Was It Murder? (7 page)

The man nodded deferentially, noticing the Old Oakingtonian tie.

“Yes, sir, and not a pleasant thing to ‘ave to clear up, neither.” How eager they all were, Revell thought, to discuss the little tit-bit of tragedy that had fallen into their midst!  He offered the man a cigarette, which he took with a half-knowing salute.  Another of them wanting to be told all about it, Revell fancied him thinking.  “Yes, sir, I reckon I don’t want to see a thing like that again.  Fell right off from the top, and you’d think so, too, if you’d seen what
I
saw.  Terrible thing, ain’t it?  An’ ‘appenin’ just now—right in front of Speech Day.  Of course there ain’t goin’ to be no swimmin’ gala—natchrally THAT’S been put off.”

Revell inclined his head in melancholy agreement.  “I suppose the poor chap must have taken a plunge in the dark?” he hazarded.

“Looks like it,” replied the other.  “The fuses was all gorn. . . .

I daresay you ‘eard about ‘is poor brother larst Autumn Term, sir?”

The man’s eyes quickened with ghoulish pride.

“Yes, I read about it.  By the way, what are you going to do when the cleaning’s finished?  Fill the bath up again?”

“Yes, sir.  Though I don’t suppose there’ll be any swimmin’ till next week.  You don’t ‘ardly feel you’d like to go in it now, some’ow, do you, sir?”

Revell expressed a limited sympathy with this extreme of delicacy and then, with a farewell nod to the man, walked back towards the entrance.  The same trick as before, he reflected ruefully—all traces obliterated, and in quite the most natural manner, too.  He flung down the stump of his cigarette and ground it under his heel.  Really, if there were anything in Lambourne’s theory, it had all been managed with devilish ingenuity.

As he descended the outside steps of the swimming-bath a small female figure on a bicycle suddenly dismounted in front of him and greeted him with a bright smile.  “Hullo, Mr. Revell—how are you?  I didn’t know you were up here.”

The encounter relieved him momentarily of his load of doubts and apprehensions.  “Hullo, Mrs. Ellington—delighted to meet you again.  Yes, I thought I’d come up for Speech Day.  Not going to be such a joyous festival, though, is it?”

“It’s just frightful,” she answered, her dark eyes clouding over instantly.  “Have you been brave enough to look where it happened? 
I
haven’t.  It was a terrible sight for poor Wilson, I’m afraid.  And, you know, I feel particularly awful about it myself, because— in a sort of way—I was responsible.  I know it’s foolish of me to think so, but really I can’t help it.”

“But how on earth—“

“You see, Mr. Revell, it was
I
who suggested having the bath cleaned.  It wasn’t very dirty, but I happened to be looking in on Monday afternoon in connexion with the seating arrangements for the gala display, and it just occurred to me that the bath might be a little bit cleaner.  So I mentioned it to my husband, and he mentioned it to the Head, and the order was given to Wilson almost immediately.  And but for that . . .”  She shuddered and stared miserably at the handle-bars of her bicycle.

“But really, Mrs. Ellington, I don’t think you can possibly feel responsible—there was no real negligence on your part or anything like that.  The whole affair was just a most frightful accident—“ He said it before he realised what he was saying.

“Oh yes, I know, but that doesn’t stop me from feeling how I do about it. . . .  Will you come along to tea, by the way?  I’m just putting my bicycle in the shed before I go in.  I’m sure my husband will like to see you again.”

Revell accepted the invitation and, taking her machine away from her, wheeled it to its allotted space in the covered bicycle-stand.  It would not be a bad idea to meet Ellington, he reflected, and to observe him from the standpoint of one who already suspected him of being a double murderer.  Apart from which, Mrs. Ellington’s company was itself sufficient to make the suggestion attractive.

Ellington was not in when they reached the house, so they prepared the tea themselves, chatting pleasantly meanwhile.  She was, he decided once again, a charming little creature—full of elf-like vivacity and so childishly frank as well.  “You know,” she said, “we come into an awful lot of money through that poor boy being killed.  It sounds terrible to be thinking of it even before he’s buried, but it’s hard not to.  Tom’s his nearest relative, you see— there was simply nobody else to leave it to.  We shall be quite rich.”

Revell assumed polite surprise.  “Will you leave Oakington, do you think?”

“Oh, I do hope so.  The life of a schoolmaster’s wife isn’t all fun.  Have you seen that play Young Woodley, by the way, that’s on in town?”

