Spotted Hemlock

Dame Beatrice knew better than to question the memories of the semi-literate. She accepted their evidence at its face value. She and the caretaker returned to the ground floor and when they were half-way back to Miss McKay’s sitting-room she asked where the boiler-room was. The caretaker looked somewhat disgusted, and told her that they would need to go into the new wing to find that. She replied immediately that she was not interested if that was the case, and returned to Miss McKay, who had promised to accompany her to Miss Paterson’s hostel.

The head of the hostel, as it happened, was neither lecturing nor demonstrating, and they were shown into her sitting-room where she sat correcting a pile of written work and, at the same time, nursing a large pet rabbit.

‘Dame Beatrice wants to talk to you, Miss Paterson,’ said Miss McKay, ‘about the Palliser girl. Some extremely disturbing circumstances have come to light. After you have heard what she has to disclose, she may need to question some of your students.’

Miss Paterson rang the bell, handed the rabbit to the maid, drew up two armchairs for her guests, and put more coal on the fire.

‘I’m not staying,’ said Miss McKay. ‘Ring me if you need to.’ Upon this, she departed.

‘The murderer has been located, then?’ asked Miss Paterson, taking the armchair she had drawn up for the Principal. ‘Jolly good thing, too.’

‘He or she has not been located, so far as my information goes. What we seem to have located is the cellar in which the body was hidden before it was conveyed to the old coach at the inn near Highpepper Hall,’ replied Dame Beatrice.

‘Really? Not—Oh, good gracious me! Not the college cellar?’

‘It seems more than likely. At any rate, as soon as I have finished here, I am going to telephone the police to that effect. They can brave the rats in the inner cellar to find clues. Now, you had a better opportunity of studying Mrs Coles than any other lecturer or tutor here. In your opinion, what kind of person was she?’

‘Extremely reserved and not very sociable. She appeared to have no very close friends, but then, of course, if she had secretly married and wanted to keep it dark, she was wiser not to make close friendships here.’

‘She had confided in one of the students, though—a girl with whom she’d been at school, I believe.’

‘Oh, yes, Miss Bellman. They came up together and asked to be housed in the same hostel.’

‘I shall have to talk to Miss Bellman again. Then there is Miss Good.’

‘She’s not one of mine.’

‘No. I must seek her in Miss Considine’s house. What is the rule about visitors here?’

‘Students’ visitors?’

‘Yes. Is it ever possible, for example, for the college to put them up?’

‘Oh, yes, if there is any special reason.’

‘What sort of circumstances would furnish a special reason?’

‘At half-term, when most of the students take a long weekend, it is possible for a girl staying up to have a sister or friend to spend the weekend here to keep her company or to use the college as a base from which to go sightseeing.’

‘I was not thinking of holiday times.’

‘Oh, I see. Well, during term we can accommodate very few visitors. In fact, we don’t encourage them at all, except for tea on Saturdays and Sundays, and then they are expected not to arrive before three and to leave before eight.’

‘How many visitors could you accommodate here at any one time, apart from during half-term?’

‘Two only, unless any students have taken a weekend pass. I have two rooms with twin beds. College rules allow each student a room to herself because she has to use it for study as well as for sleep, so, you see, it would be possible for those two extra beds to go to visitors.’

‘Have you so allotted them at any time during this term?’

‘No, I have not been asked to do so.’

‘Suppose that a student in another hostel, or living in the students’ wing of the main college building, wanted to have a visitor for the weekend who could not be accommodated there, would it be possible for an exchange of rooms to be made?’

‘I should strongly oppose such an arrangement. In fact, unless Miss McKay made a personal approach to me over such an exchange, I certainly shouldn’t sanction it. The students get quite enough distraction here without dodging about from hostel to hostel, swapping beds.’ She grinned disarmingly.

‘I certainly sympathise with your point of view,’ said Dame Beatrice, returning the grin with an alligator leer which appeared to startle her companion.

‘Of course,’ Miss Paterson added, ‘what the students can contrive by means of private arrangements among themselves is another matter entirely.’

‘Ah!’ said Dame Beatrice, with a wealth of satisfaction in her tone. ‘May I have a word with Miss Bellman?’

‘Certainly, so far as I’m concerned. The trouble may be to find out where she is and what she’s doing, and it may be something that she can’t stop doing until she’s through with it. You know what this place is like! I’ll ring through to the secretary’s office and find out which group she’s in, and then the big time-table outside the Principal’s room will show where she’s most likely to be, or, at least, who’s supposed to be in charge of her.’

It turned out that Miss Bellman was in Private Study, which was (or should have been), by interpretation, in the