Death at the Opera (28 page)

The Headmaster rubbed his chin.

“I don't agree with all these compulsory games and sports,” he said. “She ought to have some help, though. I'll see about it, I think. Now, look here, how would you like to start? I owe you something for finding such a—ahem!—convenient murderer for us.”

“I should like to sit in the staff-room, if I may, and make out a few headings and sub-headings,” said Mrs. Bradley. “It is very good of you.”

The Headmaster opened the door for her. The staff-room was deserted. Mrs. Bradley, consciously thankful that she had not to give out stock, examine health-certificates, make polite, insincere inquiries about the holidays, keep sports' accounts, answer questions, read and initial the Headmaster's beginning-of-term notices, collect subscriptions, inspect lockers, allot cloak-room pegs, supervise the writing of labels, grumble about unmarked shoes, tunics, school hats and caps, blazers and hockey sticks, settled herself with a sigh of relief in the most comfortable chair she could find, took out her notebook and pencil and wrote on a clean page:

Having made this neat list, she studied it with knitted brows. Then she pursed her lips into a little beak and recited solemnly:

At this moment Alceste came into the staff-room. She did not see Mrs Bradley at first. Here eyes were downcast and she walked slowly and heavily, as though she were labouring under the burden of years.

“Oh, I beg your pardon,” she said, when she noticed Mrs Bradley. “I didn't know anyone was in here.”

Mrs Bradley smiled.

“Are you busy, dear child?” she said. Alceste lifted her right shoulder, and her mouth twisted oddly.

“Not since last Saturday fortnight,” she said. Enlightenment came to Mrs. Bradley.

“Not—?” she said. Mrs. Boyle nodded.

“She died the day before you went to Bognor,” she said. “The funeral was last Saturday fortnight. Fred hasn't . . .” She fought with herself for a moment, and then continued steadily: “Fred hasn't been near me since. I can't . . . you know what it was like. We were . . . I mean . . .”

She floundered. Mrs. Bradley came to the rescue.

“The man thinks the conventions ought to be observed, child,” she said soothingly. “Men are queer people. Don't worry. Leave him alone for a bit.”

But to herself she said: “Ho, ho! What have we here?”

“By the way,” said Alceste, changing the subject, “I ought to let Mr. Cliffordson know that Moira Malley has not turned up this morning. I don't know whether he has received any message about her, but
I
haven't heard anything. I do hope the poor child isn't ill, because there's the Scholarship examination in about six weeks' time, and, according to her place in form last term, she isn't nearly ready for it.”

“Is Hurstwood back?” asked Mrs. Bradley.

“Hurstwood? Oh, yes; he's here. That boy ought to do well, but I wanted Moira to do well also. If I
have
a weak spot, it is for the girls,” confessed Alceste. “But I can't understand Moira. She was doing no work at all during the last part of the term. Just sat there staring into space. I used to get rather angry with her.”

“She found Miss Ferris's body,” Mrs. Bradley reminded her. Alceste nodded, and sat down.

“Oh, yes, I know. And I make all due allowance for shock and so on. But a girl of that age shouldn't brood like this. After all, she didn't actually see her dead. She only just touched her. I don't mean to be callous, but I do think she might have got over it a little sooner than she did. Of course I blame Donald for the girl's state of mind. It was very wrong of him. I don't think he'll ask one of the girls to sit to him again without mentioning it first to me!”

“I am glad you remonstrated with him,” said Mrs Bradley. “He and the girl would see the thing from two very different points of view.”

“I can't think why she ever thought of doing it, the little idiot!” said Alceste. “But I wish I knew why she hasn't come back to school. It's very foolish, but since Miss Ferris's death I'm nervous about unexplained absences. Ridiculous, isn't it?”

“Is it, child?” said Mrs Bradley. Without a pause she added abruptly: “What was the cause of Mrs Hampstead's death?”

“She fell into the ornamental lake and was drowned,” replied Alceste. “Didn't you see the announcement in the papers? She had been drinking again.”

“Curious,” said Mrs Bradley meditatively, but the word conveyed a different meaning from the one which Alceste attached to it.

