The Property of Lies

by Marjorie Eccles

  All right, he was willing to accede to that. Perhaps she wasn’t entirely the miserable old trout he’d marked her down as. He looked again at his list. ‘Next, Miss Marian Golding.’ A dim woman he hardly recalled. ‘Teaches history, doesn’t she?’

  ‘The Stuart period’s her passion. She only comes alive when she talks of Rupert of the Rhine.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Prince Rupert – cousin to Charles the Second and commander of the Royalist army in the Civil War. Very dashing and glamorous, by all accounts, very good looking. The Gary Cooper of the seventeenth century. The ladies fell down before him, and Miss Golding too. She’s writing a historical novel with him as its hero.’

  ‘Who would have thought it? Hidden talents, these teachers, evidently. What about Miss Scholes, the music teacher? Is she secretly composing another Messiah?’

  Ellen laughed. ‘Nothing so interesting.’ She sobered. ‘It’s sad, really.’ Alma Scholes, who taught Geography and Music, was the youngest and prettiest member of staff. She still wore the diamond engagement ring a young captain had placed on her finger before going back to France, never to return, and, according to Miss Draper, played ‘Clair de Lune’ and Chopin ballades in the evening with tears in her eyes.

  Next was Daphne Cash, athletic and well built, with a bust that challenged the pleats in the gym dress she wore. A garment that Reardon, who was old-fashioned enough to believe that ladies should be ladies, considered short enough to be embarrassing. Seemingly entirely wrapped up in timetables for the games and exercises she ordered for the girls, but certainly one with enough agility and strength to have pushed someone from a high door, and nailed it back again afterwards. Which, however, called for an element of premeditation that didn’t quite fit in with his view of her.

  And there was of course Miss Draper, the English mistress and assistant head, from whom Ellen had got all this information; the one who, with Ellen, had discovered the body.

  ‘Yes, she’s a bit of a gossip, but she’s a dear, and really very able.’ That confirmed the suppositions he’d already made about her. Eve Draper was untidy, wore a sloppy cardigan, and both her hair and her spectacles constantly refused to stay in place, but behind the specs was a pair of shrewd eyes, and she had pulled herself together remarkably well after the shock of that horrible discovery. He made a mental note to speak to her again.

  ‘She’s a tigress where the school’s concerned. Don’t be taken in by her appearance. She’s a stickler for order and tidiness – in the school, at least. She has trouble with her heart – I thought she was going to collapse when we saw the body, but she didn’t. Maxstead is as much her life as it is Miss Hillyard’s – who can do no wrong in her eyes, incidentally. But I should think you could trust her if you want to get at the truth.’ She leaned over the side of her deckchair and pulled at a stubborn dandelion growing from a crack in the crazy-paved area from the back door to the weedy grass patch. It snapped, leaving its roots where they were. ‘Jocasta Keith wasn’t very nice to her when we met, by the way.’

  Jocasta Keith was the art mistress, she who stood out like a … Well, there was no way you could compare Jocasta Keith to a sore thumb, but she stood out anyway in that bunch of women; none of whom – with the exception, perhaps, of Miss Draper – were precisely dowdy, but who, in comparison with her, seemed like a flock of dull, brown sparrows.

  ‘How precisely, not very nice?’

  ‘Oh, you know how some women can be.’

  He raised his eyebrows.

  ‘It was nothing much, I suppose, just that she was rather disparaging about Miss Draper standing in for the other French teacher after she left so suddenly, which was a bit unfair, seeing that Miss Draper had consented to do it as a favour. She speaks and understands French reasonably well, I believe, but that’s not the same as teaching it, by any means. And I don’t know how well they got on – Mam’selle and Miss Keith, I mean. I couldn’t quite make out whether she liked her or not, and she’s a bit of a misfit herself, it seems to me.’ She repeated what had been said. ‘But all the other teachers say Mam’selle was nice.’

  ‘Sounds like damning with faint praise.’

  ‘I think that’s just what it was,’ she said after a moment. ‘Because, you know, in spite of what they pretend, I don’t think any of them were all that much struck with her; not even Eve Draper, who’s the soul of kindness.’

