Tom Brown's Body

Mr Kay – arrested or not, as they liked, but it would mean landing themselves with the sack if they were not pretty careful.'

'How did Mr Kay come to be known by his soubriquet?' asked Mrs Bradley, flying off at a tangent.

'Oh, that!' said Issacher, his dark eyes just a little wary. 'I lampooned him.'

'And the name caught on?'

'Louis the Spiv? Yes. I got it from Conway, of course.'

'Did you dislike Mr Kay?'

'Oh, no. But the fellows had begun to call me Spivvy, so I thought it time to pass the buck.'

'Then you know nothing about the time of the murder?'

'Nothing at all, and I can't guess. I suppose the police know?'

'Oh, yes, the medical evidence ...'

'Within the usual limits, I expect? My father's a doctor. But, you know,' he went on, waving his pianist's hands, 'if you'll pardon me, and if I were you –' He lowered his voice and dropped his eyes. 'If I were you,' he repeated quietly, 'I'd give up the whole thing. It will only make a stink, and, honestly, it isn't worth it for a beast like Mr Conway.'

'You disliked him?'

'Can't you imagine? – 'our not altogether unimaginative opponent, Herr Hitler' – and then a lot of filthy stuff about the Jews. And then he'd pretend to forget my name and call me 'Friend Barabbas – I beg his pardon, Issacher.' And then he'd talk a lot of tripe about the Wandering Jew when he caught me not attending to his lesson. Oh, I don't know who killed the swine, but I pray they get away with it!' His voice rose high. Mrs Bradley went away, very thoughtful. Her next interview was with the intellectual Micklethwaite, whom she sent for out of a Divinity lesson.

Micklethwaite attempted to impress her.

'I still say that St Paul had no conception of the Athenian mentality,' said he. 'Judging from the account given in the Acts, he underrated the intelligence of the Greeks of the first century, over- estimated the appeal of the Gospels, and obviously had never heard of the Mysteries.'

'Have you been to Eleusis?' Mrs Bradley politely enquired.

'No, and I don't want to go. I intend to keep the places I revere safely within my Garden of the Hesperides,' replied the annoying and unorthodox child, adroitly blocking the question.

'It is interesting that you should have come straight out of a Divinity lesson,' said Mrs Bradley, restraining herself from hitting him over the head and, instead, leading the way to the School library, where, at that hour of the day, no one was likely to disturb them. 'It was about the Divinity Prize that I wanted to speak to you.'

'Oh, that!' said Micklethwaite. He was a well-made, sandy-haired, very tidy youth, with a fine brow and a short, plump, sensual mouth. 'That was to do with Mr Conway. What can you expect of a man who prefers Canaletto to Turner?'

'Less, obviously, than you can expect of a youth who knows one from the other,' replied Mrs Bradley. 'But recount to me, Mr Micklethwaite, the full history of the award of the Divinity Prize of last year.'

'Nothing to tell,' said Micklethwaite, shrugging his curiously wide, slim shoulders. 'I suppose Conway thought I cribbed. I didn't, and I didn't want the prize. I shall say no more about it.' Neither did he.

'A Judo expert? Hm!' thought Mrs Bradley. She returned to consult Miss Loveday.

'I know nothing much of Micklethwaite, save that he once made a rather interesting statement to me,' said Miss Love-day solemnly. 'He once told me that the Prophet Samuel was responsible for all the misdeeds of King Saul. Could that be possible?'

'Psychologically quite possible,' Mrs Bradley briskly replied. 'Is that the statement to which you refer?'

'Oh, no,' Miss Loveday responded. 'It was not that at all. I am not at all biased, and all my religious convictions are open to be disputed by clever boys. There is nothing more instructive than argument which is conceived in a scholarly spirit and carried on in a gentlemanly manner. No. He once told me that he hated cruelty; this after I had seen him throw a little non-swimming boy over his head into deep, deep water.'

