Adders on the Heath

'There is no reason to think that he was responsible for murder, especially as you took care to destroy the poisons Clive brought back from school,' Dame Beatrice tartly replied.

'I'm still very doubtful whether the test-tubes contained poisons, Dame Beatrice,' returned Maidston. 'All the same, if Clive could get hold of poisons at school, what was to prevent Richardson doing the same?' he added. 'After all, he was a master there and so in a position, I suppose, to help himself to the stock.'

'How right you are. Well, good-bye, Mr Maidston. I hope we shall meet again.'

'Good-bye, Dame Beatrice.' He stood on the steps to wave as the car moved off. Dame Beatrice drove straight to the hotel for lunch. She had decided slightly to alter her previous plan of campaign and to tackle Richardson next. Laura had remained in the car, as she had suggested, during both the visits and had been given an account of each. When they got back, Laura, under instructions, did some telephoning and then took Denis for a short walk while Dame Beatrice had a private session with Richardson.

Richardson seemed nervous, she thought, when told of her plan. He also seemed surprised when she said she had visited the school again, and when she added that she had followed up her encounter with the Headmaster by going straightway to interview the Maidstons, he was moved to protest.

'They wouldn't do much to help me. On the contrary,' he said. 'We parted brass-rags, you know, although they sent me a full month's pay.'

Dame Beatrice agreed that she did know, but that the Maidstons had been very helpful indeed, although not, perhaps, in the way that they had intended.

'But I can't go into that at the moment,' she added. 'My comments must be reserved for the Superintendent.'

That bloke is still out to get me,' said Richardson lugubriously. 'He really believes I'm guilty, and there's no way I can think of to prove to him that he's wrong.'

'My interviews gave me a pointer or two, if it is of any comfort to you to know it.'

Richardson was cheered up miraculously by this remark and lost his embarrassed and nervous manner.

'I say,' he exclaimed with some eagerness, 'that means you're still on my side!'

'I am on the side of truth. I do not claim to be on the side of justice, because there is no such thing, as every schoolboy knows. Even the Almighty, we are told, has a slight bias in favour of mercy, and the mystical poet Blake goes even further and suggests that we pray also for pity, peace and love. You recollect the passage, perhaps?'

'Yes,' replied Richardson, 'but what's that got to do with it?'

'Almost nothing. I pity the child Clive and I would be prepared to extend mercy to him. To connect him with peace and love is beyond my scope. One thing I can, and will, tell you about him. The Maidstons have given him up.'

'Given him up? I thought the little perisher was the apple of Mrs Maidston's eye. It certainly seemed like that when I was there.'

'She seems to have altered her opinion. What I want you to do is to give me as clear an account as you can of the time you spent there, and then I want you to answer one question. I do not wish to sound dramatic, but I want you to answer it as though you were on oath.'

'Heavens!' said Richardson, with a return of his former nervousness. 'That sounds most fearfully sinister.'

'Never mind. Just you fire away. Oh, one point before you begin. Have you any reason to think that Mr Maidston is, or was, connected in any way with the Scylla and District Athletic and Social Club?'

'Not that I know of, but the only real contact I had with that club was in competing against them, and, of course, my two rows with Colnbrook. Both were individual events, so to speak, if you remember, so the club, as such, didn't come into it except at the feed they gave us, and Maidston certainly wasn't present at that.'

'How did you obtain the tutoring post?'

'Mrs Maidston wrote to me. Of course, I didn't realise that Clive was the kid in question. He was always called Topley at school.'

'So I was told by the Headmaster. It seems an extraordinary coincidence that Mrs Maidston should have answered your advertisement out of the many others there must have been to choose from.'

'Well, it wasn't so much of a coincidence, really. Young Clive had heard from a pal of his at school that I'd left, so he asked the Maidstons if he could have me to tutor him.'

'Who told you this?'

'Mrs Maidston, in her letter.'

'Did Clive confirm this?'

'I didn't ask him and he didn't mention it.'

'I see. Now, tell me all you can about the time you spent there, not omitting the reason for your leaving.'

Richardson told his story. There was nothing sensational about it. He glossed over the incident which had led to his dismissal by stating that Mrs Maidston had 'made a bit of a pass' at him and then had represented him to her husband as 'a sort of seducer and so forth,' and that Mr Maidston 'naturally took her word for it, and I wasn't prepared to give her away.' There had been some anonymous letters, too, Richardson had learned from the boy, but these had not been mentioned to him by the Maidstons.

'Now,' said Dame Beatrice, 'for my question. Don't look apprehensive. I think I know the answer, but I should like confirmation from you. Did you know that Clive took home with him from school two test-tubes containing chemicals?'