A Javelin for Jonah (13 page)

“Rattled, you think, but more in anger than from a guilty conscience,” said Laura, on the following morning.

“That was my impression, but anger and fear, of course, are very closely allied.”

“Do you think Jones
was
blackmailing him?”

“It is possible, but only mildly, I think.”

Laura grunted and, in return to a look of enquiry from Dame Beatrice, she said, “I’m not so sure about this mildness you mention. A job with no work attached to it—Hamish says Jones was hardly ever in the gym—a fat salary, an assured position,
carte blanche
to behave as badly as he liked without fear of being dismissed—these things add up to the good life with no strings attached, I should have thought.”

“I see your point, but there
was
one string attached to this ‘good life’. He has lost it.”

“Well what’s the next step?”

“I must have a word with Mr. Henry, and then we are bound for the blacksmith’s forge in the village.”

“Oh, you are thinking about the steel point on that javelin. You don’t think it was done in the College workshops, then? Yet Hamish says they are very well-equipped, and are not supervised by the staff.”

“I know; but there might be students who would be interested. The murderer could not risk having any questions asked as to what he was doing with the javelin. Incidentally, I was interested to note that a statement I made during my last conversation with Mr. Medlar went unchallenged.”

“What was that?—and why should he have challenged it?”

“I said that the students who buried the body also returned the lethal javelin to that steel-fronted cupboard, whereas, on Mr. Henry’s evidence, no student has access to it until a member of staff unlocks it.”

“Yes, and what about the forge? Students don’t go into the village, do they? And, even if they did, they’ve no money to pay for a blacksmith’s work or for any other job.”

“No. It narrows the field again, does it not?”

“To the staff, you mean. You’ve thought that, all along. If so, it looks like Barry.”

“Why do you say that?”

“There was the accident to his star long-jumper, and there was the choice of the long-jump pit to bury the body. Both seem to add up to his signature tune.”

“Your first premise is sound; your second is unsound. The students, not the murderer, buried the body. The choice of the long-jump pit as a grave-yard was arbitrary. The task of burial had to be done as quickly as possible, and the long-jump pit offered the easiest digging.”

“But the body was found so soon. It was bound to be.”

“That did not matter to the students. Their only concern was that it should not be found in a place with which they had guilty associations; and that brings me to my previous point. I told Mr. Medlar that the students not only buried the body, but also cleaned the point of the javelin, and then I expected him to ask me how the javelin was replaced in the locked-up, steel-fronted sports cupboard, but he did not do so.”

“Like me, I suppose the question didn’t occur to him at the time.”

“It is interesting, nevertheless.”

“Yes, indeed, if it’s really true that the students had no access to that cupboard. Strengthens your theory that the murderer is one of the staff.”

“Unless the very useful and dangerous key belonging to Miss Yale will unlock the store cupboard as well as the heating-cellar and Mr. Medlar’s office and ante-room. It is a point which may need clearing up.”

Their conversation was interrupted by an announcement from one of the servants that the police were at hand and would be glad of a word with Dame Beatrice. They had come from attending the inquest on Jones.

“The proceedings are adjourned, ma’am,” said the inspector, “as we knew they would have to be. We’re treating it as a case of murder owing to the body having been buried. We shall be pursuing our enquiries and hope that we can count on your assistance in sorting matters out. A psychiatrist might be very helpful to us.”

“Supposing that the body had
not
been buried, Inspector? You have not identified the weapon, have you?”

“Not as would be to the satisfaction of a jury, no, ma’am, we haven’t. To our way of thinking, though, and with the medical evidence which was given, we think that tarted-up javelin we were shown could have done the trick all right. We reckon that some of the students who were in the know, and whose names we’ve had given us, sneaked into that furnace-room cellar where they’d put him, did for Jones, buried the body and cleaned up the bloodstains, including those on the javelin. That floor had been washed, and the janitor says he hadn’t been down there for weeks.”

“I am in agreement with you, except, of course, that it need not have been those students who killed Mr. Jones.”

“Bit of a coincidence if it wasn’t, ma’am. Some of them might have thought locking him up like that was a sort of a joke, but others, we reckon, took advantage to pay off old scores.”

