Death at St. Asprey’s School

by Bruce, Leo

“Of course you don’t,” said Carolus. “Nor do I.”

  “He fell from the church tower. There is no evidence that he was pushed over—on the other hand there is no evidence against it. You were with him at the time, I understand.”

  “In body, yes. But not in mind. I was unconscious.”

  Osborne was about to answer when a policeman in uniform entered and handed him a paper. He read this and whatever it contained seemed to soften his manner somewhat.

  “I see,” he said. “You had better make your statement. Please be as brief as possible.”

  “I will,” said Carolus, “but it won’t be as brief as either of us would like. The only way I can tell you what happened tonight is to tell you everything, from the beginning, as I understand it.”

  “I don’t want to listen to a lot of circumstantial evidence and theorising,” said Osborne sourly.

  “And that’s just what most of it will be,” smiled Carolus. “Amateur theatricals, I think you called it. But here and there, Superintendent, I hope you may find odds and ends of information you have not got.”

  Mr. Gorringer unwisely interrupted.

  “My friend Deene…” he began.

  “For God’s sake,” shouted Osborne brutally. Then, turning to Carolus he said in an exasperated voice—“If you want to make a statement, make one. It’s three o’clock in the morning and I’ve got to be at the Inquest at ten.”

  Carolus sipped his brandy and began coolly.

  Chapter Nineteen

  “Sime, ‘the most popular master at St. Asprey’s’ might never have emerged from the common run of teachers in small private schools if the adulation of his pupils had not gone to his head. He was jealous of Sconer and became determined to achieve a partnership and eventually to own the whole school. He publicly boasted that he would do so and get rid of his enemies, thus providing the whole staff with a motive for more than ordinary fear and hatred. Several of them, like Kneller and Duckmore, had reasons for wishing to stay at St. Asprey’s quite apart from the posts they held and salaries they earned.

  “Once the idea had formed in Sime’s mind he looked for ways of fulfilling it. He had no private means but had remarkable determination, a rather sinister kind of success with women and no scruples at all. Given an opening for blackmail he followed it with all the resources of a meap and greedy nature.

  “He was blackmailing on three fronts. The first and perhaps the most cowardly blackmail was that of Duckmore. He knew that Duckmore was a fairly rich man and from an unfortunate remark of his about the village of Bucks-field he was able to unearth the whole story of Duckmore’s voluntary confinement there in a mental home, his previous history of imprisonment, his delusions about having killed his wife. He also knew that Duckmore’s teaching was a ‘trial’ period before taking Orders—the greatest ambition of his life. He got most of this from an attendant in the mental home named Hopper whom I found easy and cheap to bribe into giving the same information. Hopper remembered his call.”

  Carolus noted that Osborne made some surreptitious notes here.

  “When he found that this information was not enough to make Duckmore disburse large sums, he decided to do a ‘gaslight’ on him, producing in the school a number of incidents which seemingly could only be the work of a madman and convincing Duckmore that either he had actually been responsible for these or would be suspected or accused of them. He went to great trouble and some expense over these—placing a ladder under one of the windows of a dormitory and appearing at it in horror make-up, perhaps even hiring a costume to appear as a ghostly friar. Sadistic himself he had no difficulty in slaughtering the Angora rabbits and Mayring’s dog and so reducing Duckmore to such a condition of nerves that Pocket here described him as ‘face white as chalk and hands jumping like a jack-in-the-box, ordering a double brandy’. By this means he succeeded in taking a thousand pounds from Duckmore and anticipated more.

  “But this was small game compared with his blackmailing of Sconer. How he came to know the details of Sconer’s rather sordid affair with Sally O’Maverick I do not know for I have not yet found the elusive Sally as the police doubtless have.”

  It would have been scarcely an exaggeration to describe Osborne’s face as a mask.

  “He must have known that when she left here at the end of last term she was in the family way, for it was generally talked about, as Pocket told me on my first day here. He may even have arranged for the services of the abortionist, described as a negro from Birmingham, probably an African or West Indian medical student needing money. He certainly knew of this gentleman and knew who paid for his services.

