Death at St. Asprey’s School (18 page)

“What kind of obsessions?”

“So far as I could make it out this man Duckmore was
well off. Went to the university and got his degree and that. Then he married this woman.”

“Which woman?”

“This woman he was married to. She gave him hell, I understand. Years of it. Nag, nag, nag. You know what that means?”

“I've no experience but I can guess.”

“On at him all the time. Never a moment's peace. Till he up and left her and the child and all. There was a big case about it and he was ordered to pay her so much a week.”

“That was surely the right thing?”

“He didn't think so. Mind you, I only know all this from what I was told. He said he'd rather go to prison than pay her anything. In the end they put him in Brixton Gaol. That quite turned his head for a time and he got these obsessions.”

“But what were the obsessions?” asked Carolus patiently.

“He thought he'd murdered her. Never done anything of the sort but he got it in his head he had. What we call a Guilt Complex.”

“Oh, you do?”

“Yes. That's what we call it. I've known others like that only his was the worst case I've ever known. Went on about it, time and again. How he'd gone after her with a hatchet. All the time she was as much alive as you or I. She used to come down and see him to show him he was making it up. He'd talk to her for half an hour, then next day he'd start all over again. How he'd hacked her to pieces and that. You couldn't do anything with him.”

“No?”

“There was one doctor took a special interest in him and after about a year he began to get better. His wife had divorced him by now and married again. After a lot of
treatment you could tell he was going to be all right. Wonderful what they can do nowadays.”

“I'm sure.”

“Then he got it into his head he wanted to be a parson. Quite sensible about it, he was. Not religious mania or anything, though we
do
have plenty of that sort. Just quietly began studying for it. Before he left here he was as sane as you or I. Mind you, he was always a nervous sort of chap. But now he was on the ball. The doctor told me he'd be all right and he thanked me for all the care I'd taken of him. Well, I had at the beginning. When he had those obsessions. You get all sorts in my job.”

“Did he confide in you?”

“I suppose you'd call it that. He said the one thing he wanted in life was to be a parson and help others. Then he went to see these people…”

“What people?”

“Church people. A Bishop, I think it was. They told him he had better take some other job for a time, like a schoolmaster, to make sure he was all right. Couldn't have anything go wrong once he was a parson, could they?”

“I suppose not.”

“He told me all this not long before he left here, and said that was what he was going to do, get some job in a private school where they wouldn't ask too many questions. He seemed quite hopeful and cheered-up about it.”

“Did you ever hear from him afterwards?”

“Not for a long time I didn't.”

“But eventually?”

“That's the funny part. Only about a week ago I got a letter.” Hopper broke off. “We're not supposed to talk about all this you know. I don't know whether I ought to tell you any more.”

“I've told you, you will lose nothing.”

“I daresay. But I'd like to know how much I'm not going to lose,” said Hopper quietly while the landlord served someone in the public bar.

“A fiver,” suggested Carolus, and Hopper nodded.

“Well, this letter came only a few days ago. It was a surprise to me, I can tell you. What do you think he said?”

“That he expected to be coming back to Holly House?”

“That's just what he did say. It gave me quite a shock. I thought when he left here he'd be all right. But there you are.”

“Did he give any reason?”

“Only that he'd had a lot of worry lately. Wanted a rest, he said. Could he have his old room back? I showed it to the doctor who'd treated him before and he was quite upset about it. He thought he must have been under some terrible strain. Anxiety neurosis,
we
call it. You get the idea?”

“Broadly, yes,” said Carolus. “And that is all you have heard of Duckmore?”

“Yes. I'm not much of a one for writing letters myself, so I didn't answer his. It wasn't for me to tell him anything about having his room back. He'd have to write to the Lady Almoner for that.”

“During all the time he was here, did Duckmore ever show any tendency towards violence?”

Hopper considered this.

“Well, not in the sense that he
did
anything violent, no. Not like some of them. You have to have your wits about you with one or two, I can tell you. Manic depressives is the name we give to them. Only the other day…”

“But Duckmore showed no symptoms of this?”

“No. I'm not saying he did. But he thought and talked about violence—homicide particularly. He took a big interest in murder cases in the newspaper.”

“I like a good murder, myself,” said the landlord who
had returned. “Like to read about it, I mean. What about this man in France who did for seven—all in the same village? Interesting, anything like that.”

“That was the sort of case Duckmore went for. Anything out of the way. He once tried to work out how many different ways there was to put an end to anyone and covered I don't know how many sheets of paper with lists. We had to stop him doing this. But he went on talking to me about it. Everything from strangulation to poisoned arrows.”

“Poisoned
arrows?”

“You know—like some of these wild people use up the Amazon,” said Mr. Hopper rather vaguely. “But he was all right when he went from here. That I can answer for.”

Carolus prepared to leave the pub having passed Hopper his Judas-money.

“There's a lot more I could tell you,” said Hopper as he pocketed this.

“About Duckmore?”

“Not just about Duckmore. Some of the others are worth talking about, I can tell you. We had one man…”

“I must run along, I'm afraid,” said Carolus nodding hurriedly to the landlord. “I'm sure you have a fascinating life but unfortunately at the moment I haven't time to hear about it.”

“I was going to tell you about this fellow. Every evening about the same time…”

“Good
morning,” said Carolus, and managed to get out of the bar-room.

He drove back with less exuberant thoughts than those he had enjoyed on setting out. He had found Mr. Hopper depressing and sordid and his information, though it was valuable, seemed cheerless.

