigel went to look for Sims. The question was, how to bring up the subject of the paper that Sims had confiscated without arousing his suspicion. No, thought Nigel, that won’t do. If he is the murderer, and worked on the lines I’m certain the murderer did work on, he is bound to be suspicious. And if he is innocent, he’ll still be automatically on the defensive; he’s probably got a first-class persecution mania, and that’ll make him morbidly sensitive of trouble in the air, however much I try to conceal it. No use trying tact or tactics. He’ll be put most at ease if I appeal to him as to an equal and put the facts straightforwardly.

  Sims’ room was like himself, colourless, ineffectual, rather pathetic. He had tried to liven up the regulation school environment with a few touches of his own, Nigel noticed – a second rug, a couple of reproductions of Dutch masters, a huge and elaborate desk; but somehow they made no difference; they seemed to have absorbed their owner’s air of failure – they looked as out-of-place and stranded amongst the ordinary furniture of the room as did Sims himself amongst his colleagues. The books, too, Nigel observed, while Sims trotted about looking for cigarettes –what an incredibly miscellaneous collection! Novels representative of the whole possible gamut of taste, thereby betraying the complete absence of it in Sims; a whole shelf full of the Christian mystics and meaty-looking tomes of evangelical sermons; the most boring of modern poets rubbing shoulders with the most respectable of classic ones; elementary textbooks on almost every conceivable branch of human knowledge, as though Sims had hurried from subject to subject looking for his metier and always been disappointed. The bookcase was a museum of false starts and broken hopes. It filled Nigel with pity. He felt as if he was about to vivisect a lost dog.

  ‘Is one allowed to ask how you’re getting on?’ said Sims.

  ‘Oh, rather. I’ve found out quite a lot today, entirely by accident. I’m beginning to think I’ve got the explanation of the difficulty that ha
s been holding up the case.’

  ‘Have you really? Dear me! You mean –?’

  ‘Well, you have no doubt wondered what it was that induced Wemyss to disappear so mysteriously after school that morning.’

  ‘I – why, yes, it did seem very unaccountable, unless he was murdered almost at once. Surely he must have been. Someone would have seen him otherwise, wouldn’t they?’

  ‘That does seem probable, on the face of it. But the problem still remains, what made Wemyss go – like a lamb to the slaughter, so to speak – at all? What made him miss lunch, for instance? And, though you couldn’t have guessed it, you’ve had the answer in your own hands.’

  Sims blinked and looked worried. ‘I? Dash it all, Strangeways, whatever do you mean?’

  ‘Do you remember last term confiscating a note that was being passed in form? Written in capitals, with a round splodge of ink at the top, something about the Black Spot?’

  ‘Bless my soul! However did you get to hear of that? Yes, it was some ridiculous nonsense about a secret society – telling somebody he was to disappear for an hour. Disappear!’ Sims’ eyes blazed behind his thick spectacles, ‘Great Scott, Strangeways, I see what you’re driving at. You mean, one of the boys sent a similar note to poor Wemyss – but that implies that this boy killed him. No, I can’t believe that. They’re perhaps rather too high-spirited at times; but murder – no, no, it’s impossible.’

  ‘There again I’m inclined to agree with you, though I don’t know how the superintendent will take it. Tell me, what did you do with the note? Is it possible that one of the servants could have got hold of it?’

  ‘Oh no; we destroyed it. You see, I happened to make some comment or other about it in the common room, and we – er – in short, we decided to destroy it.’

  ‘We?’

  Sims looked more worried than ever. He bent his head in thought. ‘Look here, Strangeways, is the superintendent in your confidence?’

  ‘I haven’t told him about this development yet, but of course I shall have to.’

  ‘I see. I hate the idea of getting other people into trouble, but –’

  Nigel said gently, ‘In so far as the knowledge of this note is potentially incriminating, you are bound to be technically under suspicion yourself, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Oh dear; yes, of course. How awful! But that does seem to make it a bit better. Well, let me see: Wrench had a look at the note. Who else was there? Oh, of course, Evans. I remember that because it was he who suggested that we should let it go no further. He said something about these secret societies being a sign of vitality and inventiveness, and that it would be a pity to stamp it out. I daresay he’s right. He knows a great deal about boys – but then, he is so popular with them. Somehow I never seem to have got the knack of it like he has.’

  ‘I heard two of them singing your praises just now, anyway.’

  ‘Did you really?’ Sims’ face quite lit up. ‘That’s very gratifying. I’m afraid you must form a poor opinion of me, getting so much pleasure out of a little thing like that. But it’s the breath of life to us schoolmasters – to find that our labours are sometimes appreciated.’

  Nigel managed tactfully to arrest the heart-to-heart talk which seemed imminent, and after making certain that the knowledge of the Black Spot note had been confined to Sims, Wrench and Evans, took his leave. It was now time to let Superintendent Armstrong into these discovered secrets. He had only paid one visit to the school in the last two days, though there was always a constable about the place – ‘just to see that none of us makes a bolt for it,’ as Griffin said, to the general discomfiture of the common room. Armstrong was evidently relying on Strangeways to provide an opening for his next move. Nigel asked Mrs. Vale if she would mind driving him in to Staverton before tea. Hero was quite willing. She had only seen him in company up till now, and felt a recurrent jealous impulse to measure her influence with Michael against his.

  Nigel was sensible of the faint antagonism beneath her offhand manner – she resents my being able to do more for Michael than she can, he thought – and set himself to dispel it.

  ‘How is your husband feeling about things now?’ he asked.

