'Look here,' Mr Kay began angrily.
'There is just one point, sir,' said the Superintendent smoothly. 'It seems you heard this bicycle going past your windows at, roughly, nine-fifteen. Now, sir, when did you hear that bicycle coming back?'
'Not at all. Besides, you are assuming that it was going
'I take it that you remained in your cottage from then on, sir?'
'Certainly,' said Mr Kay, showing no hesitation and looking the Superintendent firmly in the eye.
'You are quite sure, sir?'
'Of course I'm sure! What do you take me for? – a cat on the tiles?'
The Superintendent, who, so far, had left all note-taking to the sergeant, now discomfited the witness by taking out his own notebook from some secret pocket and recording this answer in longhand.
'I should wish you to read that over, sir,' he said impressively, 'and sign it, if you will be so good.' He offered the notebook to the Schoolmaster. Mr Kay made no attempt to take it.
'I shan't sign anything whatsoever,' he said flatly, 'except in the presence of a solicitor. You can't make me do so, and I protest at being asked.'
'Very good, sir. Perhaps you would just give me your opinion, then, by word of mouth, that I have written down your words as you would wish them to be used in evidence.'
'If you are charging me, you had better do so in a proper manner,' said Mr Kay.
'Come, come, sir,' said the Superintendent briskly. 'I'm sorry to have offended you. I can take it as definite, then, that you heard the sound of a bicycle at about nine-fifteen, but nothing later, and that you did not leave your cottage until half-past seven in the morning?'
'Exactly right,' said Mr Kay, very shortly.
'In that case, sir,' said the Superintendent smoothly, 'was old Mrs Harries mistaken in thinking that you visited her cottage last night between the hours of ten o'clock and one?'
'Yes,' said Mr Kay. 'I don't know any Mrs Harries. She sounds to me like a criminal lunatic. Did she give you my name?'
'No, sir. But the description fits, and we do happen to know you weren't at home at half-past ten last night because one of the other gentlemen came to borrow a book from you, and another of the gentlemen accompanied him,'
'I must have been asleep when they knocked,' said Mr Kay, suddenly wiping his face, a sign of agitation which impressed the Superintendent deeply.
'Very good, sir,' he said woodenly. Mr Kay wiped his forehead again when the Superintendent had gone. He did not go far, however. He went to interview Jack the Ripper, alias William Dobbs.
'Ah. Bin rode, that there boike had. Put moi 'and on she and I knows,' said Dobbs, without hesitation. 'Ride her moiself I 'ave, see?'
The kinaesthetic sense was no new thing to the Superintendent. He believed in it. It was not concrete evidence, to be sure, but he did not need to have read John Drink-water's
'O.K., Dobbs,' he said briskly. 'I believe you.'
'So well you moight,' said the redoubtable William, 'bein' as 'ow I knows.'
'Well, now for the bicycle shed,' said the Superintendent. But the shed yielded nothing in the way of concrete evidence. There was no doubt that the bicycle had been moved. For one thing, Mr Loveday and Dobbs had both moved it during their amateur investigation of the crime. Whether it had been moved on the night of Mr Conway's death was, in the opinion of the Superintendent, incapable of direct proof. He put away his notebook and went back to Mr Kay's cottage.
Mr Kay's cottage still yielded no surprises, and was in no way remarkable, except that it was on the telephone. It did appear, however, that Mrs Kay occupied a bedroom on the first floor, whereas Mr Kay had a bed in his study on the ground floor. The Superintendent, naturally, made no reference to this domestic arrangement, but he tabulated it mentally all the same.
'And now, sir,' he said to the fermenting Mr Kay whom once again he had recalled for questioning, 'I must ask you one thing which, don't misunderstand me, I shall be putting to every one of the scholastic gentlemen in turn, including, I may say, the Headmaster himself. What were your relations with the deceased?'
'With the – oh, I don't know.' Mr Kay looked suddenly troubled, but he did not hesitate. 'Not altogether happy, I'm afraid. He had a sharp tongue, and I'm by way of being a bit of a black sheep here, of course.'
'Black sheep, sir?'
'Not an Oxford or Cambridge man,' Mr Kay explained. 'Not one of the ones. Educated in, as a matter of fact, first, a primary school in Manchester until I was eleven, then in Brazil, and then at a provincial university in the Midlands. And then I always think people see straight through me to a Eurasian grandmother.' He caught the Superintendent's look of surprise, and added, 'Oh, yes, that's my heritage. I call it Portuguese, and I had a Portuguese mother and an English father, but, all the same ...'
'And very nice, too, I'm sure, sir,' said the Superintendent awkwardly.
'You needn't tell anyone else,' said Kay at once, lifting his chin.
'Certainly not, sir, if it's against your wishes. It could have no possible bearing, so far as I can see, on the enquiry.'
'Don't you be too sure,' said Kay bitterly. 'The inferiority complex is responsible for making more criminals than ever came up to the Old Bailey. And now, if you don't mind, I'm due in class.'
'I say,' said Norris, of the Science Side, in an audible aside to Scrupe, 'Spivvy looks a bit green about the gills. I bet he's Suspect Number One.'
'That would surprise me very much,' replied Scrupe in an even louder tone. 'I don't think he has the guts to commit a serious crime.'
'Murder isn't a crime,' said Biggs, whose father was a well-known barrister. 'The only crime is being found out.'
Mr Kay did not even lift his head from the essays he was correcting. Lewis, another member of the form, raised his hand and dexterously flipped a note on to Scrupe's open exercise book.
'His missus has left him for good,' Lewis had written. 'I bet it's only a matter of days before he's arrested.'
Scrupe scribbled on the bottom of this note:
'Then his missus is a heel. Fancy deserting a man at the foot of the gallows!'
He flipped this back so clumsily that it fell on the floor. Lewis bent to pick it up. Mr Kay lifted his head.
'Bring it here, Lewis, please.'
Lewis, as in honour bound, took out a piece of paper not completely innocuous in that it bore a reasonably recognizable cartoon of the Headmaster, and laid it on the desk. Mr Kay glanced at it, and then said quietly:
'I am afraid, then, Scrupe, that I must trouble you for a verbatim report of what Lewis wrote to you and what you replied to Lewis.'
'I can't quite remember, sir,' said Scrupe. 'But, roughly speaking, it was an estimate of your chances with the police. I should not have thought of telling you this in cold blood, sir, but since you ask me –'
'I see,' said Mr Kay. He corrected a couple more lines of an essay on economics. 'I am afraid, Scrupe, that I must trouble you to see the Headmaster.'
'Be not afraid with any amazement,' said Scrupe, 'and I regret this as much as you do.' He rose, and went quietly out.
The news that Scrupe had been flogged for telling the Headmaster that Mr Kay ought to be hanged had spread round the School before nightfall.
'Did you really, Scrupe?' asked an admiring member of his House. 'And did the Old Man really tan you?'
'My dear fellow,' said Scrupe loftily – for the news had enhanced his prestige – 'the major prophets have always been subject to ill-usage, calumny, and lies. In this case, I was subjected to a certain amount of ill-usage, and am on view Tuesdays and Thursdays, on presentation of a visiting card. However, Mr Wyck and I parted on cordial terms, as gentlemen of honour, whatever their passing differences, always may, and I still steadfastly
