A Javelin for Jonah

doors every Thursday morning. I believe Miss Yale does an occasional inspection of rooms, but she always gives warning of her visits, so the girls are never taken on the hop. I really think, you know, James, that I’ll go and rake her out and suggest she does a round-up. If there’s anything scandalous going on, I think we should nip it in the bud.”

“I should think Miss Yale would nip us in the bud, if we go disturbing her at one o’clock in the morning.”

“Not she. Come along. Let’s chance it.”

Miss Yale’s large bed-sitter had a fanlight over the door and they could see that her light was on. Henry tapped and they waited. There was no invitation to them to enter, but after a few moments Miss Yale opened the door.

“Oh, it’s you two,” she said. “Come in. Sorry to have kept you waiting, but thought I’d better hide my chunk of porn in case it was one of the hussies. What can I do for you? If you’re looking for Jonah, try elsewhere. I haven’t got him.”

“How did you guess we were looking for Jonah?” Henry enquired, closing the door behind himself and Hamish.

“Spotted you snooping round the house. No luck, I suppose?”

“We’ve tried the changing-rooms and the stoke-hole,” said Hamish, “but haven’t found him.”

“I suppose you’ve tried his own room to make sure they haven’t trussed him up and bundled him into his own wardrobe or somewhere?”

“We wondered,” said Henry, with some diffidence, “whether, while we do that, you could make sure that none of your young ladies is giving him her hospitality.”

“Think it’s likely? I don’t. I’ll go the rounds, if you like, but it won’t be any help. Good thing I hadn’t gone to bed. You push along to Jonah’s quarters, then, and I’ll give the girls’ rooms the once-over. They are three to a room, so it won’t take me all that long.”

“Not much privacy for the girls, then,” said Hamish, when they had inspected Jones’s two splendid rooms and had assured themselves that he was not in residence or captivity there.

“Oh, they can curtain all the rooms into cubicles, I believe,” said Henry. “They probably like it quite well. Lots of delinquent girls are definitely gregarious, curiously enough. In fact, I would say that our young women are far more homogeneous than the men.”

Miss Yale returned at the end of twenty-five minutes.

“Nothing doing,” she reported. “A few cases of incipient lesbianism, but nothing more. They get lonely, you know, and as they can’t co-habit with the men, what can you expect? After all, they’re in prison here, poor little stinkers.” With this sympathetic pronouncement she said goodnight and closed her door.

“Now for the attics,” said Henry. But in the attics they drew blank once more. “Well, we shall have to give it up for tonight,” he added at last, “but in the morning I’ll inspect the halls of residence, just to leave no stone unturned, and get keys to the changing-rooms. I’m beginning not to like the look of things, and that’s a fact.”

chapter

5

Interviews

« ^ »

Well,” said Henry on the following morning, “there seems to be nobody in the stoke-hole, or anywhere else we thought of. If Jones doesn’t turn up at lunch I shall speak to Gassie and get him to utter threats.”

“What sort of threats?” asked Hamish.

“That is up to him. Expulsion of ringleaders, I suppose, although I do hope it won’t really come to that. The threat may be sufficient to bring them to their senses.”

“Who are the ringleaders?”

“One can do no more than guess, at this juncture. After all, there are those among us who have grievances, are there not?”

“Yes, but the chief sufferers from Jones’s machinations are still in hospital.”

“How do we know they’re the chief ones? There may be others. In fact, we know there are.”

“Good Lord! You don’t suppose Barry or Lesley would be a party to a student rag, do you?”

“No, of course not. Anyway, we’ll hope to goodness Jones shows up at lunch, that’s all.”

Jones was not at lunch. Henry, looking worried, left his seat at the high table, got out his car and drove to the village to make certain that the missing man had not decided upon a snack and a drink at the public-house which was his frequent haven. He drew blank, as he had expected to do, returned to College and caught up, as best he could, with his meal.

The students were unusually quiet. Such talk as went on was in undertones. There was an air of conspiracy about the place.

“Have you been to see Gassie? Does he know that Jonah is still missing?” Hamish asked when Henry had re- seated himself at the high table.

“I’m going to see him directly after lunch. I’m beginning to hope that the students will have freed Jones and that he’s decided to sling his hook, after all. There was that rumour, you know, that he had resigned.”