Tom Brown's Body Read online

  'Don't be an ass!'

  'But I'm not being an ass,' said Skene, earnestly. 'Can't you see? It's what we said before! Spivvy won't want us going to the police about him, and if he doesn't want that, he's jolly well bound to help us. Then he'll know we'll keep our mouths shut.'

  The criminal content of this idea shocked and disconcerted Merrys.

  'But that's blackmail!' he exclaimed; and then exploded the ethical force of this observation by adding: 'And you can get about fourteen years for blackmail.'

  'Suit yourself,' said Skene. 'It's your pen.'

  The wretched Merrys gloomily agreed that this was so, and racked his brains to discover some method by which he could discover the whereabouts of his pen without breaking the School rules or his country's laws. He was not successful, and the pen remained undiscovered until after the Helston match.

  This game was played on a Wednesday afternoon on a skating-rink of thin mud and amid tumultuous battle-cries. Spey were weak behind the scrum but had a formidable pack, and, coached to this end by Mr Semple when he perceived how the weather was going to turn out, they kept the ball at their feet and gave the Helston three-quarters little chance. If a Helston man did pick up the ball he was ruthlessly tackled or rudely thrown into touch. The only try of the match was scored by Murray, of the School House, the left-wing three-quarter of the Spey fifteen, who picked up an awkward pass from Keithstone and fell over the line almost on the corner flag.

  Spey failed with the kick, but, putting out every effort, they kept Helston from their line. Cartaris, to his own satisfaction, played a sound and safe game at full-back, and the School returned in the dusk to taste the pleasures of victory. Cartaris, in fact, was in such mellow mood – besides being tired – that Merrys felt emboldened to put to the test a last desperate plan for the recovery of his pen.

  'I say, Cartaris,' he said, when the House was lining up for evening Chapel, 'do you think the Old Man would give us a Saturday half in spite of the gating? If you asked him, I think. . .'

  'Think again,' said Cartaris. 'Think of your skin, and hop it while you've still got a whole one, you cheeky little beast!'

  'Er . . . yes. Thanks, Cartaris,' said Merrys. 'Sidey brute!' he added vengefully afterwards to Skene; for hero-worship is not as potent as it was. 'Anybody would think it was him that scored the try.'

  'He,' said Skene, with the automatic grammatical accuracy of a Scotsman.

  'Funny ass!' said Merrys, bitterly. 'How am I going to find my bally pen?'

  This question exercised his mind day and night, to the obstruction of learning and the confounding of sleep.

  'Merrys is sickening for something,' said Miss Loveday to her brother. 'Have you noted him?'

  Mr Loveday noted nothing that had not been noted previously by somebody else, unless his Roman Bath was in question.

  'No,' he replied. 'I think I shall have to reconsider a thought I had. I had made up my mind to let boys who had been detained by Conway have a turn later on in the Bath. But now that the poor fellow is dead, it seems like speaking ill of him to do so. What do you think?'

  'If you had made up your mind to do it before the death, I don't see that the death makes any difference,' replied Miss Loveday. 'But the Roman Bath must come second to Merrys's health.'

  This was obviously a new idea to Mr Loveday. He considered it with scholarly detachment, and committed himself to its justness.

  'Yes, yes, I suppose so,' he said. 'Well, then, I think perhaps I will grant Cartaris an extra turn. He played well against Helston, and upheld the credit of the House.'

  'Isn't that treating him as if he were a little boy?' enquired Miss Loveday.

  'Doubtless,' her brother agreed. 'Very well. I will not mention it. . . although . . .'

  'But I shall,' said Miss Loveday at once. 'I shall request him to test the temperature by going in. I shall say that I do not trust the furnace man to keep the water at seventy degrees. This will ensure that he is rewarded in a manner consistent with his dignity.'

  Mr Loveday reflected, without bitterness, that his sister was the better Housemaster. This thought brought with it, however, the sound of a hateful voice. Was the House governed by two elderly women, himself and his sister? He put the point at dinner.

  'Would you say the House is governed by two elderly women?' he enquired.

  'Shades of Gerald Conway!' exclaimed Miss Loveday. 'What else did the wretched youth say?'

