Night of the Twelfth

by Michael Gilbert

  ‘A hand microphone?’

  ‘That’s right. He said something into it. I couldn’t hear what it was. Then he beckoned to the tall man, and they moved round to the front of the car. The other man was still holding me, and I did think I might wriggle loose and dash off into the bushes, but now he had one hand on my arm and the other one twisted into the collar of my sweater. I didn’t think there was much hope. Then the tall man came back–’

  ‘Did you hear what the driver said to him?’

  ‘No. I don’t think they wanted me to hear. They were some way away, and speaking very quietly.’

  ‘What next?’

  ‘Then the tall man came back and said to me, “We’ve had some news which has made us change our plans. You’re not coming with us.” I thought he meant they were going to shoot me on the spot and I was too scared to do anything except stand there and look at him. Then he said, “You’re very lucky. If you do exactly what I tell you, you’ll be all right.” So of course I said I would and he said, “Shut your eyes and count to two hundred, quite slowly. Then you can go.” As I started to count I heard the car start and drive away.’

  ‘Was the gate open?’

  For the first time there was a break in the fluency of Jared’s answer. Then he said, ‘Well, you see, I had my eyes shut.’

  ‘You had your eyes shut,’ agreed the Superintendent patiently, ‘But if the gate had been closed you’d have heard the car stop, and someone get out to open it, and the car start up again.’

  ‘Of course I should. And I didn’t. So it must have been open, mustn’t it?’

  ‘That’s the story the police are working on,’ said Manifold. They’ve organized a search for the men and the car, but since Jared could give only a vague description of the men, and no description at all of the car, they don’t hold out much prospect of success.’

  ‘I assume,’ said Mr Fairfax, ‘that it is also the story which the press will be told.’

  ‘If they get hold of it at all.’

  ‘I hardly see how it can be kept a secret when every boy in the school knows that something happened.’

  ‘Couldn’t you tell them to keep their mouths shut?’

  ‘I know from experience,’ said Mr Fairfax, ‘that it would be totally ineffective. However, it’s a blessing that it should have happened on a Tuesday.’

  ‘What difference does that make?’

  ‘Boys are creatures of habit. Sunday is the only day on which letters home are written. By next Monday every parent will have a garbled account of what took place and most of them will telephone me. Some of them will inevitably spread the story. The press will pick it up.’

  ‘No newspaper’s going to get excited about an attempted kidnapping which is a week old and which didn’t come off.’

  ‘You may be right,’ said Mr Fairfax. ‘I hope so.’ He was finding it difficult to adjust himself to the change between addressing an assistant master and a police officer. ‘You took a considerable chance, didn’t you?’

  ‘The object of the whole operation,’ said Manifold, ‘the one thing that really mattered, was to get the men clear of the school. Can you imagine the sort of situation which would have developed if they’d been forced to hole up inside the school with half a dozen boys as hostages?’

  Mr Fairfax shuddered and said, ‘Yes.’

  ‘That was the whole basis of the plan. To let them take the boy out to the car.’

  ‘How did you know where the car would be?’

  ‘Not too difficult. If you had a lively prisoner to transport and needed to use a car to transport him in there were only two possible approaches. The main gate and the side gate. We had a police car at the main gate, put a chain on the side gate, as well as having the perimeter patrolled from time to time. So you see, we were really offering them three choices. Leave the car a fair distance away out of sight in one of the lanes round the back end of Tinmans Common. The drawback to that is obvious. When you’ve got a hostage, and a slippery one at that, you want to get him into the car as quickly as possible. Second choice, park the car outside the side gate. Quicker for a getaway but much too dangerous. If the police patrol saw a car at that particular point they’d be bound to investigate. Third, and much the most likely alternative, cut the chain and park the car, under cover, inside the grounds. Shutting the gate once they were in would cause a little delay in getting away, true. But on balance it was a risk worth taking in case a patrol came past whilst they were doing the job and happened to look at the gate.’

  ‘It seems logical enough when you put it like that,’ said Mr Fairfax.

