R. Delderfield & R. F. Delderfield (44 page)

'What do you mean by that?'

'Well, sir, it was that that decided Gage and me to go through his room. Gage didn't care about the pen, and I wasn't that worried about losing the money, but Harper's just a kid, and that four-and-six meant a lot to him. He hasn't got a father and his mater's pretty skint – not so well off, sir. He doesn't even have tuck money, just the Wednesday sixpence for pocket-money. Losing that postal order worried him. He was blubbing about it.'

It seemed conclusive. Two identifiable ten-shilling notes, Gage's pen and Harper's birthday postal order, lost five days ago. He said, thoughtfully, 'Cricklade is new here, isn't he?' and Hislop confirmed that he had been taken on during the Easter break. 'Couldn't we – just well, collar him, Gage and me, sir? He's only a little squirt and we could give him a going over between us. Maybe he'd cough up the rest.'

'Don't you do any such thing! This is a matter for the police, or if the head wants to keep it inside the school, something he and the bursar can attend to. The head will have to know right away in any case.'

Hislop looked alarmed at this. 'We didn't reckon on that, sir. We reckoned it was Havelock's business, and that you'd tackle it on your own.'

'I can't. Cricklade will have to be sacked, and I can't sack him.'

'You could frighten him into leaving, couldn't you, sir?'

'Not even that. He's obviously a cool customer, and if it came out that you and Gage had searched his room God knows what counter charge he
might bring. I'm sorry, Hislop, I'm glad you came to me, and even more so that you made a clean breast of it because of the thieving element but I've no alternative but to tell the head. You see that, don't you?'

'I suppose so, sir,' he said, glumly. Then, 'Are we likely to catch it hot, sir?'

'Not if I can help it. In a way you've done us all a service, as I see it. But you have to admit you went about it very unconventionally, and I daresay the head won't care for that part of it. How about Harper's four-and-six?'

'You don't have to bring him into it, sir. I made it up to him and kept the postal order. I've got it here, sir,' and he handed it over.

'I'm afraid I'll have to borrow those ten-shilling notes, Hislop.'

Hislop shrugged and groped in his pocket, coming up with three notes, two of them disfigured as he had described. Lunch-bell sounded then and they went down together, parting in the quad where David said, 'Both you and Gage will be wanted after lunch. In the meantime, keep your mouth shut about this. That's an order, understand?'

'Yes, sir.'

He slouched off and David spared him a sympathetic thought. It was interesting, that reason he had given for searching Cricklade's rooms, and not all that improbable either. Hislop, although a young ruffian in many ways, was popular among the Lower School urchins, possibly on account of his openhandedness and reckless attitude to authority. He decided to see Alcock at once, letting himself into the head's house by the quad door and catching Alcock just as he was going to his own lunch.

'Could I have a word with you, Headmaster?'

Alcock glanced at his watch. 'Now? I was about to have my lunch.'

'I'm sure you'll agree it's urgent.'

'Very well.'

He turned and led the way back to his featureless study, motioning David inside and taking his customary place behind the desk. That was one of the many irritating things about Alcock, his way of reducing every interview to a confrontation between headmaster and erring pupil. David told his story factually, exactly as he had heard it from Hislop, and Alcock, his eyes on the strip of moor seen through the narrow window, heard him in complete silence.

'Is that everything, Powlett-Jones?'

'Everything I learned from Hislop, and I've no reason to suppose he was holding anything back.'

'I'm afraid we differ there.'

'I don't follow you, Headmaster.'

'You don't? I think you should, after eleven years as a schoolmaster and, what is it, five as a housemaster? Wouldn't you say it was extremely unusual for a boy to possess that much money? Even a senior boy, and Hislop is not a senior.'

'It is unusual, but not unique. Some of the parents are generous about pocket money and Hislop's father is that kind of man. Breezy, and a little… well… loud. Apart from that Hislop is an only child.'

'You're telling me you believe that story of his about his aunt?'

'Not entirely. It's probably a cover story.'

' “Cover story?” What is that, exactly?'

'A half-truth.'

'Concealing what?'