  Mr Loveday, who had not even known that Mr Conway's Christian name was Gerald, made no reply for a moment. Then he said:

  'Did it ever occur to you, Annette, that John Semple might have been crossed in love?'

  Miss Loveday stared in amazement at this suggestion, which at first appeared to her fantastic in the extreme, but soon she collected herself sufficiently to retort:

  'Not, at any rate, by me! But there is something in what you say. I believe Gerald Conway had cut him out with Marion Pearson. But you don't suppose that modern youths kill their rivals in love? What surprises me is George Pearson's attitude.'

  They stared at one another, fascinated by the thought which had come into both their minds.

  'Nonsense!' said Mr Loveday loudly. 'Nonsense! Nonsense! Nonsense!'

  'Considering the bottles of champagne, and the public announcement, no doubt you are right,' said his sister. 'But George detested Gerald Conway, and now Gerald Conway is no more.'

  7. Dead Men Speak Dutch

  *

  But, hark you, my Lad. Don't tell me a Lye; for you know I hate a Liar.

  IBID. (Act 1, Scene 6)

  THE inquest on Mr Conway was held on the Saturday morning in the village schoolroom. The police had asked for an adjournment following the identification of the body and when the medical evidence was concluded. The latter turned out to be interesting and curious.

  The coroner sat in the head-teacher's chair on a small platform or dais. The schoolroom was acrid with the smell of a coke stove and draughty from the open panes in the otherwise ecclesiastically air-proof windows.

  The public included Scrupe, who had argued successfully with his Housemaster on the desirability of his being present at the inquest.

  'But, as a pupil of Mr Conway, sir, I must see justice done. Just suppose, sir –'

  'Nonsense, Scrupe. Justice has nothing to do with a coroner's court. Have you no general knowledge at all?'

  'But, sir, out of respect –'

  'Nonsense, Scrupe.'

  'Sir, you are being cruel, sir. Just because I don't choose to show my feelings, that's no reason –'

  'Nonsense, Scrupe.'

  'No, but really, sir,' said Scrupe, in what masters believed to be his natural voice, 'I should be awfully glad of the chance. I shall be spending the rest of my life in the Argentine, sir, on my father's ranch, and I do think I ought to take out with me the tradition of English liberty. After all, sir –'

  'Go, go, go!' said Mr Mayhew, out-talked as usual, and, as usual, annoyed by this fact. So Scrupe was among those present at the inquest, and listened with grave attention, a virtuous air, and great detachment, to the evidence.

  Also present (apart from those such as the witnesses who were compelled to attend and did so most unhappily), were Mr Pearson, wearing a black tie, his daughter Marion (a pretty but shrewd-looking girl of about twenty-three) wearing a black hat, Mr Mayhew (not from choice but with a dim idea of keeping an eye on Scrupe), Mr and Miss Love-day, the latter wearing her usual garments but flourishing a black-edged handkerchief and nursing a pair of unworn black kid gloves, the Second Master, whose name was Regison, Mr Reeder, the School bursar, the School secretary, Mr Sugg, and a Housemaster named Mr Poundbury who had his own reasons for being an interested party.

  Mr Semple and Mr Kay were called as witnesses, and Mrs Kay had turned up to support her husband. The other witnesses were the Headmaster (who, in the absence of any relatives, had perforce accepted the responsibility of identifying the body), the police, and the local doctor.

&
nbsp; The doctor's wife had also come along, and had brought with her a black-eyed, beaky-mouthed, yellow-skinned, reptilian old lady whom Merrys and Skene might have recognized and whom Mr Kay obviously knew. He went very pale when he saw her come in, but to his relief she did not appear to notice him, and by the time he had to give his evidence he was so anxious to make a good impression that he had forgotten all about her.

  The proceedings began in formal style with the assembled company standing up at the instigation of the Coroner's officer. This ceremony was followed by the official call-over of the jury. There were eleven of these and they were sworn in rapidly and efficiently. After this they sat down, very uncomfortably for the most part, in the schoolchildren's desks facing the Coroner's dais.

  The Coroner then addressed them. He informed them that only a few witnesses would be called, and these in order that the body of Gerald Aloysius Hugo Conway might be buried.

