Tom Brown's Body

a bit, and shout their heads off on the Helston playing-fields.

'I say, I suppose it's all right to have Spey here?' said one infant Helstonian to another. 'As long as they stick to murdering their beaks one doesn't mind much, but supposing they start in on us?'

'You won't be missed,' said his comrade.

*

'We should wish, sir,' said Superintendent Beadle of the county police, 'to leave your boys out of it for the present, and concentrate upon what your gentlemen can tell us.'

'Leave the boys out for the present?' said Mr Wyck. 'Oh, but surely, Superintendent, you can dismiss the boys and my staff from your enquiry! We have told you all we know, and I am absolutely certain –'

'Quite so, sir,' said the Superintendent, in the comforting tones which the Headmaster already knew so well and was to grow to dislike so much. 'Quite so. Only, you see, since that affair at –'

'Oh, but that was a Home Office school,' said the Headmaster hastily. 'One can scarcely compare those young hooligans with a school of this type, surely!'

'Boys will be boys, sir. Young savages, most of 'em are. That's our experience, anyway. Get carried away. Panicky. Do anything in the heat of the moment, however much they might come to regret it later on. But at the moment I would like to have another word with your Mr Kay, sir, thanking you, and with your permission.'

Mr Kay, looking hot and bothered in spite of the wintry chill of a bitter November afternoon, faced the Superintendent across the Headmaster's sitting-room carpet.

'Sit down, sir, please,' said the Superintendent kindly. 'Now you say you heard nothing at all after the postman passed your window at about a quarter past nine?'

'Nothing at all, Superintendent.' Mr Kay was emphatic.

'Very well, sir. But it may interest you to know that the postman did not call at the School last night.'

'But I heard the sound of his bicycle wheels on the drive. He went past the windows of my cottage. Yes, and the same thing happened some days ago. I remember it quite distinctly.'

'You may have heard the sound of bicycle wheels, sir, but not those of the postman's bicycle. We have made very careful enquiries, and the postman did not come nearer the School than the Vicarage, a mile and a half away.'

'But I'm certain I heard the wheels,' Mr Kay protested. 'Who else could it be but the postman?'

'One of the boys doing a mike?' suggested the Superintendent. 'I suppose they break out sometimes and go on the spree?'

'I shouldn't think so,' said Mr Kay, betraying to the trained eye of the Superintendent distinct traces of nervousness, however. 'Besides, the boys are not allowed to keep bicycles at School.'

'Perhaps one of the servants, then?' suggested the Superintendent.

'I couldn't say. You had better ask the Headmaster.' Mr Kay sounded decidedly flustered now. He had taken a charm off his watch-chain and was twisting it between his thumb and finger.

'I shall do that, sir. Now, your story as to finding the body. You say this was at half-past seven this morning, just as it was beginning to get light. You also say that Mr Semple was with you, and that he may have seen the body before you did.'

'That is so. I was going out for my usual morning exercise. But I've told you all this before.'

'Just so, sir. But a relevant fact might emerge.'

'I don't see how it can,' said Mr Kay, peevishly. 'I've told you every single solitary thing I know. Semple came to call me up – I'd overslept for some reason –'

'For what reason, should you suppose, sir?'

Kay looked baffled and furious.

'How on earth should I know for what reason? My wife not being there to wake me, I suppose,' he answered. 'Anyway, Mr Semple went over to inform Mr Wyck, and that is all I know, except that I first rang up the doctor.'

'You did not touch the body, sir?'

'I told you, last time, that I did not. We all read detective stories nowadays, and naturally I know better than to touch anything. Semple loosened the collar and disclosed the marks on the neck, and there was no sign of the rope with which, presumably, the job was done. Neither have you found that rope in my possession. There really isn't anything else I can do for you.'

'I wonder whether we might have one more look over your cottage, sir, after I have interviewed the other gentlemen?'

'Of course, if you think it's any good.'

'Thank you, sir. Sergeant, get Mr Loveday. You'll be over here at the School for some hours, I take it, sir?'

'For my sins, no doubt I shall,' said Mr Kay.

'Until about six o'clock, sir, may we take it?'

'Oh, yes, until about six this evening. I shan't return to my cottage and destroy all the evidence of my guilt before you get there again,' said Mr Kay irritably. 'Rope doesn't burn very easily.'

The Superintendent smiled indulgently and welcomed Mr Loveday, who nodded briefly to Mr Kay as they passed one another in the doorway.

Mr Loveday had news and views. The latter were ignored, although tactfully, by the Superintendent. The former received consideration.

'Your bicycle, you say, sir? What makes you think it had been tampered with?'

'As soon as I heard of the crime, I set to work to search my premises.'

'Exactly with what object, may I ask, sir?'

'With no particular object. Simply as a precautionary measure.'

'What precautions did you need to take, sir?'

'Come, come, Superintendent. I merely wanted to make certain, I suppose, that my House could present a clean slate.'

'Had you any reason to suppose it would not have been able to do so, sir?'

'No, no, of course not! But there it is. One's natural anxieties as a schoolmaster are not easily grasped by the public.'

'I see, sir. You searched your premises and discovered that someone had tampered with your bicycle. I need hardly remind you, sir, that this piece of evidence may be of the utmost importance. Mr Kay heard a bicycle going past his cottage at a time when no bicycle, so far as we can find out, had any reason to be doing so. What led you to suppose that your machine had been used, sir?'

'Well,' said Mr Loveday judicially, 'I think – perhaps I had better confine myself to that verb – I think that my tyres were in perfect order when last I used the bicycle, but there is no doubt that the back tyre has now sustained a severe puncture. My knife-and-boot boy – an expert in his way – has diagnosed the rent in the outer cover as having been caused by a large nail.'

'Indeed, sir? May I ask how long it is since you yourself used the machine?'

'Oh, I could hardly say. In 1945, perhaps.'

The Superintendent shook his head.

'Unless you've more evidence than that to offer me, sir, I'm afraid I could scarcely regard it as certain that your bicycle had been used.'

'I applaud your caution, Superintendent. My additional evidence is that my knife-and-boot boy swears that the machine was not where he left it; also, I myself can declare to having seen three sets of tyre marks on the dust of the floor in the shed where the bicycle is stored, proving that it had, at any rate, been moved.'

'Interesting, sir, and I don't say not valuable. But perhaps I could speak to the servant in question later on, and also have a look at the machine.'

'Of course,' said Mr Loveday. 'Still, one cannot quite believe that the miscreant who killed poor Conway would have required to cycle to the School gate and back. It is not a very great distance.'

The Superintendent agreed, and recalled Mr Kay.