Faintley Speaking

Laura had had, during the night watches (for she was a person who required but an hour or two of sleep) what she thought was a very good idea. She drove into Kindleford, carried out Miss Golightly’s instructions, and then, armed with the invoices, drove to Miss Faintley’s aunt and asked permission to use Miss Faintley’s car. She explained that it would cause less comment at the Junction than if she went in her own.

The aunt was in bed, however, and had been in bed ever since the last visit of the police. She was prostrate with grief and worry, declared the daily woman. As to Miss Faintley’s car, that was in the garage in Long Hill Street, and the police had the key, and the woman could not go and worry Miss Faintley about it, nor with nothing else, for the matter of that. Prostrate she was, poor thing, and who could wonder at it?

Laura drove to the police station (she was, in any case, under Mrs Bradley’s instructions to acquaint Inspector Darling with the fact that she was going to Hagford to collect stock for the school), introduced herself and gave Mrs Bradley’s message and the information that she had tried to borrow Miss Faintley’s car and had failed. None of this appeared to interest Darling. He doodled idly on his blotting-paper while she talked and then said abruptly:

‘Very good, miss. We’ll make a note of it. You’ll be going straight back to the school with the parcel, I don’t doubt.’

‘I don’t see anything else to do.’

‘No, miss. Well,’ he looked up and smiled, ‘don’t go running into trouble. I hear you’re a teacher at the school now, taking Miss Faintley’s place. We had Mrs Bradley on the telephone last night. It appears pretty certain that Miss Faintley was expecting to speak to another member of the staff that night she spoke to Mr Mandsell. We could do with knowing who that teacher was, miss.’

‘I know. I’ll do my best to find out.’

‘It may not help us, of course. May just have been somebody who was willing to do Miss Faintley a favour. Still, it would clear up one small point for us, and every little helps. According to what Mrs Bradley found out from Miss Golightly, it couldn’t have been Mr Rankin. Not that I’d ever think it could be. I know Bob Rankin well. The last man on earth to get mixed up in any funny business. Bannister, too, is a very reliable chap.’

Laura’s brief acquaintance with Mr Rankin was sufficient to cause her to agree heartily with this point of view. In another two minutes she was in her own car and making for Hagford Junction. The journey took less than ten minutes, for the road was clear and fairly straight, and Laura pulled up outside the station entrance with no idea of how she was going to approach her real objective… the gaining of information about Miss Faintley and the parcels which had not been intended for the school.

The left luggage office was in charge of a round-faced, ingenuous-looking porter who was afflicted with stammering speech.

‘K-K-Kindleford Sc-Sc-School? I’ll s-s-see.’

‘Are you always in charge here?’ asked Laura, as she signed for three large packages.

‘Y-y-yes, of c-c-course I am.’

‘Liar!’ thought Laura, who had been told about the missing brothers Price.

‘Remember Miss Faintley who used to come here?’

The porter’s blue eyes bulged.

‘M-m-murdered on h-h-holiday?’

‘Yes. What about those other parcels she used to collect? You know, the ones that were addressed to her personally, and not to the school.’

‘Oh, them! Well, there’s one h-here, but it’s marked To Be Left Till Called For.’

‘Well, I’m calling for it,’ Laura said blithely. The detective fever she had experienced during her abortive inquiries in Torbury were fired afresh. She saw herself driving triumphantly back to the Stone House at Wandles Parva bearing a parcel which, when unwrapped by Mrs Bradley, would disclose the whole secret of Miss Faintley’s untimely death, the full villainy of Tomson, the identity of the men who had removed the case of ferns, and the entire foolishness of the novelist Geoffrey Mandsell.

But the porter, stammering and nervous, refused to consider the idea that Laura should make herself responsible for the parcel, and, as she was not in a position to compel him to part with it, she had to drive back to school with nothing but the three heavy packages of stock.

On the way she rang up Mrs Bradley and reported upon her failure to secure the private parcel.

‘I’m very glad you haven’t got it,’ said Mrs Bradley calmly. ‘Tell the police it is there. I don’t want you knocked on the head. Did you actually see it?’

‘Well, I think I know which it was. It was flat and rectangular, like a photograph or something.’

With considerable chagrin Laura rang up the police station, but it appeared that the stammering porter had been before her. He had reported that a woman teacher had called for the school parcels and that she had tried to get hold of one to which she was not entitled. A police car had already gone to Hagford. Laura was thanked for her telephone message. She returned to school, thoroughly disgruntled.

‘Takes you some time to get to Hagford and back! Car have a breakdown?’ Miss Cardillon inquired at break.

‘No. Dumped the stock and went off on a toot.’

‘Miss Golightly was rather upset. Sent a couple of kids to search the place for you. Faintley used to get back in under the hour. What have you been a-doing of? Did you get lost, or something?’

‘I’ve been to telephone, that’s all.’

‘Well, silly, there’s a telephone in the staff-room. Why on earth not pop up and use that?’

‘Somebody would have been in there marking books or a couple of kids getting coffee ready.’

‘Oh, yes, there’s always that snag. Oh, Lord! It’s time already! These breaks don’t seem to last any time at all. Coming out to lunch again to-day?’