sunset painted on Pythias’s wall, I wouldn’t want to live with it myself. Perhaps it reminded Pythias of sunsets in Greece. It’s a splashing great eyeful of a daub which, to my mind, quite spoils an otherwise very good room.’
‘I didn’t know you were an art critic. What did these lodgers actually say?’
‘Young Murch said,’ replied Routh, referring to his notebook, ‘ “Some years ago, when we were still at the Old School, I was in Pythias’s form, so I rather side-stepped him in private life. No, I didn’t exactly dislike him, but I didn’t like him much either. Oh, yes, as a master he was quite fair, I suppose, but he had a habit of doing most of his teaching from the back of the class, so there was no bonus in being in the back row. He used to creep up and down the gangways when we were map-making or tabulating things and you would suddenly feel a sharp tweak to your hair and hear him say, ‘Imbecile! Can you not even
‘Well,’ Routh went on, ‘that’s beside the point, sir. Anyway, I asked the lad when he had last seen Pythias. He said it must have been on the Thursday, the day before Pythias took himself off. “I came home a bit early on the Thursday to get washed and changed because I was taking a girl out that evening,” he said, “and I believe I remember hearing Pythias asking Ma Buxton what there was going to be for supper. He was always a bit finicky about what he ate and, if he hadn’t been the ground-floor tenant and very quiet and soft-spoken as well, it’s my belief that Ma would have told him to leave if he wasn’t satisfied with the food. She is very proud of her catering.” ’
‘So none of them could tell you anything useful?’ said the Detective-Superintendent.
‘Not really, sir. Peters, in reply to my question as to how he got on with Pythias, said, “I suppose he had the most stable job of any of the residents except myself, and I respected him accordingly. It is almost impossible to get a teacher or a prominent member of the town-hall staff dismissed, whereas all the other tenants were, to some extent, vulnerable.” ’
‘I picked him up on this, sir, and asked him whether he had any reason to suppose that Mr Pythias was in danger of being dismissed from his teaching post and so had chosen to leave of his own accord before that happened, but Peters was emphatic in declaring that he had no reason for thinking anything of the kind.
‘ “I have the confidence of the chairman of the education committee,” he said, “and there has never been a word of criticism against his teaching or his discipline.” I asked him whether there was a woman mixed up in the disappearance. He said one never knew about that sort of thing, but that, so far as he knew, Pythias seldom went out in the evenings and was never absent from his digs except for taking an occasional holiday abroad. “It was news to me when I heard he had friends to stay with at Christmas,” he said, “and I only heard that after he left here.” ’
‘What about the Buxtons?’ asked the Detective-Superintendent. ‘Buxton is a van driver for those furniture dealers in the high street, isn’t he?’
‘That’s right, sir. I’ve been round there. They’ve nothing against Buxton. Been working for them for the past six years. He told me that he leaves his van at the warehouse most evenings, but on Fridays he parks it in his own drive so that he can get away first thing on Saturday morning and get through his work by midday so as to get to football. He’s a Southampton fan and never misses a home match.’
‘So his van was probably parked in his own drive on the evening when Pythias walked off. What did any of the others have to say?’
‘Nothing which seemed of any importance or help, sir. Except for Rattock, they declare they were not at home when Pythias left and all he can say is that he thinks he heard the front door slam at round about seven o’clock, but, of course, that need not have been Pythias leaving. I pressed him, but he declared he had seen nothing of Pythias that Friday evening. “As I’ve told you,” he said, “my aunt provides a high tea on Fridays for those who come in. Not everybody does, you see, so she has ascertained at breakfast who she is to expect and who not. She is a very hard-working, capable woman and the digs here are excellent. If you get the opportunity, I wish you would tell her I said so.”
‘ “Are you behind with your rent, then, Mr Rattock?” I asked him. “Do you want me to butter her up?”
‘ “Dear me! How cynical you policement are! Of course I’m not behind with my rent — well, only a week, and we’re allowed one week’s grace unless my aunt has a strong reason for wanting to get rid of anybody.’
‘ “So you saw Pythias neither come nor go on that Friday evening?” I said.
‘ “I may have heard the front door slam at about seven, as I’ve already told you,” he said, “but that need not have been Pythias, as you and I have agreed. It could have been one of the others coming in or going out, couldn’t it?” ’
Routh emphasised there had been nothing more to be obtained from the lodgers, though there still remained the Buxtons themselves.
‘If only Ronsonby would come out with what he really thinks, which is that Pythias has skipped with the journey money, we should know where we are,’ Routh said to Sergeant Bennett.
‘It’s a very unlikely thing for a schoolmaster to do, sir, especially one as well established as Pythias seems to have been. Do we know what the money would have mounted up to?’
‘More or less. It’s a package tour by air both ways and the cheap fares operate until the end of June. Ronsonby says that the adult fares are a hundred and fifty-three and the boys have to pay eighty. Thirteen adult fares are in question, as three of the six masters go free. Ten parents are going and sixty boys. Working that out, Pythias seems to have had something round about seven thousand pounds in his briefcase that Friday evening.’
‘Nice sugar, sir, but surely not worth risking his job and his pension for, unless he had a very urgent need to lay his hands on some ready cash. So far, we’ve no evidence that he had such a need. You seem to have lined up one or two people who
‘You’re right there. Then there’s Buxton himself. A van driver has opportunities, if you know what I mean, that are denied to the nine-to-five office blokes. All those jokes about the milkman apply equally well to any long- distance driver. I was told at the furniture dealers that they deliver as far away as Yorkshire and Durham, or anywhere else on the English mainland if they get an order for goods or a removal. There must be lots of nights when Buxton doesn’t sleep at home.’
‘That would apply equally well to the chap who travels in household appliances, sir.’
‘Yes, and he is a fellow who has to keep two homes going. Somehow I have a feeling that there’s something