  Yet Reardon recalled one voice which had spoken up while he was talking to the staff, a rather timid intervention, as if it was daring to say that someone had to speak up for the dead woman, the way things were going: ‘The girls liked her.’ The sympathetic comment had come from Marian Golding, the rather dim-looking history teacher, the one apparently in love with a ghost, Prince Rupert. Although not entirely divorced from reality, perhaps.

  But she had soon been put down and abashed. ‘Admired her, rather than liked her, don’t you mean? Couldn’t see any further than that supposed chic. She wore scent,’ declared the tart Miss Elliott, who herself moved in a carbolic mist of Lifebuoy soap.

  No love lost there, but there had been no dissenting voices to what she’d said. The Frenchwoman had worked with them as a colleague for weeks, but he guessed she had remained a stranger to all of them. Because it was her nature to be reserved, or because it suited her purposes not to give away anything of herself? But Miss Golding’s remark about the girls liking her gave him an idea that, wherever the truth lay, talking to some of them, as he intended to do the following day, whatever objection Miss Hillyard might have, might help to build up a more balanced view of the dead woman.

  Could anyone work alongside a group of women for any length of time and remain such an enigma as Isabelle Blanchard seemed to have been? It was a moot point. Despite all the denials, he couldn’t help thinking that somebody must know more than they were admitting. And yet … well, he was a detective and liked to think he could recognize a lie or evasion at twenty paces – and his gut feeling told him that in this instance they could all be telling the truth, at least as they saw it.

  ‘How has the school struck you, Ellen, in general?’

  She thought for a moment. ‘Miss Hillyard is absolutely dedicated to making it succeed – and I don’t mean simply in terms of how many rich pupils it can attract. She’s really concerned with encouraging the girls to use their minds. She’s chosen Erudio Pro Vita – education for life – as the school motto, which can’t be bad, can it?’

  He thought about that for a bit. ‘But is it a happy school?’

  ‘Yes, from what I’ve seen of it, I’m pretty certain it is,’ she said slowly. ‘But I can tell you – at the moment, there’s something going on there under the surface. For one thing, there’s been a series of mischievous incidents. Well, practical jokes, I suppose you’d call them. I don’t know what they all were, nobody seems to want to talk about them, but one involved stealing a girl’s gym outfit, which, by the way, was subsequently found back in the locker room.’

  ‘Girls will be girls, I suppose.’

  ‘Ye-es. And, there’s another thing.’ She recounted the curious scene she’d witnessed when she had arrived at the school that afternoon, Edith Hillyard and the man she’d been quarrelling with. ‘I don’t suppose it has anything to do with what’s been going on, but it was jolly queer, I thought.’

  ‘I agree, that sort of thing hardly seems to chime with what I’ve seen of Miss Hillyard. Intriguing. What sort of man was he? Young or old, short or tall? Handsome, ugly? What did he look like?’

  ‘Well, he’d just had this row with Miss Hillyard and had his face well and truly slapped, so he wasn’t exactly exuding charm. He was in a furious temper and I doubt if he’d even remember passing me. He strode up the drive as if the Furies were after him.’

  ‘He was walking up the drive? No car?’

  ‘Not by the house, and I didn’t see one near where I parked, just opposite the gates, though there was ample room.’ She frowned. ‘The road was empty, in front and behi
nd, but I suppose he might have left it some way off.’

  This interested him because it chimed in with that puzzling aspect of the case he’d mentioned to Gilmour – by what means had Isabelle Blanchard planned to leave? Maxstead Court was at the edge of Maxstead village, and a long way out of Folbury. This man, like Isabelle Blanchard, could scarcely have arrived at the school without any visible means of transport. Since he wasn’t superhuman, and legging it from Folbury was scarcely an option, it had to be some form of wheeled transport, even if it was just a bicycle. Had Ellen simply failed to notice it, or had it been deliberately concealed? And if so, why? As a legitimate visitor to Miss Hillyard, he would surely have driven down the drive to the front doors of the school. Another thought struck him, and he made a mental note to check if there was anywhere that offered accommodation in the village, which this stranger – or even Isabelle Blanchard – had booked.

  ‘Somebody will have to do it,’ pronounced Avis Myerson.

