A Javelin for Jonah

position to blackmail the Warden.

The changing-rooms, brick-built and commodious, stood out against a background of glimmering sky and the pale wreaths of the stars. Hamish walked up to the window and called Jones by name. There was neither answer nor any sound of movement from within the building. He walked all the way round it, tapping on the walls and doors and continuing to call out, “Jones! I say! Are you there, Jones?” But, like the lonely traveller in the poem, he called out in vain. In the starlight the building stood silent and apparently deserted. The men-students had keys to the cupboards, but the only key to the outside doors must be with the head groundsman. Hamish trotted back to the main building to keep his appointment with Henry.

“I’ve tried the changing-rooms,” he said, when they met. “It was a pretty long shot, but I just thought they might have shut him up in one of those big cupboards. I hadn’t a key, but I walked all the way round and hammered and shouted. I didn’t get any reply, but, of course, if he was shut away like that, he might have passed out, I suppose.”

“Oh,” said Henry, “I shouldn’t think he would. All those cupboards have ventilation holes in the doors. He wouldn’t suffocate. No, if you didn’t get any reply, he isn’t there. It would be too obvious a hiding-place, anyway. Besides, the groundsman has a cupboard and a locker there. He’d have found him and let him out before this. Well, have you any other ideas? You’re nearer in age to the students than I am. Where would be a likely place to start? What are they likely to have thought of?”

“The whale’s belly,” said Hamish. “You know, Henry, I seem to think that must be more than merely a fanciful way of describing Jones’s prison. Can’t you think of any place which might fit the reference? To my mind, under the ground seems likelier than above it. Isn’t there a cellar, or something of the sort, attached to this house?”

“A cellar…” Henry considered the suggestion. “There’s a wine-cellar, but nobody except Gassie and the butler have access to that.”

“Well, it’s not an old enough house to have a priest’s room or secret passages, so there’s no problem there.”

“I’ll tell you what there is, now I come to think of it,” said Henry. “There’s the underground installation for the central heating. I wonder whether they can have thought of that? It’s known to the College as the stoke-hole. That might fit the bill if they could get hold of the key.”

“How does one get to it?”

“Well, there’s a kind of janitor who looks after it. Access to it is by what looks like a half-door, with a tiny round-headed window, in the wall round by the kitchens, It’s down a steep step. I went in once with Jackson— that’s the janitor fellow—and he showed me round. I believe you may have hit on the very place, although I’m surprised the students should have known how to gain access to it. Well, one thing: if Jonah is down there he’ll be all right. It’s warm and dry, and there must be plenty of ventilation because Jackson has a sort of cubby-hole down there and uses it quite a lot in winter weather, he informed me. There’s an armchair—basket-work, with cushions —and a primus stove and a food cupboard—all modern conveniences, so to speak.”

“Well, shall we go and take a look?”

“Have to wait until I can get the key off Jackson tomorrow morning before we can get in, I’m afraid, but we could go to the doorway and speak. I don’t suppose the door is soundproof, so at least we may be able to establish whether Jones is there or not.”

“Could Jones have been down there for a couple of days without Jackson finding him, though?”

“Oh, yes. Jackson wouldn’t go down there in this weather. Let’s make a recce and take a butchers.”

As they had keys to the front door, they let themselves out that way and walked round the side of the mansion towards the kitchen regions. When they were under the pantry window, Henry switched on a torch and played the spotlight from it over the surrounding brickwork. A couple of yards further on, Hamish saw the round-headed glass in the half-door which Henry had mentioned. They pushed at the door and tried to rattle it, but it was well-fitted and did not budge. Hamish descended the step, knelt on the narrow stone doorsill, put his lips close to the key-hole and called out Jones’s name, but there was no response. Then Henry tried. His voice boomed back at him, but that was all.

“There’s no supervision in the halls of residence, is there?” asked Hamish, as Henry stood up.

“No, and to those I do have a key. We shan’t be popular if we go invading them at this time of night, though. Much better wait until the huts are empty tomorrow morning. Not that I think they’ll have hidden him there. Servants go in to clean up and make the beds and collect the laundry, you know, and there’s an odd-job fellow who empties waste-paper baskets and cleans boots and shoes.”

“The servants could be squared, perhaps.”

“By penniless students?”

“Well, scared into keeping quiet, then.”

“Possibly. All right, we’ll take a look round while the chaps are having breakfast. Is there anywhere else you can think of?”

“Well, he would hardly have been hidden in the room of one of the girls, but what about trying the attics?”

“The girls’ rooms?” said Henry thoughtfully. “You know, you may have hit on something there. It’s quite clear that the women students are in on the rag. It’s also fairly certain that they’re nervous about it. It’s true that most of the lasses hate old Jonah like poison, but there are one or two types who might take a pop at him and think the fun and games worthwhile. His prowess with Bertha may have given the hussies— and we’ve got our share of them—a bit of a kick.”

“Isn’t there the same objection, though?”

“How do you mean?”

“The servant problem.”

“No, as it happens, there isn’t. The girls are supposed to make their own beds and keep their rooms tidy.”

“What about their laundry, though?”

“They wash and iron their own bits of frippery and just chuck their bed-linen and so forth outside their bedroom