“Yes, several times.  I liked it immensely.”

“Oh, so did I.  And I do sympathise so much with the schoolmaster’s

wife—not so much in connexion with the boy—but just generally.  I

mean—oh, I don’t know quite how to express it in a way that you

won’t misunderstand, but—“

And as if to illustrate the inexpressible, Ellington himself came in at that moment in an obvious bad temper.  Really, thought Revell, for a man who, whether by accident or design, was about to inherit a hundred thousand pounds, he was remarkably peeved.  He shook hands perfunctorily with Revell, planked himself down in the most comfortable chair, and told his wife, when she handed him a cup of tea, that it was disgustingly weak.  A boor as well as a bore, Revell reflected.  A few mouthfuls of buttered tea-cake made the man more talkative, but only to air his grumbles.  “Speech Day to-morrow, by Gad!” he muttered.  “And the Lord knows what’s going to happen—everything either altered or cancelled—no definite plans—no method—and in the meantime the whole discipline of the School going absolutely to pot!”  He gulped down a half-cupful of tea.  “Boys seem to think that because a fatal accident’s happened they can all run riot.  I had to thrash several of them to-day for being late, and the excuse they gave me, if you please, was that they’d been in the swimming-bath talking to Wilson!”

“Don’t you think it’s rather excusable?” Mrs. Ellington queried, with an inflection in her voice that Revell thought was slightly acid.

“No, I do not.”

Revell interposed tactfully.  “I certainly agree,” he said, addressing Ellington, “that there’s been far too much sightseeing in the swimming-bath.  In my opinion the place ought to have been locked up immediately after the accident, and no one ought to have gone near it without special permission.  What possibility is there of reconstructing how the accident happened when everybody’s been allowed to treat the place like a side-show on a fair-ground?”

Ellington faced him truculently.  “RECONSTRUCTING, eh?  What d’you mean?  Isn’t Murchiston’s opinion good enough?  And the Head’s too?  Don’t see what need there’ll be of any reconstructing, as you call it.  Still, you’re right about the sightseeing—there HAS been too much of it.  And there’s been too much of other things, too.  Chattering and gossiping and idle tittle-tattle—the whole School’s full of it.  I quite expect to have to discuss nothing else from morning till night to-morrow.”

“I can quite understand that you must feel heartily sick of it all.”

Ellington grunted.  “I can’t even cycle into the village without a dozen people stopping me to ask questions.  Stupid scandal-mongering, that’s all it is.”

There was nothing much to be got out of him save repeated grumbles on similar lines, so Revell took an early leave, pitying Mrs.  Ellington for having to face the rest of the wrathful outpouring alone.  “You must come and see us again before you go,” she said, walking with him to the top of the outside steps.  And there was (or perhaps he merely imagined it) something in the tone of her voice that added an unspoken—“PLEASE come again.”

Dr. Roseveare was most charming at dinner.  Though his face still bore traces of the strain he was undergoing, he yet managed, with the true courtesy of a host, to entertain his guest without apparent signs of preoccupation.  Revell would have been willing enough to discuss the swimming-bath affair, but he found the other’s opinions concerning Oriental china almost equally revealing, at any rate as a proof of his extraordinary self-control.  Yet this was the man, who, nine months before, had been suffering from nerves!

Not till the close of the meal did the conversation approach the narrowed confines of Oakington, and then Revell, seizing the opportunity, asked if he might visit the swimming-bath on his own.

Roseveare seemed more interested in the request than surprised by it.  “Why, yes, of course, if you wish.  But I should have thought you would have been there already.”

“Oh, I have.  But I’d rather like to have a few moments there by myself—and at night.”

“Very well—I will lend you my key.  I am afraid, though, that you will find very little of interest.”

“Still, I’d like a look around.  And there’s just one other thing, too—I’m sorry to have to bother you about it, but I’m relying on your offer to help me, you know—could I be permitted to see the— er—the body?”

Roseveare smiled rather sadly.  “You think it necessary for your— investigations, eh?  Well, I won’t refuse you, or perhaps you WOULD think I was trying to hamper your efforts.  But of course you quite understand that nothing must be disturbed in any way.  Subject to that condition, I can certainly comply.  In fact, I’ll take you now— it is almost dark and we shall attract less attention than in the daytime.”

