valuable the work your wife is doing for us is. The boys are progressing in leaps and bounds. We shall be devastated when she has to leave on Friday. Now then, does your presence among us signal that the crime has been solved, that we can offer our congratulations?’
‘Would that it did,’ said Powerscourt ruefully. ‘Believe me, Headmaster, I wish we could have found the answer by now. Life must have been very difficult for you all up here with this hanging over the school.’
‘I rather think we have got used to it, though getting used to murder can’t be good for any of us. Is there anything particular you wish to speak to me about today?’
‘There is, Headmaster. It is rather a delicate matter, I fear. One of the important players throughout this inquiry, in all three locations, is Sir Peregrine Fishborne, Prime Warden of the Silkworkers Company.’
‘We know Sir Peregrine here. He is on the board of governors. I think we could say we know him quite well.’
‘Indeed so,’ said Powerscourt. ‘It has just been reported that Sir Peregrine’s car, with, presumably, Sir Peregrine himself inside it, was seen at Melton Constable on the day of the murder.’
‘What of it? The man has a house there, for God’s sake.’
Powerscourt thought that the headmaster’s usual urbanity might be giving way to tetchiness.
‘A great deal of Sir Peregrine’s time in those days was spent in canvassing for votes for his reorganization of the Silkworkers.’
‘So?’ said the headmaster.
‘I just wondered if he came here to talk to you and your bursar about how you were going to cast your votes, that’s all.’
There was a pause. The headmaster fiddled with his gold pen. Powerscourt looked out of the window, the playing fields stretching far into the distance, a phalanx of tennis courts closer to home. A buzzard was hovering over the playing fields, searching for prey.
‘I can’t lie to you, Lord Powerscourt. Yes, he did come here. Yes, we met with the bursar. I would have told you before but he asked us to keep it a secret, Sir Peregrine, I mean. I don’t think it has anything to do with the murder, I’m absolutely sure of it. Let me tell you what the meeting was about.’ The headmaster put down his pen. He brushed his hair back over his forehead.
‘What you have to understand, Lord Powerscourt, is how much these schools cost to run. There are the staff to pay. The fabric of the buildings is in almost permanent need of repair. The grounds are another drain on resources. Just before you came in I was given an estimate for repairing the cricket pavilion that, at present, we cannot afford. There was a suggestion that the Silkworkers Company might like to re-endow the school to enable us to carry out repairs and to embark on a new building programme which would open a new chapter in the long history of Allison’s.’
‘Might I ask who made this suggestion, Headmaster?’
‘You may. It was my suggestion.’
‘And was the quid pro quo that the votes of the school would go Sir Peregrine’s way?’ Don’t mention blackmail, Powerscourt said to himself, don’t even think about it.
‘It was,’ said the headmaster.
‘Sir Peregrine must have been pretty desperate for votes if he was prepared to spend all that money on rebuilding and so on. I suppose it wasn’t his money, mind you, not his personal fortune. And what did your bursar think of all this?’
‘That was part of the problem, Lord Powerscourt. That was why Sir Peregrine came all this way to see us. Roderick was opposed to the scheme, to all of it. He said that if the Silkworkers Company effectively dissolved itself, there would be no guarantees of any Silkworker money coming to the school ever again. He was unmoved by all the talk of new buildings. He used to describe them as being promises made with fool’s gold. We should stay the way we are, he would say. It’s much safer. Sir Peregrine tried his hardest but Roderick wouldn’t budge. Sir Peregrine got rather cross, actually.’
‘I’m afraid I have to ask you this, Headmaster. Which way did you and your colleagues vote in the end?’
‘We voted for Sir Peregrine, all of us, all of our votes. I sent the paperwork off this morning. We voted for change, a change that will do much to restore the fortunes of the school.’
‘So you voted against the advice of your bursar, Headmaster?’
‘It was the first time I had ever disagreed with Roderick on a question of finance, Lord Powerscourt.’
‘But Mr Gill, the bursar, was actually dead by the time the rest of you cast your votes, was he not? He couldn’t have a vote where he’d gone, could he?’
‘That is correct.’
‘Thank you for telling me all of this,’ said Powerscourt. ‘Is there anything you would wish to add?’
‘I don’t think so. I will give the matter some thought. I wouldn’t like to feel you had not been kept in the picture a second time. I can find you at the Crown, I presume?’
As Powerscourt strolled back towards the police station he felt that another name had been added to the list of suspects. There were the two sons of Mrs Maud Lewis, lying about their chess game. There was Sir Peregrine Fishborne and his chauffeur who drove him everywhere, there might be shadowy members of the British or German secret service, there might be unknown opponents of Sir Peregrine’s schemes, and now another late entrant in the Fakenham stakes, the headmaster himself, keen to remove the last opposition to his grand schemes of expansion and glory.
15
Inspector Grime was astonished when Powerscourt told him the details of his conversation with the headmaster of Allison’s School.
‘I thought I was doing well, my lord, with this new witness confirming that Sir Peregrine’s great black car has been seen in Melton Constable. But the headmaster, that’s virtually blackmail. You build me a new school, I’ll give you my votes. Pity the bursar didn’t stay around to hold his ground.’
‘I think we have to include him on the list of suspects, the headmaster I mean, but I don’t think he’d have carried out the murder. He had far too much to lose. Did you say you were coming to London tomorrow, Inspector, for further conversations with the Lewis sons? I could give you a lift, if you like. I hope to have a summit meeting with all three of you Inspectors at my house late tomorrow afternoon if that sounds convenient for you?’
‘Thank you, my lord. That would be most helpful. I have been wondering about whether to interview the Lewis boys in a police station or in their homes. Would you have any advice?’
‘Talk to them in their homes, that would be my suggestion. That way, they won’t suspect anything. Call them into the police station and they’ll think they’re on their way to the Old Bailey.’
‘I’ll give that further thought, if I may, my lord. Tomorrow morning we have the last of the colonial gentlemen coming in to the school to see if anybody remembers their accents.’
The amount of noise generated by some hundred and fifty boys trying to make their way up or down the principal corridor of Allison’s School was deafening. Inspector Grime, sheltering in a side corridor, thought a hundred and fifty policemen, even wearing their best boots, would not be able to equal it. Odd snatches of homework questions floated past him on the morning rush.
‘Who was prime minister after Peel, for heaven’s sake?’
‘Alea jacta est. What’s the alea? Do you know?’
‘Who was Elizabeth the First’s spymaster?’
Then he saw him. Today’s colonial was a burly man with black curly hair who looked as though he might be a prop forward in rugby. He elbowed his way past a number of boys, including David Lewis, saying sorry as he went. For the boys, bumps and collisions en route to the first lessons of the day were nothing new. It was just part of the daily routine. They had been warned beforehand that another stranger would be in their midst this morning. One or two of the naughtier ones made it their business to crash into their visitor, but his bulk ensured that they came off worst.
‘Well,’ said Inspector Grime to David Lewis when the visitor had passed through the corridor into the Inspector’s temporary quarters in the Officers’ Training Corps room, ‘what did you think?’