“You mean it is curious that she should have been able to obtain the drink?” said Alceste, flushing.

“No, not that. The thing I find curious is this—epidemic of drowning,” replied Mrs Bradley quietly. “Yes, I mean it,” she added, without giving Alceste time to interpolate any remark whatever. “It is strange. First, Calma Ferris. Secondly, or rather, thirdly, that wretched girl at Lamkin, near Bognor. Thirdly, or rather secondly, Mrs Hampstead. It's a nightmare.” She had risen while she was speaking. Alceste rose too, and they confronted each other.

“What are you saying?” demanded Mrs Boyle hotly. “What
are
you saying? You don't mean . . . you can't believe . . .”

“I am remarking,” replied Mrs Bradley, her rich, deep, quiet tones in marked contrast to Alceste's stormy voice, “on certain curious facts which are not necessarily interdependent. Sit down, dear child. Let us discuss the matter quietly.” Suddenly Alceste began to laugh.

“I beg your pardon,” she said. “I—yes, do let's talk. Are you any nearer a solution of our mystery?”

Mrs. Bradley sighed.

“I have allowed Mr. Cliffordson to believe that I think a man named Helm drowned Miss Ferris,” she said. She told Mrs. Boyle the story of the infamous Cutler, ending with the attempt on the life of Noel Wells.

“It sounds only too likely that he killed Miss Ferris, then,” Alceste said.

“Unfortunately for the maintenance of any such convenient theory,” Mrs. Bradley pointed out, “it is not yet at all certain that Helm was within miles of the school that night. The only evidence that Helm knew Miss Ferris's school address rests on the word of a woman whom I believe to be thoroughly untruthful. In addition to that, no stranger was seen on or about the school premises on the night of the murder except a man—the electrician, you know—who cannot be proved to have been Helm. He may have been Helm—an unreasonable belief assails me that he
was
Helm—but it can't be proved.”

“How do you mean?” Alceste inquired.

“Well, I showed a recognizable newspaper photograph of Helm to the schoolkeeper and to Mr. Kemball, both of whom saw and spoke to the bogus electrician, and neither can identify the man in the photograph. As a matter of fact, I never really felt that Helm had murdered Miss Ferris. His speciality is murder in a bath-tub. He would have gone to Miss Ferris's lodging to murder her, or else he would have met her here and persuaded her to return with him.”

“Does Mr. Cliffordson believe that Helm killed Miss Ferris?” Alceste inquired.

“I don't know, child. He pretends to accept my suggestion that Helm was the murderer because he wants the inquiry dropped. I don't think he believes that Helm is guilty.”

Alceste looked uncomfortable.

“I suppose, then, that you know who did it, and that it was—one of us,” she said. Mrs. Bradley took out her notebook and showed Alceste the four names she had written down. The Senior English Mistress looked distressed.

“But surely—Moira Malley! She
couldn't
have done such a thing. You don't know the child as I do. It is quite,
quite
impossible to suspect her of an awful crime like
murder
!” she said. Mrs. Bradley nodded.

“I agree! I agree! But consider the facts: The girl had opportunity. She had motive—”

“Miss Ferris may have known about the sittings, you mean? She may have warned the girl she was going to report her. Oh, but that's nonsense. Moira knows Mr. Cliffordson well enough to realize that Donald would be blamed, not she.”

“Don't you see,” said Mrs. Bradley, “that that may have been the motive?”

Alceste went white.

“I hadn't thought of that,” she said. “These poor, idiotic children! There's that ridiculous boy Hurstwood making a fool of himself over Gretta Cliffordson, who isn't worth a second thought by anybody. I see you've got him down.”

“Motive and opportunity,” said Mrs. Bradley solemnly. “The same words, in all their sinister significance”—she cackled harshly—”apply equally in the case of the other suspects, Miss Camden and Mr. Smith.”

“Of course, Camden—I can imagine that,” said Alceste slowly. “Overworked, strung-up, extravagant with money and energy and bad temper—an explosive sort of person altogether. And Miss Ferris had certainly got the wrong side of her.”