  “It was obvious to me from the first that Sconer was being blackmailed by Sime. He was suffering from strain far more than the ‘nocturnal incidents’ would warrant. Mrs. Sconer described him as ‘under the spell of Sime’ and I discovered, as soon as I took over Sime’s classes, that Sconer’s defence of Sime, that he was a brilliant teacher whose services he could not afford to lose, was nonsense. He was a bad teacher given to favouritism and personal showing-off which gave him a harmful influence, and his scheduled work was in chaos. Sconer, himself a sound headmaster, must have known this, but kept up a pitiful bluff, with his wife and everyone else, simply because Sime was blackmailing him.

  “I might not have discovered the details of this unpleasant situation if Sime, crippled by the attempt on his life in the tower, had not been forced to give me a letter to post. I had just arrived and he had no reason to think that I was anything but an ordinary stand-in for him. His letter was to Sally O’Maverick’s aunt, on whom, as we shall see in a moment, he was also trying to put the bite. It had to go but he dare not give it to any of the staff, for any one of them might have shown it to others. ‘Sitck it in your pocket’, he said to me. He was taking a necessary chance, and it gave me the address of Mrs. Ricks in Cheltenham.”

  Though Osborne’s face remained expressionless, Carolus guessed that by now Mrs. Ricks was not unknown to him.

  “From her next-door neighbour, a woman of almost Matron-like zest for observation, I learned a little more of this—that ‘a schoolmaster from the school where Sally had taught’ had called, also the ‘negro gentleman from Birmingham’. From Mrs. Ricks herself, a righteous woman with secret dipsomaniac tendencies, I learned that Sime had attempted to blackmail her for conniving at the operation for abortion, and that ‘someone from the school’ had paid for this last. There could no longer be any doubt about the basic situation, Sime blackmailing Sconer, for this alone accounted for all the facts I have set out.

  “It has been dramatically and tragically confirmed. Sconer talked to me quite amicably last Sunday evening and appeared anxious to help my enquiries. On Monday morning, after he had heard from Parker, who alone was in his confidence, that I had seen Mrs. Ricks, he suddenly asked me to throw up the whole case and leave the district.

  “Then, last night when I told Parker that I knew of the operation for abortion and who was responsible for it, it brought things to a head. I was ‘shattering an illusion’ of Parker’s because he thought no one knew that the man responsible was Sconer, and, a loyal soul, he was dismayed. As Matron told me he ‘was in the study with Sconer for half an hour immediately afterwards’, and since I had also said that all this would come out at the Inquest, Sconer knew that it was all up with him and decided to commit suicide that night.

  “How he did this you know.”

  Carolus then, briefly and as though making a military report, described how he had heard Sconer pass his door and seen him leave the grounds; how he had followed him to the church and into the tower and how he had attempted to prevent his suicide.

  “That it was suicide I think you, Superintendent, know now, unless I am mistaken in my guess that the memorandum handed to you just now was to the effect that a suicide note had been found in the pocket of the dead man.”

  Osborne said nothing. But Mr. Gorringer felt it was time for one of his—on the whole—welcome interruptions. />
  “I own myself bewildered by the turn things have taken,” he said. “I have known Cosmo Sconer for many years and should never have suspected him of libertinage with a member of his own staff. However, that conceded the rest follows. To rid himself of a blackmailer he was constrained to murder and suicide.”

  “Suicide,” said Carolus. “I haven’t suggested that Sconer murdered Sime. But it’s time for a drink. What about it, Mr. Pocket?”

  Pocket turned to Osborne.

  “No objection?” he asked.

  The large head moved slowly from side to side in a grudging negative.

  “What will it be then?” asked Pocket brightly.

  “I scarcely know,” said Mr. Gorringer. “What would be an appropriate drink, I wonder. It is 4 a.m. Superintendent?”

  The short lips scarcely seemed to move yet the incredible words were enunciated clearly enough.

  “A Cherry Brandy.”