'A Judo expert. Hm!' thought Mrs Bradley again. She went to her room in Mr Loveday's House and re-read her notes. Then she went in search of Mrs Poundbury, whom she found in the kitchen garden behind her husband's House – it was the pride of Mrs Poundbury that she rarely had to buy fruit, herbs, or vegetables for her husband's boys – helping the maid to gather Brussels sprouts.

She straightened up at Mrs Bradley's approach and smiled like an angel. She was, as Mrs Bradley again appreciated, an exceptionally beautiful young woman. Moreover, her anxieties seemed to have been resolved.

'Good morning,' she said. 'You're not going to be any luckier than last time if you've come to pump me about Gilbert. Won't you come into the house?'

'No. I'll pick Brussels sprouts,' said Mrs Bradley. 'They seem to be very fine ones.' She set to work.

'That will be enough, I think,' said Mrs Poundbury, at the end of twenty minutes. 'The boys like them, but they take a long time to prepare. I usually help with them during the afternoon. We give them to the boys at six o'clock.'

'Your husband does notice, I suppose, whether the boys have anything to eat or not?' Mrs Bradley enquired, as her hostess led the way to the House.

'I hardly think so,' Mrs Poundbury replied. 'Gilbert lives in the fourth dimension. By the way, I do hope you didn't carry away any – well – strange ideas last time? I like Gilbert, and –'

'You mean you are in love with him?'

'Oh, yes.' Mrs Poundbury smiled. 'There are some things that he doesn't muddle, you know.'

'Ah,' said Mrs Bradley, who had known from the moment they met that Mrs Poundbury was no longer associating in her own mind the eccentric Mr Poundbury and the fact of murder. 'Quite so. But you've made him very angry once or twice.'

'Twice,' Mrs Poundbury agreed. 'Once when Gerald Conway suggested that he and I should run away together, and once when I told him that I thought Socrates was a silly old man.'

'And did you take Mr Conway seriously?' Mrs Bradley enquired. Mrs Poundbury laughed outright, and Mrs Bradley liked her the better for it.

'Oh, yes, in a way,' she said. 'But really it was all ridiculous. When I told Gilbert, he punched Gerald in the stomach, and made him feel very ill; and then he punched him in the stomach again, and, when he fell down, Gilbert kicked him. When I remonstrated, Gilbert said, 'Oh, did I kick him? Well, once is no good!' And he kicked him several times more. So I didn't want to run away with Gerald after that. And, of course, Gerald had his real girl and definitely wanted to get married.'

Mrs Bradley was delighted with this account of the relationship between Mr Conway and the Poundburys, and said so.

'It's so nice of you,' said Mrs Poundbury, wide-eyed with innocence. 'Gilbert is interested in violence. He says that without violence the world would have ceased to turn on its axis. His view is that effort is a moral, not a physical, attribute. He wrote a little treatise about it in connexion with football.'

'Did you read the treatise?'

'Oh, yes. I understood some of it, but not all. I don't really believe in violence because it seems to me to be uncontrollable. Everything worth while must be subject to some sort of law, I feel. Do you agree?'

She looked even more innocent than before, and Mrs Bradley knew quite well why she had been told about the fight and about the treatise. 'You see,' Mrs Poundbury was saying, in effect, 'Gilbert didn't need to murder Gerald Conway. He had already revenged himself on him, and had rationalized his emotions about him.' She respected Mrs Poundbury for this attitude, and changed the conversation.

'What kind of boy is Micklethwaite?' she suddenly enquired.

'He is an unbearable boy,' Mrs Poundbury replied, betraying no surprise at the sudden change of subject. 'Of course, he is not in our House.'

'I wondered whether he was likely to commit murder.'

'Oh, I should think he might. Do you suspect him of it?' Mrs Poundbury enquired.

'He is at the back of my mind,' Mrs Bradley answered. 'But, then, so are several other people.'