Tom Brown's Body

'Did you ever think that Mr and Miss Loveday might have been concerned in it?' asked Gavin.

'Good heavens, no, of course not!'

'Weren't you surprised to find them over there at that time of night?'

'Oh, no. They go over often to stoke up the furnaces and see that the whole thing is working. We all know that. Nobody takes any notice.'

'You were sick later on that night, weren't you?'

'No, but going back I ran into a fellow who was sick, and I had to think up an excuse for being up and about.'

'How did Mr Loveday manage to wake you up without disturbing the other boys in your dormitory?'

'I don't sleep in a dormitory. I have special permission to have a camp bed in my study, so that I can work in the early mornings. I got my parents to stipulate for this. I do my best work between five and seven a.m.'

'Good Lord!' said Gavin, awed at last. 'Is he quite right in the head?' he demanded of Mr Wyck when the lad had gone.

'He is rather a talented boy,' said Mr Wyck, with his usual mildness, 'and, of course, he has told the story because he believes that Mr and Miss Loveday are innocent.'

'Oh, so do I,' Gavin answered. 'They've been criminally foolish, though.'

22. Hare and Hounds

*

If I am hang'd, it shall be for ridding the World of an errant Rascal.

IBID. (Act 2, Scene 10)

'I SUPPOSE the Lovedays are simple sort of people really,' continued Gavin, 'and if they thought they had a suicide on their hands, it was natural to try to get rid of him. It was very annoying of Mr Wyck to allow Mr Semple to go to Ireland, though.'

'Yes, once he really gets away it may be very hard work to find him,' said Mrs Bradley.

Gavin gloomily agreed.

'Although I doubt whether we could prove he was the one who dumped the body for them,' he added. 'Of course, Loveday did 'find' the mask and the Indian club for us, so I suppose he's got cold feet all right. Something may break pretty soon.'

'I think it will,' said Mrs Bradley cheerfully, 'particularly as Miss Loveday has just informed me that she intends to join her boys in a paper-chase this afternoon.'

'Good Lord! Miss Loveday actually joins in?'

'Do you really join in?' Mrs Bradley enquired, as Miss Loveday came into the room.

'For the first mile and a half,' Miss Loveday replied. 'After that, I turn round and trot home again. My brother does not join us. He leaves the whole thing to Cartaris. I believe that Issacher makes a book on the result. It is deplorable that boys bet, but it is impossible to prevent their doing so. Mr Wyck does not like it, but there it is.'

'I suppose Mr Semple is a good man at cross-country running when he is in England,' said Gavin.

Miss Loveday looked at him closely:

'I know not why you should ask me that,' she said. 'It is well known that John Semple is a very fine cross- country runner. He is a footballer beside. And now, farewell. Atalanta – or should I say Diana? – must garb herself for the chase. Will you all come to Loveday's to dinner? The pig has arrived and looks inviting. I have good apples stored. There will be crackling. My brother shall provide us with sherry, and there will be brandy later. What say you? Shall we toast the gallows together, Mr Policeman?'

'Look,' said Gavin, suddenly. 'What was Mr Pearson doing on the night of the murder?'

'How should I be expected to know?' enquired Miss Love-day. 'Wear football stockings. We negotiate brambles and gorse,' she added, turning suddenly towards Mrs Bradley.

'But I wasn't proposing to accompany you, and neither does Mr Gavin care greatly for winter exercise,' said Mrs Bradley firmly.

*

An enthusiastic bevy of boys from other Houses hooted rudely at Mr Loveday's boys and loudly cheered his sister as the cross-country runners set out at just after half-past one. Miss Loveday was wearing a pair of football boots, a hat tied under her chin, and had kilted her skirts to the knee. Mrs Bradley and Gavin watched the procession from a window.

'And now,' said Mrs Bradley, 'I suggest, my dear David, that you borrow a bicycle and go at once to Mr Pearson's house at the other end of the village. Pedal fast; you must get there before Miss Loveday does.'

'What for?' asked the mystified Gavin.

'I think you will know when you see her,' Mrs Bradley replied. 'Micklethwaite, I fancy, is the one material witness for whom we have waited so long.'

'I wish we'd tackled him earlier, then,' said Gavin.

'The psychological moment did not arrive earlier, child.'

The runners had crossed the road and were stringing out through the woods which lay between the School and the river. Gavin, on a bicycle borrowed from Mr Wyck's butler, waited until Miss Loveday, in the wake of her boys, had disappeared among the trees, and then he turned into the roadway and pedalled for all he was worth in the direction of the village.

He arrived at the Pearsons' house in time to catch Marion at the front door as she was about to walk to the village.

'I won't keep you,' he assured her. 'The fact is, one of the masters has gone to Ireland to visit his father, who is very ill. We want to get in touch with him, and wondered whether by any possibility you may happen to know the address, as we want some information we think he can give us.'

'I don't know any addresses in Ireland except the address of a small hotel in Galway where I spent a holiday once with my father,' Marion responded. 'Is it John Semple who has gone?'

'Yes, it is.'

'We were once engaged. I didn't know his family lived in Ireland. I thought they were London people. They used to live in Hampstead, I think. I never met them. We weren't engaged long enough for that.'

'You wouldn't know their address, then?'

'No, I'm sorry. And now I must go, or the shop will be sold out of biscuits.'

Gavin went with her to the gate and pretended to cycle back towards the School. He had great faith in Mrs Bradley, but there was still no sign of Miss Loveday or any of the boys, and he thought Mrs Bradley must have been mistaken in supposing that Miss Loveday intended to visit the Pearsons.

However, he thought he would hang about for a bit and see what happened. The first thing that happened after Marion Pearson had left him was that a stream of boys crossed the road from a field adjacent to the Pearsons' house and plunged in among the sodden yellowish bracken on the opposite side of the way.

After these came stragglers. In the rear of the party came Miss Loveday, going, all things considered, remarkably strongly, Gavin thought. At the Pearsons' house, however, she glanced round. Gavin by this time had hidden himself and his bicycle in a clump of laurel bushes just inside the Pearsons' boundary fence. She let down her skirt, untied her hat-strings, and sauntered towards the Pearsons' beautiful garden pool and rockery.

She glanced at her watch and then up at the top-floor windows. She seemed impatient, and, for so masterful a personality, somewhat irresolute. In a few moments, however, she lifted her chin as though she were listening, and hastened towards the garden gate. Gavin, to his surprise, saw what he took to be the hares. Two big boys came into his line of vision, each carrying a bag of what Gavin took at first to be the' scent for the paper- chase.

To his astonishment they strolled up to Miss Loveday and, dropping the bags from their shoulders, they opened them and each took out a large chunk of granite. Under Miss Loveday's direction they placed them on Mr Pearson's rockery.

Miss Loveday turned and saw Gavin, who was strolling towards her.

'We meet again, Miss Loveday,' he said, as he raised his hat. 'Have you given up the run so soon?'