An added complication (in Laura’s view) and a welcome item of light relief (in the opinion of Dame Beatrice) was supplied by the arrival of Hamish from school three weeks after Easter. He was accompanied by a boy named Cooper and by Cooper’s Angora rabbit and his own tiny Yorkshire terrier bitch.
‘This is Lindy Lou,’ he explained, exhibiting the scrap of a dog. ‘Mrs Conelly-Cardew was sorry for me when I had to leave Fergus at home because Mr Conelly-Cardew said he was too big to have at school, so she gave me Lindy for an Easter egg. She gave all of us something for a present, as we weren’t to go home, but mine was far the best.’
‘Why on earth should she give you a valuable dog like this?’ demanded Laura, taking Lindy Lou in her arms and receiving an ecstatic lick from the tiny thoroughbred.
‘Oh, she thinks a good deal of me,’ replied her son, with his usual modesty. ‘So she ought to, actually. You see, I saved her life – well, I probably did.’
‘Some people have all the fun! What happened? Was she drowning in a butt of Malmsey?’
‘No. A tramp stopped her, and I happened to be out on Pegasus, so I rode up, and the tramp seemed rather nasty, so I sloshed him with my riding-crop and he staggered back and sat down and Pegasus kicked him on the head, so that was all right, and I dismounted and escorted Mrs Conelly-Cardew back to school and gave myself up.’
‘Gave yourself up?’
‘Oh, yes. You see, I was out of bounds when I rescued Mrs Conelly-Cardew. Rather a long way out of bounds, actually.’
‘I hope the headmaster beat you.’
‘Oh, yes, of course he did, but Grandjean looked at my bum through his magnifying glass afterwards, and couldn’t see any marks, so that shows Mr Conelly-Cardew’s gratitude, doesn’t it? I hardly felt the whacking, but, of course, he had to make a gesture. I believe in maintaining discipline, do not you, mamma?’
‘I should hardly think that was maintaining it,’ said Laura. ‘You’d better introduce Lindy Lou to Fergus, so that he doesn’t think she’s something to eat.’
‘Is it true Fergus found a dead body? Gosh, I wish I’d been there! Some of the men at school read about it in the paper and were frightfully sick to think that my dog had done a wizard thing like that!’
The fourth murder took place on Whit Tuesday, a few days after Hamish, fortunately for Laura’s peace of mind, had returned to school.
(2)
Marie-Jeanne Vermier was a French student who had opted to teach English in French schools, and as part of her course had been able to take advantage of a scheme which enabled her to spend the whole of the summer term in England to attend lectures and classes in an extra-mural capacity, and to reciprocate (since she was in receipt of a grant) by giving part of her time to conducting classes in French conversation at an English school while she was over in this country.
The headmaster of the comprehensive school at which James was the history and religious knowledge specialist and Agnes Clancy the school secretary, was not particularly in favour of the scheme. It took children out of their ordinary French lessons once or twice a week, and this was a nuisance because it split classes, since the maximum number of children who could be allotted to the student at any one time was not more than fifteen. Added to this was the vexation of having to alter the time-table in order to incorporate, for one term only, these lessons in French conversation, so that all who were to sit the General Certificate of Education examination might take advantage of what was going on. These alterations were a necessary chore, since Her Majesty’s Inspectors of Schools were entitled to insist on them, and although H.M.I.’s are no longer regarded as the autocrats and dictators they once were, but rather as the teachers’ friends and advisers, (and sometimes, even, their admirers), their word in some matters is still law.
Marie-Jeanne, therefore, appeared (outwardly self-possessed, inwardly shy and nervous) in the staff Common Room in company with the mistress who had taken Karen Schumann’s place the previous term. She was introduced all round, bowed, made her polite and carefully enunciated ‘Good morning, how do you do?’ and was taken back to the headmaster’s room for a further friendly chat and some kindly advice.
He was filled with misgivings, for his G.C.E. boys were not very much younger than Marie-Jeanne, and he asked her whether she would prefer that he did not send them to her classes. Some schools, he knew, relegated their French-conversation students to the first and second year children, but he felt that his G.C.E. groups ought not to be denied something which was calculated to help them in their French Oral examination. Marie-Jeanne said that she would prefer to leave it to him, and it was arranged that she would take mixed groups on a month’s trial, ‘and then’, said the headmaster, ‘we can review the situation and see how we stand’.
Fortunately for her, the girls immediately decided to fall for Marie-Jeanne’s porcelain prettiness, and therefore protected her whenever they thought she needed protection, which was seldom. To do the boys justice, she was soon regarded by them as beneath their notice and, in any case, the majority of them were far too dignified to stoop to the middle-school practice of ‘playing her up’.
Lodgings had been found for her near the school, so she came within the net which the police were casting.
