A Javelin for Jonah

The girl was silent. Dame Beatrice waited. At last Kathleen muttered, “I don’t know. He—Jonah—he wasn’t at lunch, so I suppose that’s why.”

“I don’t think that will do, you know,” Dame Beatrice said gently. “Mr. Jones was often absent from lunch. He used to drive into the village or the town and obtain lunch and a drink at a public house. There was no secret about this, was there?”

“I suppose there was not.”

“I know there was not. So why should the six of you have decided to own up to the kidnapping unless you knew perfectly well what had happened to Mr. Jones?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well, in that case, perhaps I had better tell you.”

“No! I don’t want to hear! I won’t listen!” Kathleen got up, rushed to the door, flung it open, and ran.

“Want me to chase after her?” asked Laura.

“No, no. She will keep, as the police would say.”

Laura went over and closed the door which the girl had left wide open.

“You’ve scared her stiff,” she remarked, resuming her seat. “I’ll transcribe my shorthand, shall I?”

“By all means. Meanwhile, I think I would like a word with Mr. Medlar.”

“They don’t run to an inter-com. system here. I’ll go and page him for you.”

“We will both go, then. The notes can wait.”

“Are you going to voice your suspicions to him?” Laura gathered up her shorthand notes and pushed them into her handbag.

“I think not, but that depends upon how our conversation goes. Let us try the senior common room. He may still be there.”

The senior common room, however, was deserted except for a maid who was gathering up empty coffee cups.

“Mr. Medlar, madam,” she said, “I expect he’s in his office. He usually works there of an evening. I have orders to take his whisky and soda in there at half-past ten.”

“Ah, then,” said Dame Beatrice to Laura, “we must not disturb him.” They returned to Dame Beatrice’s room to find Hamish loitering outside the door.

“Hullo,” he said. “I knocked, but you weren’t there, so I thought I’d hang about. I didn’t think you’d be long, as you could hardly be with Gassie.”

“Why not? We went along to see him, as a matter of fact,” said Laura.

“To find out, rather, whether it was possible to see him,” amended Dame Beatrice. “We found that it was not. He had retired to his office to work.”

“He’d retired to his office to go into a huddle with Henry, Miss Yale and the girl Kathleen,” said Hamish. “She came to the senior common room in no end of a taking. What have you been a-doin’ to her? She was racked with sobs and, from what I could interpret, was demanding your head on a charger. Gassie then called a council of war and led the weeping Niobe off to his den, followed by his faithful henchmen.”

“Why the support?” asked Laura.

“He never sees the women students in his office or his sitting-room unless Miss Yale is there. It’s like in a police station, where they always have a woman P.C. in the room, I believe, when they’re questioning a female suspect. It looks more official and averts disadvantageous comment. Besides, the women students don’t give a fig for Gassie, but they’re terrified of old Nokomis. Why Henry was hauled in I don’t know.”

“Well,” said Dame Beatrice, “I thought I had upset the girl, but I hardly expected that she would go to these lengths.”

“I thought I’d made it clear in my letters that they always run to Gassie if they have any complaints.”

“I did not know that it included complaints about casual visitors. By the way, do you remember talking over with me the suggestion that you should take up a temporary appointment here?”

“Yes, of course. You told me that Medlar had once been second master at Isingtower School. I mentioned it to him on my first day here. He didn’t seem altogether overjoyed to think that I knew. Instead of discussing it in a cosy manner, he jettisoned the subject with some abruptness, I thought. Wasn’t he a success at Isingtower?”

“As a schoolmaster? I have no idea. As a kindly husband, however, quite a number of people seem to have decided that he was wanting. His wife was drowned in the bath and there was a great deal of unpleasant talk. The wife left a good deal of money, you see, and all of it went to Gascoigne Medlar.”

“Did he ever come to trial?”

“No. The case went as far as to the magistrates and they dismissed it—or so Ferdinand told me. That was when he knew you were coming here. He thought Medlar was guilty.”

“He seems to have followed the proceedings pretty closely. How about you? Do you think, from what you were told, that Medlar was guilty?”

“Again, I have no idea. All I gathered was that Mr. Henry’s evidence may have turned the scale.”

“Henry? What on earth had he to do with it?”

“He affirmed in cross-examination by the defence—he was the prosecution’s witness—that Mrs Medlar’s mental health was such that she might have decided to end her own life. In fact, she was a dipsomaniac—I suppose nowadays it would be more fashionable to call her a confirmed alcoholic— and was subject to severe attacks of