Dead Man’s Shoes (22 page)

“Won't you even look up this solicitor?”

“No. It's not necessary. Ridge only confirms what Packinlay has told us already. Larkin was cut out of the Will.”

“So you've finished? You've got all you want?”

“Until the
Saragossa
is in port again, yes.”

“When will that be?”

“A few days after the beginning of term.”

“You're not supposing for a moment that you're going to drop me from the final
denouement,
are you? Because if you are, you've had it.”

O
N THE
first day of the following school term, as Carolus was crossing the quadrangle, he was approached by Muggeridge, the school porter, a disgruntled individual who resented wearing the uniform insisted on by the headmaster. This uniform included gold braid and a top hat, and in his years of wearing it Muggeridge had never got over the feeling that it looked ridiculous.

“He wants to see you,” said Muggeridge.

There was no need to enlarge on the pronoun. It could only refer to Mr Gorringer, the headmaster.

“Hell,” said Carolus. “When?”

“Now. He's sitting at his desk all got ready for it.”

To others this obscure and ungrammatical statement of Muggeridge's would have been almost meaningless. To those who knew Mr Gorringer it brought a vivid picture.

So it was to be that kind of interview. Not “Ah, Deene, I wanted a word with you,” but “Sit down, Mr Deene. There is a matter of some gravity …” That sort of thing. What a bore!

Carolus was a conscientious schoolmaster. The large private income he enjoyed made him accept the discipline and self-discipline of his work more readily because he felt that merely to live in idleness, indulging his taste for criminal investigation, would in the end be demoralizing. But Mr Gorringer was not easy to bear.

That day there was no elaborate signing of documents while Carolus waited. The pose had been taken up and the voice prepared.

“Mr Deene!” said the headmaster as Carolus entered.
“The most astonishing and disturbing matter has just come to my ears.”

Carolus looked at those large crimson organs and thought that everything comes to those that wait.

“I could scarcely credit it, and have sent for you at once, in the hope that you will be able to deny it and set my mind at rest. Pray be seated.”

How Mr Gorringer always made Carolus long to say “Come off it”. But he waited.

“It has been reported to me, I can only think through malicious invention, that you have not only been involved in the most dangerous and sordid investigation of a crime already dismissed by the police, but that you went to the length of dragging into it one of the pupils of this school. Moreover, and here the story passes all credibility, that you actually took this boy with you to a squalid and vicious seaport …”

“Have you been reading the sensational Press, too, headmaster? Tangier's a quiet and pleasant city with large and respectable residential areas.”

“A squalid and vicious seaport where he associated with criminals. I am waiting anxiously for your denial of this, Mr Deene.”

“If you mean that Priggley came with me to Tangier, it's perfectly true. His father wanted him to have a tutor for the holidays.”

“A tutor! Mr Deene, you force me to ask you whether you think it the duty of a tutor to involve his pupil in matters of this kind? To take him to such a sink of vice and crime as Tangier? To expose him to the influence of the lowest of mankind? To let him meet the very persons you actually suspect of murder? I could have wished his father had consulted me before entering upon such an arrangement.”

“I doubt if he was consulted much himself. Priggley was told he could find a tutor, and unfortunately picked on me.”

“He should have come straight to his headmaster with such a problem. I've no doubt there were emoluments?”

“Twenty quid a week. But he costs that.”

“Twenty pounds a week! Hollingbourne and his wife would have been delighted to have the boy with them for their holiday at St Leonard's-on-Sea. With their large family the sum would have been a godsend. A godsend. I scarely know what to say to you, Mr Deene. I am fully aware of your great abilities. I appreciate the value of your work as a history master. But a matter of this kind, involving as it does the good name of the school, leaves me at a loss. How do I know what repercussions there may yet be?”

“I know,” said Carolus. “Now that
is
rather a problem. You see, as the only person who is really aware of the facts of this case, I'm bound to be in some danger till they are more generally known.”

