Tom Brown's Body

'But I don't see . . .'

'Don't you? Given sufficient strength and resolution, it would be simple enough. Imagine a fireman's lift, the arms and legs of the body secured together, and the possession of ood thigh and abdominal muscles by the rescuer. With a little assistance, it would be quite possible, although, I agree, not easy, to step up on to the stilts. The absence of footprints, and the negligible imprints of the stilts on the gravel and the stretches of damp turf, predispose me to wonder whether this was the method used to transport the body.' She cackled, as though she dismissed this ingenious but unlikely argument.

'But the fellow who did all that – for Conway wasn't a light-weight, you know – must have been a trained fireman or a giant,' said Gavin seriously.

'He wasn't, I am sure. He was a big, athletic young man with a mission in life – two or three missions, in fact. It was probably the fact that he had more than one mission which caused him to help move the body of Mr Conway.'

'You're not talking about Semple?'

'Whom else?'

'Well, I'm damned!'

'No, no. I doubt that,' said Mrs Bradley, paraphrasing George Bernard Shaw. 'All the same, it is not Mr Semple that we want to see next, but the lad Micklethwaite, preferably in front of his Housemaster.'

'Micklethwaite?' said Mr Loveday, approached upon the matter. 'Surely you don't suspect the boy of being concerned in Conway's death?'

'In his death, no. As an innocent accessory after the fact, yes,' said Mrs Bradley. 'But, as I want you for an absolutely unbiased witness, I shall not prejudice you either for or against the boy.'

'One is always prejudiced in favour of one's boys. I'll see him at ten,' said Mr Loveday. He looked deeply perturbed. 'You did say innocent?'

'I said it and meant it,' said Mrs Bradley firmly. 'The boy had nothing to do with the death. I am quite convinced of that. Neither had he any wish or incentive to assist the murderer. Can you, and will you, possess your soul in patience? We are almost at the end of the matter.'

'I will undertake to put the whole thing out of my mind,' said Mr Loveday. 'It is an exercise to which, as Housemaster, I am not entirely unaccustomed.'

'There goes a worried man,' said Mrs Bradley complacently. 'Now to arrange our little tableau. I think a uniformed constable is indicated. Will you telephone for one to come along? And I think it would be only fair to take Mr Wyck into our confidence.'

'You might do worse than take me into yours,' said Gavin, grinning.

*

As it happened, Mr Wyck was not, after all, in a position to attend the interview with Micklethwaite at ten. At ten minutes to the hour, he received a visit from Mr Semple who came bearing a telegram and wearing a grave expression.

'Your father? I am so sorry, my dear fellow,' said Mr Wyck. 'I had no idea he was so ill. Nor did I realize that he was living in Ireland. Go at once to him, of course.'

'I – if it is the end, I shall have to stay for the funeral, sir.'

'Of course, of course, my boy. Do not dream of distressing yourself about returning! I will just make some arrangements about your work . . .' He called up the School secretary on the House telephone, and the three of them were soon busily engaged in reconstructing the School time-table. This took some twenty-five minutes, and, after leave-taking, Mr Semple went out by the Headmaster's french doors – rather to Mr Wyck's surprise at that time of the year – and the Headmaster suddenly remembered Gavin, Mrs Bradley, and Micklethwaite.

Micklethwaite had been sent for out of class. He arrived to find his Housemaster in the presence of a police constable.

'Micklethwaite, my boy,' said Mr Loveday, 'not a word. You know you promised me.'

'Well, sir,' said Micklethwaite. He hesitated, and then seemed to make up his mind. 'Very well, sir. I expect the police are only bluffing.' So stalemate was established until Mr Wyck came in.

'Look here, Micklethwaite,' said Gavin, hoping for an ally in the Headmaster, 'I want you to understand that I'm not asking you to give anybody away. You may take it for granted that I've got my facts. I only want them confirmed. All right?'