“
Somebody
certainly did. That somebody had already, however, turned a sports javelin into a lethal weapon, so, to that extent, the murder must have been premeditated and could not have depended simply upon chance. In other words, Inspector, I think you are barking up the wrong tree when you cite these students as the murderers. I think the real murderer was not prepared to act until he saw a favourable opportunity. I think these students provided that opportunity and for that they are culpable, but that is the sum total of their responsibility.”

“Then why should they bury the body, ma’am?”

Dame Beatrice gave him her theory as to what had actually happened.

“Oh, you think they only
found
the body? Could be, I suppose,” the inspector said dubiously. “Still doesn’t tell us who killed him. We shall be pursuing our enquiries, of course.”

“Then perhaps you can save me a trip to the village. Find out whether the blacksmith knows anything about the new head which was put on the suspect javelin.”

“Oh, we’ve done that, ma’am. Not that we expected anything to come of it. He denies it, of course, and we believe him. That job was done in one of the workshops here. They’re far better equipped than he is. He only does what I call local jobs—horse-shoes for the riding-schools and a bit of tinkering up of this and that. He’s a bit of a jack-of-all-trades. Often leaves a lad at the forge while he takes on other jobs.”

“He had a powerful grudge against Mr. Jones, though. He credited him with the seduction of his daughter, who was one of the maids here,” said Dame Beatrice.

“Can’t see him going into that cellar and stabbing Jones, ma’am.”

“Neither can I, but I
can
see him putting that new head on the javelin and maybe putting two and two together about it, especially if he happened to know that the person who wanted the javelin altered also had a grudge against Mr. Jones.”

“I don’t think you cut much ice,” said Laura, when the inspector had gone. “He’s convinced that those students killed Jones, so what he’ll do now, I suppose, is to ferret out motive. You can’t get a conviction on the motive alone, but he
can
show they had the opportunity.”

“But it may be more difficult to show that they had the means; in other words, that they knew where to lay their hands on a lethal weapon.”

“Obviously he thinks that they put a new point on an old javelin and that the whole thing was premeditated. The trouble about
that
theory is that the whole College seems to have known about the rag, and those six were simply the committee chosen to carry it out. You can’t
wish
yourself on to a committee if the election is properly supervised.”

“That will have occurred to the inspector, no doubt. From that he will argue that, while I may be right about the six and that, while they were responsible for the burial, they were not responsible for the murder, other students took advantage of Mr. Jones’s helpless situation.”

“I wonder why the police are convinced that the staff had nothing to do with it?”

“Naturally their thoughts have turned first to the students, but no doubt the staff will come in for their share of questioning and scrutiny if the inspector convinces himself that the students were not the murderers, but that may take him some time.”

After lunch Dame Beatrice rested until the official College afternoon began, and then she went on to the field in search of Henry. She found him conducting a coaching of the shot-putters.

“I have been talking to Mr. Medlar about the death of his wife,” she said.

“Ah,” said Henry. (“Nuzzle it between the heel of your hand and the side of your jaw, Adrian. Keep that elbow down a bit. Get up to the stop-board, man! You don’t want to lose a couple of feet on your putt.) Sorry to interrupt you, Dame Beatrice, but this ridiculous fellow could reach fifty feet if he’d only manage to get one or two things right.”

“He would still be something short of Randy Matson’s 1967 record,” said Dame Beatrice surprisingly.

“You were saying?” said Henry blankly.

“Why did you give Gascoigne Medlar an alibi for his wife’s death?”

“I didn’t. I merely said, when they cross-examined me, that his wife was quite irresponsible and that her death could have been either accident or suicide.”

“What caused you to give up your work and take a post at Joynings, I wonder?”

“It’s not such very different work, and it’s better paid,” said Henry. “Maybe the people with whom I deal here are not so unfortunate as those with whom I dealt formerly, but the work, I find, is really more to my taste. Murderous young thugs are more interesting, I find, than maladjusted, difficult children. Besides, I needed a change of environment when my wife died.”

“Talking of murderous young thugs…”

“Yes, it wouldn’t hurt for
you
to take another look at one or two of them,” said Henry, smiling.