  He outlined, after this, such facts as the police did not object to having made public. The body of Gerald Aloysius Hugo Conway had been discovered outside a cottage just within the boundaries of Spey School. It was obvious that death was unlikely to have been from natural causes. Mr Wyck, the Headmaster of Spey, would be the first witness.

  'Your name is Esmé Christopher Wyck? You live at Spey School? You are the Headmaster of that School?'

  Mr Wyck gravely and quietly replied in the affirmative to these three questions.

  'You have seen the body? You identify it as the body of Gerald Conway? Will you tell the Court when you last saw him alive?'

  'I cannot answer that with any exactness,' said Mr Wyck, 'but I think it would have been in the School chapel at about half-past nine on the previous morning, that is, on the twenty-third of October.'

  'When did you see him next?'

  'At about a quarter to eight on the morning of October the twenty-fourth. He was then, I thought, dead.'

  'Did you have subsequent reason to revise that opinion?'

  'Unfortunately, no.'

  'Any questions?' said the Coroner to the jury. There were no questions. Mr Wyck sat down, and Mr Kay was called. He described the finding of the body. He was not questioned; this seemed to surprise him, for he retired reluctantly. Mr Semple followed, and corrobated Kay's evidence.

  Then came Dr Neilson. His evidence was interesting if only because it disposed of rumour, although all the rumours added together approximated to the truth.

  The doctor agreed that his name and address were as the Coroner stated, and he agreed, too, that in addition to being in what was still called private practice he was the police doctor, the School doctor, and honorary physician and surgeon to the local football club. He then gave his evidence. The body of Gerald Conway had been dead for about four hours when he examined it. Pressed closely, he amended this to between three and five hours. Death had been brought about by drowning. The marks on the neck were undoubtedly caused by a rope, and there was a superficial head wound, but both these injuries together had been insufficient to have caused death.

  The police evidence was short and simple. It was obvious that the body had been removed from the water and had been taken to the spot where it was found. The rope had been removed from the neck. There was no sign of the rope in the vicinity of the body. There was no sign, either, of any instrument which could have caused the scalp wound.

  The Coroner's jury had no hesitation in coming to the conclusion that Conway had been murdered by a person or persons unknown.

  *

  'Queer business,' said Doctor Neilson to his wife and their guest, when they were home again after the inquest. 'What did you make of it, Mrs Bradley?'

  'Nothing much,' replied the saurian visitor amiably. 'What did you?'

  'I can't make head or tail of it. I can't see, for one thing, why the body was moved. Why not have left it in the water? Surely it was a very risky thing to have pulled it out and taken it into the School grounds? I can't see any sense in that.'

  'It depends where the water was, doesn't it? Perhaps if we knew where the drowning occurred we should know why the body had to be moved.'

  'You say "had to be moved". You think it was essential to the murderer's safety? Yes, that seems the explanation. But I know of no water near here deep enough to drown a man except the river, although that's not far from the School, of course.'

  'There is poor old Mr Loveday's Roman Bath,' said his wife.

  'Oh, but –' The doctor laughed and shook his head. 'You're not going to tell me that that diffident old ass killed a man of Conway's youth and strength!'

  'No, of course not. I only meant that the Bath has water in it deep enough to drown in.'

  'That is very interesting,' remarked Mrs Bradley. 'I should like to see this Bath. I am acquainted with Mr Wyck. I wonder whether I could persuade him to show me over the School? The trouble is that he probably doesn't want visitors until this matter is cleared up. I shall await my opportunity.'

  That afternoon she went off to Mrs Harries's cottage. The blind crone was seated in her kitchen counting onions. Mrs Bradley opened the front door and announced herself.

  'Come through,' called Mrs Harries. 'I was passing the time until you came.'

  'You expected me, then?'

  'Yes, indeed I did. You went to an inquest this morning.'

  'Who told you?'

  'Milking Meg.'

  'Indeed? And did she tell you what was said there?'

  'She told me of drowning and dragging, of cock-fighting, bear-baiting, and rabbit-coursing.'

  'Talking of cocks,' said Mrs Bradley quickly, 'who is Mr Kay's enemy? Whom does he propose to kill?'

  'That's my dark gentleman. He has named no names. He had the sheep's heart of me, and I told him where to buy the loaf of wax. My own black-headed pins he had, and that's all I know. Their quarrels are none of my business. It's only their silver I ask.'

