Tom Brown's Body

his honour, refused to take the prize, and –'

'Do I understand, then, that Mr Conway did not substantiate his accusation by removing the boy from the examination room?' Mrs Bradley pertinently enquired.

'He said nothing – except afterwards to the boy. Micklethwaite is a strange lad. There was no need for him to have made a public thing of it, but he was, it seems, very angry. He attended a co-educational establishment before he came here, and had absorbed odd notions as to his rights. He was much persecuted at first, but I soon put a stop to that. We are, after all, Christians in this House, although I would not go bail for some of the others. Well, at any rate, when Micklethwaite refused to accept the prize there was a great fuss, and the Headmaster threatened to cane him for Contempt of Authority.'

'Only threatened?'

'Mr Wyck is weak,' said Miss Loveday in low tones, glancing at the window as she pronounced these treasonable words. 'There was a rumour that the boy had threatened to commit suicide as a protest against the injustice of the punishment, if it was administered, and Mr Wyck thought, I suppose, that he might do it. Commit suicide, I mean. The lad is brilliantly clever and rather overstrung. A pity. I like lads to be manly and only technically gifted. Aesthetics have no place in modern life. That is why ferro-concrete has come into its own.'

'I should not think his life here can have been easy,' Mrs Bradley remarked, 'even after you stopped his being bullied. I refer to Mr Micklethwaite.'

'He is a strange lad,' Miss Loveday repeated, 'and a lad of character. He is fearless of pain, and has become an expert in Judo. The boys have learned to leave well alone, I believe, and might have done so without my assistance.'

'I must cultivate this boy,' said Mrs Bradley.

'And what progress do you make with Merrys?' asked Miss Loveday, changing the subject. 'His behaviour improved yesterday. I noticed it. He had two helpings of the first course, and threw potato. We do not throw bread now, for motives of patriotism, and should not, for the same reason, waste potato, either. For one thing, there is not too much of these staple fillers for growing lads, and, for another, hunger is a wonderful disciplinarian.'

'So is fear,' said Mrs Bradley. 'You were quite right to deduce that Merrys was afraid.'

'Of what?'

'That is what I am here to find out.' She did not add that she had already found it out, because, although she had heard of the midnight exploits of Merrys and Skene, she had not decided how to make proper use of them. She had decided to go to the Headmaster with her tale before she went to the police, but she wanted further time to study Mr Wyck, and to work out his probable reactions to the tale she would have to tell. Meanwhile, she was not inclined to rely upon Miss Loveday's discretion.

'You have not told me yet of your experiences with the Fifth Scientific,' said Miss Loveday suddenly. 'Did you encounter Whittaker? His father is a platelayer on the London and Great Midland Railway, and Whittaker is one of the Guinea-pig boys. He is a great success. Did he threaten Springer? He loves to learn, and Springer, I think, confounds him.'

'Surely,' said Mrs Bradley, not troubling to explain that she had not yet encountered the Fifth Scientific, 'this School is unique in having boys who desire to learn? My sons never did. Their reports were uniformly scurrilous.'

'Oh, you have sons in the plural? I understood you had only one, the famous K.C.,' said Miss Loveday.

'Ferdinand? He is my son by my first husband, who was of French and Spanish descent. I have other sons, but I much prefer my nephews. Ferdinand and I are unlike, and get on well. He reminds me, in many ways, of his father, and that is welcome, since otherwise I might have forgotten what his father was like. It is some time since we were married,' said Mrs Bradley alarmingly.

Miss Loveday, deflated by this incursion into family history, abandoned the subject, as it was intended she should, and poured out more coffee.

'I suppose it was Merrys who borrowed my brother's bicycle?' she remarked. 'I should not like it reported. I know his mother. Where did he go, by the way?'

'To the Dog-racing track.'

'Good heavens! So young a boy!'

'He did not go in. The entrance fee was beyond his expectations.'

'I am glad of that. I see still less need to report the occurrence to the Headmaster. I shall inform my brother, and he will deal with Merrys. I suppose the child was afraid that he might be accused of the murder if it were found out that he is in the habit of breaking out at night. I hope you have reassured him. Nay, I know you must have done. Potato-throwing is always an excellent sign. I check bullying in the House by it. A lad who throws potato is in spirits, and Merrys threw a good deal.'

'He lost his fountain pen,' said Mrs Bradley conversationally.

'Oh, was it his?' said Miss Loveday, producing a pen from the recesses of her costume. 'I found it on the gravel. He must have dropped it on his way out. You had better take it.'

'Did you not look at the name on it? Merrys had his name on his pen.'

'I saw no name. Would you care to look for it?' Mrs Bradley took the pen. There was no name on it. 'And now,' said Miss Loveday – hastily, it seemed to Mrs Bradley – 'to the business of the visit of the governors. They are said to be against Mr Wyck, who, of course, as a modern Headmaster, has no conception of discipline. I say this in no carping or Communistic spirit, but the facts speak for themselves.'

'In what way?' Mrs Bradley enquired.

'Boys breaking out at night; my brother and I being compelled to heat the Roman Bath by moonlight; John Semple being friendly with Bennett Kay, and so on and so forth,' Miss Loveday economically responded. 'And, of course, all this Common Room champagne. It was sherry when first I came here.'

'The boys who broke out at night were your own boys,' Mrs Bradley was impelled to point out. 'The Roman Bath, which, I must admit, I would very much like to see, is your own and your brother's concern. The champagne, I understand, was in celebration of an engagement, and exactly what bearing the friendship between Mr Semple and Mr Kay can have upon the Headmaster's control of the School, I do not understand.'

'John Semple, although a moron, is not without ancestry of a reputable kind,' pronounced Miss Loveday. 'Bennett Kay is of very mixed blood. In the Common Room, as we knew it of old, a friendship between the two would have been impossible. But tell me more of your experiences. Have you met our dark gentleman yet?'

'Our –?' said Mrs Bradley startled.

'Prince Takhobali,' Miss Loveday explained. 'Did you think I meant somebody else? And Issacher. A gifted lad, although not, in the strict term, European. A lad with a sixth sense. A lad with eyes in the back of his head.'

Mrs Bradley promised to make Issacher's acquaintance, but before she contrived to do this, further rumours, which turned out to be perfectly true, flashed round the School and were received with considerable acclaim. There was to be a half-holiday for a full Staff meeting at which the Governors would preside; and a C.I.D. Inspector was being sent for from Scotland Yard to help the local police.

9. An Assembly of the Elders

*

Where shall we find such another Set of practical Philosophers?

IBID. (Act 2, Scene 1)

MRS BRADLEY had not been in and around the School for more than a couple of days when she received a note from Mr Semple.

'Kay and I made rather a curious discovery on the spot, almost exactly, where we found Conway,' the note explained. With anticipatory relish, Mrs Bradley at once wrote a reply, inviting Mr Semple and Mr Kay to meet her as soon as their duties permitted. A room in Mr Loveday's House had been allotted to her as a study, and, with this as a strategic base, she was able to ask them to tea.

Only Mr Semple turned up, however.

'Kay isn't a very sociable bird,' he explained, 'so I've come along on my own. No, no tea, thanks. I've