No Winding-Sheet

‘So what about the guilty conscience?’

‘The school secretary, Mrs Wirrell, dragged that into the light of day. She said, “Lucky not to have lost one or two chickens during the Christmas holidays.” Mr Ronsonby said, “How do you mean, Margaret?” At this the caretaker, looking a bit flustered, said that kids from the primary school had opened the henhouse at Christmas time and the fowls had scattered all over the place and had to be chased up and caught. The caretaker said he had not reported it, as the people who were staying in the cottage for Christmas had been able to round up the chickens and account for all of them, so no harm had been done and he had thought nothing of it until this fox and hen thing had brought it back to his mind. He said he realised he ought to have reported it, because obviously some unauthorised person or persons must have been on school premises. Mr Ronsonby agreed that he should have reported it. They have had two other break-ins, you see, and much more serious ones. Twice during last term a couple of people — men, not kids — managed to get inside the building itself and mess about in the school quad.’

‘Dear me,’ said Dame Beatrice. ‘How did they manage that?’

‘The first time it was easy enough. While the builders were still at work there was no way of keeping people from entering the school from the rear. When the building was finished and the back of the premises made secure, the trespassers broke a window to get in. Again, they were two men.’

‘The same two men?’

‘The caretaker doesn’t know, but he supposes they must have been, as each time their objective seems to have been the quad, and that, of course, is where the body was found.’

‘I think I would like to have a word with that caretaker,’ said Dame Beatrice. ‘Will you take me along and introduce me to the headmaster?’

This proved to be unnecessary. Margaret Wirrell took Laura’s telephone call and asked her to hold on. When she returned, she reported that Mr Ronsonby would be delighted to see Dame Beatrice at any time which was convenient to her and a meeting was arranged at which Laura did not put in an appearance. Routh, however, was present. Apprised of the imminent visit, he made a particular request to be allowed to attend the conference.

‘If Dame Beatrice is interesting herself in the case, sir, there may be something in it for me.’

It was not long after the polite preliminaries had been gone through when Sparshott was summoned. The reason was so that he might render an account of his stewardship in front of the visitor. The matter of Sparshott’s Christmas leave and the broken window in the boys’ washroom came up again. Mr Ronsonby was a reasonable man and spoke of these things more in sorrow than in anger.

‘You know, Sparshott, you really should not have left the school unguarded,’ said Mr Ronsonby. ‘You had proof of how simple a matter it was for unauthorised persons to enter the premises while there were still no back doors to the building.’

‘But, sir,’ protested Sparshott, ‘like I told you before, the premises wasn’t left unguarded. Me and my wife and Ron went off to friends for Christmas Day and Boxing Day, that’s true enough, but my older son, Geoffrey — you’ll remember Geoffrey, Mr Ronsonby?’

‘Oh, yes, yes. A most sensible, reliable boy.’

‘There you are, then’ said Sparshott, giving Routh a triumphant glance. ‘Well, Geoffrey, not having nothing but a council flat for him and his wife, they was glad enough to take over the cottage for a day or two and I promised ’em they could stay for another couple of days after we got back, which is what they done.’ He looked at the headmaster. ‘It’s not as though anybody at that time knew what terrible mischief there was afoot, sir.’

‘No, no, Sparshott. We quite appreciate that. Now then, Dame Beatrice has some questions to put to you.’

‘I know you wouldn’t try to victimise me, sir. You always been a fair-minded gentleman. I be ready to tell the lady anything as will help.’

‘Any objection to Mrs Wirrell taking down questions and answers and letting me have them?’ asked Routh. ‘If no objection, you’ll talk more free without me, I reckon, so I’ll take myself off.’

‘Everything will be unprejudiced,’ said Mr Ronsonby to Sparshott, ‘and we all want to know the truth about Mr Pythias, don’t we?’

Sparshott looked at the very old, very thin, yellow-skinned little woman opposite him. He averted his gaze. Her mirthless grin reminded him of a puff-adder he had seen at the London Zoo. Dame Beatrice saw a retired village policeman, honest, wary, probably rather stupid, but with a kind of bovine innocence about him. She began her questioning as soon as Routh had gone, and without preamble.

‘What did you think when you found two strangers on the premises on the evening when the school broke up for the Christmas holidays?’

‘Louts larking about. That’s all I thought they was. They scarpered quick enough when me and my dog come on the scene. I reckoned they was there for mischief, but I rumbled ’em too soon for them to do any damage. Of course I can guess now what they was up to. I reckon one or both of ’em had done for Mr Pythias on that breaking-up Friday and was looking to see whether that hole in the quad was a good place to bury the body. I don’t reckon they intended to bury it that night, though they might have had that idea. All the same, me being an ex- policeman and full of suspicious thoughts, as I reckon you have to be in the force, I got the idea, thinking things over, as Mr Pythias perhaps wasn’t dead when them chaps come to the quad, but they was planning the murder and was looking for a good place to put the body. I reckon the chickens give ’em a good way of distracting attention when they did bury it. There was always a bit of a mystery about who filled in that hole. It was thought Mr Filkins and his gardening club done it in the Christmas holidays, but Mr Filkins says they never.’

‘Mr Filkins would not have ordered his boys to do such a thing without my permission,’ said Mr Ronsonby mildly.

‘P’raps not, sir. Anyway, I reckon it was on the night of the chickens as his killers buried Mr Pythias, sir, and, of course, we knows now as it must have been them that filled in the hole.’

‘They seem to have run serious risk of discovery. I still wonder they took such chances. In any case, how would anybody outside the school know that such a convenient hole existed? The quad is not visible except from the interior of the building,’ said Mr Ronsonby.

‘Three hundred and fifty boys and more than a dozen masters knew of it, sir,’ said Sparshott, ‘and these things get passed around in idle chatter, don’t ’em? Anyway, that’s why they come the first time, I reckon. Like I said, sir, they come to spy out the lie of the land.’