Tom by Miss Burke and Hare over there...'
'You call me that again and your own mother wouldn't recognize you,' said Miss Hare.
'Since she's been dead for ten years, I don't suppose she would now,' said Wilt, retreating behind his desk. By the time the PE teacher had been restrained, the Principal was trying to make some sense out of an increasingly confused situation. 'Can someone please shed some light on this sordid business?' he asked.
'If anyone can, she can,' said Wilt, indicating his secretary. 'After all, she set me up.'
'Set you up, Mr Wilt? I never did anything of the sort. All I said was there was a girl in the staff toilet with a hypodermic and I didn't know who she was and intimidated by the look of horror on the Principal's face, she ground to a halt. 'Have I said something wrong?'
'You saw a girl with a hypodermic in the staff toilet? And told Mr Wilt about it?'
Mrs Bristol nodded dumbly.
'When you say 'girl' I presume you don't mean a member of the staff?'
'I'm sure it wasn't. I didn't see her face but I'd have known surely. And she had this awful syringe filled with blood and...' She looked at Wilt for assistance.
'You said she was taking drugs.'
'There was no one in that toilet while I was there,' said Miss Hare, 'I'd have heard them.'
'I suppose it could have been someone with diabetes,' said the V-P, 'some adult student who wouldn't want to use the student's toilet for obvious reasons.'
'Oh quite,' said Wilt, 'I mean we all know diabetics go round with hypodermics full of blood. She was obviously flushing back to get the maximum dose.'
'Flushing back?' said the Principal weakly.
'That's what the junkies do,' said the V-P. 'They inject themselves and then'
'I don't want to know,' said the Principal.
'Well, if she was taking heroin'
'Heroin! That's all we need,' said the Principal, and sat down miserably.
'If you ask me,' said Miss Hare, 'the whole thing's a fabrication. I was in there ten minutes...'
'Doing what?' asked Wilt. 'Apart from attacking me.'
'Something feminine, if you must know.'
'Like taking steroids. Well, let me tell you that when I went down there and I wasn't there more than...'
It was Mrs Bristol's turn to intervene. 'Down, did you say down?'
'Of course I said down. What did you expect me to say? Up?'
'But the toilet's on the fourth floor, not the second. That's where she was.'
'Now you tell us. And where the hell do you think I went?'
'But I always go upstairs,' said Mrs Bristol. 'It keeps me in trim. You know that. I mean one's got to get some exercise and...'
'Oh, belt up,' said Wilt, and dabbed his nose with a bloodstained handkerchief.
'Right, let's get this straight,' said the Principal, deciding it was time to exercise some authority. 'Mrs Bristol tells Wilt here there is a girl upstairs injecting herself with something or other and instead of going upstairs, Wilt goes down to the toilet on the second floor and...'
'Gets beaten to a pulp by Ms Blackbelt Burke here,' said Wilt who was beginning to regain the initiative. 'And I don't suppose it's occurred to anyone to go up and see if that junkie's still there.'
But the Vice-Principal had already left.
'If that little turd calls me Burke again...' said Miss Hare menacingly. 'Anyway, I still think we should call the police. I mean, why did Wilt go downstairs instead of up? I find that
