Night of the Twelfth

by Michael Gilbert

  ‘All right,’ said the tall man. ‘I’ll take over now. Out of bed, young fellow. And get some clothes on. You’re coming with us.’

  Sacher started to say something and then stopped. The torch had been shifted to the man’s left hand. The right hand now held a gun, capped with a bulbous silencer, very like the one they had seen in Mr Manifold’s drawer.

  ‘Just to get things clear straight away,’ said the tall man. ‘If you don’t do what I tell you quickly and quietly, I’m going to shoot one of your young friends in the guts. You understand me?’

  Sacher nodded. His mouth was dry and his heart was thumping. He was afraid to trust his voice.

  ‘I’ll give you one minute to get dressed. Sweater and trousers will be enough. Put them on over your pyjamas. Then slippers. Don’t bother about shoes and socks.’

  Whilst Sacher was shuffling into his clothes, McMurtrie shot a quick look at the second man. He was at the far side of the window looking out. From where he stood he commanded a view of the lawn and the front drive and could see the top but not the foot of the cedar tree. It was noticeable that he had not allowed anything that was going on in the room to distract his attention.

  The tall man said to McMurtrie, ‘One more word. When we leave, don’t do anything silly like running out after us. There’s a third man outside, round the turn of the stairs. He’ll be there covering us for exactly five minutes. If you try to follow us, he’ll shoot your legs off. Understand?’

  McMurtrie nodded. The man turned to Joscelyne who was sitting up in bed, silent and staring, ‘You too.’

  Joscelyne said, ‘I understand.’

  ‘All right. You’ve behaved very sensibly so far. Keep it up. All clear outside?’

  The second man said, ‘I thought I saw a light, two minutes ago, up by the main gate, where the patrol car stops. Nothing this end.’

  Then the light came on.

  It was Latrobe, standing in the doorway. He was wearing a dressing gown, his hair was on end and his eyes were still sticky with sleep.

  He said, ‘What on earth–?’

  The tall man said, ‘Get out of the way, or collect a bullet.’

  Latrobe took in the fact that Sacher was dressed, and that the tall man was holding him by one arm. He said, ‘Leave him alone. Leave him alone at once,’ and hurled himself straight at the gun.

  The tall man took a step to one side, lifted the gun and cracked Latrobe over the head with the long barrel, weighted by the silencer. Latrobe fell forward across the foot of Sacher’s bed and the second man turned out the light.

  The interlude had lasted five seconds.

  The tall man said, ‘Just remember what I told you.’

  Then they were gone. The board at the end of the passage creaked. Then silence.

  McMurtrie said, speaking in a whisper. ‘We’ve got to get help. Connie may be bleeding to death.’

  ‘They’ll shoot us if we go out.’

  ‘I think that was rot. They always say something like that just to stop you from following. Come on.’

  The two boys tiptoed down the passage and peered round the corner of the stairs. There was no one there. They cascaded down both flights and out into the main hall. On a table by the front door stood the school bell. McMurtrie seized it in both hands and started to ring it vigorously.

  Mr Fairfax was the first to arrive. He listened to what McMurtrie had to say and ran for the telephone in his study. It took him a few seconds to realize that it wasn’t working. By the time he got back into the hall most of the school seemed to be there. He shouted above the babble of voices, ‘No one is to go outside the building. See to it, Ware. Come with me, Commander.’

  He unbolted the front door and went out. The moon shone down coldly on an empty space of gravel. Mr Fairfax said, ‘The telephone’s been put out of action. The quickest way to get help will be to get hold of the police car at the main gate.’

  ‘Right,’ said the Commander. He doubled off down the front drive.

  Mr Fairfax stood on the steps, looking after him. He felt that there were things which he ought to be doing, steps to be taken. A thought occurred to him. Where was Sergeant Baker? And where, for that matter, was Manifold? The two men who should have been most useful in a crisis seemed to have disappeared.

  He went back into the house. Mr Diplock had now appeared. And Lucy was there, listening to McMurtrie repeat his story for the third time. She said, ‘I’d better go up and look after Connie. If he’s really bad, one of the policemen will have to fetch Dr Baines.’

