Death at St. Asprey’s School (14 page)

What was more, an informative treasure, thought Carolus.

“She had ceased to work next door when this negro gentleman came,” went on the tall woman, “but she hears of things.”

“Indeed?”

“I don't think Mrs. Ricks was very pleased when she started working for me,” smiled the tall woman with satisfaction.
“Not that she could suspect me of listening to gossip, but well,
you
know.”

“I expect she, like everyone else, has things about her she doesn't want known,” suggested Carolus.

“She has, and she keeps it locked up in a cupboard,” said the tall woman snappishly. “I wish people would be more open. Here we are, two elderly women living next door to one another and you'd think to see us we were complete strangers. I've noticed it more lately, since her niece came to stay. I
do
think people might
share
their confidences and everything else a little more. Don't you? They are funny!”

Again Carolus suppressed the answer he would like to make and instead of ‘Hilariously!' said “They are sometimes, yes,” quite seriously.

“I have a great sense of humour,” went on the tall woman. “I often find myself laughing at nothing at all. When Mrs. Bobbins told me about Mrs. Ricks not speaking to her niece for two days I couldn't help smiling. So petty, to sulk like that.”

Carolus had his back to the bay-window which was lace-curtained, but he noticed that the tall woman's eyes kept peering beyond him.

“Here's Mrs. Ricks now!” she said, and they both looked out.

Opening the iron gate was a fur-clad middle-aged woman whose face seemed to express disapproval of the world at large. The eyes were cold grey-blue and the corners of the mouth were turned down. She carried a large prayer-book.

“I should give her time to go upstairs and take her things off,” counselled the tall woman. “Otherwise she'll be fidgetting to do so all the time she's talking to you. She's like that. Always wants to do things correctly. Not like me. I'm
slapdash, really. Don't let her see you come out of here. She wouldn't like
that.
I hope she's not going to say she won't see you on the Sabbath. I'll keep my fingers crossed for you.”

Mrs. Ricks, as she stood in her front doorway and glared at Carolus, seemed about to say more than that. But Carolus got a word in first.

“I'm from St. Asprey's School,” he said quickly.

Mrs. Ricks glanced to right and left, chiefly to left, in the direction of the tall woman's bay window.

“Come in!” she said.

If the tall woman's drawing-room was Victorian this was more gloomily so, a stuffy ugly room in which the air had not been changed for weeks. Mrs. Ricks pointed imperiously to a mahogany chair upholstered with black horsehair. The corners of her mouth were so far down that they seemed to wrinkle her chin, “Please state your business,” she said.

“It's not as easy as that,” said Carolus, only too truthfully.

“Sime is dead, I understand.”

“Yes. Murdered.”

“Indeed? I'm hardly surprised. But I can't think what it can have to do with me.”

“You can't?” said Carolus desperately.

“I certainly can't. I only saw the man once.”

“But he wrote to you on the day before he was killed.”

There was no change in the severe expression of the face when Mrs. Ricks heard of this but that may have been because the mouth corners could sink no lower.

“On a matter of business.”

“Would you allow me to see the letter? I am investigating the circumstances of his death, you see.”

“The letter is destroyed.”

Carolus, becoming fairly sure of his ground, took the offensive.

“Where is your niece now?” he asked.

“I have sent her away. It is not the smallest use your trying to find her. I am determined not to be involved any further.”

“Unfortunately there are the facts,” said Carolus with admirable ambiguity.

“What facts? My niece stayed with me some weeks. That's all.”

“Sime knew a great deal more than that,” said Carolus grimly.

“I don't know whether this is an attempt at blackmail or not,” said Mrs. Ricks. “If it is I can assure you that it will end in serious consequences for you. I am not the sort of woman for that, as I told Sime. I don't care what he told you…”

“He told me nothing. He didn't even discuss it with me.”

“Then
why
do you presume to come here?”

“I've come for information, Mrs. Ricks, not money.”