'I don't know. How could I know? Some personal transaction, conducted during the holidays, possibly. He's saving for a motorbike. He might have made a sale that he wouldn't want his people to know about. Frankly, sir, I don't see the source of the money as important. Surely the important thing is that Cricklade should be seen and questioned.'

'That will occur, naturally.'

'You intend reporting the matter to the police?'

'I might. Then again I might not. I'm afraid that's a decision you must leave to me.'

'Of course. But it happened in my house, and naturally I'm very concerned.'

'I should be surprised if you were not. Kindly ask both boys to report to me immediately after lunch. That's all, I think.'

It was another of his curt dismissals. Not for the first time David restrained an impulse to insult the man, to shake him, pinch him, anything calculated to smash through the glacial screen of his self-sufficiency. There was nothing to be done, however, so he nodded and went out, wondering why successive events continually contrived to bring him into collision with a man of Alcock's disposition.

He told Hislop and Gage to report and noticed they were still absent from class when he took the Lower Fourth for last period. By the time tea was over he could endure the suspense no longer and went in search of them. Neither was to be found, so he entered the headmaster's house from Big School passage and knocked on the study door. He was still there, awaiting the summons to enter,
when Rigby, the aged butler Alcock had inherited from Algy, came out of the kitchen and said, in response to David's question, 'The headmaster isn't back from the station yet, sir.'

'What's he doing down there, Rigby?'

'I'm afraid I couldn't say, sir. He went off about an hour ago, with two boys.'

'Hislop and Gage?'

'I couldn't be sure, sir. My eyesight isn't what it was. I only caught a glimpse of the car moving off. He's sure to be back for dinner. Any message, sir?'

'No message.' He went through the tiled hall into the forecourt, standing at the junction of the twin drives and wondering what Alcock and the two amateur detectives could be doing down at the station. It seemed likely they had gone there to catch and confront an absconding Cricklade.

He was conjuring with this and other possibilities when Alcock's Morris Oxford swung in the east drive and ran between the beeches at its statutory twenty-five miles an hour. Alcock had a reputation for excessively careful driving, a subject for the school wits to work on. Hoskins had laid a wager that he could beat him to Stone Cross and back on foot, providing he cut across the cricket-field. Rockingham Major, who owned a Douglas motorcycle that he rode in the holidays, said the Noble Stoic had never learned the difference between the accelerator and the footbrake, and drove by Braille, using his big toes. The car drove up, made a cautious half-circle, and was backed carefully into the parking alcove. Alcock and Gage got out but Hislop was nowhere to be seen. With mounting curiosity David followed them through Big School arch and into the quad, where they parted, the head going across to the bursar's office, Gage making for Outram's.

There was no point in asking for developments in front of the bursar so David went after Gage, catching him halfway up the steps to Carter's house.

'Hi, there! Gage!' and the boy turned. He looked, David thought, as though he had been undergoing considerable strain.

'Sir?'

'Where's Hislop?'

'Hislop?'

'Yes, Hislop, man. He went with you, didn't he? To the station in the head's car?'

'Yes, sir, but… well, he caught his train, sir.'

'Train? What train?'

'The train home, sir.'

'Are you telling me Hislop has been sent home, Gage?'

The boy now looked completely bewildered. 'Yes, I am, sir… I thought… Hislop thought… well, that you must know, sir.'

'Know what?'

'That he's been sacked.'

'Expelled?
Look here, Gage, are you pulling my leg?'

'No, of course not, sir. I was there when he went. His things are being sent on and I've got to tell Matron. But first I've got to report to Mr Carter, sir.'

'But why? For heaven's sake, what did Hislop do or say to get himself expelled? If it was for searching Cricklade's room that's an outrage and how is it that you're still here? You were with him, weren't you?'

'Yes, sir, but it wasn't for that. It all came out when the head telephoned Hislop's pater, sir. About the money, I mean, how he got it in the first place.'

'How did he get it?'

'By… by making a book, sir. On Sports Day. He cleaned up, especially on the steeplechase.'

'Hislop got that fifteen pounds making a book?'

'Yes, sir.'

'Laying odds on the races?'

'Yes, sir.'

'And the head found out about it?'

