letters,” said the inspector. “I think we’re getting to the end of the road, sir.”
This proved not to be the case. The post-mistress produced three envelopes addressed to Mr. Harper and stated that nobody had been along to claim them.
“Whoever the chap is,” said the disgruntled inspector to Dame Beatrice, “he was too fly to chance being recognized at the village post-office, which meant they knew him and could put his real name to him. He must have planned young Kirk’s death from the minute the lad began to turn on the heat. He played along with Kirk, but only while he waited for the right opportunity. He was buying the drinks and smokes out of his own pocket, I suppose, without letting Kirk know that the letters were not being collected.”
“Then the landlord at the pub will be able to furnish you with a description of him,” said Henry. The inspector shook his head.
“So I thought, sir,” he said, “but that road is closed, too. Twenty pounds in used one-pound notes was put through his letter-box with a note in Roman capitals saying that the drinks and cigarettes were to be left at the College main gate as early in the morning as possible, and that when the money was exhausted a note to that effect was to be left in an empty packing-case. Well, according to the landlord, there was only a pound of the money left after he’d delivered the stuff a couple of times. He showed me the pound note, but, of course, being a used one, it told me absolutely nothing. No use for prints or anything else. I suppose, sir,” concluded the inspector, turning to Gascoigne, “there’s no chance that any of your staff or students might have seen something?”
“Seen something, Inspector?”
“Seen who went and picked up the stuff at the gate, sir. It would have to be somebody with a car, I imagine, because anyone lugging a packing-case of drinks up to the College would have been an object of interest, I take it.”
“Not if it took place after dark, Inspector.”
“A car means a member of staff,” said Henry. “I think, you know, Gassie, that the inspector would probably like to question each one of us again, now that it seems most unlikely that the murderer could be one of the students.”
“I have the utmost confidence in my staff,” said Gascoigne, with an uncertainty in his voice which went far towards denying the truth of this statement, “but the inspector knows his own business best.”
“I don’t wish to interview members of your staff again just yet, sir,” said the inspector. “That can come a little later. Dame Beatrice has another enquiry in mind, and one which she prefers to hold without my direct assistance. If the outcome is what she hopes for, it will not be long before I can make my arrest.”
“Oh? What does she propose to do?”
“That, sir, remains her business and mine for the present.”
“Oh, very well,” said Gascoigne stiffly. “I have no wish to pry.”
“It’s not that, sir. The point is that we’ve had two deaths by murder, and there’s a strong probability that there’s been a third. I wouldn’t want Dame Beatrice to run the risk of becoming victim number four. The murderer is an intelligent amateur, as a great many murderers are. She thinks she knows who he is, but we still need proof, and the ultimate proof will probably have to be his own confession, so far as I can see, and how she hopes to get that, well, I really don’t know. However, she’s the psychologist, not me.”
“But is he likely to confess?” asked Henry.
“When we have laid our conclusions before him perhaps he will have no option, sir, being the kind of emotionally disturbed man she thinks he is.”
“What did you mean about a third murder?” asked Gascoigne.
“One we shall not even seek to prove, sir, since we have come to the conclusion that we shall get nowhere with it. I refer to the death of Potts, the village blacksmith. He was hit over the head by a slate from the roof of an outhouse— to be plain, the earth-closet—in his own back-yard. We would dismiss the occurrence as a complete although fatal accident, except that we have reason to believe he could identify the murderer as a man who approached him some time ago with the offer of a rather special job.”
“What job? You don’t mean… ?” said Henry.
“Yes, sir. It seems that the murderer may have approached Potts with an order to put a new steel head on that particular javelin we know of. Potts probably turned it down as being the kind of job he was not equipped to undertake and I daresay he forgot all about the incident, but if the murderer realized that we were beginning to take an interest in Potts, he may have decided to eliminate him. We can’t prove it, as I say, so we’re ignoring it, but it makes an extra pointer, all the same, as Potts, if it had been brought back to his recollection, might be in a fair way, as I said, of being able to identify (or, at least, to describe) the customer who had made enquiries about the javelin. Of course it’s too late for any of that now.”
“I did not care to offer the suggestion earlier,” said Gascoigne, “but when at last I had convinced myself that Davy had been deliberately murdered, I thought Potts was the most likely person to have committed the crime. He came here, you know, and made a very great fuss, and accused Davy of having seduced Bertha Potts, one of our maids, and of having got her with child.”
“Oh, but the murderer couldn’t have been Potts,” said Henry. “How would he know that the students had shut Jonah away in the stoke-hole? How would he get a key to it? How would he get hold of a javelin out of my stores?”
Gascoigne did not reply. Dame Beatrice, who had been, hitherto, the silent member of the company, said, as she glanced at her watch, “Well, I must be on my way. You will excuse me, Mr. Medlar, I am sure, if I am not back in time for dinner in hall. I may not return, in fact, until tomorrow morning.”
She collected Laura and her car and asked to be taken to the local hospital.
“What’s in the parcel?” asked Laura, looking at a large, square, narrow package which was propped up on the front seat beside George, the chauffeur.
“A photograph of the staff of Joynings College before Hamish took the place of the man called Merve whom the students injured,” Dame Beatrice replied.
“What do you want me to do when we get there?”
