‘
‘Well, everything seems to be all right, so far, but we may as well make a thorough job of it.’
Across the corridor and opposite the commercial room was the handsome library. On one side of it the windows looked down on to the quad. Three young workmen were busy there, but their efforts appeared to be confined to throwing a few more chunks of rubbish into the hole and to make a pile of the rest of it against the outer wall of the corridor below the library.
‘Can’t see what they get paid overtime for, sir,’ said Sparshott, as he accompanied the senior master to the front door, which he unbolted and unlocked to let Mr Burke out.
‘Nor I, but we are in the contractor’s hands and, well, friends at court, you know.’
‘All the same thing on these local councils, I reckon, sir, but when they’re your employers, it don’t do to say too much, do it?’
He closed, but did not lock, the great front gates behind Mr Burke’s car. There was still the builder’s truck to leave by that exit. The men knocked off at twelve, however, and when he had seen them off and made the great gates secure, he went into the school and locked and bolted the front door, then went into the hall and had another look at the quad.
There were footprints around the open hole, but there was nothing to indicate whether they were the workmen’s prints or those of the night’s intruders.
3
An Addition to the List of Missing Persons
« ^ »
After Boxing Day the weather had become so inclement that for the following week no outside work was done on the school buildings. However, to the disgust of the women cleaners, the painters and decorators came to do the inside jobs and, as one disgruntled cleaner put it, ‘brought in with them all the muck as would stick to their boots before it got on to our floors’. By the time term began, clear, frosty weather had replaced the sleet and the rain and outside work had been resumed. Unexpectedly, the mess in the quad had been tidied up. It was assumed that either the builders had had a change of heart or that Mr Filkins had enlisted the help of the keener members of his gardening club to do the work before the beginning of term.
On the first day of term, Mr Burke came to report to Mr Ronsonby the caretaker’s story of the break-in on breaking-up Friday night.
‘I checked very carefully,’ said Burke, ‘and nothing is missing or damaged, neither has Sparshott heard or seen anything else untoward, so far as I know. I do think, though, Headmaster, now that the buildings are so nearly finished and the official opening seems to be in sight next term, that we ought to have a nightwatchman on the premises. There are loutish types about nowadays who have only to see something fresh, clean, admirable and new to be seized by a lust to vandalise and defile it.’
‘I’ll put to the committee this evidence of illegal entry given us by Sparshott, but I’ve tried before, as you know. Still, now that the school has definitely been broken into, my arguments may carry more weight.’
However, they did not carry any weight at all. Nothing had been stolen, the education office pointed out, nothing damaged or defaced, and the property was fully covered by insurance. No nightwatchman was appointed and, when this was relayed to the caretaker, Sparshott replied: ‘Well, Mr Ronsonby, sir, I shall continue to keep ears and eyes open, but a twenty-four hour day is asking too much of a man.’
‘I agree entirely, Sparshott. The ball, I feel, is in the committee’s court, and it is up to the education office to deal with it. Please don’t worry. After all, nothing but a bit of skylarking seems to have happened. One thing, the workmen have filled in the hole in the quad.’
There was another matter which was very much on the headmaster’s mind. Ought he or ought he not to report the absence of the Greek journey money? Mr Pythias’s continued non-appearance had been reported as a matter of routine, but the money, the headmaster decided, was a different kettle of fish. The education committee left the arrangements for all school journeys entirely to the discretion of the head teacher on the understanding that the committee accepted no responsibility for insuring the party against death, accident or the theft of personal property while the journey was taking place. Not all local authorities followed this plan, but in Mr Ronsonby’s area it operated. It was up to the sponsors of the trip to make certain that the money paid to the tour company included the personal insurance of every passenger.
‘I suppose it might be thought necessary to make a report that the money is missing,’ said Mr Ronsonby to his wife, ‘but I’m damned if I’m going to give anybody the satisfaction of believing that one of my staff has decamped with the takings. I would rather put up the cash for the trip myself. In fact, it looks as though I may have to do so.’
‘It would make a pretty big hole in our savings.’
‘I know, but I’d much rather carry the can than face a scandal involving one of my staff. Besides, I can’t believe that Pythias has defaulted. There must be some other explanation.’
‘One thing; it isn’t like the school fund. That has to be audited,’ said Mrs Ronsonby.
‘Oh, if it were the school fund, I’d have to report it. As it is, so long as I make good the money, nobody need be any the wiser.’
‘Mrs Wirrell knows the money has gone.’
‘Oh, Lord! If I couldn’t trust Margaret Wirrell not to talk out of turn, I would begin to distrust
‘I’m glad Margaret isn’t young and glamorous,’ said Mrs Ronsonby, smiling.
‘She was a chief petty officer in the WRNS in her young days. She could manage the school and the staff with one hand while she was signing for the latest consignment of stationery stock with the other.’
‘So you have quite decided that you are not going to report the loss of the money?’