At about half-past ten, therefore, on the eve of Oakington Jubilee Speech Day, Revell and Dr. Roseveare made their rather gruesome pilgrimage to the School gymnasium that had been temporarily turned into a mortuary; the doctor unlocked the door and, in the dim illumination of a rather distant electric light, Revell pulled back the linen sheet and looked upon what was left of Wilbraham Marshall, sometime head prefect of Oakington School.  A glance was sufficient—or rather, perhaps, many additional glances would have been no more helpful.  The doctor did not look at all.

“And now,” said Revell, as they left the gymnasium and relocked it, “I needn’t trouble you any further if you will just lend me the swimming-bath key.”

Roseveare detached it from his bundle and pressed it into Revell’s hand with an almost fatherly gesture.  “Yes, I think I’ll leave you to it—I have a number of urgent matters to attend to to-night.  You’ll help yourself to my whisky if you’re back after I’ve gone to bed, won’t you? . . .  That’s right.  Good night.”

Revell unlocked the door of the swimming-bath and walked up the entire length of the building as far as the diving-board and platforms.  Then he walked back again.  That was all.  He had seen what he wanted to see, and was rather proud, indeed, of having expected to see it.  And also, too, he had heard what he wanted to hear.

CHAPTER IV

A SPEECH DAY AND AN INQUEST

It was surely the most remarkable Speech Day Oakington could ever have experienced.  Had the tragedy happened a little earlier, it might have been possible to postpone the Jubilee celebrations, but with less than forty-eight hours’ notice, the major proceedings had to remain as planned.  Details, of course, were judiciously altered— and yet perhaps not too judiciously, for a little of even manufactured gaiety would have helped to mitigate the sombre melancholy of the affair.

Revell, as a slightly quizzical spectator, watched the curious scene from hour to hour.  He saw the reception at the main entrance in the morning—saw Dr. Roseveare, with a mechanical smile and a few mechanical words of welcome, shaking hands mechanically with each one of several hundred guests; he attended the chapel service and listened to an appallingly dull sermon by an Old Oakingtonian whom years and ambitious mediocrity had combined to make a colonial bishop; he sat in one of the rearmost rows in the Hall during the afternoon and heard the lugubrious chanting of the School Song.  The guest of honour was Sir Giles Mandrake, a millionaire shipowner; his wife presented the prizes.  Roseveare sat conveniently at Lady Mandrake’s elbow, ready to give her tactful assistance in any little difficulty that might arise.  His massive head (“leonine” was the obvious word), with its crown of silver hair, seemed in a strange way to dominate everything and everybody.  A truly remarkable man, as Revell had realised, though never so completely as now.  For after the tedious, halting, nerve-racking speech by Sir Giles, Roseveare’s cool, exquisitely-chosen words were like healing ointment on a raw wound.  He spoke gently of the School’s past, wisely of its present, and hopefully of its future.  In a single guarded sentence he referred to “events during the past year which we must all deplore and which I, personally, regret more than I can ever say”—but that was all.  He made a few half-wistful, half-jesting comments on the School’s sporting achievements.  He complimented his staff and thanked them for their loyalty.  He mentioned one or two scholastic successes.  He made, in short, the perfect speech for the somewhat difficult occasion.

In place of the swimming display there was a rapidly improvised concert of appalling badness.  Then came a garden-party tea on the quadrangle, during which Revell chatted to several Old Oakingtonians whom he knew and who had brought their families with them.  They were all, of course, agog with excitement about the Marshall affair, and the known fact that the body lay in the locked gymnasium awaiting the inquest on the morrow gave them a particular thrill.  “Too bad—to have happened just now,” was a frequent comment, but Revell imagined that in many cases a more truthful one would have been—“Too good—to be able to get a genuine Edgar Wallace thrill out of a Speech Day.”  For already the place was alive with the wildest and most sinister rumours.

But by seven at night almost the last of the visitors had departed.  Many of the boys whose homes were within moderate distance had gone back with their parents for the traditional week-end holiday; the school servants were busily clearing away the tea-party litter from the quadrangle; and the whole school, after the turmoil, seemed lonely and forlorn.

Revell, from sympathy with the Head after the strain of such a day, would not have mentioned the Marshall affair on his own account.  He could hardly avoid doing so, however, when Roseveare calmly asked him what train he intended catching the next day.  The question was put so artlessly and with such apparent casualness that Revell was for the moment taken aback.  Roseveare seemed to notice this, for he added:  “Please don’t think I particularly want you to go—I only imagined you might have other affairs to attend to, now that Speech Day is over.  There is the inquest to-morrow morning, which you might care to attend, but no doubt it will be over by lunch-time.”