Death at the Opera (15 page)

“H'm!” said Mrs. Bradley. She looked at the boy curiously, and an idea came, quite unbidden, into her mind. Mrs. Bradley distrusted sudden flights of fancy, and, to do her extremely well-disciplined mind full justice, she was very seldom afflicted by them. She tried to dismiss this one, but it persisted. She said to Hurstwood suddenly:

“I wonder whether anyone at school could put my portable wireless set right? I suppose anyone with an elementary knowledge of electric lighting could do it, couldn't he?”

There was a long pause. Then Hurstwood said awkwardly:

“I daresay several of the Lower Fifth Scientific could manage it. They've done a lot of work on electricity this term.”

“Oh, yes. Thank you, child. The Lower Fifth Scientific.” She began to walk along the cinder-track. It skirted the netball court and then wound serpent-wise round the school field. Its surface was trodden flat and hard, for it formed the school promenade except at the end of the spring term, when it was forked over by the groundsmen in preparation for Sports Day.

“I say, Mrs. Bradley,” said Hurstwood, when they had almost circumnavigated the field, “are the police going to be brought into this?”

Mrs. Bradley did not attempt to pretend that she did not understand him. She pursed her thin lips into a little beak and replied:

“Not at present, certainly. But at any moment, possibly. Again, possibly not. It depends partly on what we discover.”

“Suppose,” said Hurstwood, pursuing a train of thought which had been in his mind for some days, “a person is wrongly accused of murder?”

“Yes?” said Mrs. Bradley encouragingly.

“What chance does he stand of getting—of being acquitted?”

“Every chance in the world,” said Mrs. Bradley confidently. “But why these morbid theses, child?”

“Oh, I don't know. My father wants me to be a barrister,” said Hurstwood.

“Does he? And what is your own choice of a career?” asked Mrs. Bradley.

“Oh, I shouldn't mind. Young Lestrange says his uncle has got more murderers off than any other defending counsel in England.”

“Yes. A depraved nature, Ferdinand's,” said Mrs. Bradley. “Ferdinand Lestrange is my son by my first husband,” she explained in response to the boy's glance of inquiry.

“Oh, really? How topping,” said Hurstwood, conventionally. “Then young Lestrange is your nephew?” he added, with considerably more interest.

“He is. Younger than you, of course?”

“Yes, a good bit, I think. He's sixteen, isn't he? I'm eighteen in April. Only just within the age-limit for the schol., in fact.”

“The Balliol scholarship? What chance do you think you stand?”

“Pretty good, I believe,” replied the boy. “But this death business has put me off, I think.”

“These
contretemps
are bound to have some immediate effect on a sensitive nature,” said Mrs. Bradley. Hurstwood grinned and invited her to refrain from pulling his leg. Having walked round the field three times in all, they returned to the building, where the bell had just been rung for lunch. Miss Camden blew her whistle to indicate that netball practice was at an end, and she, Hurstwood and Mrs. Bradley walked into the hall together.

“I'm not on duty for lunch,” said Miss Camden, “so if you wanted to talk, I could finish quickly and meet you in the needlework-room in a quarter of an hour from now.”

IV

The Physical Training Mistress had changed into blouse and skirt, with her blazer taking the place of the other mistresses' cardigans, when Mrs. Bradley next saw her. They closed the door of the needlework-room and sat among sewing-machines and trestle-tables, confronted by diagrams, pinned-up paper patterns, examples of the various kinds of stitchery, and all the paraphernalia of school needlework.

“Very practical,” said Mrs. Bradley, looking about her with great interest. Miss Camden, who did not know a piece of whipping from a run-and-fell seam, cautiously agreed.

“But there isn't a lot of time,” she added, looking at her wrist-watch and comparing it with the clock on the west wall of the room. “What do you want with me?”

“I want to know whether you know who murdered Calma Ferris,” said Mrs. Bradley, with such implicit directness that Miss Camden gasped and then flushed brick-red.

“I!” she said. “Oh, no, of course I don't! Whatever made you ask?”

“You agree, then, that she
was
murdered?” asked Mrs. Bradley, a little more mildly.

