A Javelin for Jonah

my definition, but me, I know I am right. I convince myself, so how is it I do not convince him? So I say it with knives. That do not convince him either, and I am kicked out of the school. Just like that! For nothing! For one little snick on his face to prove to him I am right. But what of it? Those who have right suffer always.”

“That is both sad and true. But I must not waste your rest-time. Do you swim this afternoon?”

“But yes. What do you want with me?”

“Confirmation, or the reverse, of some information I received this morning.”

“So?”

“Yes. I am afraid it is what lawyers would call a leading question, but I am anxious not to keep you longer than is absolutely necessary. You will remember that Mr. Jones was kidnapped and incarcerated by some of the students?”

“But not by me. I do not care for these childish entertainments.”

“Nor I. But can you remember which night it was, at just about that time, that Mr. Kirk left the hall of residence to go in search of certain bottles which were thought to be in the boot of Mr. Jones’s car?”

“But certainly. Mr. Jones goes to the estaminet on the Tuesday, but he is kidnapped on the Wednesday and it is only in the dark, which comes very late at this time of the year, that we can bring in the bottles. So by the Thursday we are all very thirsty and we say to Kirk what about these bottles and to go out and bring them in, or we shall all beat him up. So he go, but still we get no bottles because there is no way he can break into the garage without a staff key.”

“And did you beat him up?”

“Oh, no, we would not do a thing like that. It was only a threat, although we make Kirk think it was true. You see, that big, ugly fellow Richard says, when Kirk has gone to try to get the bottles, that if anybody lay a finger on the little rat, he, Richard, will have their guts for garters. That is an English saying. How bestial are the English! So, when Kirk come back and look frightened, we think it is the beating-up he fears, but when, later, the dogs find Mr. Jones, I think to myself that maybe Kirk find out something else besides that the garage cannot be opened. I think he go over to the stoke-hole and spot the person who has just murdered Jones.”

“He went to ask Mr. Jones for his key to the garage, I presume.”

“That is the way I think.”

“Thank you,” said Dame Beatrice. “Kirk never told any of you that he had seen something suspicious that night?”

“No. In the morning we sneak Lesley’s key to the garage. Quite simple. Two of us distract her attention with wild talk of love while another takes her handbag and finds her car keys with which she has a key to her garage, and we find the key will fit Jones’s garage, so we manage to get our bottles after all.”

“And Miss Lesley’s keys?”

“Oh, those we return. We are men of honour. I do not think she knows they were ever borrowed. Students, you understand, are very clever people.”

“You have been of great help,” said Dame Beatrice, “but I believe there is one more thing which you can tell me, if you are public-spirited enough to do so.”

“The public school I know, and the public-house and the public library. All those. What is this public spirit?”

“I cannot define it. You have a French expression esprit de corps, but I do not believe it means quite the same thing. Suppose I said, ‘General goodwill’, would that convey anything to you?”

“I do not think we would understand that term at Joynings, but ask your question.”

“Since the death of Mr. Jones, has the consignment of bottles ceased to be delivered?”

“But no. I think that his murderer give us them.”

“Under pressure, of course.”

“Of course. I suppose Kirk—now this is a word I do not know in English—”

“Allow me to supply it in French. Kirk had become the maitre chanteur of the murderer. In other words, Kirk was blackmailing him. You don’t know his name, I suppose?”

A maid came in just as Paul-Pierre was shaking his head.

“The inspector, madam,” she said.

“Show him in, please.”

“I go,” said Paul-Pierre hastily.

“That lad,” said the inspector, “will come to a sticky end, ma’am. Well, I’ve found out the hospital, but I was too late to talk to Potts.”

“He has been discharged?” asked Dame Beatrice.

“No, ma’am, not in the sense you mean. I’m sorry to say that he’s dead.”

“Dear me! His partner, Benson, gave me no inkling that he was so seriously ill.”

“Not ill, in the sense you mean, ma’am. He’d had a nasty knock on the head.”

“Foul play?”

“Doubtful, it seems. What happened was that one night, about a week ago, his wife heard her chickens squawking, so she made Potts get up and see what was upsetting them, whether it was a fox got into the hen- house or a thief. Seems they’d lost chickens before. Well, he was so long gone that she became alarmed, so she went next door—it’s a row of half-a-dozen brick-built cottages—to ask the neighbour to help her investigate, as she