Pageant of Murder

We made a civil enquiry and were told that Spey hadn’t shown up at school either yesterday or this morning. The Old Cat—Gordon’s name for his headmistress—her actual name is Cattrick, so it’s not really as rude as it sounds and, actually, he quite likes her—had cut up rough on the Monday, (that’s yesterday), because Spey hadn’t sent a message, or anything, to say he couldn’t be at school, but today, as, again, she’d heard nothing, she seemed a bit worried, Gordon said. She couldn’t ring Spey because he isn’t on the ’phone, so she asked Gordon to call round and find out whether Spey had been taken ill and was too bad to get a message to school, or didn’t have anybody to send.” He paused to sip his drink.

“What did Gordon think about that?” asked Kitty’s husband.

“He was so little keen on the job that I offered to go with him. “It’s that awful business of poor Luton,” he said. “The police keep all on to me until I’m hanged if I know whether I’m coming or going. And now Spey! I tell you that if I go to that house and anything’s happened to him, I’ll be for it.” Well, of course I told him nothing would have happened to Spey except a dose of ’flu, or a broken leg, or something else quite simple, but he jumped at the idea of my going with him, so we met after school and got some tea in the town, and—we went.”

He finished his drink. Twigg poured him another.

“Get on with the tale,” he said, “or your aunt will explode.”

“Spey is married,” proceeded Perse, “but Gordon told me that Mrs Spey is down in Devonshire nursing an ailing mother, so he’s been alone in the house except for a char who comes in once a week to square up. Friday is her day.

“Well, we knocked and rang, but there was no answer, so we concluded that Spey must be pretty seedy and we’d better get inside somehow and see what was what. So we knocked up the neighbours—it’s a semi-detached house—and told them our troubles and informed them that we intended to break in. They were dubious about this, and advised us to contact the police, but Gordon, who, as he said, has had a bucketful of the police over Luton’s death, said that wasn’t necessary. He gave them the school number and invited them to ring up and get him identified. Evidently they took this offer as a guarantee of good faith, because they said it didn’t matter and shut their front door on us. We went round to the back and, before deciding to force a window, we tried the back door. It wasn’t locked or bolted, so we went in.

“On the kitchen table there was a note with a pepperpot on it to keep it in position. It said, Dear Sir, I have waited till nearly five and must be off to get my old man’s tea. Have took my wages from the shillings you keeps handy for the gas, as have my weekend shopping to do and oblige. Mrs Harmer. You can see what it all adds up to. Spey must have been missing since after school on Friday, and now it’s Tuesday evening and he hasn’t been traced or got any message to the school. We searched the house, of course, but there wasn’t a clue.”

“It’s a very odd business,” said Laura.

“I suppose you’ve told the police?” said Twigg.

“Oh, yes. I’ve just come from the police station, as a matter of fact. Gordon wouldn’t come with me at first, but, as I pointed out, they’d be bound to find out that we’d gone to Spey’s house together, so there was no point in making things look fishier for himself than they did already.”

“What did the police do?” asked Laura.

“I don’t know. They dug out of us all we knew, which was precious little, and I think they’re going to contact the charwoman and the school—oh, and Spey’s wife, of course, in case she knows where he is. They’ve got her address. It was wedged into a corner of the blotter on Spey’s desk.”

“Did Gordon give any indication of what Spey seemed like at school on Friday?”

“I asked him that, Auntie Laura, and he said that Spey and he had a communal belly-ache in Spey’s empty classroom at morning break about the way the police were persecuting them about Luton’s death, but that, otherwise, he seemed as usual.”

“I wonder where the real sword came from—the one the police think was used on Falstaff,” said Laura.

“Oh, that’s easy enough, I should say. Somebody must have borrowed it from Squire’s Acre. I noticed, when we had tea there on the day of the pageant, that old Batty-Faudrey has a positive armoury on his long gallery walls,” said Perse.

“Yes, so he has,” agreed Kitty. “Not that I took much notice, but now you mention it…”

“What I can’t understand,” said Laura, “is why the police have fastened on Gordon and Spey.”

“I don’t think they’ve been victimised any more than others of the cast,” said Perse. “But, as teachers, they’re more vulnerable than some of the rest, I suppose, or perhaps more sensitive. Anyway, I thought you’d like to hear the latest news.”

It was not quite the latest news, however. On the following evening Twigg came in with an evening paper and asked whether Kitty and Laura had seen it.

“How can we have seen it?” his wife enquired.

“Well, here you are.” He handed over the paper. “Here, where my thumb is.”

“Good Lord!” said Kitty, scanning the paragraph. “They’ve found the body of that man Spey, but it’s minus its head!”

“Then how do they know whose body it is?” asked Laura.

“Well, it was dressed in the Henry VIII costume, and Spey is reported missing,” said Kitty. “So there it is.”

“Still, if it hasn’t got a head, I don’t see that they can prove it’s Spey, costume or no costume.”

“But, Dog, who else would have worn it?”

“Almost anybody, I should have thought. Far more likely that Spey’s the murderer of Falstaff. After all, the usual reason for decapitating a corpse is to confuse the issue. Spey did in poor little Falstaff and now he’s killed another harmless bloke. That’s my reading of the evidence.”

“I thought we’d agreed it wasn’t Gordon or Spey. You don’t think perhaps there were shades of Anne Boleyn?”