“I can’t be absolutely sure, of course. My custom is to unlock the cupboard, bring in my six men, let them make their selection and return the extra javelins; then I lock up again, and conduct my coaching. I don’t touch the javelins myself except at stock-taking.”
“Supposing,” said Dame Beatrice, struck by another idea, “that Mr. Medlar’s own javelin, the one found in the covered baths, had ever appeared among the collection, would you have recognized it?”
“Not if the metal tag with the inscription had been removed from it, and neither would the students, I think.”
“Would that be an easy task?”
“To remove the tag? Perfectly simple, I imagine.”
“And without it the javelin would look like any other javelin?”
“Oh, yes, of course. Gassie’s javelin is of full standard length and weight. But the inscription was still on it when it was found in the cubicle.”
“Yes, of course.” She took leave of Henry and went to her car, and in a matter of minutes she and Laura were heading down the College drive en route for the village and the forge. It was a good twelve miles from Joynings—far enough, in fact, to discourage the students from walking there and back—but it took less than twenty minutes in the car. The forge seemed to be in the sole charge of a lad of about sixteen, but no work was being done, although the fire was alight. When he saw the visitors the lad said, “Dad won’t be long. He’s down the pub.”
“Where’s the pub?” asked Laura. The boy jerked a dirty thumb.
“Thataways, past the post-office.”
“I’ll go in and winkle him out,” said Laura, when the car reached the inn. “You can’t talk to him in there.”
There were only three men in the bar, including the landlord. Laura went up to the counter.
“I’m looking for the blacksmith,” she said. A short, thickset man turned his head.
“That’s me,” he said. “What did you want done? This is my time for elevenses. Be with you in ’arf an hour.”
“Could you knock off your elevenses for just a minute or two, Mr. Potts? There is somebody outside who would like a word with you. There is no job involved.”
“If it’s somebody after Joe Potts they won’t get no word with ’im. ’E’s in ’orspital.”
“Who are you, then? It was Mr. Potts we wanted.”
“Name of Benson. I’m a specialist, see? I does the fancy ironwork at the forge. I pays Potts for the use of his gear when I has a job on hand.”
“Well, Mr. Benson, you might be able to help us. Won’t you please step outside for just a moment?” The man grunted, turned his back on Laura and finished his beer. Laura put down money on the counter. “A pint for Mr. Benson when he comes back,” she said, “and perhaps this other gentleman will join him. You, too, landlord?”
Benson followed her out to the car, but when Dame Beatrice put her first question he shook his head.
“I wouldn’t know nothing about it,” he said firmly. “Potts told me about it next day. Said a chap brought in a longish bit of smooth wood with as it might be a bit of cord round the middle—well, near enough the middle—and says as how he’d had an accident and snapped off the steel point. He wanted another point put on it, that’s all, but Potts says he can’t manage a job as needs tempered steel and advises him to chuck the stick away and get a noo ’un.”
“So you cannot describe the man?”
“I wasn’t working at the forge that day, so I never set eyes on him. Potts only told me afterwards what he come for. ‘One of that lot up at the College, I reckon,’ Potts says. ‘Ten to one that’s who ’e is. Wants a job done on the cheap, that’s what, but it wasn’t a job I could do; and so I explains to ’im,’ Potts says.”
“He didn’t put a name to the man, by any chance?” asked Laura.
“Not to me he never. ’Cos why? He didn’t know ’im. The only Colleger as we knowed down in the village was Mr. Jones, and it certainly wasn’t him, because Potts would ’ave said so. Not as he knowed, not then, as Jones had got his daughter into trouble. That come a bit later on. But if it
chapter
14
Coasting round the Bends
« ^ »
I would very much like to have a description of that caller,” said Dame Beatrice, as they drove back to College. “I think we must find out to which hospital Potts has been admitted and whether he is permitted visitors other than his family. However, that will have to stand over, because the inspector will be awaiting our return.”
The inspector had finished with the students by the time they reached the College and was enjoying mid- morning coffee and biscuits in the senior common room with Henry and Miss Yale.
“I can’t get anything out of those lads,” he said, when the tutors had gone, “so perhaps you’d have a go at them, Dame Beatrice. Whatever they know about Kirk, they’re not letting on, not to me. Here’s a list of their names, and I can point out their particular hut.”
“I obtained no useful information either,” confessed Dame Beatrice, “except a further denial that the repair or reconstruction of the suspect javelin was ever done at the forge.”
