A Question of Proof Read online

  ‘Look here. What do you think I am? A dictaphone?’

  ‘Not so accurate, unfortunately. But we’ll have to make the best of it.’

  It turned out to be a less superhuman task than Michael had feared. Stimulated by his friend’s skilful questioning, he reconstructed that ill-starred day piece by piece. The conversations at breakfast, during recess, after lunch on the field, and later, in the common room; the remarks of Sims and Wrench beside the haystack – practically nothing was missed, however irrelevant it seemed. From this, Nigel led him through the succeeding days; he seemed particularly interested in the atmosphere that had prevailed in the common room, and took the greatest pains to get clear the details of the scene between Gadsby and Wrench. When it was all finished, he leaned back for a moment with his eyes closed. Then, ‘Tiverton seems to have brains,’ he said, half to himself; ‘spotted the key point of the problem at once. That pencil of yours – I wonder.’ Then he opened his eyes; Michael was astonished to see something very like fear in them. ‘You know, I don’t like this at all. This murderer of yours is worse than clever; he’s – oh, well –’

  ‘Do you mean – you know who the murderer is?’ asked Michael, feeling a flutter of apprehension in his heart.

  ‘Yes,’ said Nigel gravely. ‘I think I know who the murderer is. But I doubt if I can ever prove it. A question of proof – that’s a good title á for a detective story, if you ever write one – and I’ve not got enough proof to fill an acorn. One wouldn’t mind so much if there wasn’t the danger that he –’ Nigel broke off and shook himself. ‘Your Mr. Gadsby seems an efficient broadcaster. Would you mind telling him – at once, and in strict confidence – that you are under the gravest suspicion of this crime.’

  ‘Gadsby is far from accustomed to being the recipient of my maiden confidences.’

  ‘Never mind. He’s not nearly critical enough to notice that. Run along, old boy, and pull your stuff. It will be safer for you to be published abroad as a prime suspect, just at present.’

  ‘ “Safer”?’

  ‘ “Safer” was the word.’

  It is five minutes to eight – five minutes before that rather grisly cold supper which is the sole social contact between the Rev. Mr. Vale and his staff. Michael has spilled the beans to Gadsby, who is even now distributing them (in the strictest confidence) to his colleagues. Michael hastens into the drawing room, hoping to have Hero alone for a few minutes before the others come in.

  She was there, waiting for him; her body, in its black dress, moved subtly as the wind; the incredible fairy gold of her hair glimmered through the twilight, and her living arms stretched out to him. The sun, hurrying to its rest, stood still while they kissed.

  ‘Hero, my sweet love. You are so beautiful. You are the spring of water and the blossom in the wilderness. My dear, I can’t live without you any longer.’

  She bent her head back from him, her body sweetly curving. The electric storms of love passed through them and they kissed again. Her mouth was lovely from his kiss; she gazed at him, her eyes bewildered with love. Then she caught her breath – a little sob like a wind dying among pine-tops, and her mouth drooped like a bough when the wind has died. ‘Oh, Michael, I can’t,’ she sighed. ‘I love you so much. I would give all my mind and body to save you from a minute’s pain or sadness. Yet I can’t. They’re not all mine to give. Michael, you must try to understand me. And don’t be angry with me now – afterwards, if you like; but not now. I think I should die if you were. Promise not to be angry with me.’

  ‘I promise.’ Michael heard his voice coming as it were from a great distance, a great height or depth of tenderness.

  ‘Michael, you are so good. Listen. These things that have happened have made me different. I love you infinitely more than I did before, but – I would have left Percy then with scarcely a thought, and now I cannot. Oh, my sweet, don’t look as if I’d hit you. I feel towards you now as I never felt before, and that’s why I have begun to feel the ties between myself and Percy too. You see – I just can’t help myself – a part of me is bound to him and I can’t get it away.’

  ‘You want me not to tell him, then?’

  ‘Not yet. While he’s in trouble I am not free – not all of me. And when I come to you, it must be for ever and it must be all of me.’

  There was a deep arid melancholy acquiescence in Michael’s words. ‘Yes, Hero, you are right. And will you ever be really free, now, all of you, till – he is dead?’