He stopped for a poor lunch at a wayside hotel and afterwards sat alone in a room called the Residents' Lounge
drinking coffee and thinking. Execept for a few stray ends the case was now clear but he did not like the turn it had taken. He wondered whether Detective Superintendent Osborne saw the evidence in the same light. It would be a relief if the policeman made the arrest he expected and enabled him, Carolus, to return to Newminster as soon as the Inquest was over. But he did not believe Osborne yet had all the necessary information.

Back at the school that afternoon he found the grounds deserted except for Horlick the gardener, a youngish and rather handsome man.

“The boys are all up at the cricket field, I suppose?” he said, by way of passing conversation, to Horlick.

“S'right,” said Horlick, continuing his work.

“Your roses are something,” he continued.

Horlick did not deny this—or admit it, either.

“Much troubled with pests?”

“Not insects,” retorted Horlick.

“Boys?”

“Not extra.”

“Your wife works at the school too, I believe?”

“Aye.”

“I should like to have a chat to her, sometime.”

“She's not the chatty sort,” said Horlick.

“No? I'm trying to find out who killed Sime.”

Horlick grew suddenly loquacious, at least for him.

“She doesn't know anything,” he said. “She never saw or heard anything. She wasn't here that afternoon. She wouldn't tell you if she did.”

“Sensible woman. I suppose she has told the police anything she knows.”

“She doesn't know. Not a thing. I told you.”

“And you, Horlick?”

“Me? What should I know about it?”

“I understand you have been known to try your hand at archery.”

“May have done. Once or twice.”

“Did you happen to go up to the archery lawn on the afternoon Sime was killed?”

“I was there for a minute. I told the police.”

“What did you go there for?”

“I'd found one of their arrows.”

“Where?”

“Nowhere you'd expect to find it shooting from where they did.”

“You mean somewhere on this side of the house?”

“Just about a yard from where you're standing.”

“When did you find it?”

“On Saturday morning, if you want to know.”

“The morning after the murder?”

“S'right,” said Horlick and picking up his tools walked away.

“I want to tell you everything. Everything,” said Duckmore.

He was sitting in an upright chair in Parker's room late that Tuesday evening. He had knocked on the door ten minutes earlier and asked permission to come in and ‘ask you Men for advice'. Parker had given him a drink which at first he refused and now, a little flushed and with spasmodic movements of the hands as he talked, he explained that he had a confession to make.

Carolus did not show himself in the least sympathetic.

“You have a habit of making confessions, Duckmore,” he said coldly. “You used to confess to killing your wife.”

Duckmore showed no surprise that Carolus knew this, and no indignation.

“I know. But that was quite different. It was an obsession I had. While I was in a mental home. I was in an abnormal condition at the time. Now I know precisely what I have to say. I have no illusions at all.”

Carolus looked at him and slowly nodded.

“Very well,” he said, less sharply. “Let's hear what you want to tell us.”

“I can trust you both,” said Duckmore, looking first into Parker's good-natured face, then less confidently to Carolus. “It's rather a long story. But when you've heard it you'll understand all that has happened here this term. And you'll know who killed Sime, if you don't know already.”

There was a suggestion of interrogation in these last five words but Carolus did not rise to it.

“A year ago,” began Duckmore, “I was a reasonably happy man. I had got over all my mental troubles and got this job which I intended to keep for a year or two before going into the Church.”

“Did Sconer know your history?” asked Carolus.

“He knew only that I had been ill for two years. But to get a man with my degrees to teach in a preparatory school is unusual and he did not enquire too closely. I don't think he has ever had cause to regret it—till now. 1 did my job conscientiously and was quite successful with the boys. Don't you think so, Jumbo?”

Parker nodded.

“I've always said you were a good teacher.”

“I did feel rather under false pretences sometimes. You see, it wasn't only the mental home—I'd been in gaol, too. You didn't know that did you?”

“I suspected it,” Carolus said, “when I heard how in moments of strain you would stand counting the boys as they passed through a doorway. I've learned enough about prison to know that screws do that all the time.”

“It was only on a maintenance order,” said Duckmore. “But anyhow, all that was forgotten. Left behind. I came here, I liked the life, I got on with everyone at first—even Matron. I was determined to do my two years' ‘test' period, then take Orders. It was all I wanted from life.

“You see, I was in touch with Sturgess Rimmer. You know all about him.”

Carolus knew the name as that of a controversial Anglican bishop who delighted the Press by having an opinion on everything and being delighted to express it whenever he was approached for an interview.

“He has taken an interest in me. It was he who suggested that I should teach for a couple of years. Afterwards he will find work for me in his diocese. He had great confidence in me. So you see, all was going well.

“Then, towards the end of last term, Sime heard me mention the village of Bucksfield. It was at tea in the common-room one day and I was talking to Stanley. I said something quite casual about the architecture of one of the houses. But Sime picked it up at once.

“‘Bucksfield', he said. That's where there's a big mental home, isn't it?'

“‘I've no idea', I told him. But it was no good. I saw him staring at me and knew I was giving myself away.

“Two days later he tackled me when I was alone. ‘You were
in
that mental home, weren't you, Duckmore?' he said. I had to admit I'd been there for a short time as a voluntary patient. He did not say any more at the time. But during the holidays he must have gone over there and found out everything. It wouldn't be very difficult. The male nurses there were a poor lot and would talk to anyone about their work. He heard it all—about the delusions I'd had about my wife, everything. And he came back this term resolved to take advantage of it.”

“I thought there was something of that sort going on,” said Parker.

“The first thing he did was to ask me for money. I thought he meant a small loan to tide him over till he could ask Sconer for an advance, and I offered to lend him £50.
He laughed at that. Then he told me he meant to own this school before long. Finally he threatened to tell everyone what he'd learned about me.