No Winding-Sheet

‘Ah,’ he said, ‘these boys employed a Machiavellian ruse to lure you from your cottage on the plea that there was somebody in the school —’

‘And got me to unlock the school, yes, sir, so’s they could slip in behind me without my knowledge and consent, sir. That’s about the size of it. They banked on me going the whole rounds of the school, I reckon, while they done whatever it was they come to do, havin’ no knowledge as they had told the truth without knowing it, meanin’ as there was intruders on the premises.

‘I unlocked the front door to get in, because that isn’t bolted now, whereas the back door and the door at the end of the washroom corridor was both bolted up by me when I makes my rounds after the cleaners have finished for the day, which is my routine, sir —’

‘So you went up to the front door of the school, unlocked it—’

‘And found as I had not been misinformed by them two boys, sir. There was men in the quad, not as I believe the boys knew that, as 1 say, when they come and knocked on my door. I reckon that was only a try-on to get me to open up the school.’

‘So the boys slipped into the building behind you, but the intruders escaped, it seems.’

‘They had both them doors on to the quad open, sir, likewise, as I reported to you, the door on to the vestibule corridor. One run one way and the other run another way, but I reckon they met up again in the vestibule. The front door was wide open because me and my lad come in that way. They pushed past Ron and that there hurricane lamp, sir, is the only evidence they was ever in the quad at all except for a bit of roughing-up as they give to the ground, sir, like as if they was going to dig it up.’

‘I see. I wonder how they got into the quad?’

‘I makes my inspection this morning, sir, before school goes in, and there’s a broken window in the boys’ washroom, sir.’

‘Couldn’t that have been done by Travis and Maycock?’

‘I don’t reckon they done it, not for a minute, sir. It had been done with treacle and brown paper, sir, which is why I never heard the sound of breaking glass. It’s an old burglar’s trick, sir. If them two boys had done it there would have been no need for them to come to my cottage, sir, and inveigle me into opening up the front door of the school.’

‘I wish, Sparshott, that you would go out into the quad again and look for a ballpoint pen with Travis’s name on it.’

‘Which is the object as I was just a-going to present to your notice, sir. It had fell just under the library windows and I reckon as there was some larking about and somebody throwed it out. It wasn’t nowhere near where them trespassers had roughed up the ground, sir. I never noticed as the biro had a name on it, but that accounts for the two boys, sir, I reckon, although, not noticing the name, I never connected it with young Travis. I seen it laying there and I picked it up and put it in me pocket and forgot all about it till you mentioned it just now.’

‘You had better see at once about getting that washroom window mended.’

‘Which I have already put it in hand, sir, knowing the necessity, sir.’

Travis got his Christmas present back coupled with dire warnings to both boys of what would happen if they stepped out of line again, but Mr Ronsonby was puzzled. He called Mr Burke into consultation after he had asked him to check on all stock which might attract a thief.

‘It’s been the quad both times,’ he said. ‘What on earth can these intruders be after?’

‘I can’t imagine,’ said Mr Burke. ‘I’ve checked, and again there is nothing missing or damaged. If they really wanted to play merry-come-up, they would have smashed the pictures in the hall or broken into the canteen or thrown paint all over the place. Merely to scuff up the middle of the quad doesn’t make sense. Of course, they did break a window to get in.’

‘I have a deep distrust of things which don’t make sense,’ said Mr Ronsonby. At school dinner, where he presided over the staff table, he mentioned the matter.

One of the men said, ‘Morbid curiosity, Headmaster. All sorts of rumours have been going round the school.’

‘Rumours, Carter? What rumours?’

‘A boy in my form named Fanshawe is the son of a close friend of one of the governors and has got hold of the story that the governors are to give the school a present for opening day. It seems reasonable to suppose that, if speculation as to the nature of the governors’ present is going round the school, it is going round outside in the town, and that may have attracted the attention of vandals.’

‘I still don’t see why that should inspire anybody to attempt to dig up the quad.’

‘Perhaps, Headmaster,’ said Filkins, always anxious to bring the gardening club into the limelight, ‘my squad could investigate.’

‘I think not, thank you, Filkins. Any day now I expect notification from the contractors that they are ready to make the excavation for the pond. They will carry out any necessary investigation, I’m sure. They propose to get the foundations of the pond dug and made secure during the holiday and then you and your boys can amuse yourselves — under expert guidance, of course — in working out a list of suitable water plants and in planning where they are to be planted when the pond is completed.’

Breaking-up day came at last. The parting hymn, ‘Lord, dismiss us with Thy blessing’, sung at afternoon instead of morning assembly — a hymn which is rendered in every school at the end of every term, but the words of which, except for the opening line, have never been memorised by any generation of schoolchildren yet — pursued its mumbled course because all the hymnbooks had been collected, counted and locked away. Then the school streamed joyously out to enjoy nearly three weeks of freedom.

It was the Friday before Good Friday, so the landscape-gardening experts moved in on the following Monday and spent the rest of the week, up to the Thursday afternoon, measuring and levelling the quad, working out exactly where the pond itself was to be sunk and in doing the preliminary excavating. The governors had decided to do the school proud. The pond was not to be prefabricated, but constructed on the site and was to measure four metres by three, roughly thirteen feet by ten.