“I have no information to give,” said Mrs. Ricks sharply, evidently not believing him.

“But you have, you know; information which will help me discover who killed Sime.”

“Whoever it was relieved mankind of a scoundrel,” said Mrs. Ricks decisively. “I have nothing more to say.”

“I'm sorry, but I must ask you certain questions.”

“By what possible right? You know perfectly well it is no affair of mine. In my position…”

“Your position, Mrs. Ricks, is that you have been an accessory to a serious crime. I'm sorry to have to be so blunt but I must have the information I need.”

“How dare you say accessory? The girl is my sister's daughter. I could not turn her out of the house.”

“In her condition, no. But you allowed that Birmingham negro…”

“Stop!” said Mrs. Ricks dramatically. “What is it you want to know?”

“The most obvious thing first. Who was responsible for her condition?”

“And that,” said Mrs. Ricks almost triumphantly, “is the one thing I cannot tell you!”

She glared at Carolus but he thought he saw the corners of the mouth faintly quiver.

“You haven't told me your name,” went on Mrs. Ricks more calmly.

Carolus told her, adding that he was only at St. Asprey's to try to clear up the troubles there and did not wish to cause her embarrassment. To his surprise the corners of the mouth went up.

“Mr. Deene,” she said, “I am a lifelong believer in temperance. I practically never Touch Anything. But at a moment like this I feel perhaps we both require a little restorative. For purely medicinal purposes I
do
keep securely under lock and key, a small quantity of alcohol.” She produced a key. “Perhaps you would kindly go to that cupboard. I scarcely feel well enough to do so myself.”

Opening the cupboard in a heavy bureau Carolus found it remarkably well-stocked, indeed he could not remember a better supply of hard liquor in a private house.

“I'll have a Scotch myself,” said Mrs. Ricks. “You will? You'll find a siphon in the other cupboard. Thank you.” Then in a voice like a sigh of gratitude, “Ah! That's better.”

Carolus followed her example.

“You were saying?” said Mrs. Ricks, her mouth now a horizontal straight line.

“I said that I must know who was responsible for your niece's condition.”

“I only know it was someone at that school. Nothing would induce my niece to say any more. I tried everything to get the information from her, as you may imagine. It was to no avail. For all I know it may have been Sime himself.”

“Sime tried to blackmail you?”

“Yes. Quite unsuccessfully. I never knew how he discovered that my niece was here. It was all most unpleasant. I have a position to maintain. When my niece first told me how matters stood I refused to have anything to do with it. But she has no parents and I feel she is my responsibility. I never condoned the steps she took. The negro you speak of was introduced to the house during a visit of mine to London. But even when she told me what she had done I could not bring myself to abandon her. It has caused me a great deal of anxiety and distress. I need scarcely say that such things were foreign to my experience. I have had a somewhat sheltered life.”

“Sime knew of the negro?”

“Yes. He came over here soon after it … happened. I had a most disturbing interview with him, but I did not give way. He said the most abominable things. I have never in my life felt so degraded. He even suggested that I might go to prison for complicity, as he called it. When I said that I knew nothing of this man being sent for from Birmingham he said, quice vulgarly, Tell that to the Marines.' But I had made up my mind.” Those mobile corners of the mouth were not for nothing, Carolus realized. “He didn't get a farthing from me.”

“How did you get rid of him?”

“I said I had not got a cheque-book. He replied that he did not want a cheque but what he called hard cash. He
then told me he would call on a certain day when he would require £500 in notes. He did not seem in the least afraid that I would inform the police that I was being threatened with blackmail. He knew I had too much to lose. My good name, my position in the town…”

The corners sank to their old uncompromising disapproval.

“Did he call on the promised day?”

“No. He sent me a letter instead—the letter you mentioned. He explained that he had had an accident and could not get about. But I should hear from him when he was better. It was very cleverly put because no one reading the letter would guess anything was wrong. You can imagine how disgusted I am with the whole thing. Help yourself and give me just the tiniest drop more.”

