A Javelin for Jonah

Dame Beatrice said nothing and Gascoigne appeared to have no more to add, so they sat in silence to wait for Henry, except that Gascoigne drummed with his fingers on his writing-table and Dame Beatrice took a small notebook out of her handbag and turned over the pages.

Henry did not keep them waiting very long. He came back with Richard, both of them looking as though they had run all the way, as, indeed, they had. Henry took the chair Gascoigne offered him, but said nothing.

“Now, Dick,” said Gascoigne.

Richard stood in front of the writing-table and said, “Kirk hasn’t been to bed and nobody knows where he is.”

“He hasn’t been in Hall, either,” said Henry. “I took it that he’d had a box of tuck from home and was making do with that while the rest of you were having your meals.”

Richard had turned towards him at the sound of his voice.

“Yes, Kirkie doesn’t believe in issuing many invitations when he gets a parcel,” he said. “Did you know the parcels don’t always come from his home?”

“What do you mean?” asked Gascoigne. “There is no reason why they should. Kirk may have other friends.”

“He did,” said Richard, “have other friends. As to reasons, well, it depends what’s in the parcels, doesn’t it? One more thing, just to keep you interested: one of Kirk’s closest friends, in a manner of speaking, was Jonah, and it was Jonah who brought him the parcels I was mentioning just now.”

He faced about and was gone before anything more could be said to him.

“Well, really!” said Gascoigne. “Do you think you should go after him, Henry?”

“As you wish,” Henry replied. “My own idea is that he’s said all he’s going to say. It’s up to us now. I think we should institute a search for Kirk. I feel very uneasy about him. Richard’s a lout, but he’s decent.”

“I ought to contact the parents if Kirk has absconded,” said Gascoigne.

“I think Richard was suggesting that he had not absconded,” said Dame Beatrice. “I did not care for the abstruse reference to Mr. Jones.”

“Neither did I,” said Henry. “Perhaps, while we’re searching for Kirk, you could have a go at Richard, Dame Beatrice. We shan’t get any more out of him, but you might. And, Gassie, I think the staff, not the students, should do the searching.”

“Very well, Henry, you know best. You don’t really think anything has happened to the boy, do you? Anyway, could you organize a film show to keep the students occupied while we search?”

“Unnecessary. It’s tea-time. They’ll be occupied all right. It won’t take us long to look for Kirk if we all join in the search. If he isn’t on the premises or in the woods, then you could let his people know. If he hasn’t gone home, and we don’t find him, you will put the police on to it, I suppose.”

“Yes, yes. How vexing and worrying it all is!”

“Laura and my manservant will be glad to help in the search, if you could do with two extra people,” said Dame Beatrice. “Meanwhile, perhaps you will send over to Mr. Richard’s hall of residence and ask him to come and see me as soon as he has finished his tea. It is fortunate that Mr. Jones had a sitting-room of his own. It is ideal for my purpose. I hope Richard will not object to being sent for?”

Richard took his time about coming over, but come he did, just as Dame Beatrice was finishing her second cup of tea.

“Look,” he said, “I’ve said all I can about Kirkie. I didn’t like the little runt, but I sort of keep an eye on things here. Done a lot for me, this place has. But, look, I’ve got things to do. I can’t waste time nattering here. I haven’t got one other thing I can tell you, so that’s that.”

“It is good of you to spare your time, Mr. Richard,” said Dame Beatrice, not at all put out by his truculent attitude. “Won’t you sit down?”

“Can’t stay, I tell you,” said Richard, an armchair creaking in protest as he flung his heavy body into it.

“Don’t tell me you have to see a man about a dog!”

Richard shrugged his broad shoulders. “It was the dogs uncovered old Jonah,” he said.

“Yes, indeed. Tell me what you know about it, will you?”

“I daresay you know as much as I do. Some fellows hid him in the stoke-hole, then somebody—not one of our lot, though—finished him off and our chaps buried him.”

“Let us take your statements in order. Some fellows hid him.”

“Five chaps and a girl. They owned up all right. Henry has their names, if you want them.”

“But, although they incarcerated him, they did not kill him. So far, you and I are in agreement. But tell me something more. Who, apart from those six, knew where he had been imprisoned?”

“I reckon most of us knew. The chaps did, anyway. I don’t know about the girls.”

“Was Mr. Jones generally feared, would you say?”

“By a few, I suppose, but they’d be the girls. Most of us thought he was dirt.”

“Why?”

“Didn’t do his job. Got drunk. Tried it on with women.”

“Could a woman have killed him?”

Richard grinned.