  She refused to say more, but went on mumblingly counting her onions until Mrs Bradley left the house. At the gate Mrs Bradley looked back. The witch was standing in the front doorway mopping and mowing like an idiot. Then she straightened up and ran her thin talons through her grey hair until it stood up all over her head.

  'I wonder what she does know?' thought Mrs Bradley; and she repeated the observation that evening in describing the scene to the doctor and his wife. But, neither of them could enlighten her.

  'She's a queer old party,' said the doctor unnecessarily. 'And she's cured some of my patients who did not respond to the recognized methods of treatment. There's something uncanny about her. She's an educated woman, for one thing, although occasionally she chooses to talk like the villagers, or else in some gibberish of her own.'

  'She's been on the stage,' said Mrs Bradley.

  'I loathe and detest her,' said the doctor's wife. 'She foments mischief in the village. The vicar's wife has told me more than once of quarrels which she's blown into flame so that she can sell her magical rubbish. Some years ago the vicar had to deal with an outbreak of devil-worship, and it was all traced back to her. And do you know how it began? – all because they wouldn't put her vegetable marrow in the most prominent place at the Harvest Festival!'

  'I wish I knew why Mr Kay goes to her cottage. I think I must ask him,' said Mrs Bradley. This she did that same evening. She walked the two miles from the doctor's house to Kay's cottage and tapped at the door. She knew that someone was in, for she could see the light in the window, but some moments passed before the door was opened.

  Mr Kay himself stood there.

  'Who is it?' he asked nervously. Mrs Bradley cackled, and he shrank back. 'You?' he said.

  'If you mean Mrs Harries, no,' Mrs Bradley replied; and at the sound of her voice he came forward again, and peered at her hesitantly.

  'What do you want?' he enquired.

  'I am making a regional survey of village superstitions,' said Mrs Bradley, poking a large black notebook almost into his eye. 'And as I have seen you at Mrs Harries's cottage, I thought you mig
ht be able to help me.'

  Mr Kay gave a short laugh.

  'Come in,' he said. 'We seem to be fellow workers. I'm writing a book on village magic. Perhaps we can help one another.'

  The cottage was beautifully kept. He led her into a room lined with books, many of them in Spanish and Portuguese. There was only one picture, but that, Mrs Bradley thought, was a Murillo. The furniture was simple, modern, and almost new. She took an armchair by the fire and looked expectantly at her host, although she could not help wondering where his wife was.

  'Mrs Harries is, of course, a survival,' he said.

  'On the contrary, she is a charlatan,' said Mrs Bradley firmly.

  'A convincing one, then.'

  'Yes, probably. How did you get on with the loaf of wax?'

  'Oh, she told you about that, did she? It's rather odd, really. I tried it for Conway. Well, he's dead, of course, but he died the wrong way. He was murdered. That doesn't come into it, does it?'

  'Isn't it murder, then, to achieve one's end by magical means?'

  'Yes. If he'd pined away and drooped into death, I might have believed that I'd killed him. But he didn't. He was attacked and then drowned. It doesn't fit.'

  'But you did wish him dead.'

  'Of course.' He looked rather surprised. 'The fellow was the bane of my life.'

  'And you plotted his death?'

  'Certainly not. I am doing research.'

  'Into witchcraft?'

  'Yes.'

  'Why?'

  'Oh, just that I am interested. Nothing more. I had no intention of killing Conway by witchcraft, if that is what you mean.'

  'I don't mean that. There is only one way of killing a person by witchcraft. It is the way by which people are killed by it in Africa. The subject must believe that he will be killed. I don't think Mr Conway was the kind of man to believe that witchcraft could kill him.'

  'No, he wasn't. That lets me out, I think.'

  'And I think it might,' said Mrs Bradley, retailing this conversation later to the doctor and his wife. 'I don't believe that witchcraft can kill anybody who doesn't believe in it.'

  The doctor agreed.

  'On the other hand,' he said, 'it has been proved, surely, that witchcraft can be assisted. If the hated person doesn't die by witchcraft, he can be assisted to die by more ordinary and mundane methods. I don't feel inclined to suspect Kay less than I did.'