‘And just my luck,’ said Kitty, detailing the pleasures of the day when she encountered the others before tea, ’not a Supervisor on the horizon. I bet I fluff next time, and someone is sure to walk in.’
‘We had the Deb.,’ said Alice, smiling happily. ‘She just walked into my Arithmetic lesson and said: “Cheer up, Miss Boorman. I’m twice as frightened as you are.” And then she marked me — look!’
A red star, mark of extreme approbation, blazed, albeit smudgily (for Alice had wept over it in secret joy during the major part of the dinner hour), on the front page of Alice’s notes.
‘She told me off,’ said Laura. ‘Reminded me the teacher is the stage-manager, not the chief actor. Devastating, I call it. Besides, she’s a perfectly rotten teacher herself.’
Her friends giggled unfeelingly, and neither they nor the recipient of Deborah’s uncharitable advice allowed it to interfere in the slightest with their tea.
Between tea and dinner there were no lectures during School Practice. Some of the students commenced their preparation for the next day’s work; Alice was one of them. Laura took Kitty apart, and they walked up and down the gravel path between Athelstan and Beowulf deep in conversation.
‘But I’d be scared stiff, Dog,’ Kitty protested, at the end of ten minutes’ earnest monologue by Laura. ‘Besides, there’s Alice. We can’t leave her on her own. And then, I’ve got P.T. tomorrow. I must swot a beastly drill table. What comes after Group Four?’
‘Lateral,’ Laura replied. ‘But you’d better mug it up, in case I’m wrong. And don’t let ’em do Forward Punching. They only edge up and hit one another in the back.’
‘We’ve got a whale of a P.T. specialist in our school,’ continued Kitty. ‘One of those hags from Rule Britannia’s. She must be at least thirty, but she’s marvellous. Name of Cornflake. I suppose she’s Uncertif. and has come for a year to get the doings.’
‘Name of what?’
‘Cornflake.’
‘Rot.’
‘But I’ve seen it written down.’
Then it can’t be pronounced as it’s written. You couldn’t be called Cornflake.’
‘I don’t see why not. Look at
‘Less about my name. I’d have you know, you wretched Anglo-Saxon, that the Clan Menzies was out in the Forty-Five, and on the right side, too!’
‘I’m not a wretched Anglo-Saxon,’ said Kitty, wounded. ‘The Trevelyans are a very old Cornish family, as anybody but a halfwit would know.’
‘All the more reason why you should live up to your family traditions and assist me in my ghost-hunt. Don’t tell me a Trevelyan ever turned his back and neglected to march breast-forward.’
‘Oh, all right, but I shall be a rag tomorrow, I warn you. And I
‘All right, don’t fret, then. I’ll hunt alone.’
‘No, you won’t. But I think we shall have to tell Alice.’
‘I have other plans for that jolly old nurse of ninety years. She’s got to check up on the personnel of the students, to make certain it’s nobody in Athelstan playing silly tricks.’
‘We know it isn’t. Mrs Croc. called the roll.’
‘Like hell she did! After giving plenty of time for everybody to assemble in the Common Room, no matter where they’d been. I know for a fact that Cartwright was having a surreptitious bath in the maids’ bathroom below stairs when the siren sounded.’
‘Was she?’
‘Of course she was. She said that from where she was it sounded like seventy devils whistling the “Soldiers’ Chorus”.’
‘Was she scared?’
‘Not a bit. Said she thought some fool was pulling a stunt. She just wrapped herself in her bathgown and toddled upstairs, prepared with explanations if asked for; which they weren’t. Now do you see what I mean?’
‘What did she have on her feet?’
‘I don’t know. What’s it matter?’
‘Mrs Croc. is a detective, don’t forget.’
‘I’m not forgetting. Even Sherlock Holmes could slip up. She probably wore her rubber shoes, and put them out on the window-ledge to dry. That’s what I should have done.’
‘I don’t believe you could get away with it without Mrs Croc. knowing, all the same. What’s the odds she knew all about Cartwright and her bath, anyway? Maybe she even gave her time to get to the Common Room in time for Roll-Call. Think that out.’
‘I have. Ad delirium tremens. So what?’
‘Well, she knows it was nothing to do with Cartwright, and she wasn’t going to let her get mixed up in any subsequent inquiry.’
‘Golly,’ said Laura, respectfully. ‘Your own idea?’
‘You’re not the only person who can add up two and two,’ said Kitty, with the sunny good temper which