  ‘Oh, my heart’s darling, I don’t know – I don’t know.’ The wild despair of her voice made Michael forget his own pain. He was going to kiss her, for the last time perhaps, when they heard voices in the passage.

  ‘Hullo, superintendent, you still here? Hard at it? Nose down to the trail?’ came Gadsby’s hearty tones.

  ‘Poking about, sir, just poking about.’

  Mr. and Mrs. Vale, Nigel Strangeways and the staff are sitting round the supper table. Gadsby, on a glass of insipid Graves plus something a good deal more potent laid in beforehand, is fancying himself the life and soul of the party. Nigel glances at Hero and almost cries out in amazement. There is an unearthly brooding light in her face, an expression of final sorrow almost intolerable to behold. He looks towards Michael; his face, too, bears the same unutterable sadness; it seems cut from rock, Nigel thinks, a rock at the edge of the world with the sunlight of the world’s last evening dying upon it. His winged fancy was brought down stone dead by a particularly uproarious explosion of laughter from Gadsby, heralding the conclusion of one of his own jokes, ‘… and she said, “but that’s not my ticket – it’s my sister’s,” ha! ha! ha! It was her sister’s, you see.’ A faint echo of Gadsby’s hilarity went round the table. He showed his teeth all round, like a prima donna acknowledging an ovation; then, tuning his voice to a suitable minor key, remarked: ‘Well, headmaster, I suppose we shall have to give the parents’ match a miss this year – er – after what has happened.’ Vale took a sip of water – the gesture was a dignified rebuke in itself – before replying.

  ‘On the contrary, Mr. Gadsby. I have given the matter serious thought, and decided that it would not be in the interests of the school to forgo the fixture. Mrs. Vale entirely agrees with me, and since we were the nearest relatives of the unfortunate lad – in short, the match will take place on Tuesday, as originally arranged.’

  Sims rubbed his hands. ‘Good! Excellent! I’m sure you’re right, headmaster. It is such a popular event, both with the boys and their parents. It would be a thousand pities to miss it.’

  Mr. Vale inclined his head in gracious acceptance of his subordinate’s approval, took another sip of water, and gave a short, dry cough.

  ‘If you will be so good, Mr. Tiverton, as to supervise Strang’s men when they come to put up the marquee tomorrow. I have already informed the firm.’ Vale was one of those men who must always be standing over their work-people, either in person or by proxy. He proceeded on his stately way: ‘I have sent out invitations, and Major Fairweather has consented to select and lead the fathers’ team.’

  ‘What’s the idea of the marquee?’ came an audible whisper from Wrench.

  ‘Tea,’ said Michael.

  Mr. Vale fastened a frosty eye upon the interrupter. ‘Our own eleven is doubtless decided upon, Mr. Griffin?’

  ‘Yes,’ replied the gamesmaster, adding in a low, rumbling aside to Michael, ‘and if that old fool Fairweather potters about at the wicket for more than five minutes, I shall tell Stevens to adopt bodyline tactics.’

  X

  Annihilation of a Schoolmaster

  THE NEXT MORNING, Monday, at exactly seven-eighteen o’clock, Nigel Strangeways came wide awake, with the word ‘haystack’ on his tongue. He sat up in bed, under a mountain of blankets and eiderdowns, and reviewed the problem. Yes, his instinct had been right: the haystack was the nub and centre of the mystery. As Armstrong had said, it was too much of a coincidence altogether; either Michael and Hero had committed the murde
r, or the murder had been committed there to incriminate them; therefore, by elimination – He was pretty sure, too, of the murderer’s motive in seeking to incriminate them, and thence, by psychological elimination, of the murderer. But that seemed to be a dead stop. The motive he suspected would not impress the superintendent, and any able barrister could laugh it out of court in half a minute. Yet something must be done; one simply couldn’t have a murderer about the place; one had no particular liking for the legalised revenges of justice, it was simply that one preferred not to have a murderer walking around – so many temptations for the poor fellow. He might, of course, having erupted to his own satisfaction, become extinct; but volcanoes, fondly imagined to be extinct, have a nasty way of bursting out again, just when the local inhabitants have begun to feel thoroughly secure. No, proof one must have – visible, tangible, matter-of-fact proof; and that was the kind of proof which he despaired ever of getting. The haystack. Had he, so to speak, sucked it dry? If one can suck a straw, one could presumably, given time, suck a haystack. Leaving that academic point aside, however, had the haystack any more secrets to yield? All very well to say it was used to incriminate Hero and Michael. But surely a murderer of such unpleasant ability could have found safer means of incriminating them. After all, it was he who had to do the murder. Why choose such a public place? And when, when had he done it? There must be some logical connection between time and place. Nigel lit a cigarette and went over Michael’s account of the Sports Day, detail by detail. Suddenly he threw his head up, extinguished his cigarette disastrously upon the topmost eiderdown and exclaimed, ‘Good God! Yes. Yes. It must be. Well, I’ll be damned!’

