Spotted Hemlock

library. She was not to be found there. This did not appear to cause Miss Paterson the least degree of surprise.

‘The little cormorants spend all their private study periods at the buffet counter,’ she explained. ‘I should have been surprised if we had found her in here. Still, one was bound to try. Come along. I could do with a coffee and doughnut myself. It’s astonishing how hungry one gets. It’s the very good air about these parts, I suppose. And the students do a great deal of really tough physical work, of course.’

The buffet counter was at one end of the college dining-room and was thronged with students, some of whom looked guilty, some smug (those who had a Free, Miss Paterson explained), some slightly defiant. They made way for the lecturer and her visitor, and Miss Paterson ordered coffee and doughnuts and then arrested the flight of Miss Bellman with a peremptory announcement that Dame Beatrice would like to speak to her and that she was to bring ‘that revolting repast’ to one of the dining tables so that they could obtain a little privacy away from the other students.

Miss Bellman, bearing two Cornish pasties and two cakes lavishly decorated with synthetic cream, followed her hostel head to a table and returned for a jug of cocoa and a large china mug.

‘For heaven’s sake, don’t stop eating,’ said Miss Paterson, herself dunking a doughnut, ‘and do try to answer Dame Beatrice intelligently. Now, Dame Beatrice.’

‘I think,’ said Dame Beatrice, ‘that Miss Bellman might prefer that my questions be put and replied to in private. Let us all refresh ourselves, and then, perhaps…’

‘Oh, I see. Yes. All right, Bellman. Rejoin the herd and then, by the time you get back here, I shall be gone.’

Miss Bellman, with a grateful glance at Dame Beatrice, made her two journeys back to the buffet counter with her provender, and Dame Beatrice, refusing sustenance in the form of the doughnuts, sipped coffee and listened to Miss Paterson’s comments on the mentality of students past and present whilst the lecturer disposed of two doughnuts and left the others ‘for Bellman, who’ll be sure to be able to gobble them up, however much food she’s had already.’

She had scarcely vanished through the swing doors when Miss Bellman, who, Dame Beatrice decided, must have been watching for this exit, came up to the table. Dame Beatrice presented her with the doughnuts.

‘You know P. G. Wodehouse,’ said Miss Bellman, seating herself and seizing one of the gifts. ‘Well, when he talks about starving pythons, it’s really nothing to what we get like in this place. Myself, I think we’re overworked and it’s nature’s way of ensuring that we don’t drop down dead. I never eat like this at home. Did you want to talk about Norah?’

‘Yes, of course. Miss Bellman, what sort of person was she? I know you’ve been asked this before, but is there anything you can add, I wonder?’

‘I’d call her the lone wolf type.’

‘Both lone and wolf?’

‘Eh? Oh, I see what you mean. Yes, I think she was a bit predatory. This boy Coles, you know. I bet, if you could find out the truth, that she married him, if you see what I mean. Otherwise, why an art student with no money? He can’t be much of a catch.’

‘How well did you know her?’

‘Well, we were at school together, and when we both planned to come here she suggested we tried to get into the same hostel. I wanted to be in the main building, but she wouldn’t hear of that. She said we’d be so much more independent in a hostel, and that she’d heard there was more chance of getting weekend passes and late leaves if you weren’t directly under the Prin.’s eye. So I gave way. You could have blown me over when she told me she was married. She never, in the ordinary way, told anybody anything. Of course, she swore me to secrecy and, as I couldn’t see any reason why I shouldn’t promise, I did. If I’d blabbed, it would have been all over the college grape-vine in no time, and the lecturers would have been bound to get wind of it. I don’t suppose the Prin. would have minded, in a way, but, of course, she’d have been bound to keep an eye on Coles to make sure her work wasn’t suffering, and that sort of thing’s such a bind! So I kept it to myself until, well, it sort of had to come out after we knew about the murder.’

‘Did her sister ever visit her in college?’

Miss Bellman, who had a mouthful of doughnut, choked.

‘No. I had heard at school that she’d got an older sister, but it seemed there’d been trouble at home and she never mentioned her after we got here,’ she said, as soon as she could utter.

‘Come, Miss Bellman! You know better than that! Please be frank.’

‘I can guess what you’re going to ask me, and there’s nothing I can tell you,’ said the student, very red in the face.

‘I see. Very well, Miss Bellman. I respect your loyalty, although I deplore your reticence—at least, on this occasion. Thank you for the help you have so far given me.’

‘I’m sorry,’ said Miss Bellman, following Dame Beatrice’s lead and rising from table. ‘I’d tell you if I felt it would be right, but I don’t feel it would.’

‘I quite understand. You must have had a terribly worrying time.’

They parted at the door, Miss Bellman to attend a lecture which she stigmatised as ‘poppycock about tap-roots’ and Dame Beatrice to return to Miss McKay. She found the Principal engaged on the telephone. Miss McKay waved her to a seat and soon put down the receiver.

‘So sorry,’ she said. ‘How did you get on?’

‘So well,’ Dame Beatrice replied, ‘that I want an interview with those students who live in college.’

‘We have twenty of them. Do you wish to speak to them all?’

‘Yes, please. As you know, there is evidence that, after hostel supper, the missing girl was not seen again. I have reason to suppose that she came over here, to college.’