Death at St. Asprey’s School (3 page)

The police were informed of the accident and of Sime's exclamation—“I was pushed.” A cool and tactful Detective Sergeant named Haggard came to the school in a non-commital motorcar and saw Sime alone in his room on the very day of the accident, but this discretion did not prevent the story of Sime's having been the victim of violence from reaching the boys and had it not been for the strictest censorship that Sunday's letters would have begun: ‘Dear Father and Mother, Yesterday someone shuvved Mr. Sime down the stairs of the church tower in an a tempt to murder him.'

At Mrs. Sconer's urgent behest, her husband implored Sime ‘for the good of the school' not to tell everyone that there had been a deliberate attempt to injure him, but Sime rejected this and when Detective Sergeant Haggard was with him gave a full account of the matter.

“I felt it distinctly,” he said. “Just as I reached the head of the long spiral staircase down from the bell-ringers' loft to the ground someone gave me a violent push and I lost my foothold. I feel I'm lucky to be alive.”

Colin Sime was a hefty man, so hefty that all his clothes looked a little too small for him and one felt their seams might burst open to release the swollen flesh. His small eyes
had the cunning of a pig's eyes and his whole presence suggested a vulgar, grasping and untrustworthy personality. Yet this was ‘the most popular master in the school'.

Haggard may have wondered as others had done at the curious trends of small boys' hero-worship but he showed no sign of hostility.

“You were about to come down, Mr. Sime?”

“Yes.”

“May I ask what had taken you to the church tower that afternoon?”

The question seemed quite unexpected.

“That has nothing to do with it,” said Sime sharply. “Someone tried to murder me.”

“Nevertheless I should like to get a complete picture. You must have had some reason for climbing the church tower.”

“Architecture,” said Sime impatiently.

“I see. Is the church tower here an interesting example of some period?”

“It has some gargoyles on it,” said Sime, fortunately remembering a fact he had been told.

“And you wished to make a study of them?”

“That's it.”

“Had you ever been up there before?”

“May have. Once or twice. What's that got to do with it?”

“A pair of field glasses was picked up at the foot of the stairs.”

“Was it?”

“Were you carrying field glasses, Mr. Sime?”

“I daresay I was. Lovely view from the tower.”

“You did not have them in order to make any particular observation?”

“No. No. The view.”

“And the gargoyles. I see. You didn't suspect anyone's presence in the tower that afternon?”

“Certainly not. Do you think I'm a fool? Whoever it was must have been hiding when I got there.”

“Or perhaps followed you in?”

“Can't say. All I can tell you is I felt a violent shove and found myself falling down the stairs. Very unpleasant sensation. The next I knew was the Rector and Jumbo Parker staring down at me like a couple of owls.”

“I see. You perhaps know that you have been seen going to the tower on previous occasions, Mr. Sime? There seems to have been some resentment about it. People supposed you were watching them.”

“Ridiculous,” said Sime.

“You know how people feel about that sort of thing. Is there anyone you suspect of wanting to injure you?”

“Injure? Whoever pushed me was trying to kill me. It's only by a miracle that I'm alive.”

“Well, to kill you?”

“I daresay a lot of people would. This school's a hotbed of jealousy.”

“Anyone in particular?”

“That's for you to find out.
I
don't know who it was shoved me down those steps. That's all I can say.”

The Detective Sergeant after making a few more routine enquiries from Sime sought the headmaster and obtained certain details of everyone's movements that afternoon. Then, with a few pages of his notebook filled, he returned to his headquarters at Woldham. It may be safely guessed that in his report he conjectured fairly confidently that Sime did in fact know, or suspect, the identity of his assailant. If he had been quite in the dark about it, he would surely have been nervous and anxious to help the police to
discover the truth. It was probable that he knew and was not afraid of any further attempt on his life. But why he should be so sure that he was not in danger was a mystery.

Perhaps the person most noticeably affected by all this was Mrs. Sconer. It was now, she informed her husband. Touch and Go.

