by Alan Hunter
‘Certainly. I’m investigating the death of Mrs Selly.’
‘But the four girls who were acquainted with her have already been questioned.’
‘For that reason I find it necessary to extend my enquiries.’
‘I’m not sure I understand you.’
‘It’s very straightforward. I’m trying to reconstruct the events of Tuesday. The four girls left Mrs Selly at about four p.m. I want to know who saw her after that.’
Miss Swefling looked away. ‘I still don’t understand you. There were no late passes issued on Tuesday. If you are referring to our day-girls, my suggestion is you approach them through their parents.’
She wasn’t going to be helpful. I didn’t mind. She had already given me a positive reaction. There was something to dig for, I was sure of it; from the moment she turned away her eyes. I waited. Her eyes came back to me. They were greenish and stern, under strong brows.
‘Of course I appreciate your position, Miss Swefling. I am told your school has a high reputation. It is unfortunate that pupils of Huntingfield should have come under the influence of such a person as Mrs Selly. Naturally, you would need to take prompt and effective action when the facts came to your notice.’
‘I could scarcely do less than that.’
‘You would insist on an end to the association.’
She said nothing.
‘With absolute firmness. For example, you might have to threaten the culprits with expulsion.’
‘Well?’
‘Isn’t that what happened?’
Miss Swefling’s hands moved, then were still. ‘Whatever action I took is an internal matter. I am not obliged to discuss it with the police.’
‘But you did take some action?’
‘Perhaps I did.’
‘In fact the association had come to your notice?’
A hand flickered. ‘I would be a poor headmistress if such things went on outside my knowledge.’
‘Then you knew.’
‘Very well – I knew.’
‘Would you care to enlarge on that, Miss Swefling?’
She hesitated briefly, staring a little past me; then she said firmly, ‘No.’
I gestured. ‘You’ll understand my curiosity. I’m sure you are a very perceptive headmistress. But this association had been going on for around twelve months before, apparently, you became aware of it. And that happened at a strangely critical moment. Within a few hours Mrs Selly was dead. You are too intelligent not to appreciate the importance of my knowing how you came by your information.’
‘That was . . . coincidental.’
‘I daren’t take your word for it.’
‘I’m afraid you must.’
I shook my head. ‘Either you tell me or I will have to assume it is significant. In which case I must make very extensive enquiries.’
Miss Swefling coloured. ‘That sounds like blackmail.’
‘I am simply advising you of the alternative. I don’t want to waste valuable time, but I must have an answer to my question.’
I settled myself on the plush-seated chair, as though to prepare for a lengthy session. Miss Swefling stared silently for some moments, her eyes angry, longing to attack. A bell sounded mutedly; it was followed by a murmuring, a slamming of desk-lids, shuffling of feet. Miss Swefling’s eyes darted away, came back to me. She let them fall to the chart on the desk.
‘Very well. I received an anonymous letter.’
‘I will see it if I may.’
‘I’m afraid you can’t. I destroyed it.’
I ghosted a shrug and said nothing.
‘You believe me, don’t you?’
‘A pity you don’t have the letter.’
‘But, good heavens! I’m telling you the truth. I received it by the second post on Tuesday, here, at this desk. I don’t tell lies.’
‘A hand-written letter?’
‘No, it was typed: very neatly done on good paper. It mentioned the four girls by name and warned me they had a scandalous relation with Mrs Selly.’
‘Posted in Wolmering?’
‘Yes.’
‘The address was correct?’
‘Yes. And if you wish to know, in my opinion the writer was an educated person.’
I said quickly: ‘Then who was it?’
She stared, her eyes growing large. ‘I have told you already that the letter was anonymous. Whether you accept it or not, that is the truth.’
‘But you can guess.’
‘No.’
‘It shouldn’t be difficult, Miss Swefling.’
She set her lips firmly together and determinedly stared at the chart.
‘I’ll do the guessing then.’
She said nothing.
‘Three of the four girls involved are boarders.’
‘That means nothing!’