“Yes,” said Mrs. Bradley, smoothing a crease out of the sleeve of her raspberry-coloured jumper. “And Mr. Smith is an artist, and therefore—according to the ideas of the ordinary citizen, who regards art as expensive, and not even as a luxury at that!—a person who does not hold human life sacred. I know, too, that Miss Ferris damaged the Psyche and generally behaved in a Philistine manner. But what of it?”

She turned upon Alceste Boyle and said firmly:

“When I went away from here last term I was convinced—absolutely convinced—that Miss Camden was the murderer of Miss Ferris. Then I found out about Moira Malley and the sittings, and I became uncertain. So I also reconsidered the case of the boy Hurstwood, and it seemed to me that there was more than a possibility that he was guilty. Mr Smith—I will be frank with you—I don't suspect at all the murder of Calma Ferris.”

She ran a pencil through his name in confirmation of what she was saying.

“But there's something wrong,” she said vigorously. “There's something behind all this which I don't yet understand. If it
was
one of these three, and I can prove it to my own satisfaction, the matter will rest there. I shall take it no further. But—” She pursed her thin lips into a little beak and shook her head.

“But I
can't
believe it was one of those three,” said Alceste. “At least—” she hesitated, and then added: “I believe any one of them could have committed the murder, but not for any of the given reasons.”

“My difficulty entirely,” confessed Mrs Bradley. “And yet,” she said, as though she were thinking aloud rather than addressing Mrs Boyle, “I don't know. What might appear to me, or to you, as a God-given and sufficient reason to eliminate a fellow-creature might seem airy, casual and of no importance to anyone else. On the other hand, you see, although it would not occur to me to murder anybody for the sake of gain, to a man like Helm it appears to be the obvious, natural thing to do. This motive business is very difficult. Nobody can say without fear of contradiction that any motive for murder is too trivial. My difficulty is that, if I read these three people aright, their spirits may have been willing, but I'm certain their wills would have been too weak, when it came to the point, to hold Calma Ferris's head down in that basin of water until she died. There is only one person who was behind the scenes that night who is capable of visualizing and performing such an action, and on that person I cannot pin the faintest shadow of a motive. Opportunity in plenty, but motive—none whatever!”

“And who is that?” inquired Alceste, interested but unbelieving.

“Suppose I said that it was the Headmaster?” replied Mrs. Bradley, with one of her unnerving hoots of laughter. Alceste laughed too.

“Simply and briefly, I shouldn't believe you,” she said. “If he committed the murder, why should he call you in to investigate the matter, when the coroner and his people had already most obligingly called it suicide? Besides, I thought he had no opportunity.”

“True, child, true,” said Mrs. Bradley, sighing. “The one thing above all others which is clear in my mind is that somebody very closely connected with the opera committed the murder. The time so carefully chosen, for instance, and—”

“The clay in the waste-pipe,” said Mrs. Boyle. “I have been puzzled over that. Who, besides Donald Smith, would have been thinking about clay from the art-room? Yes, you'd like to say Moira Malley—”

Mrs. Bradley shook her head.

“Moira Malley wasn't thinking about clay,” she said. “I'll tell you something else. I don't believe that child committed the murder, but I believe she suspects Mr. Smith, and that is what is upsetting her.”

“Who do you think tampered with the electric-light switch?” inquired Alceste.

“I believe it was Hurstwood. And I believe he did it because he suspects Miss Cliffordson. Aren't they funny children? I certainly think it was he who disconnected that switch. Incidentally, Miss Cliffordson thinks that the method employed—that basin full of water—was an easy way to kill anybody.”

Alceste shuddered.

“I don't,” she said. She shuddered again, and her lips twitched. Mrs. Bradley watched her closely for a moment, and then she said:

“Ah, well. It's all very interesting and mysterious. I don't know that I've ever had a similar case.”

“There is one comfort,” said Alceste slowly, after a pause, “no foul play can be suspected with regard to the death of Mrs. Hampstead. I can assure you that that was an accident. They didn't think the pond was deep enough to be dangerous, but she tripped and went on her head. It stunned her, and so she was drowned.”