  Carolus stared aghast and as soon as drinks were poured hastened to continue, as though to cover the policeman’s eccentricity.

  “So Sime was angling away quite happily at one point,” he said. “With three lines out and nibbles on two of them. He might have continued till he was proprietor of the school if someone had not decided that things had gone far enough. There was a bold, ingenious and nearly successful plan to make Sime the victim of what would be taken to be a fatal accident. By the merest chance, still difficult to understand, he failed. If he succeeded and Sime had died from a fall from the tower which he had climbed to spy on others, St. Asprey’s School would not now be in a jeopardy.

  “The plan was this. While Sime was on top of the tower almost any preparations could be made below of which he would remain unaware. The would-be murderer intended to hide behind the curtains near the top of the spiral staircase and as Sime took the first few steps downward impel him violently to perdition. This, as far as he could see, would leave no evidence at all. Bruises on the body would be plentiful and accountable for by the fall downstairs, and there would be no witnesses.

  “But this was not enough. A shove on the stairs might be ineffectual for Sime was a powerful and heavy man. What was necessary was something to trip him and the would-be murderer measured the width of the staircase and cut a bough of yew to give him, when it was trimmed, a perfect obstacle which would trip anyone who had not seen it, even if he were not already falling. This he set just round the first bend of the staircase. It was carefully made just too long to go from wall to wall so that it had to be forced into position about a foot above the level of the stairs, and because it was freshly cut it left two green marks on the wall. When I found these, and Skippett told me of the trimmings of the bough he had found in the hedge of the churchyard, I knew for certain that Sime’s fall had been no accident, but that someone was determined to kill him.

  “It was a miracle that Sime survived that attempt. The loft was more than thirty foot up and the stairs were worn and precipitous. I think it left him more shattered than he admitted or showed. He had to get himself taken back to the school after it, and not to hospital, because only from the school could he conduct his blackmailing activities. With him out of the way, he thought, Sconer and Duckmore would get out of hand and perhaps combine against him. But he was scared enough to sleep with a loaded revolver under his pillow.

  “He had good cause to be. Whoever had failed in his attempt on the stairs was determined not to fail again. Once again it would be an ‘accident’ but this time there would be no doubt of its effect.”

  “So,” interrupted Mr. Gorringer, “we are to take it that the author of the attempt in the tower was also the murderer of Sime?”

  “Even on the staff of a preparatory school,” said Carolus, “you would scarcely be likely to find two deliberate and plotting murderers at the same time, surely. Of course it was the same person, and a very determined person at that.”

  “What did I say?” burst out Mrs. Skippett. “I told you, didn’t I? It was that Duckmore. I said he had a funny look about him and those eyes seemed to look right through you till they gave you the creeps.”

  Osborne emitted a short but audible sigh.

  “Please finish your statement, Deene,” he said.

  Carolus decided to ruffle that smug impassivity.

  “I first suspected that Jumbo Parker was the murderer…” he began quietly.

  But he produced his effect. Osborne sat bolt upright and shouted “Whart”

  “Didn’t you hear? I’m sorry. I said I first suspected Parker was the murderer when I learned how he was supposed to have found Sime’s body after the fall in the tower. For as Sime told me, he left his car at the gate of the church. Now either he had arrived there and gone up to the top of the tower before Parker came to play the organ, or he entered the church while Parker was there. In either case Parker was aware of him in the tower. Why should he invent that story of a strange noise behind the tower door and his alarm and horror when Sime, unconscious, rolled out of the tower? Someone could have entered the church before either of them, hidden behind the curtains where the bell-ringers hung their coats and while Sime was on the tower set his obstruction and waited, again behind the curtains, to push him down. He would also have had to get back to the school unseen before Sime was brought back. But who? It would have been necessary for him to go there early in the afternoon and remain there till after Sime had been taken away, risking a possible search of the tower when Sime was found. And who, among those who any sort of a motive for killing Sime, could it have been? Mayring was with the Away team, Duckmore, Stanley, Kneller, the Ferrises and Mollie all on the archery lawn at different times that afternoon and Sconer interviewing parents at the school.

