A Javelin for Jonah

kept.”

“I’ll do my own checking on that, ma’am. Some of these youngsters are as clever as a cartload of monkeys, and I wouldn’t put it past them to rifle any cupboard or store they’d a mind to take a peek at. After all, it’s established that some of them kidnapped Jones and buried his body. I’ve still got that one to sort out. I heard this morning, before we had this latest development to look into, that the forensic lads have at last got a positive result with that doctored javelin. They got a blood-sample—tiny, but enough for their purpose— which had got trapped between the head of the javelin and the shaft, and it corresponds with Jones’s blood-group, so we’re assuming with confidence now that it was the murder weapon. The next thing is to find out who put the new head on that javelin.”

“And when it was done, of course. My own theory was that the javelin was altered only shortly before Mr. Jones’s death and was especially prepared with his premeditated murder in mind. I have made enquiries, however, and can prove nothing because, although the College possesses twelve javelins, of which eight are reserved for the students of mature strength, only six are ever in use at one and the same time, and the altered javelin would be automatically discarded when the students chose their implements, so the new steel head may have been put on it weeks ago.”

“Yes, I see, ma’am. Well, I’ll institute my own enquiries as to that, as well.”

“What about the shot which was found in the woods?”

“Oh, it was the murder weapon all right. The doctor is certain of that. Head injuries seem to take the shape, to a large extent, of the object which caused the injury. In this case, a depressed fracture of the skull corresponds closely enough with the shape of the shot to clinch matters. The young chap was knocked unconscious by a heavy blow to the jaw and then crowned with the shot. He was killed in the lock-up garage which used to belong to Mr. Jones, we think. There’s no blood about, but the doctor says a blow from an instrument as large and globular as the one used here, need not necessarily cause much bleeding, or not such bleeding as would cause blood to spurt. The boy’s hair was matted and there was blood on his jacket-collar, but that was all.”

“And you think the body was carried from the garage to the woods. What made you think of the garage if there are no bloodstains?”

“Because Mr. Jones’s car had been moved out and then put back, ma’am. The marks are plain to see and we’ve also found other marks which indicate that a car was halted at the end of the drive nearest to the woods. Our theory is that the boy was murdered in the garage, conveyed in a car to as close as possible to where the body was found, and then the corpse, probably not quite cold, was placed on the ground as the searchers first saw it. Any of the staff, or any student who had managed to get hold of a staff key, could have unlocked the door of Jones’s garage. The locks are all identical. It wasn’t Jones’s car which was used to convey the body, though.”

“So again the staff, rather than the students, seem to be involved. You could not identify any footmarks in the woods, I suppose?”

“With all this dry, hot weather, there wasn’t much chance of that, ma’am, and, in any case, the searchers would have made it practically impossible. Those woods have been searched twice since Jones first was missed. We’ve looked at the tyres of the other staff cars, but haven’t hit on the car which must have carried the body. Well, I’ll go and get a list of the students in Kirk’s hut, and then perhaps you’ll give them the onceover if I don’t get as much out of them as I should like.”

“You have made enquiry at the village blacksmith’s about the head which was put on that javelin, have you not? I was about to go and see him myself yesterday afternoon, but I postponed my visit when we knew what had happened to Mr. Kirk.”

“Oh, the blacksmith—his name is Potts—denies, as I told you, all knowledge of the javelin, and I’ve thought all along that whoever did it used one of the College workshops.”

“Nevertheless, while you are talking to the hut-companions of Mr. Kirk, I think I will still go to the village. If you will allow me to mention the death of Mr. Kirk, Mr. Potts may be more forthcoming to me than he was to you.”

“What makes you so sure he did the job on the javelin, ma’am?”

“I am not sure, but I think it most unlikely that the alteration was carried out on the premises. The students might not have reported upon the strange activities of another student, but I think there would be rumours, by this time, if anyone else had been seen putting a new head on a javelin, particularly as I have a theory that the murderer may not have had any official connection with the javelin, the shot, the discus or the hammer.”

“So that lets out Miss Yale, Mr. Henry, and Mr. Martin,” said the inspector, consulting a list, “and leaves in Miss Lesley and Miss Celia (although, by the nature of the two crimes, I’d hardly think of considering ladies, anyway), also Mr. Medlar himself, Mr. Barry, Mr. James and Mr. Jerry. Might as well stick a pin in a list like that and just hope for the best, wouldn’t you say, ma’am?”

“No, Inspector, not altogether. There are four outstanding names on your list. They are Mr. Medlar, who, it seems pretty certain, was under Mr. Jones’s thumb to some extent; Miss Yale, who is fiercely protective where the women students are concerned; Mr. Barry, who is known to have entertained feelings of the deepest animosity towards Mr. Jones because of a serious accident suffered, through Mr. Jones’s direct agency, by one of the men- students, and Miss Lesley, who is known to have uttered threats of a lurid and comprehensive kind on her own behalf and also on that of some of the women students.”

“Yale and Lesley in collusion, you think?” hazarded the inspector.

“It is a possibility. How heavy would you think the boy was?”

“Kirk? Oh, not a lot to him. I wouldn’t say he was more than nine stone and could have been less. Two women, or a powerfully-built lady like Miss Yale on her own, could have carried the body easily enough.”

“As could Mr. Medlar or Mr. Barry, then.”

“Yes, oh yes, I should say so. Well, I’ll go and check out that hut, ma’am, while you go into the village.”

Before calling for her car, Dame Beatrice sought out Henry. This involved prising him out from his lecture-room, for which she apologized.

“I won’t keep you a minute,” she concluded, “but has there been any time when you have only counted eleven javelins instead of the usual twelve?”

“No,” Henry replied, “I don’t count them each time and I don’t believe I would have noticed if one had been missing.”

“Thank you. That is all I wanted to know.”