  ‘There was one great advantage from our point of view. When they cut the chain they signalled their arrival.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Wonders of science,’ said Manifold with a grin. ‘A very thin wire, almost invisible, even in daylight, threaded through the chain. When they broke it, a warning sounded in Sergeant Baker’s room.’

  Mr Fairfax said, ‘I see,’ once more. ‘Well, thank God it’s all over. I gathered from what the boy’s father said that if you were able–’ he hesitated as if looking for the appropriate word – ‘were able to account for these two men, no further trouble was likely to develop.’

  ‘You can set your mind at rest on that score,’ said Manifold. ‘For the time being they’ve shot their bolt. It’s only two weeks to the end of term. Jared is quite safe here now. Incidentally, I understand that his father has cancelled his entry to Winchester and is taking him back with him to finish his education in Israel.’

  ‘So he told me, when I telephoned him this morning. I thought it a pity. The boy has an exceptionally good brain.’

  ‘They do have schools in Israel.’

  ‘Not as good as Winchester,’ said Mr Fairfax firmly. It was clear from the way he spoke that he was fast recovering his spirits. ‘It really has been quite a term. First Millison’s breakdown. Then the disinfestation business, and now this.’ Assistant masters, head lice, kidnappers. All now happily in the past.

  A further thought struck Mr Fairfax. ‘I imagine you’ll be leaving us now that you’ve finished your work here. A pity. You had a considerable talent as a schoolmaster. I don’t know what we shall do without you. I don’t suppose the agencies will be able to send us anyone for two weeks.’

  ‘You may have to put up with me a bit longer,’ said Manifold.

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘You were saying just now that my work here was finished. I’m afraid that isn’t true. I was glad to give Sergeant Baker a hand with looking after Sacher. But that wasn’t the reason I came here.’

  After a moment’s silence Mr Fairfax said, ‘Then perhaps you’d be good enough to explain exactly what you are doing here.’

  ‘I expect you read in the papers about the boy, Lister, who was picked up and killed, after he’d been maltreated.’

  ‘I seem to remember it, yes.’

  ‘That was on the evening of June twelfth. The first day of your half-term break.’

  ‘I believe it was.’

  ‘It happened about thirty-five miles away from here, near a place called Brading, on the other side of Horsham. It was the third incident of its kind, and a special squad had been formed to deal with it, operating under the Chief Constables of the four counties concerned. Their men were on the spot pretty quickly. Not as quickly as they might have been, because of a slip-up, but quick enough to get a good look at the place before too many people had trampled over it. At the side of the track leading down to the corner of the field, between the place where the man had obviously parked his car and the hedge, they found this bit of paper. It had been folded three or four times and from a mark on it, it was pretty clear that it had been used to wedge a rattling glass in one of the windows of the car. One of the off-side windows presumably, as it had fallen off on that side.’

  Manifold was speaking slowly, spinning out the sentences so that he could watch Mr Fairfax’s face as he examined the small square of paper which he had un
folded and laid on his desk.

  It was a black-printed demerit slip.

  15

  Mr Fairfax started, twice, to say something. On the third occasion, when it came out, the overriding note was irritation.

  He said, ‘I don’t understand. What are you trying to tell me? A number of schools use devices of this sort.’

  ‘We had a bit of luck there,’ said Manifold. ‘If you look at the back you’ll see that it happened to be the last page in the book. So it’s got the printer’s mark on it. It’s a tiny monogram. The letters are H and L. Scotland Yard have got very good indexes of things like that. Laundry marks, pawnbrokers’ marks, printers’ monograms. They identified it without any difficulty. Hobson and Langdale, of Chichester. We had Mr Hobson out of bed before seven o’clock. Being a Sunday he wasn’t best pleased, but he confirmed it for us at once.’

  Mr Fairfax said, ‘Yes, I see.’ He was recovering a little of his composure. ‘You realise that we have been using these little booklets ever since I came here, fifteen years ago.’