“All I have done here,” she said forcibly, forgetting Mr. Sconer's minor part in the effort, “is in danger. If this Gets Out it will cause a scandal which may close the school. You know what parents are.”

Mr. Sconer had good reason to know what parents were but did not choose to argue.

“Do you realize, Cosmo, that there is a murderer at work? Don't you see that he may strike again, and this time successfully? You should have got rid of Sime as I told you long ago. And please don't tell me he's a good teacher. I warned you and you ignored my warning.”

“We don't know he was pushed,” said Mr. Sconer. “He may have made that up.”

“To injure the school? Far more reason to wish him clear of the place! Such disloyalty. I should like to know
what
you intend to do before it's too late.”

Mr. Sconer sounded sulky and cross.

“I have not the slightest idea.”

“What about that man who solves mysteries?” asked Mrs. Sconer suddenly.

“Which man?”

“Don't be obtuse, Cosmo. You know the man. Your friend Gorringer was telling you about him.”

“Gorringer? Oh, ah, yes.” said Mr. Sconer dubiously. He had been at the university with Hugh Gorringer, now the headmaster of a small public school, the Queen's School, Newminster. Gorringer had told him about one of his
assistants, Carolus Deene, whose hobby was the investigation of crime at which he had been preternaturally successful.

“Why not ring him up immediately?” suggested Mrs. Sconer. “Tell him we must have his man here at once, A case of life and death.”

“I very much doubt if Gorringer would be interested. You may remember that during his last visit when he suggested we might send him some of our boys, you told him we only prepared boys for the more important public schools and had never gone lower than Hurstpierpoint. He was deeply offended.”

“Nonsense. He must be made to see that the case is too urgent for him to quibble about the status of his school.”

“Gorringer has big ideas of his own and his school's importance. Besides, how do we know that even if he would consider his Senior History Master coming here in the middle of term, this man Deene would not just add to the confusion and upset the Men?”

“Upset the Men! We need desperate remedies, Cosmo. Please telephone Mr. Gorringer immediately.”

“My dear. I hardly think…”

“I
know
” said Mrs. Sconer, leaving her husband no alternative.

Thus it was that Carolus Deene, in another and very different school more than a hundred miles away, was called out of class on the Wednesday after the attack on Sime. He went casually to answer a summons from his headmaster. The two confronted one another across the vast desk behind which Mr. Gorringer liked to sit as one enthroned. Mr. Gorringer was a large and somewhat pompous man with a fine stock of old-fashioned cliches and a pair of large hairy ears. Carolus, in his forties, was slim and rather adolescent in appearance, an ex-officer of the
Commandos, a widower and the owner of a large private income, who taught because he could not live idly.

“Ah, Deene,” said Mr. Gorringer, using one of his more genial forms of greeting. “I wanted a word with you. I have received by telephone a most pressing appeal from an old friend of mine of university days.”

He did not specify the university. Carolus nodded.

“He is the proprietor of a preparatory school in the Cotswolds and is in great trouble.”

“Financial?”

“No. No. At least I have no reason to think that. He seems to have no difficulty in collecting the most exorbitant fees from the parents of his pupils. No. The trouble is more, I gather, in what I think I may call your line. There has been an attempted murder on his staff.”

“I often wonder that school murders are not more frequent,” put in Carolus.

“This is not a matter for levity,” Mr. Gorringer said sternly. “One of his assistants was impelled by an unknown assailant down the staircase of a church tower and survived by a miracle.”

“The boys, you think?”

“No, Deene, I must ask you to be serious. There have been other manifestations of a disturbing nature.” Mr. Gorringer gave some details which he had received from Mr. Sconer. “I am really sorry for my friend,” ended Mr. Gorringer. “His life-work is threatened.”

“You think it worth saving? I don't care much for preparatory schools.”

“He has come to me with the most extraordinary proposal. It is nothing less than that you should spend a short period, ostensibly as one of his assistants, on the staff of his school and attempt to elucidate the matter before scandal and ruin overwhelm him.”

