‘Yes,’ said Laura, turning it up, ‘but it’s only a skeleton with a balloon coming out of its mouth saying, “Dead men do tell tales”. Rather a disappointment after Prouding’s fascinating book of words.’
‘Well, we had better look at the work of Maycock and Travis before we go to the headmaster. I expect little help from their essays, for words are often but the wrapping papers of truth. Art is a window to the soul.’
‘Through a glass darkly,’ said Laura.
Travis’s written account was dull and made no mention of the proposed camp. His painting, boldly executed, depicted a Red Indian settlement of teepees and totem poles. In the foreground were Red Indian braves flourishing their tomahawks in a war dance. They wore brilliantly coloured feathered head-dresses which reached almost to their heels and fringed shirts which somewhat ineffectively disguised the fact that the artist knew little of the technique of sketching the human body. He had also attempted to portray a chief on horseback, but with very little success. The caption appeared to be of no significance. It read, ‘Waiting for Paleface woman with papoose at Blackstone Creek’.
Maycock’s work was of no more assistance. His essay had almost ignored the set subject and concerned itself only with Maycock’s theory about the best use to be made of the atom bomb.
‘This leethal weppon,’ wrote Maycock, ‘could be used for a good cause which is to break up the polar ice at North and South Poles and get furtile land so all the Third World and anybody else who is starving can grow their rice and have something to eat it only needs waterlogged ground and you would have plenty of that at the Poles if you melted the ice and got the salt out. I shall spend most of my holiday working out this idea which nobody else seems to have thought of and might win the Nobel Prize. Of course you would have to rescue all the polar bears and seals and pengwins and things before you let off the bomb and then wait for the fumes to die down and this might take some time.’
His painting was of the blessing which was to be wrought for the benefit of the Third World. A violent explosion lit up a helicopter from whose safety-line an animal dimly recognisable as a polar bear was dangling. The caption on the reverse side of the half-sheet of drawing paper read, ‘I do not have time to paint more animals in the picture but the polar bears and seals and pengwins and things would be rescued before the bomb was let off that is only commonsense’.
‘Thank goodness for one humanitarian,’ said Laura. ‘It’s a change from young Mohawk Prouding, anyway.’
‘A young gentleman with whom, if Mr Ronsonby will permit it, we must now talk. It looks as though Travis, if not Maycock, had intended to camp on the moor and had told his classmates so.’
Laura had formed two mental pictures of young Prouding. One was of a cunning, furtive child with eyes which never met those of a questioner; the other of a cherubic, baby-faced youngster, the prototype of a fallen angel. Master Prouding resembled neither of these visions. He was a slant-eyed faun with the lascivious lips of the Sphinx in the Acropolis museum. His mouth, when he entered the headmaster’s office, wore a propitiatory half-smile, as of one who anticipates trouble and is anxious to avoid it.
‘Please, sir, you wanted me, sir?’ he said.
‘In point of fact,
‘I don’t know anything about that, sir.’
Dame Beatrice produced a sheet of paper.
‘This document appears to bear your signature,’ she said.
‘Oh, please, sir!’ said Prouding, appealing to his headmaster. ‘It was only a lot of rot, sir. I never meant a word of it.’
‘Address yourself to Dame Beatrice, boy.’
‘Yes, sir. Please, madam, I don’t live with my aunt and I
‘Oh, as to that, Mr Prouding, we are in sympathy with most of the views you have expressed in your essay. What we should like you to explain is the passage which reads, “I shall write some anonymous letters. People who are always bumming about seeing the school murderer are asking for it.” Please tell us what you meant by “asking for it”.’
‘I didn’t mean anything.’
‘Well, retreat into your shell if you think it best,’ said Dame Beatrice, ‘but to confide in us may save a great amount of time and trouble later on.’
‘We got a bit sick of being told they’d seen the murderers when we knew jolly well they hadn’t. If they had, the murderers would have murdered them before this. Murderers always murder people they think might recognise them.’
‘So you wrote an anonymous letter purporting to come from the murderers because you were tired of the boastings of Travis and Maycock. Yes, I see.’
‘It was only a joke, honest it was.’
‘You need to minimise your sense of humour, Mr Prouding, before it gets you into trouble. I will say no more.’
‘Off you go then, Prouding,’ said Mr Ronsonby, ‘and don’t be so stupid again. I shall deal with you later.’
‘Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.’ There was present now no follower of Pan, but only a small boy who could not escape quickly enough from the headmaster’s presence.
Mr Ronsonby asked, ‘What else can I do for you, Dame Beatrice? Thank goodness it seems more likely that the two boys have run away than that they have been kidnapped or worse.’
14
Hounds in Cry