“Yes, I do.”

“Why do you agree, dear child?”

Miss Camden considered the question, and then answered slowly:

“Well,
you're
here. That proves it. Besides, she wasn't one to commit suicide.”

“Can we say that confidently about any person on this earth?” Mrs. Bradley inquired.

“Perhaps not. You know I had a row with her just before—just before the opera?” said Miss Camden, taking the plunge.

“I had heard some rumour of it. About a netball match, wasn't it?” said Mrs. Bradley. “You're the second person I've spoken to who was not behind the scenes at all during the performance, I think,” she added with seeming irrelevance.

“Who is the other?” asked Miss Camden, amused.

“Mr. Hampstead. Miss Ferris was killed at some point during the First Act of
The Mikado
, and he was conducting the orchestra.”

“And I was in the audience, as you indicated just now. Oh, I say!”—she appeared startled, as though the thought had presented itself to her for the first time—“what a jolly good thing I didn't accept Mrs. Boyle's invitation! It was fairly pressing, too!”

“Mrs. Boyle's invitation?” echoed Mrs. Bradley. “Explain, child.”

“Well, when Miss Ferris couldn't be found, Mrs. Boyle came out into the auditorium, found me, and asked me to take part. I refused, so she took it herself.”

“You didn't feel equal to taking the part at a moment's notice?” asked Mrs. Bradley. Miss Camden blinked more rapidly than ever.

“It wasn't that,” she said. “The fact was—although it sounds a bit mean, perhaps—I didn't see why I should get them out of a difficulty. I had been turned down absolutely to give Miss Ferris the part, and—well, I didn't bear the slightest ill will, but I didn't see, either, why they should expect to come wailing to me to carry on when they'd got themselves into a mess. Don't you agree?”

“Within limits, yes,” said Mrs. Bradley, trying to remain strictly truthful, without this having the effect of drying up the flood of Miss Camden's remarks. It appeared that she was successful, for the Physical Training Mistress went on, with scarcely a pause:

“Of course, I will say for Mrs. Boyle that I couldn't have done the part any better myself. She was frightfully good. I
believe
my singing might have improved matters a trifle, but then I've been trained, you see, and she hasn't. Before I took up teaching my idea was to go on the operatic stage, but dad wouldn't hear of it. He's a clergyman, you know, and he had a fit when he heard that his only daughter wanted to be an actress. I tried to show him what I could do by staging
Carmen
in the Village Hall one Christmas, and taking the name-part myself; but”—she laughed, a hard, grating sound—“it just finished him off entirely. So here I am—always in hot water with the Head, who doesn't care for jerks and games, and always disapproved of at home. I've got a brother, but he's in Holy Orders, chaplain to a bishop and marked for high preferment, and the apple of my parents' eyes.”

“Poor girl! Poor child!” said Mrs. Bradley, with genuine sorrow in her beautiful voice. The young mistress looked startled.

“Heaven knows why I've been telling you all this,” she said blankly. “You'd better forget it, please. What's the time? I've got a hockey practice at twenty past one.”

It was not quite five minutes past one, but Mrs. Bradley did not attempt to detain her as she rose and walked towards the door. When she reached it, however, Mrs. Bradley said suddenly:

“But, child, if the work here is so hard and the Headmaster so unsympathetic, what makes you stay?”

Miss Camden turned, her hand on the door-knob, and swallowed twice.

“I couldn't get a testimonial at present,” she said. “That's why.”

“How long have you been here?” asked Mrs. Bradley.

“Five years. It's my first job,” the girl answered.

“Come here,” said Mrs. Bradley. Miss Camden obeyed. “Explain,” said Mrs. Bradley. Miss Camden shook her head.

“You'd better ask the Old Man if you really want to know,” she said. “But it's got nothing at all to do with this murder, I assure you.”