'Yes, sir. Mostly the senior events. The head phoned and Hislop's pater blew the ga… told him it didn't come from an aunt, sir.'

It took him so long to absorb this that Gage began to fidget. 'I… er… have to report to Mr Carter straight away, sir. I'm not even allowed to go into prep tonight. Can I go now, sir?'

'Yes, yes… and I'll see you don't get into more trouble for telling me. Tell Mr Carter I'd be obliged if he'd come over to Havelock's after prep.'

'Yes, sir,' and Gage scuttled off just as the prep bell began to clang and the half-empty quad erupted with boys hurrying to and fro under the arcades.

He pushed his way through them, too stunned to notice the occasional collision, or heed the lighthearted apologies. Hislop sacked. For making a book on Sports Day. In other words, sacked because he had been sharp enough to use his wits about tracking down a persistent thief, then honest enough to report his loss to his housemaster. Blind, unreasoning fury rose in him as
the probable sequence of events took shape in his mind. Alcock's relentless questions concerning the money. Hislop's reliance on a fictitious aunt and a telephone exchange that had disposed of her. And then, his alibi in ruins, a confession resulting in a second phone call to Hislop Senior, and a final trip to the station.

'Good God!' he blurted out, reaching his own quarters, 'that bastard didn't mean me to know until I missed Hislop at callover, and came running to him! Damned if I don't deny him that little triumph…!' but standing there he heard his phone ringing and force of habit projected him across the room to the study. Grace was already answering it and said, 'He's here now. It's one of the parents, Daddy. I didn't catch the name…'

'I'll take it. Go out and shut the door, Grace.'

She slipped out and he heard Hislop Senior's gravelly voice say, 'Powlett-Jones? That you? My boy's housemaster?'

'Yes, this is Powlett-Jones. I've only just this moment heard about it. I'm going down to see the head now. Do you mind if I ring you back?'

'Wait – listen – this is a damned outrage! The boy explained everything, tells me he was robbed…'

'So he was, and reported to me at once. I repeat, I've only just heard what happened. The head didn't see fit to consult me. Is your boy with you now?'

'Yes, he is, but…'

'Would you put him on, Mr Hislop?'

'What good would that do?'

'I want to explain my side of it. Then I'll see the head, ring back and tell you what happens.'

There was a pause. David heard himself breathing hard. Hislop Junior spoke into the phone. 'You, sir?'

'Listen, Hislop. I got the story from Gage and I'm going down to see the head right away, but I thought you ought to know this is the very first I've heard about you being sent home. I think the head is seeing the bursar about the servant in question. Don't mention the name on the telephone and try not to worry too much. I mean to do everything I can. And, as I said at the time, I very much appreciate you coming to me in the first place.'

'Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.'

He rang off and helped himself to a drink, a stiff one. Then, leaving a message with Grace where he was likely to be, he went down and marched along the passage to Alcock's study.

Alcock must have recognised his step on the flags for he called, clearly, 'Is that you, Powlett-Jones?' and David went straight in without answering. This time he was standing by the window, perusing a small file of carbons. He said, absently, 'Cricklade's references. They seem in order. Probably wrote them himself.'

'Hislop's father has just telephoned me!'

'Indeed?'

'He's very angry and I think he has a right to be.'

'He'll cool down when he gets my letter. So will you, no doubt, when you know the facts.'

Resentment at the man's majestic calm rose up and almost choked him. He made a tremendous effort and succeeded to some extent in controlling himself. 'I don't understand… it can't be right to take advantage of the boy's straightforwardness… in his coming forward, voluntarily.'

'His straightforwardness? That's a curious word to use regarding a boy who sets himself up as a bookmaker on the precincts of his own sports field. I assume Hislop Senior told you why I sent him home, as soon as I had confirmed the source of that money?'

'But don't you see none of us would have known about the bookmaking if he hadn't reported the theft. Most boys wouldn't have. They would have realised straightaway that it was certain to get them into serious trouble.'

He had at last succeeded in astonishing the man. Alcock's head came up slowly. 'What on earth has that to do with it? You don't seem to appreciate the enormity of his offence.
Bookmaking!
Taking bets from other boys, on school premises! It's the most reprehensible thing I've ever heard of.'