“Hamish’s Paul-Pierre, for example, and Hamish’s guardian angel, the pugnacious Richard?”

“Yes, and Barry’s Colin, except that he’s still in hospital.”

“What about Mr. Barry himself?”

“Yes, he had it in for Jones all right. You realize, I suppose, that the police have not lost interest in us? Will you be working in with them?”

“That depends to some extent upon the inspector’s attitude. By the way, I have been thinking about a fact which interested me not a little.”

“Oh? What was that?”

“Bertha’s father is the village blacksmith.”

“I know he is, but I don’t see…”

“I was thinking of the new steel point on one of the javelins.”

“Nobody who had murder in mind would risk having a toss-pot like him to do a job like that. Besides, there is nothing to
show
that the javelin which was tampered with had anything to do with Jonah’s death. If that could be proved. (Leverage, Carlotta,
leverage
, dear!) Right from the soles of the feet! You’re not throwing a stick for a dog! If that could be proved, Dame Beatrice, we could get a whole lot further.”

“How many students are in the javelin group, Mr. Henry?”

“How many? Let’s see now. (Keep the shot under
control
, Matthew, until you actually part with it. Look, like this, old man.) Sorry, Dame Beatrice. How many javelin throwers? Can’t say exactly. It’s apt to vary, because some of them like a change from their own event and tack on to another squad for a bit. Still, on average, I should say a couple of dozen or more turn out for coaching. It’s a spectacular event, you see, and therefore popular. Showing-off is prophylactic here. That’s why we get so little trouble.”

“And you muster only a dozen javelins.”

“Expensive items, you know, and Gassie will only buy the best. Says it’s false economy, if you want results, to fob people off with inferior materials. Our javelins cost up to twenty-five pounds apiece. That’s why it’s so annoying that somebody has mucked one of them up by putting a new head on it. Hang it all, the heads are made of best Swedish steel, anyway.”

“What about ‘practice javelins,’ so-called?” asked Laura. “They wouldn’t cost more than about five pounds each, would they? And do the girls use the standard eight-hundred grammes, eight-foot-six javelin as well as the men? And what about the boys?”

“Dear me!” said Henry, amused. “Well, to answer your knowledgeable questions, Mrs Gavin, Gassie will not buy ‘practice’ javelins. Probably mere snobbery on his part, but there it is. Out of the twelve javelins we have in stock, eight are of full length and weight, and four are six hundred grammes in weight and seven-foot-six in length. These are for women and juniors. As nobody here is under sixteen, the youngest ones rate as juniors, not as boys. What happens is that I take my coachings in groups of six, so that no more than half a dozen javelins are in use at one time.”

“So that the over-weighted javelin need never have been used since it was altered,” said Dame Beatrice. “That certainly clears up one doubtful point.”

“Mind you,” said Henry thoughtfully, “it can’t have been on the rack very long, or surely somebody would have drawn my attention to it.”

“This elusive
somebody
!” commented Laura. “Who picks out the javelins which are to be used?”

“Each student, under my supervision—we never let anybody loose in the stock-room—chooses his or her own. They pick up a javelin, weight it by the grip, shake it a bit and then decide upon it or select another. Naturally a wrongly-balanced javelin would be returned at once to the rack.”

“So that’s the way the cat jumps,” said Dame Beatrice. “And no student is unsupervised when he selects his javelin, but you don’t dictate his choice.”

She nodded, leered kindly at him and went off to find Miss Yale. She discovered the head of the women’s side closeted with two students to whom she was giving tea. Dame Beatrice accepted a cup and very soon after her arrival the students, who seemed to find her presence alarming, took their leave.

“I take it you’ve come about something important,” said Miss Yale. “The police were here again, I saw. Don’t know what they’re bothering about. Who cares what happened to blasted Jonah? The man was an absolute menace. But I don’t suppose you came to me for a character sketch of him. Anyway, I’m glad he’s dead—and that goes for most of us here. If I’d thought of it soon enough, I’d have murdered him myself, so if you’re giving a hard look at the possible starters, you had better count me as one of them. But I’m wasting your time.”