There was no pretext upon which Mrs. Bradley felt she could detain her further, so she let her get to the door and outside it this time. Then she drew her chair to the nearest trestle-table, sought for her notebook and pencil, and for the next ten minutes she was writing as fast as she could. There was nothing more to be done until afternoon school began, so, putting away notebook and pencil, she went up to the women's common-room for her coat and gloves, and then sallied out to watch the hockey practice. In a far corner of the school field half a dozen biggish boys were kicking a football about, but Hurstwood was not among them.

She watched the hockey practice for about a quarter of an hour. One side were wearing red girdles, the others green. Mrs. Bradley noticed, among the red-girdled players, Moira Malley. She was a dashing player, displaying more energy than science, and for the time being she seemed to have forgotten cares and fears both, Mrs. Bradley was pleased to notice, in vigorous enjoyment of the game.

Miss Camden, too, was a different being once more. She was combining the arduous and exacting duties of referee and centre-half (on the side of the Greens), and careered down the field in the teeth of the advancing forwards, swept the ball out with magnificent long strokes to her outside left and outside right alternately, controlled the game with her screeching whistle, which, most dangerously to herself, she held gripped between her teeth the whole time, and inspired her team with her magnificent play into scoring three goals in swift succession.

CHAPTER VII

“T
HE
plot,” said Mrs. Bradley, “indubitably thickens.”

The Headmaster, seated behind his massive desk, nodded and looked interested.

“You think you are narrowing the thing down?” he asked.

Mrs. Bradley cackled.

“Up to the present,” she said, “I have discovered at least four persons who are temperamentally capable of the murder, and all but one had both motive and opportunity for committing it. That one had the motive, but, so far as I can discover, not the opportunity. However . . .” —she chuckled ghoulishly— “many a good
alibi
has ended in smoke, so we must wait and see. Besides, I haven't quite finished. I have to interview . . .”—she brought out her copy of the programme of the opera once more—”Miss Freely, Mr. Poole, Mr. Kemball, Mr. Browning, the person who made up the players, the electrician, and the school caretaker.”

“You'd better leave the last-named to his well-earned afternoon rest,” the Headmaster remarked dryly. “He's a good chap, but his afternoon rest is sacred. Do you want to interview the others in here with me?”

“Without you, if you have no objection,” said Mrs. Bradley. “I felt that you were an obstacle to the search for truth this morning.”

The Headmaster shrugged, and smiled. “One of the penalties of a job like mine is that nobody on the staff feels really at ease in one's presence. It can't be helped. I appreciate that you'll get on better without me. How's Hurstwood?”

“Better,” said Mrs. Bradley.

“Good. Push that button for my secretary. She'll get anybody you want. If you should want me, I shall be”—he consulted the time-table—”in Room B. Good-bye for the present, then.”

Mrs. Bradley pressed the buzzer and sent for Mr. Poole. That cheerful man smiled at her and asked her jokingly whether she had the handcuffs ready.

“Be serious, child,” said Mrs. Bradley, “and answer my questions. First, did you murder Calma Ferris?”

“No,” said Poole, serious at once. “Has anybody said I did?”

“No, child. Secondly, do you know anything which might indicate the manner in which she met her death?”

“Why, she was drowned, wasn't she?” asked Poole.

“Thirdly, what did you do before your first entrance on to the stage?”

“Do? Let's see. Except for Miss Ferris and Smith, I was the last of the principals to be made up, and the curtain was rung up while the little dame who did the making up was still busy on my face. Marvellous woman! Wish she'd take a part. I'd like to see her as ‘Volumnia.' Grand!”

“Wait a moment,” said Mrs. Bradley. “How long did it take her, do you think, to make up each principal?”

“Varied a bit,” replied Poole. “The longest were the last two, ‘Katisha' and the ‘Mikado,' I should say, but as she had nearly the whole of the First Act in which to do them— Oh, but ‘Katisha'
was
made up. Oh,
I
dunno! Sorry!”

Mrs. Bradley pressed the buzzer.

“I wonder if you have the address of the ex-actress who made up the faces of the performers on the night of the opera?” she said, winningly, to the Headmaster's secretary. The secretary disappeared, and returned almost immediately with a visiting card which bore the legend: “Madame V. Berotti, 16, Coules Road, Hillmaston.”