“Thank you. Say when.”

‘When' was a long time coming and Mrs. Ricks gave a faint smile as she sipped, the corners now clearly upturned.

“There is another thing I should like to ask you,” said Carolus. “Who paid for the gentleman from Birmingham?”

“I hope you know how distasteful it is for me to discuss such matters,” said Mrs. Ricks. “The whole thing is thoroughly sordid, like something one only read about in the servants' Sunday paper when I was a girl.”

“Yes. I'm sure. Did you pay it?”

The corners sank.

“Certainly not. I did not know anything about it till I returned from London. Fortunately I had taken the precaution of dismissing the Daily Woman I employed at that time. It has meant great inconvenience, but I knew she was given to gossiping and felt it would be wise to be alone with my niece. It's a good thing I did in the circumstances.
I have a next-door neighbour who is grossly inquisitive and I have no doubt she would have learned everything. My niece, in fact, used to say that she reminded her of the School Matron at St. Asprey's who is also given to peeping from behind curtains.”

“Not from behind curtains,” said Carolus. “Matron, to do her justice, leans right out of the window to get a wider conspectus. But you have not told me who paid this man's charges? They must have been considerable.”

“Must they? I know nothing of such things, needless to say. Nor do I know who paid them. My niece had no money of her own. I certainly never questioned her about it. There is a limit to my endurance and the money side of these disgraceful transactions was unthinkably squalid. I don't think you realize the position I occupy here, particularly in the parish of St. Bravington's. Another little tot?”

“Not for me, thank you,” said Carolus. “What about you?”

“I don't mind,” said Mrs. Ricks. “Just a suspicion. Like last time.”

“I am sorry you won't let me see your niece. It means I shall have to find out for myself where she is and go there. You might just as well save me the time and trouble.”

The corners went down.

“No. And you won't find her. I don't think you'd gain anything by it if you did. I can probably give you all the information she could.”

“Except on that one point. Would you tell me how she spoke of the various people at St. Asprey's? The headmaster, for instance?”

“She rarely mentioned him. I gathered only that he was hen-pecked. I believe she considered him a clever teacher, but of a personal nature nothing emerged. She detested his
wife and the Matron and gave lively descriptions of their system of espionage and intrigue.”

“What about a master named Stanley?”

“I don't think she cared for him much. At least she once said he was a nonentity. I gathered that he was too much in the confidence of Mrs. Sconer and the Matron. But there was an older master she liked very much—Parker. She used to call him Uncle Jumbo and once described him to me as an old pet. My niece had a very careless way of talking, you see.”

“There is another master called Duckmore.”

“She was reticent about him. I once wondered whether he might not be the man … in question and asked her. She shook her head and said she did not want to talk about Duckmore.”

“That leaves only the gentleman cook. Kneller.”

“She was more friendly with his wife than with him, I gathered. But she spoke in quite a friendly way of both.”

“Did she know some parents called Ferris?”

Mrs. Ricks looked up.

“No,” she said. “I don't think so. I certainly never heard her mention them. Why do you ask?”

“They live quite near the school and are frequently there.”

“Strange. She must have known them. I thought I had heard of all her acquaintances there. Ferris. Ferris. No. I am sure she never said anything about them. I must ask her … when I see her. You did say ‘Ferris'? I find that altogether unaccountable.”

She's overdoing it. Carolus thought.

“I'll tell you whom she
did
like,” went on Mrs. Ricks with corners up. “That was a man named Horlick, the gardener. I grew quite tired of hearing of his virtues. In my
position I always feel it's a mistake to encourage people of that sort to be familiar and when my niece began to refer to him by his first name, (it was Gervase I seem to remember) I protested sharply.”

Carolus stood up.

“Thank you for all your information, Mrs. Ricks.”

“One for the road?” she said incongruously and with corners high.

Carolus refused and left her, corners down again with disappointment in his capacities.