Tom Brown's Body

Roman Bath by throwing Mr Conway into it.'

'That wouldn't apply to Miss Loveday, though,' said Mrs Wyck. 'That's what you're getting at, isn't it? I wonder why she hates poor John Semple?'

'I don't think she does. But I certainly think (as I have thought all along) that she is pretty certain of the identity of the murderer, and does not propose to share her knowledge with us. I have a theory, too, that her brother shares this secret. It might be much easier to force his confidence than hers.'

'Well, the next thing I'm going to do is to have another go at that chap Dobbs, Mr Loveday's knife-and-boot boy,' said Gavin. He sent immediately for the youth, who arrived under the escort of Miss Loveday herself.

'I hope,' said the latter, 'that there is no complaint against Dobbs. He is, in every respect, an excellent lad, keen, clean, and obliging, of sanguine temperament and innocuous habits. State your case.'

'We want to ask him who committed the murder,' said Mrs Bradley, before Gavin could speak.

'Do you know, Dobbs?' enquired Miss Loveday severely. 'If so, you should have spoken before. Much time, and a great deal of public money, have been wasted already over this apparently fruitless enquiry.'

''Ow should I know anything?' demanded Jack the Ripper, alarmed into a display of pugnacity. 'If all these 'ere narks and coppers can't follow their noses better'n a poor bloke what's done no 'arm to nobody . . .'

'Your words are ill-advised and ill-selected, Dobbs,' said Miss Loveday, breaking in with vigour upon her manservant's jeremiads. 'There is but one nark present, and she is resident at this seat of learning and discipline. Confine and annotate your nouns.'

'Beg pardon, madam,' responded Dobbs, looking sheepish. 'But I never knoo you knoo . . .'

'But little escapes these ears, these eyes, or this enquiring and pertinacious proboscis,' pronounced Miss Loveday. 'Give attention, Dobbs, to your mental superiors, the police.'

Upon this advice, she departed, accompanied by a sigh of relief from Gavin and sped by Mrs Bradley's eldritch and appreciative cackle.

'And now, Dobbs,' said Gavin, 'what were you doing on the night of the murder?'

'Being took bad,' replied the Ripper.

'How do you mean?'

'Fish pie,' said Dobbs. 'We doesn't often 'ave it downstairs, but there was no 'elp for it that night. It was fish pie or go without. We 'ad even finished up the cheese ration, that goin' nowhere with Mr Loveday in the 'Ouse.'

'Doesn't Mr Loveday like fish pie, either?' asked Mrs Bradley.

'Nobody don't like fish pie if they can get meat,' said Jack the Ripper. 'But being as 'ow it was fish pie or nothink, well, fish pie 'e 'ad, and fish pie 'e wished 'e'd never 'ad, for I met 'im in 'is dressing-gown, bein' on me way to a place, and 'e looks green as grass. Green as grass 'e looks, and 'e shoves past me without a single bloomin' word.'

'At what time was this?' asked Gavin.

'I reckon it would 'ave been around two o'clock in the morning. I never felt me qualms come on before eleven, and after that I 'ad a rare old time of it, I don't think, trottin' there and back, and there and back till I wonder I 'ad any bloomin' inside left be'ind.'

'What else happened that night?'

'Nothing, so far as I'm aweer.'

'Are you sure you can remember nothing else?'

'Me mind was on other things than murder,' said Dobbs with dignity. They were obliged to let him go.

'Point is, Loveday might have been green as grass with fish pie, or green as grass after witnessing murder,' said Gavin, gloomy with disappointment and frustration. 'You know, Mrs B., I don't believe you're trying.'

'Time flies quickly enough,' said Mrs Bradley complacently. Her sharp black eyes and beaky little mouth gave nothing away. 'We must try someone else, that's all.'

'Mr Loveday was in his dressing-gown,' said Gavin. 'Over a bathing suit, do you suppose?'

Mrs Bradley cackled.

'Stranger things could be true,' she answered, 'but, if you are canvassing my opinion, I am bound to tell you that I think it most unlikely.'

'Well, I'm going to try to reconstruct the scene in the last Common Room that Conway attended. It might give us a line.'

*

'I am asking no questions,' said Mr Wyck, to his wife's intense disappointment, 'except that I should be interested to know what Gavin hopes to gain from this reconstruction of a Common Room meeting.'

'He hopes to sow alarm and despondency,' Mrs Bradley replied. 'The murderer has been singularly discreet and sensible, but the Detective-Inspector believes that the attack on Mrs Poundbury may have followed the murder because she was in possession of a letter which might have proved dangerous to the murderer.'

'And is that letter now destroyed?'

'It is reasonable to think so. There is not much doubt that the murderer got it back.'

'Does Detective-Inspector Gavin want me to be present at this Common Room gathering?'

'That is as you wish. From his point of view, it would be much better if you stayed away.'

'Very well. My presence would undoubtedly depress some of the Staff. Whom will you get to play the part of Conway?'

'Oh, Mr Poundbury, of course. He is much the best actor, I fancy, and will give us all that he can remember of Mr Conway's exact words.'

'That means that you do not suspect him of being an accomplice to the murder?'

'Does it? It means, at the moment, that we are hoping that he will prove to have an excellent verbal memory and some slight gift of mimicry.'

'Ah,' said Mr Wyck, vaguely.

The Common Room, four hours later, presented a familiar appearance to its members, but was filled with an atmosphere alien to its traditions. It was a place of suspicion and fear. Its groups stood about, chiefly in the corners and around the hearth, and at the moment of Gavin's and Mrs Bradley's entry, Mr Reeder, who seemed the only person at ease, was suggesting that he hoped the business was not going to take long, because he had papers to mark and a move of chess to play against his postal opponent in Australia.

'I am sorry, gentlemen, to break into your leisure time,' said Gavin, advancing, 'but we have arrived at the point in our enquiry where a reconstruction of some conversations which may have taken place on the evening of Mr Conway's death may help us very considerably. I wonder whether you would be good enough to stand or sit about just as you were at that last Common Room which Mr Conway attended?'

'Right,' said Mr Reeder, taking charge. 'Let's begin at the beginning. Now, when I came in there was nobody here but Painter.'

'That is so,' said a dark man who was standing near the window. 'I was sitting at the table here, I think, correcting English essays. You came in . . .'

'And said: 'Mind if I shut the window?' Then, when it was shut, I lit my pipe . . .'

'Neither of you two gentlemen is important to my plans,' said Gavin, 'and the rest of that conversation does not matter. Could we come to the point of Mr Conway's entry?'

'He came in with Johnson, Semple, and myself,' said Mr Sugg. 'By that time the Common Room was almost full. We were late because we'd sat at table after dinner discussing the Richmond and Blackheath match, which Conway and Johnson had been to see –'

'Yes, they went up to Town,' said Mr Poundbury, who had recovered, it seemed, from his breakdown and also from his confession. 'I think, myself, that it is too far to go in a short week-end, as one has to start back so early on the Sunday to get here before the small hours of Monday morning.'

'Yes,' said Mr Loveday, 'I quite agree. In fact, there, I always say, Housemasters, in spite of what some have chosen to consider as their privileges, are at a distinct disadvantage when it comes to week-end leave. Why, only last summer . . .'

He was firmly interrupted by Mr Poundbury, who said loudly;

'Yes, yes. We've had all that out before. Where do you want me to pick up Conway's dialogue, Detective-