  Mr Fairfax said, ‘All boys back to bed. At once. Would you see to it please, Ware. Anyone I find out of bed in one minute I will deal with myself.’

  Reluctantly the boys began to disperse.

  ‘McMurtrie and Joscelyne, you’d better stay. The police will want to talk to you.’

  ‘If they don’t put on a few more clothes,’ said Mr Diplock, who was himself wearing a heavy dressing gown, a scarf and a pair of plaid slippers, ‘they’ll be catching very serious colds. The night air is far from warm.’

  ‘Yes. Run up and get on your dressing gowns. But hurry.’

  By the time the boys came down, the police car was at the door. The sergeant in charge was talking on the wireless. The conversation seemed to go on interminably. (Hurry, hurry, thought McMurtrie. Poor Jared, bound and blindfolded, his mouth gagged with sticking plaster, bundled into the back of a car.)

  The sergeant withdrew his head from the window of the car and said, ‘That should be all right, sir. We had three lots of road blocks set up. They’ve all been alerted. They’ll be lucky if they get past.’

  ‘Suppose they leave the car and strike across country?’

  ‘They could do that, sir. But I don’t think they’d get very far. This looks like the top brass. They’ll want to hear it from the boys, I expect.’

  Two more cars came racing up the drive. Colonel Brabazon was in the front one. He jumped out, had a quick word with the sergeant, listened to McMurtrie’s account and said to Mr Fairfax, ‘Have you told the boy’s father?’

  ‘I couldn’t. The telephone’s dead.’

  ‘We shall have to let him know. I’ll send the second car back.’ He had been joined by Superintendent Barclay from Chichester. ‘There’s a lot to do. If they get through the road blocks we’ll have to put out an all stations alert. Ten to one they’ll be making for London.’

  (A house in the docks, thought McMurtrie. A damp cellar. Rats.)

  As the Superintendent strode off to give order to the second car, Lucy Fairfax appeared at the top of the steps. Latrobe was standing beside her, a gaunt Turk, his head turbaned in bandages. ‘Silly man,’ said Lucy. ‘I told him to go to bed but he would come down.’

  Latrobe grabbed hold of Mr Fairfax by the arm and said, almost fiercely. ‘What have they done to him? Did they get away? I tried to stop them.’

  ‘You did your best,’ said Mr Fairfax. ‘I’m sorry that we weren’t all as alert as you were–’ He felt Latrobe stiffen, and thought for a moment that he was going to pass out. Then he saw that he was staring at something, and turned his head to see what it was.

  Jared Sacher was coming towards them. His face was the colour of paper, and he was walking like someone asleep.

  There was a moment of paralysed silence. Then Latrobe pushed past Mr Fairfax, rushed up to Jared and seized him by the arm as if to convince himself that the boy was real.

  He said, in a voice which excitement and emotion had pushed up almost into the treble key, ‘What happened, Jared? Where are those men? How did you get away? Thank God you’re safe.’

  Jared turned his head slowly, as if uncertain where the questions were coming from. Then he said, quietly but quite clearly, ‘They let me go,’ and folded forwards. Latrobe got one arm under him as he fell and straightened up, lifting the boy in his arms.

  (For a long time afterwards, McMurtrie had only to close his eyes and he could see the whole scene, etched in black and white under the wan
ing moon. On the steps, the Commander with his mouth open and his teeth showing. Beside him, Mr Diplock with his eyes half closed, as though he was visualizing the scene through the eye of a camera. The background ring of policemen, standing like dark images. And in the middle, Latrobe holding the boy in his arms.)

  For a moment, no one seemed to know what to do next. It was Lucy Fairfax who moved. She said, ‘He’s suffering from shock. Bring him in at once. He ought to be kept warm. Make up a bed for him in the spare room.’

  The scene dissolved, and broke. Latrobe followed her up the front steps carrying Jared. Colonel Brabazon said, ‘As soon as he’s fit to talk, you know, we ought to hear what he has to say.’

  Manifold said, ‘If he really is suffering from shock, he ought to be given a sedative. Not asked a lot of questions.’

  (And where had he come from, McMurtrie wondered? He could swear that he hadn’t been there a moment before.)

  ‘You may be right,’ said the Colonel. ‘Mustn’t take any chances. Be thankful we’ve got the boy back in one piece, eh?’

