Death at the Opera

Hurstwood, realizing that she was cold, cast Sixth Form dignity to the winds and cantered off. He took the staff-room stairs three at a time, going up, and five at a time coming down, and returned in a few moments with the required garments.

“Tell me,” said Mrs. Bradley, as he helped her on with them, “do you box?”

“No,” replied Hurstwood. “Like to. Never had the chance.”

“I have a theory,” said Mrs. Bradley, “that Mr. Poole boxes.”

Hurstwood grinned.

“I don’t know about boxing,” he said; “but he must be a lad in a rough-house.”

“Really?” said Mrs. Bradley, pricking up her ears. “Give time, place and circumstances, child.”

“Summer holiday, Marseilles, a row in a pub.,” replied Hurstwood, readily and intelligently. “He was telling us about it in form a week or two ago. Whenever we get a sticky bit of maths, we switch Poole on to his holidays. It always works. He and Smith sail a boat about nearly every summer holiday and seem to have a jolly good time. I expect Poole tells lies—well, embroiders, you know— but, even allowing sixty per cent. off for that, they must have done all sorts of jolly decent things in the hols.”

“When did you learn to sift evidence, young man?” demanded Mrs. Bradley.

Hurstwood grinned.

“Oh, it’s only historical evidence,” he said. “I matricked with Distinction, so old Kemball rather decently gives me extra-tu., and… he’s pretty hot,” he concluded. “I owe him the Distinction, really.”

“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