‘Quite the opposite. I think we both feel it means a lot. The letter was posted in Wolmering. We must assume it came from someone concerned about the girls. The parents of three of them live at a distance, which leaves only the guardians of Miss Rede. Wasn’t that your conclusion?’
‘It is too absurd! Major Rede wouldn’t write an anonymous letter.’
‘Nor Mrs Rede?’
‘Nor she either. Quite obviously you haven’t met these people.’
‘They are too forthright.’
‘Exactly. They would have told me straight out.’
‘Unless there was some reason why they should not?’
Miss Swefling gave a scornful snatch of her head.
I didn’t persist, but I made a mental note to query Major Rede with Eyke. If a normally outspoken person had written an anonymous letter it might be worthwhile enquiring why. Of course it could just as well be coincidental and merely juxtaposed to the crime: some crimes seem to attract the coincidental. Routine was invented to grapple with the irrelevant.
‘Leaving that. You received the letter. Apparently you didn’t question the contents.’
‘I may have questioned them, but I couldn’t ignore them. Nobody in my position would do that.’
‘You felt the information was probable.’
Miss Swefling flushed sharply. ‘That is an unfair insinuation. Probable or not, it was possible, and it was my duty to take notice.’ She grabbed a pen and began to flex it. ‘Naturally, the girls here are like all girls. However strict the supervision it is impossible entirely to contain emotional adjustments. It may even be undesirable. There are schools of thought of that opinion. Here, we acknowledge that emotional stresses exist, but we try to keep them at low temperature.’
‘But you do have failures.’
‘We have our percentage.’
‘Recent ones?’
The pen bent in a bow. ‘Since it is a matter of record I can scarcely deny it. Yes. A teacher left us in the Easter term.’
I nodded. ‘So then this affair with Mrs Selly was a serious matter. Coming on the heels of a similar business, it had to be dealt with energetically.’
‘I took the steps I thought proper.’
‘You would give the girls an ultimatum.’
‘I spoke to them that same afternoon. I forbade them further acquaintance with Mrs Selly.’
‘But would that have been enough?’
‘Under pain of expulsion. It is an extremely effective deterrent.’
‘To girls who leave at the end of the term anyway?’
Miss Swefling bent the pen, saying nothing.
‘I think,’ I said, ‘you’d have taken a stronger line, bearing in mind the earlier scandal. Your reputation, the school’s reputation, couldn’t stand a repetition of that. So what would you do? You couldn’t stop short at merely disciplining the girls. Mrs Selly was the root of the trouble. You’d have to see Mrs Selly.’
The pen snapped. Miss Swefling sat staring at the two ragged ends.
‘Did you see her?’
Her mouth curled bitterly. ‘Isn’t that why you are here now?’
‘I
am investigating her death.’
‘I had nothing to do with that.’
‘But you can help me.’
‘That’s a familiar phrase.’
She laid down the broken pen, rose and went over to the large window. I was right about her figure. I wondered why she hadn’t married. Through the window one looked over a gravelled quadrangle and past the beeches to some tennis courts: then, beyond rhododendrons, to the western end of the Common. Miss Swefling stood staring in that direction. About half a mile away would be the grove of holm oaks.
‘I suppose you know I was in the town Tuesday evening.’
I didn’t: it had occurred to nobody to check Miss Swefling’s movements.
‘I was lecturing the Literary and Scientific Society. I am giving them a course on The French Novel.’
‘At what time was that?’
‘At seven forty-five. At the Agnes Strickland Hall in Camp Road. The lecture lasts about an hour, then there’s a period for questions. After that I sometimes drive back, sometimes have supper with some of the officials. Tuesday evening I stayed on.’ She hesitated. ‘The chairman this year is Mrs Rede.’
‘You had supper at her house?’
‘No. We were invited by the treasurer, Captain Scott-Wemys.’
‘When did you leave there?’
‘It would be nearly eleven. But that has nothing to do with the matter. What interests you is when I arrived, which would be a little after seven.’ She leaned forward, pressing against the sill. ‘That was when I visited Mrs Selly.’