  After breakfast Nigel set himself to clearing the ground. There were a number of loose ends still lying about, and he felt that no advance could be made till they were out of the way. He went first to Mrs. Vale.

  ‘Things are beginning to move,’ he said, in answer to her unspoken question. ‘I just want three things – a request and two questions. The request is this: will you tell anyone who happens to ask you that Michael is under strong police suspicion.’

  ‘But surely he isn’t still, is he?’

  ‘Yes. I’m sorry. So are you. But it shouldn’t last much longer. Were any of the staff intimate with Urquhart?’

  ‘They all knew him – Tiverton best, I think. But he made a habit of inviting each master to dinner at least once a year.’

  ‘What about Wrench?’

  ‘He had dinner with James last month. James used to invite new masters their first term.’

  ‘Third, can you tell me what your husband was doing all the time he said he was changing?’

  Hero gave him a quizzical look, and seemed to be debating in her mind. ‘Is it absolutely necessary for you to know? Percy’ll probably divorce me if I tell you.’

  ‘I do want to know very much. As long as he wasn’t committing murder or anything, I’ll see it’s not made public.’

  ‘Very well, then, he was changing.’

  ‘What? What? ’ stuttered Nigel, quite flabbergasted.

  ‘Changing. Trying on different suits and things, and studying the effect in the glass. The parents were coming, you see. He doesn’t know I know it, of course, but, well, I suppose every one has to have a vice, and vanity is Percy’s.’

  Nigel thanked her and walked away, meditating the curiosities of human nature, particularly as exhibited by the Rev. Percival Vale. He routed out Stevens II and gave him certain instructions. His next port of call was Griffin. He asked him to come out in the field, and there they reconstructed Griffin’s movements between one-forty-five and two-thirty on the day of the crime. They were in the middle of this when the gamesmaster suddenly bellowed out, ‘Hi, what the dickens are you doing over there, Stevens? Don’t you know you’re not allowed out now?’ He was beginning to make tracks towards the offender, when Nigel laid a restraining hand upon him.

  ‘It’s all right. I told him to. I wanted to see if the murderer could have got to the haystack without attracting your attention. If Stevens couldn’t do it, I bet the murderer couldn’t.’

  As they re-entered the buildings a small and dirty hand tugged at Nigel’s sleeve. It was Ponsonby. The boy drew him aside and muttered darkly:

  ‘Promise you won’t tell anyone, not even the dictator.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well, he knows who the murderer is – at least, he said he did, but he won’t tell even me. S’pose he thinks he can track him down by himself.’ The mutinous lieutenant took himself off, not without several sinister glances over his shoulder at Nigel.

  There was probably nothing in it, Nigel reflected; one couldn’t hope for all that luck, but stones, however small, cannot be left unturned by the detective, so he went after Stevens again. A certain amount of tact had to be employed in order not to betray Ponsonby, but the information was obtained without much difficulty. Stevens II had not wanted to sneak on what the superintendent had called a ‘playmate,’ even to his friend, the great detective. ‘But,’ he said, ‘I’ve got my suspicions about that oaf, Smithers. You see, at breakfast that day, apparently Wemyss had been ragging him. Every one does, of course. Anyway, I heard Smithers say to him in recess, “I’ll kill you.” He looked jolly bloodthirsty too, sir. And he’s been awfully funny lately – since the murder, I mean. I suppose I ought to have told you before, but it didn’t seem fair, somehow, though Smithers is such an oick.’

  Nigel reassured him and made a mental note to interview the underbred Smithers in recess. The bell for first period now rang. Nigel strolled into the common room, where Tiverton was sitting with a pile of exercise books before him. He had this hour off. ‘I hope I’m not interrupting,’ said Nigel.

