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  ‘Go and say it somewhere else,’ retorted Laura. She turned and began to put her books into her desk. She had behaved with impropriety, she knew; if she had not known, stifled giggles and whispers from the cupboard would have told her. ‘I shall never make a teacher,’ she told Mrs Bradley that evening in the Stone House, to which she had driven as soon as school was over. Mrs Bradley, however, was well satisfied. Laura had established one important point and had made a valuable contact. It seemed almost certain that Miss Faintley’s correspondent on the telephone had been a member of the school staff, and Laura was already in a position to test for herself, in circumstances which could scarcely arouse suspicion, the relationship, if there was one, between the school parcels and those of less orthodox character which Miss Faintley had collected from Hagford Junction.

  Mrs Bradley did not agree with Laura that anything would have been gained if the schoolchildren could be questioned about Miss Faintley.

  ‘All you would acquire,’ she said, with her crocodile grin, ‘would be a scurrilous suggestion from the boys that Miss Faintley was a victim of “maiden virtue rudely strumpeted” and from the girls the equally romantic theory that her boyfriend killed her in a fit of jealousy. All these children read such Sunday papers as specialize in these matters.’

  ‘Yes, I suppose they do. Incidentally, I’m by way of making an enemy on the staff. That man Tomalin. I bit his head off to-day for not minding his own business. He’s had the impudence to try to keep order for me and to impress upon me not to stand cheek from the kids.’

  ‘Misdirected chivalry, don’t you think?’

  ‘No, I don’t! I know it isn’t. It’s just sheer showing off and nosey-parkering. He’s a washout himself and his only way of trying to prove that he isn’t is this attitude of pretending that other people are even more inefficient than he is! He gets under my skin!’

  ‘A waste of nervous energy on your part, dear child. Besides, a sense of inferiority and a disappointing professional life are not calculated to bring out the best in any man.’

  ‘That’s all very well!’ retorted Laura, looking in the mirror at her own flushed face and beginning to laugh. ‘You don’t have to put up with him! I do!’

  ‘What are the rest of the staff like?’

  ‘Pretty mixed. I don’t know an awful lot about them yet, and I’m as far off as ever from finding out which of the men was in with Miss Faintley over that business of the parcels.’

  ‘It’s early days yet to begin worrying about that. Later on, the police may be able to prise the information out of that (I am certain) villainous shopkeeper. And how go the biology lessons?’

  ‘Nature study – so-called. We don’t go in for biology. I think Miss Golightly feels it’s out of place in a mixed school, and I’m not at all sure she isn’t right. Sex-education, which is all that biology seems to add up to in modern schools, is the expense of embarrassment in a waste of muddled idealism, to my way of thinking. With which unpardonable bowdlerizing of the Bard I will break off in order to ask what’s for dinner to-night, a subject of considerably greater importance to me at the moment than any academic discussion of What Shall We Teach and How Shall We Teach it. Don’t you think so yourself? — or aren’t you hungry?’

  Chapter Nine

  MR BANNISTER

  ‘A Venus’ imp thou hast brought forth, so steadfast and so sage.’

  nicholas orimald – A True Love

  « ^ »

  Laura had had, during the night watches (for she was a person who required but an hour or two of sleep) what she thought was a very good idea. She drove into Kindleford, carried out Miss Golightly’s instructions, and then, armed with the invoices, drove to Miss Faintley’s aunt and asked permission to use Miss Faintley’s car. She explained that it would cause less comment at the Junction than if she went in her own.

  The aunt was in bed, however, and had been in bed ever since the last visit of the police. She was prostrate with grief and worry, declared the daily woman. As to Miss Faintley’s car, that was in the garage in Long Hill Street, and the police had the key, and the woman could not go and worry Miss Faintley about it, nor with nothing else, for the matter of that. Prostrate she was, poor thing, and who could wonder at it?

  Laura drove to the police station (she was, in any case, under Mrs Bradley’s instructions to acquaint Inspector Darling with the fact that she was going to Hagford to collect stock for the school), introduced herself and gave Mrs Bradley’s message and the information that she had tried to borrow Miss Faintley’s car and had failed. None of this appeared to interest Darling. He doodled idly on his blotting-paper while she talked and then said abruptly:

  ‘Very good, miss. We’ll make a note of it. You’ll be going straight back to the school with the parcel, I don’t doubt.’