“I beg your pardon, Mr Deene, did my ears deceive me? Or did you say danger? Am I to understand that you have presented yourself for a new term with a price on your head?”

“It depends on whether my solution of the problem is a correct one. If it is, there is someone living in whqse interest it is to silence me.”

“You cannot mean that you anticipate some … attack, even some attempt on your life here, within the confines of the school?”

“Not necessarily. It might be at my home. But I do think the sooner certain parties are made aware that the facts are known to others besides myself the safer it will be.”

“And when, may I ask, will these facts, as you call them, be disseminated?”

“As soon as a ship called the
Saragossa
docks in London. Next Friday or Saturday.”

Mr Gorringer grew grandiose and lofty.

“And may I ask why the school of which I am headmaster should remain in danger of violence and disorder until a certain ship docks in London?”

“The
Saragossa
was the ship from which Larkin, suspected of being the murderer of Gregory Willick, was lost overboard.”

“Mr Deene, I must remind you that this is an educational establishment, not a film studio. Suspected murderers and persons lost overboard are extraneous to our way of life here. Moreover, you do not explain the connection between the arrival of this ship and the end of the state of jeopardy in which, through your extraordinary conduct, the school finds itself.”

“If anyone's in jeopardy, I am,” said Carolus. “When the
Saragossa
comes in I can make a reconstruction of the whole thing as I see it in the presence of the persons involved. The owners are delighted to know that I can remove the mystery that has surrounded the matter, and have agreed that I should use the saloon of the ship for a small gathering.”

“Ah, I begin to perceive. You intend, as on previous occasions, to reveal your suppositions and theories before all those concerned. I see no harm in that, provided you guard against the intrusion of the Press or of anyone likely to bedaub the escutcheon of the Queen's School with the colours of sensationalism. But in the meantime, during the four intervening days, we are to be prepared for some attempt on you here. You realize, I hope, what that would mean in adverse publicity to our foundation? You are not insensible to how the Governors will feel about it?”

“I probably should be,” said Carolus. “Insensible to that and everything else. The people concerned are not likely to miss twice.”

“You mean that already there has been …”

“Oh nothing, really. A little nonsense in Tangier. I don't think you need worry, headmaster.”

“But where is this sort of thing going to stop, Mr Deene? This is an old school with a fine academic record, in which there is no place for such lurid and vulgar matters as you seem unable to avoid. Murder suspects! Suicides! Clues! Detectives! What business have these to obtrude on our quiet industrious school life? You must see for yourself that to me it is most distressing. However, I have said my say. You are no longer in doubt about my attitude. And you say that you intend to put an end to this state of things on Friday or Saturday?”

“Yes. Depends when the
Saragossa
docks. I should think more likely Saturday.”

“Er … at what hour, Mr Deene?”

“Oh, about eight, I should think.”

“A considerable gathering?”

“Quite, if I get all I want.”

“I was considering, though I shall certainly have to give more thought to the matter before reaching a decision, I was considering whether perhaps it might not be in the best interests of the school for me to be present. I have on at least one such previous occasion been able to protect us from unwelcome publicity.”

“You're welcome if you want to come.”

“I shall, as I say, think it over. Meanwhile I trust that you will take every precaution.”

Carolus hurried across to the Common-Room. It was just as he thought. Hollingbourne had both the armchair in the window and
The Times.
He was battling fiercely with the crossword, of which he had solved two clues.

Later that afternoon Carolus phoned the owners of the
Saragossa
and confirmed the fact that Saturday would be the best day for his purpose. The ship would dock on Friday, and Captain Bidlake had already been informed of the project. He would arrange, at the particular request of Carolus, for the presence of Appleyard, Kutz, Dickie Bryce and Gunner.

Carolus then put through a long-distance call to Leeds and succeeded in speaking to Mrs Roper.

“Coming up this week-end, anyway,” she said. “Gym Display at the Badmington.”

Carolus explained about the gathering on the
Saragossa.

“Good for you!” yelled Mrs Roper. “Certainly be there. Wouldn't miss it.”