  ‘Not a bit. I can do this any time. I say, is it true that the police suspect Evans still?’

  ‘I’m afraid so. In fact, he’s in a very awkward position. That pencil, you know –’ Nigel added.

  ‘But I thought that was disposed of. He told us he’d lost it during the hay battle.’

  ‘Yes. But the superintendent seems to have got an idea that he had it the next day – the day of the murder.’

  ‘Well, I must admit I thought myself I’d seen him using it that morning. I say, good Lord, I hope I haven’t been making things difficult for him. No, it couldn’t be. There were only Griffin and Evans himself in the room then.’

  Nigel gave him an inquiring look.

  ‘When I happened to mention that I thought I’d seen him using the pencil on the day after the hay battle,’ explained Tiverton.

  There was a little desultory conversation, then Nigel strolled out and made for the telephone in the private side of the house. He rang up the Staverton police station.

  ‘Is that Superintendent Armstrong… Oh, right, I’ll hold the line… Morning, Armstrong – this is Strangeways. Sorry to bother you. Would you mind telling me again about Evans’ pencil that you found in the hay stack? His fingerprints only? Mm. On the ground, you said, didn’t you? Said he must have dropped it during the hay battle? Well, why not? … Yes, exactly, no proof to the contrary? … Very awkward for you, as you say. I take it no one but the police and his friends know about it? … By the way, are you coming up today? … This afternoon? Good. Yes, I may have something for you. Oh, I forgot to tell you – I know who the murderer is. Au revoir, then.’

  Nigel rang off, leaving the superintendent dancing with rage and baffled curiosity at the other end of the telephone. Sims’ classroom, as Nigel entered it, presented an unusually orderly aspect; it may be that the repercussions of the headmaster’s last visit had not yet died away, or perhaps Nigel’s tacit disapproval of their treatment of the little man had percolated through Stevens II and Ponsonby to the rest. These two young gentlemen were sitting, for them, quite still, and when the form rose to their feet at Nigel’s entry, they returned their fellow conspirator’s glance with an expression so excessively wooden as to have aroused the deepest suspicions in any unbiased observer. Nigel advanced to the
master’s desk, peered vaguely at the books lying upon it. Sims made a fidgeting gesture towards the books. Nigel asked if he could have a word with Sims outside. The door was, fortunately, fairly thick, so neither of them heard a hissing stage-whisper from Ponsonby, ‘I say, he’s going to arrest old Simmie,’ and another from Stevens II, ‘Go down the next street! He hadn’t got any handcuffs – they’d bulge in his pocket.’

  ‘Terribly sorry to interrupt you like this, but it’s rather urgent. The police, perhaps you’ve heard, have got some ridiculous idea that Evans is mixed up with this murder. We’ve got to clear him soon or they may take action. That pencil of his is the difficulty, of course.’

  Sims looked puzzled. ‘Pencil?’

  ‘Oh, yes; didn’t you know? They found his silver pencil in the hay stack. Actually he dropped it there ragging about on the day before, but he can’t prove that, you see. I suppose you didn’t notice whether he had it on the morning of the murder, did you?’

  ‘No. I couldn’t be sure – that is. I didn’t see him using it, as far as I remember. But I’m afraid that’s not much use.’

  ‘Well, it can’t be helped. Thanks.’

  Nigel wandered off again and read the papers in the common room. The Sudeley Hall murder occupied no space in them now; for two or three days their editors had announced that the police were making progress and shown the conventional optimism about an imminent arrest; the adjourned inquest had been reported, and there had been accounts in one or two papers of the boy’s funeral, pulsating with that ghoulish sentimentality for which editors have coined the phrase ‘human interest’. Even the echoes of the belabouring of that very dead donkey – police inefficiency – had died away. And what, after all, reflected Nigel, could Armstrong do? Police investigation lives by facts alone, and quite right too; facts are sometimes misleading, but at least they are safer than amateur psychological theorising or confessions induced by rubber truncheons and dentists’ drills. The superintendent had interviewed everyone who could possibly be concerned, and he was clever enough to deal with any ordinary murder. But this was no ordinary murder; which accounted, amongst other things, for the dearth of facts, of material clues.