  ‘I don’t see anything else to do.’

  ‘No, miss. Well,’ he looked up and smiled, ‘don’t go running into trouble. I hear you’re a teacher at the school now, taking Miss Faintley’s place. We had Mrs Bradley on the telephone last night. It appears pretty certain that Miss Faintley was expecting to speak to another member of the staff that night she spoke to Mr Mandsell. We could do with knowing who that teacher was, miss.’

  ‘I know. I’ll do my best to find out.’

  ‘It may not help us, of course. May just have been somebody who was willing to do Miss Faintley a favour. Still, it would clear up one small point for us, and every little helps. According to what Mrs Bradley found out from Miss Golightly, it couldn’t have been Mr Rankin. Not that I’d ever think it could be. I know Bob Rankin well. The last man on earth to get mixed up in any funny business. Bannister, too, is a very reliable chap.’

  Laura’s brief acquaintance with Mr Rankin was sufficient to cause her to agree heartily with this point of view. In another two minutes she was in her own car and making for Hagford Junction. The journey took less than ten minutes, for the road was clear and fairly straight, and Laura pulled up outside the station entrance with no idea of how she was going to approach her real objective… the gaining of information about Miss Faintley and the parcels which had not been intended for the school.

  The left luggage office was in charge of a round-faced, ingenuous-looking porter who was afflicted with stammering speech.

  ‘K-K-Kindleford Sc-Sc-School? I’ll s-s-see.’

  ‘Are you always in charge here?’ asked Laura, as she signed for three large packages.

  ‘Y-y-yes, of c-c-course I am.’

  ‘Liar!’ thought Laura, who had been told about the missing brothers Price.

  ‘Remember Miss Faintley who used to come here?’

  The porter’s blue eyes bulged.

  ‘M-m-murdered on h-h-holiday?’

  ‘Yes. What about those other parcels she used to collect? You know, the ones that were addressed to her personally, and not to the school.’

  ‘Oh, them! Well, there’s one h-here, but it’s marked To Be Left Till Called For.’

  ‘Well, I’m calling for it,’ Laura said blithely. The detective fever she had experienced during her abortive inquiries in Torbury were fired afresh. She saw herself driving triumphantly back to the Stone House at Wandles Parva bearing a parcel which, when unwrapped by Mrs Bradley, would disclose the whole secret of Miss Faintley’s untimely death, the full villainy of Tomson, the identity of the men who had removed the case of ferns, and the entire foolishness of the novelist Geoffrey Mandsell.

  But the porter, stammering and nervous, refused to consider the idea that Laura should make herself responsible for the parcel, and, as she was not in a position to compel him to part with it, she had to drive back to school with nothing but the three heavy packages of stock.

  On the way she rang up Mrs Bradley and reported upon her failure to secure the private parcel.

  ‘I’m very glad you haven’t got it,’ said Mrs Bradley calmly. ‘Tell the police it is there. I don’t want you knocked on the head. Did you actually see it?’

  ‘W
ell, I think I know which it was. It was flat and rectangular, like a photograph or something.’

  With considerable chagrin Laura rang up the police station, but it appeared that the stammering porter had been before her. He had reported that a woman teacher had called for the school parcels and that she had tried to get hold of one to which she was not entitled. A police car had already gone to Hagford. Laura was thanked for her telephone message. She returned to school, thoroughly disgruntled.

  ‘Takes you some time to get to Hagford and back! Car have a breakdown?’ Miss Cardillon inquired at break.

  ‘No. Dumped the stock and went off on a toot.’

  ‘Miss Golightly was rather upset. Sent a couple of kids to search the place for you. Faintley used to get back in under the hour. What have you been a-doing of? Did you get lost, or something?’

  ‘I’ve been to telephone, that’s all.’

  ‘Well, silly, there’s a telephone in the staff-room. Why on earth not pop up and use that?’

  ‘Somebody would have been in there marking books or a couple of kids getting coffee ready.’

  ‘Oh, yes, there’s always that snag. Oh, Lord! It’s time already! These breaks don’t seem to last any time at all. Coming out to lunch again to-day?’