Had she, by any chance, the address of Gerard Prosper?

“Rather. Always exchange addresses on trips like that. Got the two drunks' addresses, too. Butt and Ferry.”

Would she, Carolus asked, get in touch with all three and try to bring them on Saturday?

“Leave it to me. They'll be there.”

With a picture of Mrs Roper, grown even more gigantic, picking up the three unwilling men and dropping them aboard the
Saragossa,
Carolus put down the receiver.

He then sent a long cable to Lance Willick inviting him if it was at all possible to fly across in time for eight o'clock Saturday, and explaining that at a party aboard the
Saragossa
he intended to reveal the murderer of Gregory Willick and give full details of the end of Larkin. He would have added an invitation to Eric Luck, but knew that it was useless.

That evening he rang up Marylin Sweeny. She seemed amused at the idea and promised to drive up herself and if possible bring the Packinlays and Gusset.

“You don't want anyone else, do you? Ridge could bring a car-load up, too.”

“Why not?” said Carolus. “Let them all come. Mrs Hoppy. Hoppy. Mrs Gunn. And what about Socker?”

“That will take some diplomacy,” said Marylin. “I gather they Don't Speak.”

“Do your best,” begged Carolus. “We really do need the lot.”

“I'll try. What have you been doing since you were here?”

The rest of their conversation, which lasted a considerable time, was irrelevant.

Next day he rang up Maltby.

“I'm sorry I didn't see you again in Tangier. I trust you got what you went for?”

“Oh yes,” said Maltby. “The lot. Couple extra we didn't know about.”

“That must have been very satisfactory for you.”

“Case comes up next week at the Sessions. We're sure of seven convictions out of the nine. One's committed suicide already.”

“Very creditable, I'm sure. I was wondering whether perhaps it would interest you to know who killed Gregory Willick and what was the end of Wilbury Larkin?”

“Sorry, old man. Case is closed.”

“Yes. You explained that you had more urgent matters to attend to. I meant you personally as a private individual.”

“That's another matter. I'm always interested in another man's theories.”

Carolus gave him details of the gathering on the
Saragossa,
and Maltby promised to be there.

Carolus had the faculty of putting aside one matter while he attended to another. For the rest of that week he taught history as though the contemporary were of no interest to him at all, and when Simmons of the Junior Sixth attempted to draw him out on the subject of Willick's murder he promptly snubbed the boy. Even Priggley found himself writing an essay on the Second Republic.

In his home, Mrs Stick ceased to regard him with suspicion. It was several weeks now since he had returned from Barton Abbess, and there had been no unwelcome visitors, no mysterious telephone calls and none of the signs, for which she watched, that Carolus was mixed up in anything of which she disapproved.

On Saturday morning Mr Gorringer caught him up as they were leaving the school chapel.

“Ah, Deene. A fateful day, I fancy?”

“I don't know. I shall be glad to be quit of it.”

“That I can well understand. There must be in such cases some deep marks of human depravity, greed and cruelty which are not pleasant to behold. I have decided, however, that it is my duty to be present when you give your elucidation. I do not, as you well know, approve of your participation in these things, but the matter having gone so far on this occasion, I am prepared to face it in a realistic way. I shall attend.”

“You realize that a murderer will be present?”

“It is certainly a solemn thought. For a man like me, dedicated to the education of the young, it is a terrible thought. But I shall not shirk my duty, which in this matter is to safeguard the good name of the Queen's School. Perhaps you will be so good as to give me a seat in your commodious motor-car?”

Carolus accepted the inevitable. At six o'clock that evening he got his car from the garage and drove to the headmaster's house. It was a fairly chilly evening, but scarcely cold enough to justify Mr Gorringer's garb. He wore a large overcoat with the collar turned up, a scarf high at his throat and a brand-new cloth cap, purchased, Carolus could not help guessing, that afternoon. It was pulled well down over his eyes. Carolus made no comment on his headmaster's appearance, but drove out of the town as quickly as he reasonably could.