I said nothing. She remained at the window, pushing at the sill with little rhythmic pressures: somehow girlish, appealing. From behind, she didn’t look more than thirty. In a flash I guessed she would be popular with the girls: had perhaps experienced ‘emotional stresses’ herself. But I didn’t doubt she had resisted them with all the considerable steel in her nature.
‘Frankly, I don’t think I can help you.’
‘How did Mrs Selly receive you?’
‘How would you expect?’
‘As I have come to know her, I think she may have wept on your shoulder.’
Miss Swefling turned, her eyes wide. ‘My goodness. My goodness.’
‘Well?’
‘You’re entirely right. And after that she tried to seduce me.’
She came back to the desk and sat, facing me with still-surprised eyes. I hunched a shoulder.
‘Vivienne was lonely.’
‘Yes. She appalled me, but that’s about the truth.’
‘She’d had the girls. You were taking them away from her. She hadn’t the spirit left to blackguard you.’
‘I know, I know. She was wretchedly miserable.’
‘When you turned her down, she was on her own.’
Miss Swefling gave a little quivering shudder. ‘It was ghastly. It made me feel ill. I was expecting her to be brazen and abusive. That sort of thing I know how to handle. But she just listened sullenly. Then she fell apart. I had her kneeling and weeping in my lap. Then she started kissing me and trying to make love. I grabbed my bag and got out of there quickly.’
‘And you left her – how?’
‘She was snivelling on the floor.’
‘In a very depressed state.’
‘I suppose that’s true. But good heavens, what else could I have done?’
I shrugged. ‘Not much. It was beginning to be too late.’
Miss Swefling went still, her eyes locking with mine. ‘You’re not suggesting this is connected with what happened later?’
‘I think it might be. She was very depressed. She may have felt compelled to try some desperate course.’
‘But that’s . . . horrifying.’
‘There are facts to explain.’
‘It means that I am partly to blame.’
I shook my head. ‘You’d be just a factor in the case. Perhaps it was going to happen anyway, sooner or later.’
She hesitated, eyes widening. ‘And you – you’re quite cold-blooded about all this! It’s just a mechanism you’re trying to understand, people, their feelings: bits of a machine.’
‘Is there any other way to do my job?’
‘It’s terrible: sickening. A despicable business.’
‘Perhaps a moral surgery.’
‘It’s the negation of all pity!’
I grunted. ‘Pity is a private thing.’
She snatched her eyes away from mine and sat glowering at one of the handsome watercolours. Well, I’d seen this happen before. In the long annals of my sad family plenty of people had called me inhuman. But the surgeon in the theatre must not be as other men. That privilege waits till he peels off his gloves. Someone had laid Vivienne on my table, and the tool I had to use wasn’t pity.
‘I have one or two more questions.’
She gave me a bitter, quelling look. ‘I was almost forgetting you were a policeman. Just now. But you were only being clever, weren’t you?’
‘How long were you with Mrs Selly?’
‘Twenty minutes.’ She jerked the answer contemptuously.
‘How was she dressed?’
‘In nothing and a dressing-gown. And a drenching of cheap scent.’
‘Was she alone?’
‘That was my assumption.’
‘You noticed nothing to the contrary?’
‘No. And she would scarcely have behaved in the way she did if there had been an audience.’
‘Did you threaten her?’
‘Perhaps I gave that impression.’
‘Did she threaten you?’
‘Is that likely?’
‘Quite likely, Miss Swefling. You were alone with her. An unscrupulous woman could turn that to her advantage.’
‘Well, she didn’t.’
‘She said nothing like this: “You can’t touch me because the girls are eighteen. But I can swear you came here for a certain purpose, and I can get the girls to back me up.” ’
Miss Swefling blushed furiously. ‘That’s vile!’
‘But not an uncommon line of defence.’
‘It is ugly, vicious. I won’t listen any longer. I’ve told you everything you’ve a right to expect.’
‘One thing more. Where was your car parked?’