  “But I only say I suspected Parker. Horlick and Skippett, if one could conceive of either as a murderer, were unaccounted for and there was always the possibility of an enemy of Sime of whom we know nothing…”

  “Did you say Skippett?” asked Mrs. Skippett. “My husband…”

  “Yes, I know,” said Carolus quickly and soothingly. “Nobody ever suspected him. There was however the question of motive and this for a time defeated me until I saw more of Parker and realized his extraordinary obsession with the school and his pathetic loyalty to Sconer. I liked Parker and realized the pathos of his wasted life—twenty years given to building up that school from eight boys, as he told me, to its recent success. He could not conceive of any future except at St. Asprey’s and he knew Sime was blackmailing Sconer. He saw his life falling apart unless Sime could be eliminated by an ‘accident’. He had the simplicity in some things of a child, and a child’s cunning, too. Sconer extolled his loyalty and devotion and Parker made no secret of it.

  “So having failed in his first attempt he made plans for a second. This time there was to be no doubt. It was again to look like an accident and it shows some of Parker’s simplicity that he really believed Sime’s death would be taken as an archery mishap.

  “What he intended to do was to drug Sime after lunch and during the afternoon stab him with the head of abroad-head arrow afterwards screwing in the shaft to make it appear that Sime had been shot by accident from the lawn.

  “He had everything planned. He had stolen a small supply of Mollie Westerly’s very small quick-acting sleeping pills and after lunch went to Matron’s room and was seen by her at the medicine cupboard. Matron thought he was helping himself to an aspirin as he often did for a hang-over but in fact he was taking one of Fitzsmith’s capsules which could be opened to allow him to insert five or six of Mollie’s sleeping pills. Matron afterwards discovered that one was missing.

  With this prepared he went down to Sime’s room and Mrs. Skippett noticed him passing through the hall. He had Sime’s confidence—as Mayring said, he and Parker were the only two who spoke to Sime. As a matter of fact Parker inspired everyone’s confidence—Sally O’Maverick used to call him ‘Uncle Jumbo’—and he would have no difficulty in persuading Sime to swallow the capsule on some pretext
or other. He then left Sime, propped up on his pillows, to fall into a heavy drugged sleep, and returned to his room, again passing Mrs. Skippett in the hall.”

  “Well, if I’d of known!” exclaimed Mrs. Skippett. “Whoever was to think of such a thing? No one wouldn’t have dreamed it, not in a thousand years. And you mean to say…”

  “He stayed in his room for a full hour during which he deliberately poured away two inches from his bottle of whisky. He knew that Matron would observe this and report that he had been boozing all the afternoon. He had his weapon ready, for on the previous afternoon he had gone to the summer-house where Kneller kept his arrows and extracted a broadhead arrow. He had done this while the archers were walking down towards their targets for the summer-house was kept locked except during practice. He had pushed it down the leg of his trousers which caused him to walk in a peculiarly stiff-legged way and when I met him on his way in he had to explain this as ‘rheumatism’. It was noticeable that when I asked him about his rheumatism that evening he could scarcely think for a moment what I meant. He now unscrewed the arrow, put the head with its few inches of shaft in his pocket and the shaft itself (shorter by the head than when he had brought it from the summer-house) inside his jacket. I would guess that he cut a hole in the bottom of the inside breast pocket of his jacket and pushed most of the shaft through so that he could draw it out in a moment but could walk quite naturally.

  “I think it was at the last minute that he thought of fingerprints and realized that he would need gloves. He had none of his own for it was the summer term but he had become, in those years, enough a member of the family to know where Sconer kept his. He went very silently—so silently that even Matron’s trained ears did not hear him—to the Sconer’s room and took the gloves he needed.

  “Towards three o’clock he came out of his room again to go by the way through from the private part of the house on the first floor to the boy’s dormitories and so down to the staff bungalow. This time Matron caught the sound of his footsteps but just at that moment her attention was held by the sight of the two boys escaping from the cricket field to go to Sime’s window. This was something she could not miss and she let the footsteps go.