  ‘Yes, of course. I say, some time or other, tell me a bit about Miss Faintley. The luggage clerk at the station… well, at the left luggage office… mentioned her when I picked up the stock.’

  ‘Faintley? You’d better ask Batt. She knew her better than anyone, except perhaps Franks. What did the porter say?… Naturally, we’ve all discussed the murder ad nauseam, and the thing is a complete mystery. According to the papers, robbery wasn’t the motive, but nobody can think of another. But come on. The lines will be leading in. I wish we could troop into school in a civilized sort of way, but Rankin won’t have it. Says the boys would create hell. In spite of a soft voice and respectable manners, he’s very much one of the old brigade and a bit of a martinet.’

  ‘ “The great thing for boys is discipline, sonny, discipline,’ ” quoted Laura under her breath. Miss Cardillon laughed and they went their ways. Four classes had games lessons that afternoon, so Laura was in a fine strategic position to inveigle Miss Batt into talking about Miss Faintley.

  ‘Yes, I shall miss her,’ said Miss Batt. ‘I do all the P.T. for the girls, but she used to help with the games. I’m jolly glad you’re able to step into the breach.’

  ‘What was she like?’ asked Laura. They were changing into shirts and shorts in the staff cloakroom, for Miss Golightly had arranged that the physical training staff should have a free half hour before they went on to the games field, where they were to spend the rest of the afternoon.

  ‘Like? Oh, I don’t know. Quiet and not exactly exciting. A good enough teacher, I suppose. Didn’t get on very well with the boys. She wasn’t much good at coaching hockey or tennis, either, but she volunteered to help in the games lessons because then she had only the girls. I don’t really know an awful lot about her, apart from that. I mean, we didn’t meet out of school.’

  ‘Did she quarrel with people much?’

  ‘You’re thinking about the murder. I keep on thinking about it, too. We all do, as I say. It’s a real mystery. I mean, one knows about these cosh gangs and awful people, but it doesn’t seem to have been that sort of thing at all. Not that the papers tell you much. If you ask me, the police haven’t a clue, but, of course, they won’t tell that to the reporters. As to quarrelling – no. She kept herself to herself, as they say.’

  ‘I suppose’ – Laura hesitated, but there seemed no necessity for finesse — ‘I suppose she wasn’t mixed up with a man?’

  ‘A man?’ Miss Batt looked up with a hockey boot still in her hand. ‘Good heavens, no!’

  ‘Not even somebody on the staff here?’

  ‘Well, you’ve met them all. Rankin, Trench and Tomalin are stodgily, respectably married, Taylor and Roberts share a flat and a housekeeper and care about nothing but making film-strips, Bannister is a complete woman-hater and lives for the holidays, when he goes off on his own and climbs down into potholes, and Fennison, my opposite number, is crazy about a girl called Penny Stretton who’s been steadily refusing him (or so he tells us) for the past three years, so he’s taken to table tennis and intends to win an open championship. Besides, if you’d only known Faintley…! She wasn’t any Cleopatra, I can tell you!’

  She resumed her occupation of putting on her hockey boots.

  ‘Yes,’ said Laura, ‘it doesn’t sound like a crime passionel. Well, what are the alternatives?’

  ‘You tell me, while I recline on the sofa thing in the staff-room and put on a fag. We’ve all talked our hindlegs off about it. It just seems to be one of those things. A maniac, as likely as not. I don’t see any other explanation.’

  ‘Did she usually go on holiday alone?’

  ‘Was she alone, then? Nothing was said about that. I thought she barged about with an aunt? I know she lived with one, because she was always grousing about the aunt being extravagant with coal and electric light. Have one of these horrible fags. We’ve got plenty of time. I always give the kids ten minutes to get changed and serve themselves out with the hockey sticks and coloured bands. They make hell, but Miss Golightly can’t hear ’em!’

  Laura enjoyed the rest of the afternoon. She was a good games player herself and a first-class coach. As soon as time was called, she went off to change, and, by good luck, ran into Miss Franks. Miss Franks was the art mistress. Her main emotional outlet was her bitter, unceasing warfare with Mrs Moles, the needlework teacher, for each thought that the other’s subject should be the inferior one. Miss Franks objected strongly to being commanded to improvise embroidery patterns on squared paper for the benefit of Mrs Moles’ decorative stitchery classes, and Mrs Moles considered all pure art, as opposed to applied art (i.e., embroidery and stencilling), to be a waste of time, materials, and effort.