  She and three other senior girls were sitting on the grass in a distant and rather overgrown part of the school garden, almost hidden by a screen of bushes. An exclusive set who didn’t encourage interruptions, still less any attempts to be included, they were objects of envy by the rest of the school, because the group was led by Avis, who was daring and exciting and therefore currently the most popular girl at Maxstead. Almost everyone wanted to be her friend and thought she should have been made head girl, but Miss Hillyard had chosen Pamela Urquhart instead, a serious and clever girl who wasn’t half as much fun. Whereas Avis could be a scream, and often had them all in fits with her imitations of the teachers. When she was in the mood.

  After she had made her pronouncement, the girls looked from one to the other and their collective glance came to rest on Josie Pemberton.

  ‘Well, it’s not going to be me, no fear. Not this time,’ she declared with spirit. ‘It’s someone else’s turn to do the dirty work.’

  She hoped she sounded more certain than she felt. She knew she should feel suitably privileged that she’d been allowed to have Avis as her best friend. But that wasn’t all nicey-nicey – she could cool very quickly if you got the wrong side of her. She was very sure of herself, almost seventeen and only biding her time for the two terms she had to endure here at Maxstead until the time arrived for her stint at finishing school in Switzerland, after which … Well, then her two older sisters, presently painting London town red, could look out, she told the others, who had no trouble in believing her. Avis was capable of anything, even veiled insolence to the mistresses at times.

  Josie repeated now, a little defiantly, ‘No, not me.’ But discomfort wriggled like a worm inside her. What had started out as a great lark had later become something else entirely. Not so good, kind of wrong in a way she didn’t really understand. And, since yesterday, the thought of it was sending cold shivers down her spine. ‘The place will be simply swarming with police,’ she objected lamely.

  Avis looked at her with pity. She replied, as if talking to a very young child, ‘Exactly. That’s why.’ Her eyes were like blue marbles, the way they went when you didn’t agree with her. Sometimes she reminded Josie of the hated nanny she’d once had, who’d later been dismissed for spanking Josie’s little sister. Quite often Josie, who was really the most daring of them all, and was not usually at all timid, was actually quite scared of her. Avis did her best to be outrageous, she laughed at authority and you did things you knew you ought not to do in case she laughed at you, too.

  When she’d first announced the idea of getting together to form a private set, Josie, thrilled despite herself to be one of the chosen, suggested they should be called the Maxstead Secret Society. Avis was scornful of such a feeble suggestion and instead decided they would call themselves The Elites. Josie wasn’t sure what an Elite was until she’d looked it up in the dictionary, and even now she still wasn’t clear why it applied. It would be a hoot, Avis had said; something to enliven the boredom of being in this prison. Maxstead didn’t feel like a prison to Josie. She liked being here. Maybe it was supposed to be a joke.

  Said Nancy Waring now, who would go along with anything Avis suggested, ‘You’re such a duffer, Josie Pemberton.’

  Josie felt herself going red. She didn’t like Nancy and didn’t care what she thought, but she didn’t want anybody to think she was stupid, or a coward.

  She turned to the other member of the group who hadn’t said anything yet. ‘What do you think, Catherine?’

  Catherine Leyland was much the youngest of them all. She had only been allowed to join them because of sharing a room with Antonia Freeman and Selina Bright, which had meant she would be bound to know what was going on and therefore couldn’t be left out. They’d all three been invited to be Elites, but Antonia had rather scornfully refused, and Selina had never been that keen and only joined in when it suited her, so she didn’t really count.

  But, to tell the truth, the main reason Catherine had been asked was because Avis said she might have sneaked to Miss Hillyard otherwise, though Josie didn’t think so.

  Catherine was almost – though not quite – fifteen, but the head, who obviously thought her the bees knees because she was so clever, had already placed her well ahead of her year. Nobody liked swots, but Catherine didn’t swank that she came first in practically everything – except in maths, the one chink in her armour. Miss Elliott was beastly to her sometimes, and it was obvious from the blank stare she had that she hated that, but she didn’t dissolve into tears like the maths teacher’s other victims, and it was Miss Elliott who usually ended up with a red face, although she always had the last word: ‘Wake up, girl! You’re in a world of your own!’ she would say sharply, making Josie feel sorry for Catherine. Being in a world of your own must be very lonely.

