Adders on the Heath

as a matter for mirth, rather than as an instrument for special pleading. What is your own opinion?'

'I thought Lady Chatterley howlingly funny. You had to skip the dull bits, of course, which were most of it.'

They left the drill-hall by mounting a staircase. Swing doors opened on to the chemistry laboratory. Dame Beatrice prowled around and was examining one of the cupboards when the Headmaster reappeared.

'Ah, boy,' he said, to Stevens, 'run along now.'

'Good-bye, Dame Beatrice,' said Stevens.

'A good boy-a very good boy,' said the Headmaster, when the child had disappeared. 'I hope he has shown you round. He is up for Charterhouse. He should do very nicely, I think. Well, now!'

'Yes,' said Dame Beatrice. 'He tells me that you have lost your science master.'

'True, true, unfortunately only too true. An excellent teacher, but, of course...'

'Yes?'

'Industry, you know.'

'Oh, he has gone into a factory, has he?'

'Longer hours, shorter holidays, but with far more money and no necessity to keep school discipline. Keeping discipline, dear lady, is the bugbear and the despair of many science masters and some of the French teachers of French. The average boy seems to be inimical to French and to be several steps ahead of the teacher of chemistry. But I have a new man coming very soon, I hope.'

'You had a young man named Richardson on your staff some time ago, I believe.'

'Richardson? Richardson? Ah, yes, of course I had. A promising teacher, in his way, but he left us to go into private practice-a tutoring job, you know.'

'You regretted parting with your chemistry master. Did you feel equally sorry to see Mr Richardson go?'

'I gave him a very good testimonial.'

This professional gambit was not lost on Dame Beatrice. She cackled.

'The man you want to get rid of gets the best testimonial,' she said. The Headmaster looked pained.

'No, no, really,' he protested. 'Of course, an Arts man is always very much easier to replace than a Science or Maths, man.'

('Culture's two a penny these days,' remarked Laura, ungrammatically but truly, when she heard this.)

'I see,' said Dame Beatrice. 'Did you ever think of him as a possible murderer?'

The Headmaster did not attempt to pretend that he misunderstood her.

'I have asked myself the question since the crisis to which you refer became local knowledge,' he said. 'My answer is that Mr Richardson, no matter what the provocation, is quite incapable of delivering the coup de grace. More's the pity,' he added. 'One really ought to be a better man than Gunga Din, you know.'

'Why?' Dame Beatrice enquired. The Headmaster waved his hand.

'Hewers of wood and drawers of water,' he said vaguely. 'And by Gunga Din I mean the average boy. Not that there is, of course, an average boy, I suppose, but it's astonishing and enlightening and also rather depressing, to realise how very much alike they all are. I remember my relief, in young manhood, when I realised that my sins were shared by every young man in the world. Bad for the ego, but a solace to the conscience.'

'To the conscience?' Dame Beatrice enquired. 'I wish I knew what the difference is between conscience and the fear of the law. There are the saints, of course, and one hesitates to condemn them for wrongheadedness.' She paused. The Headmaster said he felt that, in the majority of cases, if there were no retribution there would be a great deal more crime. By this he did not refer to the hanging of murderers. There was, in his opinion, no need to be barbarous, and, that, in any case, murder was not always a crime, although it might be so described by those brought up in the generation which had anticipated his own.

They got on in capital fashion and drank sherry together, the Headmaster explaining that he kept port and sherry to offer to H.M. Inspectors of Schools. He had taken the very first opportunity of opening his school to the Ministry. Parents liked to think that Dotheboys Hall was out of date and that each child was bedded in a hygienic dormitory and was entitled to its quota of cubic feet of air in the classroom.

'Talking of space, as represented by the cubic feet to which you refer,' said Dame Beatrice, 'your chemistry classes appear to be particularly lucky.'

'Oh, the science lab., yes. Good set-up there. I rather pride myself on it. We have to move with the times. We even have a model launching station.'

'And a poisons cupboard, I believe.'

'Every amenity, dear lady.' He smiled, but looked a trifle anxious.

Dame Beatrice thanked him for showing her round the school, referred to Stevens with warmth, and began to take her leave. The poisons were in the school chemistry laboratory, and she had seen them. This did not add up to much, in her opinion. Even less than before did she believe that Richardson had guilty knowledge of the two murders.

There was one person whom, so far, she had not encountered, but whom she was determined to meet and question. The simple thing to do was to ask the Headmaster outright whether she might interview the youth. This plan she abandoned in favour of asking the school caretaker where she might find the lab. boy.

'Him?' said the caretaker. 'He'll be in the caff. Nothing much doing for him at the school till they get a new science master.'