No Winding-Sheet

‘Did you actually find anyone in the quad when you investigated?’

‘Not to say find them, ma’am. They done a bunk when they heard me and cut a dash out the front door as I’d unlocked to let me and the dog in, and nearly knocked my boy clean down the front steps as he could easy have broke his neck.’

‘When the workmen had finished, did you see them off the premises? — when they had really finished all they had to do, I mean.’

‘No, ma’am. They went off as usual in their lorry and the foreman walked me and Mr Ronsonby and Mr Burke all round everywhere to ask us whether we was satisfied with the work.’

‘We were glad to see them go,’ said the headmaster, ‘but I must say that they had left the place very tidy, very tidy indeed.’

‘Yes,’ agreed Sparshott. ‘Even where them last two fellers what broke the washroom winder and then tried to scuff up the quad, even that was all smoothed over again. The foreman’s lads done that. I reckon the scuffing-up was where them villains was beginning to dig up the body when they found out as a pond was going to be sunk there.’

‘Well, thank you very much, Mr Sparshott,’ said Dame Beatrice. ‘I think you are right about the reason for the scuffing-up. You must have disturbed them before they got very far.’

‘I would of reported them chickens earlier, sir,’ said Sparshott to Mr Ronsonby, ‘but seeing as no harm was done to the chickens and me thinking it was only dratted little junior-school boys —’

‘Yes, yes, I quite understand, Sparshott.’ The caretaker removed himself and Mr Ronsonby added, ‘Sparshott is not a bright individual, but it seems that when the body was found he began to put two and two together. Routh must hear about the chickens. Margaret’s notes should give him a vital clue as to when the body was buried.’

‘But not when the murder itself took place,’ said Dame Beatrice. ‘I should also like a word with the builders’ foreman.’

‘I know where they’re working,’ said Margaret Wirrell. ‘It’s on that new estate on Carne Hill.’

‘Excellent. Perhaps you could direct Dame Beatrice to it. Would you care to have Margaret go with you, Dame Beatrice? She has had dealings with the foreman while his men were working here, and could effect the necessary introductions.’

The foreman greeted Margaret as an old friend.

‘Who’d have thought we’d get mixed up in a murder?’ he said. ‘Been in the Sunday papers and everything. Be something to talk about in the long winter evenings when the telly goes on the blink, won’t it?’

‘Dame Beatrice is from the Home Office and would like a bit of help from you.’

‘Welcome, I’m sure, though I don’t know what I can tell her that I haven’t already told the police.’

‘There is just one thing,’ said Dame Beatrice. ‘I wonder whether you recollect having a hole dug in the school quadrangle so that your men could bury some rubbish there instead of carrying it right through the building and disposing of it outside?’

‘That would have been before Christmas, as I recollect it, when they dug that hole in the quad.’

‘Yes,’ said Margaret, ‘that’s right. They dug the hole before breaking-up day and when I looked in on the Monday before Christmas Day it was still there and I said to one of your boys, “How long have we got to put up with that eyesore?” He said, “Sorry, miss” (well, that was a compliment to a woman who’s been married for fifteen years) “well, sorry, miss, but there’s no point in us filling it in until we’ve got the rest of the rubbish to put in it.” Well, I get office holidays, not school holidays, so a couple of days after Christmas I popped into school again to see if there was any correspondence and to clear up one or two oddments and I just put my head inside the hall and that’s when I saw out of the windows that the hole had been filled in, roughly, it’s true, but filled in, all the same.’

‘And the thing about that is,’ said the foreman, ‘as my lads never done it. We thought one of the masters had rounded up a squad of boys to do the job, as there had been complaints about the hole being an eyesore.’

12

Lost, Stolen or Strayed

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The school reassembled after the Easter holiday to find that, by the end of the first week of term the timetable, in the expression of young Mr Scaife, had ‘gone very elastic’. He meant that boys were called out of class during the afternoon sessions (Mr Ronsonby refused to have the important morning lessons upset) for choral and orchestral rehearsals, verse-speaking practice (the junior English master had won the day and was now prepared to offer Christina Rossetti’s ‘Goblin Market’ to the opening-day audience), extra coaching for the first eleven, practices in the school hall for the prize-giving ceremony which the governors, in spite of Mr Ronsonby’s disapproval, had insisted upon featuring in the programme, and extra sessions for the star woodwork pupils who were to stage an exhibition of children’s toy horses and go-carts.

Meanwhile, Mr Ronsonby and Mr Burke, with the calm and expert help of Margaret Wirrell, were compiling, altering and amending lists, lists and more lists of visitors, and in working out the seating accommodation and the food and drink for the notables.

The prize-giving to which the headmaster had agreed with so much reluctance was in lieu of the lily pond. Even the chairman of the governors felt that it would be inappropriate to disturb any further the last resting-place of Mr Pythias.

‘Later on, perhaps,’ he said regretfully. ‘Anyway, lots of prizes, Ronsonby, each book autographed by myself. The boys would like that, eh?’

‘It comes hard on the majority who will not win anything, Sir Wilfred. That is my objection to the awarding of prizes.’