“In the middle of term?” asked Carolus incredulously.

“It is, I know, a most unconventional suggestion. A more hidebound headmaster than I would have dismissed it out-of-hand. But the friendships of our young manhood, Deene, create a strong bond and I felt it my duty at least to put the matter to you.”

“What about my Upper Fifth? I've just got some inklings of history into their thick pates.”

Mr. Gorringer raised his hand.

“Take no thought of that,” he said. “I myself will fill your place for a week or two if you should decide to go to my friend's rescue.”

Carolus, for once in his life, was astounded.

“I don't know what to say,” he admitted.

“I must warn you of one thing,” said Mr. Gorringer. “While Sconer is the best of fellows, he has a wife who … In a word, he is not his own master. Mrs. Sconer is what in the crude but expressive parlance of today is known as a battle-axe. During my only visit to St. Asprey's School she found occasion to insult me.”

Carolus smiled.

“I think I'll take this on,” he said.

“With a full sense of responsibility I say I am glad, Deene. Glad. You will realize, of course, that what we hope, what we expect of you is a solution of the mystery before anything worse may befall. I say that because all too often when you investigate a case—though in the end your sagacity triumphs—there seem to come more disasters. We want no murders here, Deene.”

“Or anywhere else, headmaster.”

“No. Exactly. Of course. But I am asking you to save the reputation of my friend's school, not to divert yourself with elaborate investigations while greater disasters come to it. I am sure you will. And so God Speed. Deene. I shall
welcome you back in triumph within ten days. Yes, I think we must make that the limit.”

“I'll see what I can do, headmaster,” said Carolus and after obtaining details of the geographical situation of St. Asprey's he went home to prepare his departure.

On the next day, which was a Thursday, Carolus Deene drove his Bentley Continental to the pretentious pseudo-Elizabethan entrance of St. Asprey's and rang the bell. The air of grandeur of it all was somewhat dispelled when the door was opened by an untidy woman in a plastic apron who was smoking a cigarette and looked at him suspiciously.

“You the new Man?” she asked. “They're expecting you. I say! Is that your car? Well! You better come through to his study.”

“Thank you.” said Carolus.

“We're all upside down,” confided the little woman. “Don't hardly know where we are, with all that's been going on. There's one of the Men laid up with broken legs he got from falling down the church tower—or being pushed, as he says. All I can say is, you be careful of that Matron.”

“Really?”

“I should say so. There's nothing she misses and it all goes back to Mrs. Sconer. So if you want to stay you better keep on the right side of her. I wouldn't trust any of them, myself. All at one another's throats. It quite gives you the creeps, the things that are happening.”

“So I understand. May I ask your name?”

“I'm Mrs. Skippett. I come to work here daily, though its more for something to do, because there's not much going on in the village. Don't take any notice of Her, by the way. She's All Talk.”

“Who?”

“Mrs. Sconer, I mean. She's very high and mighty but not when it Comes To It. I always say her bark's worse than her bite, though she's got Him under her thumb all right. Still, you don't want to hear that. You'll know all about it in time when you've been here a few days. Only you mind your p's and q's with that Matron. She's the one.”

“I'll remember that.”

“Something happened last night,” went on Mrs. Skippett. “I haven't got to hearing what it was yet, but you can tell by their faces this morning. It won't be long before I find out, either. I shouldn't be surprised if it was something to do with Sime. He's got a trick of looking at you—well! I always say he's Not Right. It's no wonder, with the way the boys carry on sometimes—they're enough to turn you dizzy. But you'll know all about it in time.”

Carolus was looking out of the window and saw across the lawn a row of large round objects on stands.

“What are they?” he asked Mrs. Skippett.

“Them? Oh, it's this archery that's all the craze with them this term. Talk about the boys having crazes, the Men are worse, if you ask me. Shooting arrows like so many wild Indians. I don't see the sense of it myself. There they are every afternoon at target practice, as they call it. Robin
Hood and his merry men, my husband calls them but that's something he has seen on the telly.”