8.
*
A Lawyer is an honest Employment, so is mine. Like me too he acts in a double Capacity, both against Rogues and for 'em.
IBID. (
AS the first week passed by, Mr Kay's popularity climbed (in his own view) to undesirable and embarrassing heights. The theory, now current in the School, that he might at any moment be arrested and charged with the murder, caused boys who, so far, had attended his lessons under protest and who had got through the hour as best they might, to seek him out not only in the form-room but in Extra-Tu (before-time a hated imposition reserved for the backward and the unwary) with requests for information with regard to imports and exports, inflation, vicious spirals, price controls, hard and soft currencies, the regulation of wages in industry, statistics of various kinds, and other, less obviously relevant subjects, so that they might pursue him, later on, to his cottage and feast their eyes upon the scene of the crime.
As his cottage had been placed out of bounds to all but his own pupils, these enjoyed a notoriety in the school to which they were unaccustomed and of which they took full advantage.
There was another popular member of the School besides Mr Kay. The rumour that he had stood up in form and advised Spivvy to escape while the going was good, and to take refuge on Mr Scrupe's Argentine cattle-ranch from which extradition was not possible, had raised Scrupe to the ranks of the bloods. His opinion was sought, his witticisms received the tribute due to them, and, most significant of all, his style of dress was copied by his admirers.
To do him justice, Scrupe took almost no notice of this evanescent fame.
Mr Mayhew had sent for him within an hour of his interview with Mr Wyck.
'I am sorry, Scrupe, that you should have been sent up to the Headmaster.'
'Yes, sir, so am I,' replied Scrupe, meditatively rubbing his bottom, an action calculated to infuriate his Housemaster, and in no sense failing of this purpose.
'I trust that your conscience is now clear,' said Mr May-hew, raging, but speaking calmly.
'My conscience, sir, is never less than clear. I envisage every act before I embark upon it, and, my being in, it is up to the opposed to beware of me.'
'I believe him,' said Mr Wyck, when he heard of this conversation. 'I hope that Scrupe will not underestimate his opponents, though. The boy has a brilliant future, if a future exists for any of us. I think I had better take a General Assembly in the morning.'
The Headmaster had considered carefully how best to address the boys on the subject of Mr Conway's death. His first move had been the natural and unexceptionable one of a memorial service in the School chapel. After that, he had not referred to the subject for a day or two, but, once the first inquest had been held, and his business with the police had been temporarily suspended, it was no longer possible for him to keep silent. Parents harried him, several boys were withdrawn without notice, and the Governors had convened a special meeting.
The Headmaster was glad to be quit of the police for a bit. They seemed to have been everywhere. He had even surprised one youthful constable up among the branches of the cedar tree on his lawn, making notes on the contents of his study. Other policemen were apt to bob up out of shrubberies without preliminary notice, and the Superintendent had interviewed Mr Kay a third time and to such effect that Mr Reeder had observed, over coffee in the Headmaster's drawing-room, that whether that poor fellow Kay had murdered Conway or not, he would have Mr Reeder's sympathy if he murdered a few policemen.
The School, which had felt slightly affronted that there had not been, so far, a General Assembly, was rather pleased when Mr Wyck kept them in the School Hall on the Wednesday morning after the inquest, and addressed them on the subject of Mr Conway's death.
'You are not children,' observed the Headmaster, 'and it is time that you should be taken into my confidence. This is a most unhappy term –'
'I don't know so much,' muttered Cartaris to Cranleigh. 'We beat Helston all right, didn't we?'
– 'But I do not wish to dwell upon the past. It is the present and the future which concern us. Now it seems to me' – he scanned the ranks before him, and many a young boy for whose innocence any one of the masters would have gone bail stirred uneasily under his gaze – 'that some boy or boys before me must know something more about this dreadful affair than has yet come to light. If there is such a boy – or if there are such boys – I should wish to have imparted to me this knowledge. Much may be forgiven a culprit who, by a recital of his own misdeeds, helps to shed light upon the strange and shocking circumstances in which we find ourselves. I shall, boys' – he paused, and even the Sixth Form slightly shifted their feet – 'I shall confidently await the course of events.'
'How much do you think the Old Man knows?' asked Merrys agitatedly of Skene. He had still been able to make no plan for retrieving his fountain pen, and was scared.
'Nothing, you ass! Be your age,' said his friend. 'He's only fishing.'
But Merrys was not reassured, and his acute anxiety soon became apparent, particularly when Mr Kay was given special leave three days later.
'Merrys,' said Miss Loveday to her brother, 'is a sensitive boy. This awful murder is preying on his mind. He would be all the better for an airing.'
The expression that a boy would be all the better for an airing was a favourite one with Miss Loveday. A boy needed an airing if she thought he needed dosing, thrashing, coddling, translation to a study, an extra turn in the Roman Bath, inclusion in the House cricket eleven (in which she took a deep, religious, and, to the boys, embarrassing interest), a term-time visit to the dentist, a hair-cut, or, indeed, anything which came outside the routine of the form-room. 'I should like Merrys to see a psychiatrist. I suppose his parents ought to be approached. I will see to it.'
'Yes, they must be approached. Some people are odd about psychiatry,' said Mr Loveday, who was accustomed to taking up his sister's suggestions without argument. 'For my own part –'
'Your own part doesn't matter,' interposed Miss Loveday. 'Your subconscious mind is no particular nuisance.'
Glad to be reassured on this point, Mr Loveday approached the Headmaster, and obtained Mr Wyck's consent to bring a psychiatrist into his House, provided that the Headmaster chose the psychiatrist himself. Mr Wyck had his own reasons for making this otherwise extraordinary stipulation.
Merrys's parents, who did not find Miss Loveday's writing very easy to read (she had an old-fashioned idea that to type letters to parents was discourteous), thought that the operative word was physicist, and, not being able to attach any meaning to the letter, they wrote back to agree with it because they did not think that anything could alter their son for the worse. They then forgot all about it and went to Torquay. They were, from Mr Loveday's point of view, ideal parents, for parents who take undue interest in their boys are the bugbear of all Housemasters.
Merrys, apprised of his fate, accepted his new role with philosophy.
'I believe Albert-Edward thinks I'm bats,' he confided to Skene. 'He talked about my reflexes. I thought he meant my biceps at first, but it seems not.'
'Reflexes are serious, you ass,' said Skene comfortingly. 'Criminals have them. I should say Albert-Edward is on to something.'
'More likely Nancy,' returned Merrys, discomfited. 'I believe she's mad herself. Madmen always think everyone else is.'
'She may not be far wrong in your case,' said Skene, amiably.
*
Miss Loveday had already rung up the doctor when the Headmaster informed her brother of his decision to choose the psychiatrist himself; therefore the doctor lost no time in communicating to his guest the welcome tidings that there was now no reason why she should not visit Spey School.
He had telephoned the Headmaster, and had received a cordial invitation from Mr Wyck to bring Mrs Bradley along at the earliest possible moment. He remembered their previous meeting, which had been at an Educational Conference some years previously, and it was with relief, he confessed, that he could at the same time accede to Mr Loveday's request and be certain that a reputable and sensible person would be invited to take charge of Merrys's conscious and subconscious mind.
