The result of the telephone conversation was that Margaret Wirrell was sent up to Mr Scaife’s room. Here she found him in argument with a boy about the desirability of having to prove that a triangle having the same base and height as a rectangle must of necessity have an area half that of the rectangle in question.
‘It’s obvious to the naked eye, sir,’ said the boy, ‘so why do we have to waste time proving it?’
The form, as always, had risen when Margaret came in. (‘And I hope you do the same at home when your mother, aunt or any other lady comes into a room,’ was Mr Ronsonby’s admonition when he addressed a class of boys new to his school.)
‘Good morning, Mr Scaife. Good morning, 2A,’ said Margaret. ‘We’ve just had a tinkle from Dame Beatrice Lestrange Bradley,’ she told Mr Scaife, ‘and —’
‘Keep your flapping ears close to your head, Preston! Nothing to do with you what is being said,’ rapped out Mr Scaife to a small boy in the front row.
‘— and she wants to know whether you set any work to be done on paper or in their rough-work books at the end of last term. Not exercise-book things, but, well, you know, end-of-term work.’
‘Mr Waite and Mr Pybus did, sir, and they gave you our paintings and essays,’ said the listener.
‘Really, Preston, how interesting! But really I have no need of your good offices,’ snapped Mr Scaife.
‘They’re in the left-hand drawer of your table, sir.’
‘Preston! Shut up!’
‘Only trying to be helpful, sir.’
‘Forget it!’ Mr Scaife wrenched open the left-hand drawer of the teacher’s table, abstracted bundles of exercise-book paper and half-sheets of drawing paper, ignored a
‘Do you want me to take these to the Stone House?’ she asked the headmaster, indicating her haul.
‘Not until we have rung to tell Dame Beatrice that we think we have found what she asked for.’
Upon receipt of this news, Dame Beatrice said that Mrs Gavin would call and collect the papers during the course of the afternoon, and this Laura did and needed to waste none of Mr Ronsonby’s time because Margaret way-laid her in the vestibule and handed over the papers which were now in two carrier bags.
After tea, Dame Beatrice and Laura went through the papers and laid aside the essays and paintings signed by Travis and Maycock. These would receive special attention, but the rest of the collection could not be ignored in case it should reveal any clue to the whereabouts of the missing campers.
The essays ranged from the anticipatory to the disillusioned. Some were lively, some dull, some badly written, some badly spelt. A few were factual and, having described, either joyously or the reverse, Easter holidays of the past, had concluded that ‘It will be much the same this year, I expect, but I like Christmas better because an Easter egg is not so good as a model railway or a bike, though hot cross buns are all right’.
In the majority of cases it was clear that the writer did not expect that the eye of authority would ever peruse his script. One boy had written, ‘I do not expect to have much of a holiday because I never do have much of a holiday. I live with my aunt who is always having babys I hate babys my aunt says babys are a blessing if they are so is having a sore bum when youve been tanned or leprosy or a broken leg or something so I do not have much to tell you about my holiday so I will pertend and tell you I am a clergyman and tell you about all the people I have buried one was buried alive but I did not know till the relations told me and all the babys I have cristend and the baby I dropped in the font the water was rather deep and I dropped him he was my aunts baby I did not mean to do it he just slipped through my fingers all I shall really do in the holidays is take him out in his pram perhaps it will tip over when I get to the river but I will be talking to Empty and pretend not to notice I like to think of dead people including lots of babys I hate babys.’
‘A bright lad,’ said Laura.
‘Yes, one with a future in the writing of horror films,’ said Dame Beatrice. ‘Let us follow still further the workings of the Herodian mind of this Master Alan Prouding.’
‘I wonder who Empty is?’ said Laura.
‘In due course we may be able to find out. I deduce that he has a classmate whose initials are M and TV.
‘As simple as that?’
‘The minds of villains are often much simpler than we think. They learn as soon as they can walk that the shortest distance between two points lies along a straight line.’ The essay they were reading went on:
‘If its wet in the hols I shall write some annimos letters these are good fun and stir people up no end because everybody has got a skeleton of some sort in their cubbard which they would not like anybody else to know about and people who are always bumming about seeing the school murderer are just asking for it.’
‘Empty? M and T,’ said Laura. ‘Two boys, not one. Maycock and Travis, don’t you think? And this young beauty
‘Yes, I do. I think we must ask the headmaster to allow us to have a word with Master Prouding. He appears to be a practical joker of some magnitude,’ said Dame Beatrice. ‘It looks as though this essay may disperse any fears that the two boys have been kidnapped or murdered. All the police have to do now is to find out where they have gone. If they have run away, where would boys of that age be most likely to make for?’
‘Oh, the docks at Southampton. I expect they would prefer to make it an airport and smuggle themselves on to a plane, but they would be old enough to realise that to get on board a ship would be much easier.’
‘Is there a painting to accompany Master Prouding’s essay?’