  ‘But these particular books haven’t been used for fifteen years. Originally the firm was just Mr Hobson and the mark was a capital letter H. When he took in Langdale last year, they changed the mark to the present one. Mr Hobson looked up his records for us. The first lot of books they printed for you with the new mark on it was in January of this year.’

  Mr Fairfax said, in the stifled voice of one who was being pressed against the wall by the weight of logic, ‘Anyone – I suppose – might have got hold of one of these.’

  ‘How do you suggest they would do that?’

  ‘Well – found it lying about.’

  ‘It’s possible, but hardly likely, don’t you think? The slip hasn’t been filled in with a boy’s name, or signed. That means it was still in the book when it was torn out and used to wedge the window glass.’

  ‘Anyone might have got hold of a complete book, I suppose.’

  ‘I wanted to ask you about that. During term time all the masters carry one about with them. What do they do with them at the end of term?’

  ‘They hand them in to me.’

  ‘And what do you do with them?’

  Mr Fairfax opened one of the drawers of his desk. He said, ‘I keep them in here. The one I’ve got here was Mr Millison’s. I remember putting it away when he left at half-term.’

  ‘You don’t lock the drawer?’

  ‘Certainly not. Why should I?’

  ‘Well, I suppose someone might have got hold of one. But this particular slip wasn’t out of Mr Millison’s book. Look. The last one, with the printers’ mark on it, is still there.’ He was examining the book as he spoke. ‘Only six slips have been torn out. Might this be Mr Millison’s second book? Might he have used one up entirely?’

  ‘It’s most improbable. He very rarely punished any boy in any way at all. I doubt if he issued three demerits in a term.’

  ‘I see. Well, it cuts down the possibilities, doesn’t it?’

  Mr Fairfax, who had been watching the possibilities cut down in front of his own horrified eyes, said, ‘There must be some other explanation. What about the printers? They’d have spare copies.’

  ‘We’ve checked their records. They all seem to be in order. So many books printed, so many issued, so many in stock. And anyway, aren’t you supposing something extraordinarily unlikely? That they kept back a whole book. Why? And someone tore out the last page in it, the only one with their mark on it, and left it at the scene of the crime. Again, why?’

  Mr Fairfax said, ‘I’m looking for explanations because the only alternative seems to me to be totally unbelievable. That one of my staff here tortured and murdered a boy.’

  ‘Three boys,’ said Manifold.

  There was a long silence.

  Mr Fairfax said, at last, ‘And it was to investigate this – this possibility – that you came here?’

  ‘Colonel Brabazon was able to arrange it.’

  ‘What I don’t understand is why you didn’t take me into your confidence at once.’

  ‘We couldn’t.’

  ‘I fail to see why not.’

  ‘Until we had made one or two enquiries we couldn’t be sure that it wasn’t you we were after.’

  Mr Fairfax’s face had gone dark red. It was more than a blush. It was a rush of blood to the head, an engorgement caused by uncontrollable emotion or shock. He seemed to be fighting for breath.

  Manifold said, speaking in the same level tones, ‘Of course, I was very pleased indeed when I found out that you couldn’t possibly have had anything to do with it. I was pretty sure of that as soon as I had met you and talked to you, but it’s a policeman’s unhappy duty to suspect everyone.’

  ‘How–’ croaked Mr Fairfax. He was loosening his collar as though to let out the words which were choked in his throat.

  ‘Lister was picked up around eight o’clock and was dead by a quarter past ten, thirty-five miles away from here. Unless you had suborned the entire fumigation department of the Chichester Borough Council it was quite clear that you, and they, were working here until well after nine o’clock that night. Incidentally, they told me that your gardener and his boy were giving a hand. So that was two more out of the way.’

  ‘And Sergeant Baker.’

  ‘And Sergeant Baker, of course.’