  ‘Well, what are we going to do?’ Avis demanded. ‘We’ she said, though Josie knew it was her she meant, and she didn’t see why she should do anything. A suspicion had been growing on her that she’d only been included in the Elites for the same reason they’d included Catherine – because she shared a room with Avis and Nancy – and it rankled.

  She could see now that everything about their society had been wrong, really, though none of them had thought so at the time. The secrecy had been a giggle and the risk of being found out sort of thrilling at first, but now, because of what had happened, it was more like a thrill of fear. But she hadn’t known how to say they should abandon being Elites, without being a spoilsport or everyone thinking she was becoming a prig, for Heaven’s sake!

  It was Catherine who answered Avis with a shrug, as if the solution was simple. ‘Either you don’t want to be found out and someone must clear up. Or you could just leave it.’

  ‘But the Hill’s sure to find out – or more likely Miss Draper, who’d only tittle-tattle to her – and then—’ began Nancy.

  Miss Hillyard finding out wasn’t something any of them wanted to think about, and even Avis didn’t look quite so confident for a moment. But Catherine said sharply, ‘That’s hardly fair to Miss Draper, is it?’

  Out of surprise, nobody replied, mainly because it was true. Although Miss Draper was the nicest teacher in the school, she was the deputy head after all. If anything was wrong, she’d have to report it. But they were also astonished at Catherine, who normally kept such opinions to herself. She stood up now and brushed the grass from her skirt. ‘We’ve talked enough. Come on, Josie. What about that algebra prep?’

  Josie jumped up with alacrity. As it happened, she wasn’t actually hopeless at maths herself and she’d begun – almost – to see the point of algebra last hols when Daddy had explained it was all a matter of logic, if you could try and see it that way. She’d been amazed but really pleased when Catherine had actually asked for her help! She’d assured Josie she wouldn’t need her for long and she would soon be on top of it, and she’d been absolutely right, Josie thought admiringly. She couldn’t have managed to master anything like that so quickly, nor could she imagine a
nyone else she knew doing it either, but Catherine wasn’t like everyone else, was she? How was it nobody ever thought she was a prig?

  Avis shrugged and pretended to look bored and Nancy, after a glance at her said, ‘Well, I vote we go ahead.’

  ‘Then count me out,’ said Catherine, almost absently.

  She had lovely eyes, a sort of greeny-gold, but that stare of hers when she was concentrating on something else could somehow blank you out, and Nancy reddened.

  ‘Me, too,’ Josie ventured, encouraged.

  ‘You’re only saying that because you’re scared,’ countered Nancy, turning on her. ‘Ghosties and ghoulies and long-legged beasties and things that go bump in the night,’ she intoned, making a silly, whooing sort of noise.

  ‘Shut up, Nancy,’ Avis ordered.

  Nancy’s little black eyes snapped, but she answered, ‘I was only going to say she’ll have to be careful. And Josie’s not very good at that, is she?’

  ‘Well, we’ll have to see, won’t we?’ Josie was scornful of somebody as stupid as Nancy. All the same, she wasn’t going to let anybody think she would let the side down.

  FIVE

  Gilmour parked the police Wolseley neatly alongside the kerb and walked up the path to the front door of the house he sought, a brick-built semi-detached in a quiet avenue of similar houses near the park. A few feet of neatly kept garden, white lace curtains at the bay window that moved aside before the door was answered by a plump, late middle-aged woman in a flowered pinny, her face already sharp with suspicion. She looked him up and down and kept her hand on the door ready to close it. He could almost read the ‘Not today, thank you,’ on her lips. She probably thought he was another Hoover salesman, trying to sell her an electric vacuum cleaner.

  ‘Mrs Catherall?’

  She blinked. A moment’s hesitation, then she shook her head. ‘Nobody of that name here.’

  ‘I’m sorry, I must have made a mistake.’ Gilmour gave his name, but not his business. ‘I was told Miss Catherall, Miss Phoebe Catherall, lived here with her mother.’