Laurels Are Poison

example.’

The Principal sat down again. Her face took on a look of regret struggling with its customary expression of benign conceit. The look of regret — to the credit of her intellectual conscience — won fairly easily.

‘I am sorry to say that I could not possibly undertake to recognize the College skeleton except as a skeleton,’ she said. ‘I mean that if you offered me a collection of well-articulated skeletons to choose from, I could not possibly pick out the one used here in the physiology or physical training classes.’

‘Oh — you use the skeleton for the physical training classes, do you?’

‘Certainly.’

‘Let me congratulate you,’ said Mrs Bradley, poking her in the ribs with a remarkably bony forefinger, and thus obtaining unintentional but indubitable revenge for the slights proffered, earlier in the interview, towards her students. ‘But tell me,’ she added, as the writhing Miss du Mugne eluded her torturing hand, ‘when can I see the College skeleton and how unlock the cupboard in which it is kept?’

‘I have a key.’ The Principal, smiling wanly, produced it. Mrs Bradley thanked her, and rose to go. As she came out of the Principal’s office she saw Deborah.

‘Why, what on earth are you doing here, child?’ she asked. ‘I thought you went home two days ago, and took my nephew with you.’

‘Well, what are you doing here?’ demanded Deborah. ‘I made him bring me back. What are you doing?’

‘Oh — just clearing up,’ said Mrs Bradley, vaguely, waving a skinny claw. ‘What have you done with the young man?’

‘He’s in the lane with the car.’

‘If Jonathan’s there, go and get him. I may be able to give him a job, and you, too. Fancy coming back, after all the trouble I had to smuggle him off the premises that Wednesday morning without the students’ knowing.’

‘Poor lambs! It would have given them the thrill of their lives!’ said Deborah, with the wicked, unamused glint which Mrs Bradley was interested to think of in connexion with her nephew Jonathan, whose conception of life from childhood, so far as she had ever been able to determine, was that he should have his own way in everything. She began to hum.

‘I don’t like you when you sing,’ said Deborah, who recognized the tune as that of a light-hearted sea-shanty called ‘The Drummer and the Cook’, ‘and I shall be obliged if you won’t refer to Jonathan as the young man.’

‘Well, go and get him, anyway,’ said her aunt-in-law to be, with a propitiatory smile which gave the unfortunate impression of being a lewd and evil grin. Deborah hesitated, then said:

‘Please tell me why you’re staying up. If you’re still hunting murderers we’re going to stay and help you. I’ve absolutely made up my mind, and Jonathan agrees, so you needn’t argue about it.’

‘Now, don’t be naughty,’ said Mrs Bradley, placidly. ‘Go and fetch Jonathan, and tell him I want him to carry a bag of bones across to College.’

‘Not — not —?’

‘No, not Miss Murchan’s bones. Quite accountable bones, in fact.’

‘What’s the argument?’ inquired Jonathan, who had left the car in the lane and had come up to the building to find out what was keeping Deborah so long. ‘I say, Aunt Adela, we’ve come to be your bodyguard. Deb’s going to stand outside the bathroom door listening to somebody lifting up your feet and submerging you, and I’m going to stand outside on the gravel with a hatchet, waiting to bean the murderer when she crawls out over the sill.’

‘So I understand,’ replied his aunt graciously. ‘Meanwhile, I want you to come over to Athelstan and help me with a skeleton. Comparisons are odious, but two sets of bones have to be compared, and I want witnesses to prove that I don’t change over the skeletons when I’ve compared them.’

She took the two over to Athelstan, and, to her observant nephew’s interest, stood for a second at the top of the basement steps before she descended. Deborah began to ascend to the first floor to get a book she wanted from her sitting-room.

‘Come back, Deborah,’ said Mrs Bradley. For a moment Jonathan thought that Deborah was going to disobey, and he leapt up to catch her, but she turned and they met face to face on the stairs.

‘All right,’ she said. ‘I’m well trained.’ She followed him down, and Mrs Bradley nodded.

‘I don’t want anybody to walk about alone in this house,’ she said quietly, when the two had rejoined her. ‘It isn’t too safe.’

‘Miss Cornflake?’ asked Deborah.

‘What do you know about Miss Cornflake?’ retorted Mrs Bradley. She led the way down the basement steps, listened again at the bottom, and then pushed open the door which led into the box-room. ‘There!’ she said to Jonathan. ‘That badly-battered trunk, if you don’t mind. The bones are in my sitting-room cupboard.’

‘I see.’ Another thought came to him. ‘By the way, you don’t expect to find poor old Miss Thingummy locked up in the Science Room, do you? Because, if so…’ He gave an eloquent glance in the direction of Deborah, who was looking out of the window.

‘Don’t be oafish, dear child,’ retorted his aunt. ‘Deborah is quite as capable of seeing a skeleton as you are.’

‘A skeleton, yes, granted. But…’

Deborah turned round.

‘You don’t really suppose the College Science Room could have housed a corpse all this term without somebody complaining, do you?’ she demanded coldly. ‘Our students are not all idiots.’

‘Oh, granted. I see. Then, in that case, may I ask…?’