  He seemed to be talking at Manifold, who said, ‘Yes indeed, sir. That’s the main point, isn’t it?’

  ‘All the same, better leave a man behind. He needn’t sit in the boy’s room but he ought to be on hand to take a statement just as soon as he’s fit to talk. Would you organize that, Superintendent?’

  ‘I’ll deal with you in the morning,’ said Mr Fairfax. This was to half a dozen bold spirits who had crept down into the back of the hall to see what crumbs of excitement they could pick up. ‘Take their names, would you, Commander. And get back to your beds at once. You too, Joscelyne and McMurtrie.’

  McMurtrie was yawning uncontrollably. He could never remember feeling so tired.

  14

  ‘The Greek Mathematician Pythagoras,’ said Mr Diplock, ‘was the first to establish, largely by methods of trial and error, that the square on the hypotenuse of a right-angled triangle must be equal to the sum of the squares on the other two sides. We are able to demonstrate this great truth by a simple construction. Thus, I draw a right-angled triangle, ABC. I then construct squares on each of its three sides–’

  ‘Sir.’

  ‘Yes, Paxton?’

  ‘Is this the window they came through?’

  ‘I understand that it was found open in the morning.’

  ‘Then this was the room.’

  ‘I imagine so.’

  ‘Goodness!’

  One-A gazed round the room. No longer an ordinary classroom. A room through which would-be kidnappers had come during the night.

  ‘I saw Jared this morning, sir,’ said McMurtrie. ‘After Doctor Baines had been. He was having his breakfast in bed. Two boiled eggs.’

  ‘I think it was a put-up job,’ said Roger Warlock. ‘I don’t believe he was suffering from shock at all.’

  ‘Unless it was the shock of finding himself in Connie’s arms,’ suggested Joscelyne.

  ‘What did you say, Joscelyne?’

  ‘I said, sir, that it must have been an awful shock. I’m glad he didn’t come to any harm.’

  ‘I don’t believe you said that,’ said Mr Diplock. ‘I believe you made a very impertinent remark about a member of the staff.’

  ‘Don’t you think, sir,’ said McMurtrie, ‘that Connie – I mean Mr Latrobe – behaved like a hero.’

  ‘Hero,’ said Mr Diplock, ‘is one of the most misused words in the English language. To the Greeks it signified a man of high position who was faced with a critical choice, imposed on him by the Fates, or by some contradiction in his own character. Where he made the wrong decision, the result was tragedy. The revolting journalistic practice of today has cheapened the word until it means – hah! – a professional footballer who scores the odd goal in three in a cup-tie.’

  McMurtrie, who was perfectly well aware that any mention of the word hero was calculated to inflame Mr Diplock, had inserted his comment solely in order to divert the lightning from Joscelyne.

  ‘GG did his bit as well,’ said Paxton. ‘I shouldn’t have cared to run down that drive. He might have been shot at.’

  One-A considered the matter. They felt that a certain amount of credit must be allowed to the Commander. A mention in despatches possibly. The VC had to go to Connie, who had appeared at breakfast that morning with a most impressive band of adhesive plaster across the back of his head.

  ‘What I want to know,’ said Billy Warlock, ‘is where was Sergeant Baker? I thought he was meant to be looking after Jared.’

  ‘Asleep.’

  ‘My father says,’ said Gedge, ‘that beer drinkers sleep very soundly.’

  ‘He ought to know,’ said Paxton.

  ‘Beer’s a healthier drink than whisky, isn’t it, sir?’

  ‘Since I drink neither whisky nor beer, Gedge,’ said Mr Diplock, ‘I’m unable to offer any opinion on the subject. You will note that I have constructed a square on the hypotenuse, AC. We then drop a perpendicular from B to cut the base of the square ACPQ at X.’

  ‘TEF beat five boys this morning,’ said Billy Warlock. ‘Cracknell, Hills, Gould, Stokes and Walkinshaw. They got four each.’

  ‘Serve them right,’ said Paxton. ‘Silly asses. There was no point in going downstairs. They could have seen it all from the window, like we did.’