'Certainly, sir,' replied the intelligent boy. 'You know all the answers, but I'm to supply them first.'

'Now, don't be impudent or clever, boy,' said Mr Wyck. 'You are to be given a chance to explain some very mysterious actions. Take the chance that is offered you, and regard this as by far the most serious occasion of your life.'

'Pardon me, sir,' protested Micklethwaite. 'I think you forget my Confirmation.'

Mr Wyck, with pardonable irritation, reached over and caught him a sound box on the ear.

'I warn you, boy, that you test my patience,' he said kindly. Micklethwaite apparently interpreted this statement correctly, for he lowered his eyes and murmured, 'Yes, sir,' as meekly as the words could be said.

'Well, now,' said Gavin, 'it appears that you are an accessory after the fact of murder. Will you enlarge on that point for me? Just a simple account will do. In fact, the simpler it is the better, so long as it's strictly truthful.'

'I abominate lying,' said Micklethwaite, with an apologetic glance at his Housemaster, 'and, besides, it seems that the time has come. The fact is that on the night of Mr Conway's death I was roused by Mr Loveday and was taken over to the Roman Bath. Mr Conway was lying at the bottom of the water, at the deep end. He had two great bags on his back. I found out afterwards that they contained huge lumps of rock – from the boulders on the moor, I should imagine.

'Miss Loveday was at the Bath side. She said, 'Micklethwaite, we are afraid Mr Conway has done something terrible to himself.' I said, 'It looks like it, Miss Loveday. Ought you to be here? Can't Mr Loveday and I cope?'

'She said, 'My brother is most upset.' Well, Mr Loveday did look most horribly green, sir, didn't you? She went on to say: 'Do you think that, as Mr Loveday and I are not very accomplished divers, you could release Mr Conway from what appear to be weights upon his shoulders?'

'I didn't like the idea much, but, of course, I went down and cut the bags from the – from Mr Conway with a knife Miss Loveday had given me. I got the body to the steps after several tries, and Mr Loveday helped me to get it out. It took some doing, and Mr Loveday was pretty well whacked at the end, weren't you sir? We laid it on the edge of the Bath. Then I had to go in again for the bags. I thought at first I shouldn't manage them, and by the time I'd got the second one up I was feeling pretty well done.

'Then Mr Loveday told me to go back to bed, and he would speak to me again in the morning. But he didn't speak to me in the morning, did you, sir? – and by lunch-time we'd all heard about the murder, and how the body had been found outside Mr Kay's cottage. So I went to Mr Loveday, and he told me I must have dreamt the whole thing. He brought in Miss Loveday, and she said that it was of no use for Mr Loveday to try to protect me like that: it was better to acknowledge the truth.

''The trouble is,' she said, 'that it appears to have been murder, not suicide, and the murderer, by some means unknown to the police at present, must have broken into the Roman Bath after we all left it last night.'

'I asked her whether she had told the police this, and she said she had not, but that she intended to do so at the first opportunity. I asked where I came in, and she took ten separate shillings from her silver teapot, and said, 'You come in for this, my dear, brave lad, and I trust that you didn't take cold.'

'I asked what I had to do to earn the money – not that it was all that much, but the whole thing struck me as being very fishy, if I may say so without offending Mr Loveday. She said I had to do nothing, as it was payment for service^s already rendered. I asked her flat out whether I had to keep my mouth shut, and she said, 'Not at all, my dear Micklethwaite, but I should wait until you are questioned by the police. It is sometimes considered injudicious to rush to them immediately with a story. We do not yet know the identity of the murderer, and a too talkative youth might find himself in great danger,' and – and I think that's all, sir.'

'I can't think why you didn't come to me with this tale instead of keeping it to yourself all this time, though,' said Gavin, busily writing.

'When I thought it over, I knew I ought to, but I funked because I was afraid you might think I'd had something to do with the murder,' answered Micklethwaite limpidly. Gavin scowled at him and Mr Wyck drummed on the table.