  ‘The condition is unchanged. The bottom of his world has been knocked out, but he’ll grow a new one soon enough unless the parents start removing their boys.’ She spoke bitterly. Nigel winced inside himself. He disliked superficial cynicism in women, just as much as he liked their natural, deep-centred irony. There was consequently a marked evasiveness in his reply when she asked him how he was getting on with the case. Her hand tightened on the wheel and she wrenched the car petulantly round a corner.

  ‘The flippancy of the postwar woman distresses you, I see. Don’t you realise that my husband means simply nothing to me now? I love Michael and I don’t care what happens as long as he is happy.’

  ‘I know that you love Michael and that no one could make him so happy as you. But I imagine your husband meaning nothing to you now is more of a wish than a fact. You can’t live with a person for several years without forming some relationship, and personal relationships don’t suddenly vanish into thin air. The truth is, you’re angry with yourself for not being able to break the ties between yourself and your husband.’

  ‘You win, Mr. Strangeways – Nigel,’ she said, touching his hand. ‘You seem to know so much about me that I’m sure you’ll forgive my exhibition of bad temper. Oh, it’s terrible. It’s like a nightmare. There is Michael, stretching out his hands to me, wanting me so badly, and I try to run to him and it’s like running through deep sand. Tell me, they don’t still suspect him, do they?’

  ‘I’m afraid they suspect both of you. You see, the case against you is the only possible one that can be built on the facts the superintendent has got so far. However, I’ve something to tell him now which may change his ideas. By the way, I shall be some time. You’d better not wait for me. I’ll get a bus back.’

  ‘No, I’ll wait. But what makes you so sure we didn’t do it?’

  Nigel laughed. ‘Oh, I’m not a very good detective. If I was the proper inhuman, cold-blooded, scientific sleuth, I should probably be suspecting you hard. But I’d always believe my friends sooner than the facts.’

  ‘You are nice, Nigel. I shall stop being jealous of you.’

  They soon reached the Staverton police station, whence they were directed to Armstrong’s own house. Hero arranged to call back for Nigel in three-quarters of an hour and he went in to see the superintendent. Preserving a discreet reticence about the events that had led up to it, he related the conversation he had heard in Edgworth Wood, and then told Armstrong of the confiscated note, the procedure of the Black Spot and his talk with Sims. Armstrong was not slow to draw the same deductions as Nigel had.

  ‘Well, sir, I always suspected that some of those boys must have known more than they cared to let out. But it’s you who’ve proved it and I’m very grateful. The chief constable is getting a bit restive, though he hasn’t been able to suggest any other lines that I could work on. Now I shall be able to make a move. I’ll come up this evening and chivvy that Rosa first. Once we’ve got the real story out of her, we can deal with Wrench. It seems pretty clear that he was either with Rosa after two o’clock, or committing the murder. But the question still remains – how? We’ve more or less decided that it couldn’t have been done after one-forty-five, when Griffin and Mould came out.’

  ‘Well, we’ve just got to find a loophole, that’s all.’

  The superintendent shifted in his chair and fingered his top coat-button. ‘Sims and Evans knew about this note, too,’ he said with some hesitation. Nigel looked down his nose. ‘What I mean is,’ went on the superintendent, ‘I take it we are agreed that the murderer wrote a similar note to Wemyss, telling him that he was to remain hidden from twelve forty five – for an hour, or till the Black Spot came and found him, or something like that – told him to hide in the haystack, to my way of thinking,’ Armstrong concluded firmly.<
br />
  ‘He couldn’t have hidden there at once. Evans and Mrs. Vale were there,’ replied Nigel with equal firmness. The superintendent shrugged his shoulders. ‘You’re welcome to your own opinion, sir, but you can’t expect me to alter mine. Evans knew the contents of the Black Spot instructions. What’s more, it was he who originally suggested that Sims and Wrench and himself should hush it up –’

  ‘Which proves absolutely nothing at all,’ interrupted Nigel sharply.

  Armstrong’s brow furrowed. ‘You don’t need to tell me that, Mr. Strangeways. Nor does the fact that Mr. Evans is your friend prove that he didn’t commit the murder. Anyway, it was simple enough for him to have slipped a note in Wemyss’ desk, say, telling him to hide in the haystack immediately after lessons, and then to have slipped out himself at one o’clock and strangled him –’

  ‘With Mrs. Vale applauding loudly from the front row of the stalls!’

  ‘You will have your little joke, sir. Well, at least you must admit that she and Mr. Evans had about a hundred percent better an opportunity to pull it off than anyone else – to say nothing of motive.’

  ‘Oh, yes, I admit all that,’ said Nigel wearily, ‘but you’ll not get me to believe that either of them strangled that wretched youth, unless you produce about three independent eyewitnesses. And what about that anonymous note to Urquhart? How on earth was Evans to know that he had been embezzling Wemyss’ money?’

  ‘It is possible that Mrs. Vale had found out. Or, as you said yourself, sir, it might have been a shot in the dark.’

  ‘Seems to me a mad sort of thing to have done. Unless the murderer was pretty sure that Urquhart had been up to some dirty work, he could not have relied on his burning the note.’

  ‘Well, at any rate, he did go to the wood. His servants confirm his absence, and my men report that his car was seen outside the wood at one-fifty. By the way, Tiverton, Wrench, Evans and Mr. Vale himself own typewriters.’

  Nigel leaned forward earnestly. ‘Look here, let’s assume – just for argument’s sake, if you like – that the murder was not committed by Evans and Mrs. Vale or till after one-thirty. What follows? First of all, that Wemyss could not have been in the haystack. That implies that he was given instructions to perform more than one exploit. Now I happen to know’ – Nigel spoke rather hurriedly here – ‘the sort of things Stevens’ gang make people do: practical jokes they are, mainly. Do we know of anything in the nature of a practical joke that took place that day?’