biggish boys were kicking a football about, but Hurstwood was not among them.
She watched the hockey practice for about a quarter of an hour. One side were wearing red girdles, the others green. Mrs. Bradley noticed, among the red-girdled players, Moira Malley. She was a dashing player, displaying more energy than science, and for the time being she seemed to have forgotten cares and fears both, Mrs. Bradley was pleased to notice, in vigorous enjoyment of the game.
Miss Camden, too, was a different being once more. She was combining the arduous and exacting duties of referee and centre-half (on the side of the Greens), and careered down the field in the teeth of the advancing forwards, swept the ball out with magnificent long strokes to her outside left and outside right alternately, controlled the game with her screeching whistle, which, most dangerously to herself, she held gripped between her teeth the whole time, and inspired her team with her magnificent play into scoring three goals in swift succession.
chapter vii: eliminations
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The plot,” said Mrs. Bradley, “indubitably thickens.”
The Headmaster, seated behind his massive desk, nodded and looked interested.
“You think you are narrowing the thing down?” he asked.
Mrs. Bradley cackled.
“Up to the present,” she said, “I have discovered at least four persons who are temperamentally capable of the murder, and all but one had both motive and opportunity for committing it. That one had the motive, but, so far as I can discover, not the opportunity. However…” —she chuckled ghoulishly—“many a good
“You’d better leave the last-named to his well-earned afternoon rest,” the Headmaster remarked dryly. “He’s a good chap, but his afternoon rest is sacred. Do you want to interview the others in here with me?”
“Without you, if you have no objection,” said Mrs. Bradley. “I felt that you were an obstacle to the search for truth this morning.”
The Headmaster shrugged, and smiled. “One of the penalties of a job like mine is that nobody on the staff feels really at ease in one’s presence. It can’t be helped. I appreciate that you’ll get on better without me. How’s Hurstwood?”
“Better,” said Mrs. Bradley.
“Good. Push that button for my secretary. She’ll get anybody you want. If you should want me, I shall be” —he consulted the time-table—“in Room B. Good-bye for the present, then.”
Mrs. Bradley pressed the buzzer and sent for Mr. Poole. That cheerful man smiled at her and asked her jokingly whether she had the handcuffs ready.
“Be serious, child,” said Mrs. Bradley, “and answer my questions. First, did you murder Calma Ferris?”
“No,” said Poole, serious at once. “Has anybody said I did?”
“No, child. Secondly, do you know anything which might indicate the manner in which she met her death?”
“Why, she was drowned, wasn’t she?” asked Poole.
“Thirdly, what did you do before your first entrance on to the stage?”
“Do? Let’s see. Except for Miss Ferris and Smith, I was the last of the principals to be made up, and the curtain was rung up while the little dame who did the making up was still busy on my face. Marvellous woman! Wish she’d take a part. I’d like to see her as ‘Volumnia.’ Grand!”
“Wait a moment,” said Mrs. Bradley. “How long did it take her, do you think, to make up each principal?”
“Varied a bit,” replied Poole. “The longest were the last two, ‘Katisha’ and the ‘Mikado,’ I should say, but as she had nearly the whole of the First Act in which to do them— Oh, but ‘Katisha’
Mrs. Bradley pressed the buzzer.
“I wonder if you have the address of the ex-actress who made up the faces of the performers on the night of the opera?” she said, winningly, to the Headmaster’s secretary. The secretary disappeared, and returned almost immediately with a visiting card which bore the legend: “Madame V. Berotti, 16, Coules Road, Hillmaston.”
Mrs. Bradley made a note of both name and address, and then asked the secretary for Mr. Smith.
“Does that mean you’ve finished with me?” asked Poole.
“Not quite, child. Don’t be impatient.” said Mrs. Bradley. “You haven’t finished telling me what you did before you went on to the stage.”
“Oh, nothing, really, you know. When I was ready to go on I collected the small urchin who followed behind with the axe—I was the Lord High Executioner, you know —and we stood in the wings until our cue came. I was so interested in watching the stage that I did not think about anything else.”
“I see. Thank you very much, child. That’s all, then,” said Mrs. Bradley. “Oh, by the way, do you box?”
Poole looked surprised.
“Well, I do,” he answered. “Middles, you know. Who told you?”