  Mr Diplock drew a small book from his pocket. He said, ‘The next boy who talks will receive a double demerit. Since the Headmaster appears to be in a flagellatory mood this morning no doubt he will take the hint. You understand me? Good. We now join points B and Q and consider triangle ABQ which lies, as you will observe, between the parallel lines AQ and BX–’

  ‘I told Dr Baines,’ said Lucy, ‘that I would accept no responsibility. What Jared needs is a complete rest. Not a lot of people bothering him with questions.’

  ‘And what did the learned Dr Baines say to that?’ said Elizabeth.

  ‘He said he thought the boy would be easier when he’d got the story off his chest.’

  ‘He looked perfectly easy when I took him up his breakfast this morning. And he ate it all.’

  ‘You always have to be careful with shock.’

  ‘People talk more nonsense about shock,’ said Elizabeth, ‘than any other word in the medical vocabulary. It isn’t something your maiden aunt suffers from when she sees the dog next door demonstrating the facts of life to her bitch. It’s a simple defence mechanism, switched on by the body in time of stress.’

  ‘Of course,’ said Lucy coldly. ‘I’d forgotten. You must know a good deal about shock. You once worked in a loony-bin, didn’t you?’

  ‘The correct description,’ said Elizabeth, ‘is simply hospital. Or in some cases mental hospital. I suppose it’s living in a place like this that makes you use infantile expressions like loony-bin.’

  Lucy looked at Elizabeth sharply. She said, ‘That sounded to me very like impertinence.’

  ‘You have excellent hearing,’ said Elizabeth. ‘It was impertinence.’

  ‘In that case–’

  ‘In that case,’ said Elizabeth, ‘you will be forced to suggest to your husband that my employment here should be terminated. Spare yourself the trouble. We’re going.’

  ‘Oh, when?’

  ‘At the end of term. We’re planning to get married in August.’

  ‘By “we” I assume you mean yourself and Nigel.’

  ‘You didn’t think I was going to marry Mr Diplock, did you?’

  ‘I’m very sorry,’ said Mr Fairfax. ‘He’s an excellent all round sportsman, and he’s brought the cricket side on tremendously.’

  ‘He’s a beautiful young man,’ said Lucy. ‘And he’s as soft and wet as a sponge.’

  ‘One wouldn’t, perhaps, describe him as an intellectual.’

  ‘It’ll be a wonderful marriage. She’s as tough as whip-cord and he’s got no more moral fibre than a seven-year-old child. The physical side should be terrific. And of course we all know how important that is.’

&n
bsp; Mr Fairfax said, with the weary patience of someone approaching a subject which had been discussed too often and too thoroughly, ‘If you think it would do any good we could go back to the marriage guidance people.’

  ‘Poking you about and telling you how to lie in bed,’ said Lucy. ‘Certainly not.’

  ‘We went straight out by the side door,’ said Jared. ‘I think they must have unlocked it before they came up. It’s usually shut at night.’

  ‘Very likely,’ said Superintendent Barclay.

  There was something about the boy that puzzled him. He had ceriainly recovered his spirits and that was natural enough. Boys got over things very quickly. It was the way he was dealing with his questions. He answered them readily enough. Possibly a little bit too readily, with a lot of irrelevant information thrown in each time. The Superintendent spent much of his working life in law courts and had noticed witnesses who behaved like that. It didn’t necessarily mean that they were lying, only that they were being very careful. The extra bit they threw in gave them time to anticipate what the next question might be.

  ‘What happened then?’

  ‘We walked across the lawn. I was in the middle between the two men. They were on either side of me.’

  ‘Were they holding you?’

  ‘Yes. They had one arm each.’

  ‘And then?’

  ‘Then we got quite close to the car. It was parked under a tree – the big cedar–’

  ‘The one near the gate into the side road?’

  ‘That’s the one. I didn’t see the car until I was quite close to it. I think they’d put blankets or something over it to cover the metal work. It was quite a bright moonlight night.’

  ‘And when you got up to the car?’

  ‘There was a third man. I thought perhaps he might have been the driver. Or someone they’d left behind to look after the car.’

  ‘Very likely.’

  ‘Well, he was standing beside the car, leaning his head through the window, using a wireless set. At least I think it must have been a wireless set. He had one of those things – what do you call them–’