Tom Brown's Body

'Aren't you?' said Mr Kay bitterly. 'You're the only person who isn't then, I should say. No, it isn't any good, Mr Nark. I'm not saying anything at all unless you charge me. And then I'm saying it all in front of my lawyer. I don't like ruddy little blasted policemen, especially when they're so obviously English and clean-limbed, and particularly especially when they talk with a bloody Oxford and Cam-bridge B.B.C. accent. See?'

'I see,' said Gavin, unperturbed. He took out his own pipe. 'Well, now, every drop of blood in my veins is good Scots on both sides for four generations. I was educated at Loretto and at Edinburgh University. My complexion isn't particularly ruddy, and, compared with you, you undersized, miserable runt, I'm not exactly little. So what?'

But Kay refused to continue the argument. That he was perturbed, however, was shown by his next action, for he thrust down the glowing tobacco in his pipe with each of the fingers and then the ball of the thumb of his right hand. He winced with pain as he did it, for every thrust was slow and hard, as though he were thrusting down something evil. When he had finished he laid the pipe on the edge of the metal ashtray which lay between him and Gavin on the table, and surveyed his scorched and blackened finger-tips with a certain amount of melancholy pride.

'So much for your precious finger-print system,' he said. 'These won't help you much.' He put each burnt finger into his mouth and licked it. Then he smiled triumphantly at Gavin.

'Don't worry,' said Gavin coolly. 'We've got all the records of your prints that we're likely to want, my lad, and now you can dree your ain weird, which is my Oxford-Cambridge for stew in your own juice. I've given you your chance and you've mucked it. Have it your own way. Neither sailors nor policemen really care, you know.'

Kay, slumped in his chair, made no answer.

20. A Scrum for a Line-Out

*

But, hark you, my Lad. Don't tell me a Lye; for you know I hate a Liar.

IBID. (Act 1, Scene 6)

THE inquest on Gerald Conway was resumed during the Christmas vacation, and, to their great annoyance, several of the masters were called upon to attend. Mr Loveday, Mr Semple, Mr Wyck, Mr Kay, and Mr Poundbury were all there. Also among the witnesses were Miss Loveday, Mrs Poundbury, and Mrs Kay.

So far as the police were concerned, no fact of importance emerged, and the verdict, one of wilful murder by person or persons unknown, caused no surprise and not much gossip.

'Well, there we are,' said Gavin. 'I would say that so far there's not a shred of evidence. Let's have a round- up of the possibles and see whom we can eliminate once and for all. Now first of all there's Kay. He had a motive, but it doesn't seem any more likely that he did the job than that Poundbury or even old Loveday did. Put with them the Jewish boy Issacher and you've got four suspects whose temperaments would be the deciding factor. Of course, if we could show a possibility of collusion, or even an accessory either before or after the fact, it would help a good deal, but we can't.'

'Then there is Mr Semple,' Mrs Bradley pointed out. 'He was robbed of his amorada by Mr Conway.'

Gavin looked doubtful.

'I don't see Semple committing murder,' he said. 'As a matter of fact, that goes for Loveday, too. Still, what I think isn't evidence. No, as I see it, we're back to Pearson, as you suggested before. I suspect him because of the idol's head. He's the only person who would have known about it, I should say. I know! We'll ask that rather poisonous pal of Conway – Sugg – whether he knew anything about it. If he didn't it is fairly certain that the others didn't either.'

'The boy Scrupe knew about it,' Mrs Bradley felt compelled to point out.

*

The new term commenced half-way through January. The weather was at its worst. Deep snow-drifts had piled up against the hedges, and Big Field had become a battleground not of football but of snow-fights, House against House, School House emerging victorious.

Gavin gave the new term and the seasonable weather a week; then he descended again upon Mr Wyck and the Staff with a list of people whom he wished to interview.

'Scrupe?' said Mr Wyck doubtfully, referring to the first name on the list. 'Yes, of course. But Scrupe is a peculiar boy.' Gavin promised to be careful and tactful, and this time Scrupe proved to be an ideal witness – honest, non-suggestible, non-gullible, and good-tempered. He denied absolutely and entirely that he had worn the head of the second idol at the School Concert.

'Consider,' he said, 'my schedule. I was in the first play as one of the soldiers. I was not in the second play, it's true. But I was in the third play in the character of the Odd Man. I shouldn't have had time, apart from anything else, to remove my first make-up, shove on the head and pursue Mrs Poundbury, and then get made-up for the third play. Chance is a fine thing, you know.'

'Didn't you take the head from Mr Conway's room in that cottage, then?' demanded Gavin, ignoring the impudent gambit.

'No, I didn't. I was a bit put off at finding Marion there. I didn't like it much, to tell you the truth.'

'No? Why not?' asked Gavin.

'Oh, various reasons,' said Scrupe, lightly. Gavin did not press the point; neither did he ask how Scrupe knew that Mr Conway rented a room from Mother Harries. Jealousy is not only strong as death; it has an enquiring and detective quality.

'Who, besides yourself, knew of the existence of this idol's head? Did you ever mention it to anybody?'

'No, I didn't, because I was going to pinch it if I could.'

'Coming back to the night of Mr Conway's death, what exactly were you up to then?' asked Gavin; but Scrupe was immovable upon this point.

'Innocently and ignorantly asleep,' he pronounced solemnly. 'Didn't know a thing about anything until the beastly rising bell next morning.'

'And you didn't take the head home for the holidays, either?'

'No. When I went next time it had gone. I suspected then that Marion had taken it, but, of course, I know what happened to it now. Anyway, I didn't brood much. It just seemed to me it would have been a good idea, that's all, to have it for fancy dress. I could have played up to it, too.'

'So there was no leakage there,' said Gavin to Mrs Bradley. His next victim was Mr Sugg. Here again he drew blank.

'But if the thing was made and worn two years ago, I wouldn't have known Conway then. I'm nearly new here,' pointed out Mr Sugg in a peevish voice.

'We had better tackle old Mrs Harries again,' said Gavin gloomily. 'We might as well find out whether Conway went there on the night he was murdered. Would you care to take her on? You'd get more out of her than I should.'

Mrs Bradley was not sure about this. What she did think was that she might interpret more successfully what she was told by the witch.

She came to Mother Harries's cottage at midday, fairly certain then of finding the crone at home.

'Ah,' said the old woman, as soon as she heard Mrs Bradley's step across the threshold. 'You have come for your book. Put your hand up the chimney. It is such a book as will burn the hand that grasps it.'

Mrs Bradley laughed, and the witch, putting an iron lid on the witch-like pot she had been stirring (and which gave forth an appetizing smell of rabbit and onions), sat down on a small wooden box and motioned her visitor to a chair.

'I want to know,' said Mrs Bradley, 'whether you ever thought that your cottage was invaded by naughty boys.'

'Frequently,' the hag replied. 'Boys bring luck. Girls never. Their virginity is against them.'

'Are not boys virgin?'

'Oh, yes, but the power of the dog is there too. Boys are lucky. If ever I went to sea I would take a boy along with me.'