  Mr Fairfax seemed to be breathing more easily now. He said, ‘I take it that you didn’t overlook the possibility that Millison–’

  ‘We didn’t forget Mr Millison. He left here on the Thursday and went straight up to a youth hostel in the Lake District. The local police made some enquiries with the hostel-keeper. Mr Millison has been leading an exemplary life. He goes for long walks by day, including a little simple climbing and botanizing, comes home for a late tea, and is in bed every night by ten. Incidentally, the routine seems to be doing him good. In conversation with the hostel-keeper he has more than once expressed the view that he had made a serious mistake in running away from his job here. You might do worse than get in touch with him. I can give you his address.’

  ‘I might do that,’ said Mr Fairfax. But he spoke absently. He wasn’t thinking about Mr Millison. His mind was moving uneasily round the circumference of the narrowing circle. He said, ‘And is anyone else, as you put it, in the clear?’

  Manifold said, ‘The only one with any sort of alibi is Ware. He says he went straight down to Mr Merriam’s house in the village and spent the rest of the day doing a number of household jobs. So far as the afternoon is concerned, several people saw him up a ladder mending the gutter. And Mr Bishop, who lives next door, saw him mowing the lawn soon after tea. The later jobs were all indoors and for those we have only Miss Shaw – who could hardly be described as an independent witness. And Mr Merriam himself, who could quite easily have been fooled, since he can’t leave his chair.’

  ‘What about the others?’

  ‘None of the others has any sort of alibi at all.’

  ‘But – they all gave accounts of themselves–’

  ‘They gave accounts of themselves,’ agreed Manifold. ‘In one case the account is unconfirmed. In a second case it was deliberately misleading. In the third case it was a lie. To take Latrobe first. He told me he drove to Guildford and parked his car in one of the large free car-parks near the theatre. Then apparently he went round two or three hotels and asked for a room. He can’t remember which hotels he went to, and since it was Saturday night, and the first night of a very popular production at the Yvonne Arnaud Theatre, Guildford was full of young people who had been improvident enough not to book rooms and were trying to do so at the last moment. We’ve made enquiries at the likely hotels. One of them thinks they remember a young man who might have been Latrobe asking for a room. None of the others remember him at all. After that he went back to the theatre, was lucky enough to pick up a ticket, one that had been returned, had a bite to eat in the theatre restaurant, watched the play, and walked back after it to his car, and settled down to s
pend the night in it. He says he thinks there were other people doing the same thing, but he didn’t make any contact with them. As soon as it was light he drove to his parents’ home at Banstead and had breakfast. After that he’s accounted for the rest of the weekend.’

  ‘I don’t see anything suspicious in that,’ said Mr Fairfax.

  ‘I didn’t say that it was suspicious. I said that it was unconfirmed.’

  ‘In any event I should have thought that he was the last person in the world to hurt a boy.’

  ‘He takes a somewhat romantic view of them,’ said Manifold drily. ‘On the whole, I should have been inclined to agree with you, but for one point, which I’ll come to in a moment. Let me deal with the other two first. Mr Diplock, when I asked him how he had spent the weekend, said that he had stayed with his aunts in London. That is true. What he did not make clear, and it has taken a good deal of tactful enquiry to elicit it, is that he did not arrive home until two o’clock on Sunday morning. One of the neighbours says that she was woken up by his arrival in a taxi and the argument about the fare which followed.’

  ‘Has he offered any explanation?’

  ‘He hasn’t been asked for an explanation yet.’

  An expression which flashed across Mr Fairfax’s mind at this moment was one which he had often read in the papers. “Assisting the police in their enquiries.” He saw Mr Diplock, seated upright on a hard chair, fencing pedantically with the questions put to him by an irate Inspector.

  He said, ‘You mentioned a deliberately untrue statement.’

  ‘That was the Commander. I’m afraid his account of what he did that weekend was totally inaccurate. Enquiries have been made at the pub in the village where he says he spent Saturday night. In fact, that particular place stopped taking in residents almost a year ago. There are a couple of cottages in the village which offer bed and breakfast, but neither of them had a visitor that weekend.’

  ‘Why on earth should he lie about a matter like that?’

  ‘He’s an odd character,’ said Manifold. ‘Did you know that he was a night walker?’