‘I don’t remember!’ She was rising to her feet.
‘I’d like you to remember. It will save us checking.’
‘Oh my God! Beside the Common!’
I went. She swept open the door for me so that she could close it after me with a slam. Unfortunate. In other circumstances I would have been happy to make a friend of Miss Swefling. Her face had a sternness that was close to sympathy and her eyes were expressive without calculation. But there was that undercurrent of impetuosity, and certainly she had strong hands. In the hall I picked up a prospectus which told me her Christian name was Marianne. She had been educated at Girton but had not, it appeared, taken her doctorate.
CHAPTER FOUR
AND SO, PURSUING my inhuman way, I was beginning to get a picture that focused: when Vivienne Selly set out from her cottage she was deeply depressed and perhaps feeling she had little to lose. Alien in her environment, abandoned by her husband, stripped of her emotional contacts, humiliated and rejected: if she had thrown herself off the jetty it would not have been a surprising conclusion. But this she hadn’t done: so what did she do? What had been Vivienne’s last throw? My only clue lay in the fact that she had taken pains to dress herself neatly. She might have thrown on any old dothes (like the slacks and sweater that lay dumped on a chair) – but no: after Miss Swefling left, she had decked herself out in a modish dress. She must have done this directly. There had been only half-an-hour for it between Miss Swefling’s leaving and her own setting-out. Whatever her intention, it had been in her mind from the moment the door closed on Miss Swefling. So it was perhaps a course of action which she had meditated previously but had regarded as too risky, but which now, in her desperation, she was prepared to implement straight away. No su
dden brainstorm: what she was about had its roots in the past.
But for whom would she have dressed up? In Vivienne’s case the matter was doubtful. She was ambisexual, and the manner of the crime offered no indication of the gender of the criminal. On balance one might assume it was a man because the body had been handled and transported, but against that Vivienne had weighed only eight stone and so was not beyond manipulation by a woman. In addition, on current form, Vivienne’s preference seemed to lie with the ladies, so these considerations cancelled out: the question of gender stayed open. But man or woman, this much was certain: they represented some answer to Vivienne’s distress; while just as certainly, she had represented a threat which they had been unable to ignore. So, briefly, we were looking for a person with something to hide; who had been acquainted previously with Vivienne; who she thought was capable of solving her problems; and who probably lived within walking distance of her cottage. A narrowed field: but balanced, alas, on grounds of logical probability. Vivienne might equally well have dressed prettily to cheer herself up; and by so doing have attracted a casual predator.
On the routine side, there would be no harm in checking Miss Swefling’s account of her movements. The estimated time of death covered a span from nine p.m. to midnight. Vivienne might have sought a second interview. Her walk might have taken her to the Agnes Strickland Hall. Failing contact there, she might have followed Miss Swefling to Captain Scott-Wemys’ house, and then to her car: significantly, parked beside the Common. And there was another angle about the Common – it bounded the grounds of Huntingfield School. It was probably open to Miss Swefling to drive on the Common without first having to drive through the town. The way had been clear for her to take Vivienne back with her, perhaps pretending to consent to Vivienne’s advances; then, having smothered Vivienne as she lay in bed, to transport the body to the grove of holm oaks. Between eleven and midnight there were unlikely to be watchers, and Miss Swefling’s rooms could be remote from the dormitories in any case.
Other prospects? Pamela Rede’s guardian had been revealed on the edge of the scene. He wasn’t confirmed as the writer of that anonymous letter, but I remembered the look Diane Culpho had given Pamela. Did Diane guess the letter came from that quarter? Possible even that she suspected Pamela? Just thinking aloud, Pamela didn’t have an alibi that one could check with any certainty. The same might conceivably apply to her guardian, whose wife was attending Miss Swefling’s lecture; interesting point. But until I’d met the gentleman there was no profit in further surmise. What we were short of, and what I most needed, were names of people known to have associated with Vivienne. She was too lonely. In the background, somewhere, were acquaintances routine hadn’t given us; yet.