daubing my javelin with red paint.”
“Oh, you recognize it as your javelin, do you? James has identified it, too, so I suppose it must be yours.”
“Certainly. If you look, you can see the inscription I had put on it. All the museum objects are inscribed or numbered. I wish I knew who has managed to gain access to the museum, though. The key has never been out of my possession except those days, some weeks ago, when James had it to catalogue the collection. He seems certain that none of the students could have obtained possession of the key, but people are always certain about that kind of thing. I must speak to him again.”
“Well, he’s here if you want him,” said Henry. “Incidentally, I’ve seen the students whom I set to searching the woods. There is no sign of Jonah.” He walked along the side of the bath to where Hamish was giving instruction. “Gassie craves a word,” he said.
Hamish ordered his learners out of the water and waylaid the girl Cynthia.
“Get your things out of your cubicle and find another one in which to dress,” he said. “I suppose it’s too much to ask you to keep quiet about what you’ve found?”
“Don’t touch the javelin,” said Gascoigne, as the girl prepared to enter the cubicle. “Just pick up your things and run along. I hope you are not the culprit who took the javelin from my museum?”
“I was sent here for running away from home, not for shoplifting, Gassie darling,” said the girl pertly.
At the high table that evening Jones’s chair was empty again. Hamish caught Henry casting an anxious glance at it. The students, too, seemed to be eyeing it. There was a subdued air about the dining-hall and voices were kept low. Gascoigne ate his dinner in almost complete silence and did not favour the senior common room with his presence at coffee after the meal.
“I’ve been on to him,” said Henry, when the Warden’s absence received comment from the others. “I’ve told him it’s more than time he called in the police to trace Jonah. Naturally he doesn’t want to, but now this javelin has been found, I don’t think he’s got any option. I don’t like this mysterious business. Jonah wasn’t popular, to say the least, and we’ve got more than one homicidal character on the premises. While Gassie is chewing things over, I want one of you to come with me to have a look round Jones’s quarters. I think I’d like a witness, in case he’s left any clue as to his whereabouts. I don’t care for the look of things at all, and I’m making no secret of the fact. I want an absolutely unbiased witness, so, James, I’d like you to accompany me.”
“Wouldn’t Medlar… ?” began Hamish.
“I’d sooner have you.”
Together they went to Jones’s rooms. Unlike the rest of the staff, he had been given a sitting-room as well as a bedroom and both were beautifully furnished.
“Plushy,” said Hamish. “All brother-in-lawly love, I take it.”
“I suppose so. I’ll look through the bureau if you’ll turn out the cupboard.”
They searched the sitting-room and then went into the bedroom. Apart from a good many empty bottles under the bed and some lively photographs under the clean shirts, there was little to indicate an individual taste or a positive personality. There were no letters and no unpaid bills, but neither did anything indicate that Jones might have packed up and taken an unceremonious departure. Henry and Hamish gave up their search and went to Henry’s own room. He made coffee and produced a bottle of brandy.
“I talked very seriously to Gassie this evening just before dinner,” he said.
“What did you tell him?”
“I told him everything, beginning with the clues the students had given us and the interview we’d had with the committee— the Rag Committee, I suppose they’d call themselves. I told him of the search we’d made, and I impressed on him—or tried to—that the students themselves weren’t happy about Jonah’s disappearance.”
“What did he say to that?”
“Well, he admitted it was worrying. He also said that he’d been in contact with one or two of the local farmers to ask whether there had been any complaints of animals being killed, but he had rounded up no information.”
“Rather a strange thing to have done, surely?”
“Oh, no, not really. We have had complaints—few and far between, I must admit—but it’s not unknown for some of our bold spirits to raid a farm for sucking pigs. Then they have a barbecue, you know—that sort of thing. He was thinking of that messy javelin, of course. In spite of talking about red paint, he thinks there might be blood on it, you know.”
“I gather, from what you said about pigs, that the farmers wouldn’t be altogether surprised to get his enquiry?”
“Not at all surprised, and he’s well in with them because, if there ever have been complaints, he has provided very generous compensation.”
“To keep the thing out of the hands of the police, I suppose.”
“Yes, that’s it. It is one of his proudest boasts that none of the students has ever been in trouble with the law. That’s why the parents have so much confidence in him. As for Jonah’s disappearance, he said the chances were that he’d simply slung his hook, feeling that the students had had enough of him. I wish I still thought that was the case, but there’s something else—something I shall have to mention to Gassie. You remember we got paid on Wednesday morning? Well, in his bureau I found Jonah’s cheque, and a whacking big one it is. You see the point: it hasn’t been paid in. If he’d really slung his hook, he wouldn’t leave money behind. Well, I’ve told them to bring round my car. Could you spare time to accompany me to the pub? I tried it before, so I don’t think it will be the slightest bit of use, but Gassie suggested it, so I think perhaps…”
It was half-past nine when they reached the village. The night was clouded over and the stars were hidden. From the pub bright lights shone out on to the road and there came the hum of many voices, sounds of laughter and, as Hamish and Henry entered the bar, the sharpish plop of darts and the clink of glasses. The pub was crowded and the landlord and his barmaid were at full pressure.
Henry wormed his way through the crush to the bar counter and ordered. As he paid for the beers he said, “Jones been in tonight?”