  ‘I say,’ said Laura, ‘how did you and Miss Faintley correlate your subjects? As I’m taking her place I wondered whether you could give me a wrinkle or two about blackboard drawings and classroom posters and so forth.’

  Miss Franks, who was a small, dark, volatile Jewess, shrugged and smiled.

  ‘I didn’t help Faintley,’ she said. ‘She was old-fashioned. I know what you want, though, and if you will let me send back Trumper if I have the feeling I cannot bear him any longer in my lesson, I will do the drawings for you myself.’

  ‘It’s a bargain. Thanks a lot. As for Trumper, I propose to deal with that youth in a manner which will stay with him for the rest of his days. He’s a prize toad, and no fate is too black for him. Send him back every time, and I’ll guarantee to make his life hell.’

  ‘Thank you very much. Would you like some drawings put up ready for to-morrow?’

  During the ensuing forty minutes it turned out that although Miss Franks had never openly quarrelled with Miss Faintley, the budding friendship between them had withered and died.

  ‘Of course I am not Communist,’ said Miss Franks, ‘but who can expect I should be Nazi? Besides, she was wanting me to lend her money. Well, I am quite willing to be obliging, but to lend money to somebody older than yourself and higher up the scale of salaries, does it make sense?’

  ‘How much?’ asked Laura bluntly. Miss Franks looked at her appraisingly and decided to trust her.

  ‘Four hundred pounds,’ she said softly. ‘Four hundred beautiful pounds. I had not got it, and, even if I had —’

  ‘Oh, Lord! I quite agree,’ said Laura. ‘But why on earth did she want it?’

  ‘Some garbled story of the mortgage, but I found out she was not buying anything, only renting, do you see? So I said to myself that here comes something funny. So I don’t visit there any more. Anyway, only margarine on the bread, and nothing better than bloaters or a pot of shrimp paste for our tea. There, now.’ She stepped away from her work. ‘How does that do, would you say?’

 
‘Fine! Thanks a lot. I say, I couldn’t do anything like that in a hundred years! How would it be if I made some reason of my own not to send Master Trumper to you at all?’

  ‘That would not pass with Miss Golightly, but it is the kind thought that counts. He slings poster paint about and puts it on other children. He painted Annie Maggs blue last week.’

  ‘I’ll paint him black and blue,’ said Laura, on a note of sadistic enjoyment.

  ‘And that’s as far as we got,’ reported Laura that evening. ‘I don’t see what good I’m doing at the school, and it’s an intolerably lousy job. Thank goodness it’s only for a fortnight! I couldn’t stick a whole term.’

  ‘You don’t feel you have missed your vocation?’

  ‘No, I jolly well don’t! Look here, what is the explanation of that man who came out of the telephone-box that night when Mandsell agreed to collect the parcel? And why wouldn’t that porter give me one? Scared about the murder, I suppose.’

  ‘Ah, the parcel!’ said Mrs Bradley. ‘Yes. The police collected it, and Inspector Darling was good enough to call me up this afternoon and tell me what was in it.’

  ‘No! Say on! What is it that’s so fascinating about parcels?’

  ‘Their mysterious and secret nature. There was a statue in the parcel… a piece of plaster representing a slightly inebriated young gentleman in evening cloak and opera hat. When you are at school to-morrow I shall drive in to Kindleford, I think. There are three things I want to do. I want to see the statue and talk to the Inspector; I want to talk to Mr Mandsell, and I think I would like to visit the wicked shopkeeper.’

  ‘Too bad! And there shall I be teaching wretched kids about the lesser hogweed and the greater bladderwort! Our botany syllabus belongs to the age of faith and not of reason. In other words, it’s at least forty years out of date. I suspect that Miss Faintley botched it up from what she remembered of her own schooldays. You never knew such silly muck!’

  ‘Never mind. There is something else you can do. Find out, as circumspectly as possible, exactly which of the staff did, and which did not, put in an appearance at that end-of-term party. Somebody on the staff knows that Miss Faintley used to deliver those parcels, and I’d rather we found out than the police, and so would you.’