Tom Brown's Body

'What is that?' Mr Wyck enquired.

'Where that mask is hidden, and what were the means used to make up those added feet of height. If it was stilts, I would say that the case is completed.'

18. Hoodoo, Voodoo, and Just Plain Nastiness

*

We are treated too by them with Contempt, as if our Profession were not reputable.

IBID. (Act 2, Scene 10)

'PLEASE, sir,' said Scrupe, 'could I speak to you for a minute?'

'Of course, boy,' said Mr Wyck; for Scrupe had been announced and admitted by the butler to the Headmaster's private lodging. 'You had better come into the library.'

He emerged, towing Scrupe, at the end of a quarter of an hour, turned the boy over to Mrs Bradley for a repetition of his story, rang up Gavin, who was quartered at the village inn, and sent his butler to summon Ingpen.

'Now, Mr Scrupe,' said Mrs Bradley, favouring the boy with a leer.

''And welcomes little fishes in with gently smiling jaws,'' muttered Scrupe defensively.

'Quite so,' the saurian replied. 'So now, Mr Scrupe, to your evidence.'

'It isn't my evidence; that's the trouble,' said Scrupe, without a trace of his usual bravado. 'It's something young Ingpen told me behind the stage. He said he'd seen a murder. Well, he hadn't, of course, because Mrs Poundbury isn't dead, but I've been thinking things over, and I wondered whether perhaps I ought to mention what he said.'

'Quite right, boy,' said Mr Wyck, who had returned from issuing his summons to the Detective-Inspector. 'Ingpen will be here in a moment. I trust that he will have recovered from his fright and will be able to tell us something helpful. There can be no doubt that there is a highly dangerous lunatic abroad. Mr Conway may have given offence to a personal enemy, but who in his senses would wish to attack Mrs Poundbury?'

Mrs Bradley could think of more than one person, but she said nothing. Ingpen arrived in a fluster which was not relieved when Mr Wyck, who was determined to extort any information which the child might possess, stood him in front of the large writing-table in the library, seated himself in his swivel chair, opened a large note-book, and said:

'Now, then.'

'Please, sir,' bleated Ingpen, 'I didn't mean to do it.'

'Do what, little boy?'

'Please, sir, call Miss Loveday Nancy.'

'Ah,' said Mr Wyck; and there followed a dreadful silence. 'Ah, we must never speak disrespectfully of women, little boy, never, never, never. Do we understand that now?'

'Oh, please, sir, yes, sir!' gulped Ingpen, while two tears of fright rolled down his babyish face.

'Then we will say no more,' said Mr Wyck. 'You may sit down.' The child sat down beside Mrs Bradley, who reminded him of a grandmother who spoilt him whenever he went to stay with her. 'Tell me,' continued Mr Wyck casually, 'what happened to frighten you so much at the School Concert.'

'It was – it was the tall idol,' said Ingpen, glancing at Scrupe for support.

'No, the other thing,' pursued Mr Wyck. 'The other thing that frightened you. Something else you saw.'

'I saw the idol knock Mrs Poundbury down the steps, sir, please, sir.'

'Are you quite sure of what you saw?'

'Sir, yes, sir.'

'I thought you had been allowed to stand in the wings to watch the play? Wasn't that what you told us last time?'

'Yes, sir. Please, sir, I had to be by the steps.'

'Why?'

'I hadn't got a handkerchief, sir, and I thought that if I took a short cut down the steps and out past the furnace-room I could get across to the House and back, sir, before I was wanted.'

'But you knew quite well that those steps and the furnace-room are out of bounds!'

'Yes, sir, please, sir. I thought it was better not to be late for when I was wanted, sir.'

'You are a naughty little boy,' said Mr Wyck. 'Tell me exactly what you did and what you saw.'

'I saw the idol. I wasn't scared much because I knew there was going to be an idol in the second play, and I thought it would look – very nasty. Then I saw Mrs Poundbury in front of me, and I thought I mustn't hurry because she would send me back to the wings, and I had to have a handkerchief. So I just kept behind her –'

'Remained behind her.'

'Yes, sir. I just remained behind her and then € saw the idol and I thought it was Salisbury up on stilts, and then I knew it couldn't be, because it hit Mrs Poundbury on the head, and she fell down the steps and the idol went after her and I rushed back to the wings, and saw Salisbury and then I saw Mr Poundbury and I told him where Mrs Poundbury was, and then it was all a muddle, and I told Fran – Scrupe there had been a murder.'

'I suppose,' said Mr Wyck slowly, 'that you've no idea who this tall idol could be?'

The child looked troubled and then his mouth set. He shook his head.

'Very well,' said Mr Wyck. 'And, remember, we do not take a lady's name lightly!'

'Oh, no, sir!' said Ingpen, on a gasp of thankfulness at being dismissed. Mr Wyck, still seated at his writing-table, tapped thoughtfully on it with his pencil, and suddenly called him back. 'Have you a good memory?' he demanded.

'Yes, sir. I think so, sir.'

'Tell me what was going on on the stage when you decided to go and get a handkerchief.'

'It was where they start drinking, sir, after they've knifed the three priests. I waited until I'd seen what I thought would be the most thrilling part, and then I – please, sir, I had to have a handkerchief by then –'

'I understand, and will overlook your naughtiness this time. Now you may go. Scrupe,' he added, as soon as the child had disappeared, 'what can you add to this story?'

'Nothing, sir, really, sir. He told me about it after he got back to the dressing-room.'

'Go and ring up Issacher and Salisbury and ask them to come here. Give them no hints. I can hear what you say from the hall,' said Mr Wyck. At this moment Gavin arrived, and was given a report of Ingpen's story. 'And I have a fancy that the little lad has an idea, if no more, of the identity of Mrs Poundbury's assailant,' Mr Wyck observed.

The stories told by Issacher and Salisbury did not vary from their previous evidence.

'I don't understand it,' said Gavin, when the two boys and Scrupe had gone. 'The idea seems to have been to attack Mrs Poundbury. Why return to the wings to frighten the boys?'

'To create a certain amount of uproar and confusion,' said Mrs Bradley. 'For some reason, this was necessary to his purpose. I think perhaps it was to enable him to establish some sort of alibi, although exactly how it helped him we don't yet know. It may have been sufficient for his purpose just to get the curtain rung down a few minutes before the appointed time.'

*

Before the School was cleared of boys and masters the discovery was made of the second idol's head, and that in what one would call the most accidental manner. The discovery was made by Mr Loveday. He had gone, accompanied by his knife-and-boot-boy, to make certain that the latter had effectively damped down the hypocaust furnace before School broke up, and there was the idol's head, or so he told Mr Wyck, leering at him from the top of a heap of coke.

'It serves me right,' said Mr Loveday, whose mind frequently took an unforeseen track, 'for using a modern fuel. The Romans knew nothing of coke.'