Ways and Means (14 page)

‘All except the flower girl,’ said Petula.

‘She wasn’t at Tapworth.’

‘Agreed,’ said Petula.

Some days later Mr Buckram, who received no reply to his answer to the advertisement, was surprised to receive the following letter.

Dear Sir, I have a grave objection to a wagging tongue, and while I lived at Tapworth Magna I considered that too many of them wagged. I hope that the loss of £10,000 in total was a sufficient lesson to the owners of those tongues and, as I never intended to do anything except teach them that lesson, I have — I will not say pleasure but some satisfaction, in sending you the sum of £10,000, together with interest at 5 per cent since payment to me. I hope that amid the cries of astonishment some of your clients will find time to say a good word for

Yours faithfully,

Basil Merridew

Mr Buckram read the letter through again to see that he had not made a mistake and then immediately informed General Purbrick. In consequence, a meeting of the persons concerned was convened by the General at his house.

‘Well,’ said the General when they were all assembled, ‘what do we do? Do we take it?’

‘Do we take it?’ Judge Strachan almost yelled. ‘Of course we do. Surely you haven’t temporized with him. He may change his mind and stop the cheque.’

‘Have no fear on that account,’ put in Mr Buckram. ‘I have already had it specially cleared. I thought there could be no harm in that. We can always send it back if you so decide.’

‘Send it back?’ said the Judge. ‘Why on earth should we?’

‘My dear Judge,’ said the General, ‘don’t you remember our last interview with him? He made you perform like a monkey on a stick. I’m not sure that you didn’t come off worst of all of us.’

‘Well, then,’ said the Judge, ‘if I’m in favour of taking it, you all ought to be. If a burglar ties you up and spits at you and steals your purse, you wouldn’t refuse to take it back just because he spat at you.’

‘It’s a point of view,’ said the General. ‘I personally don’t want to touch the fellow’s money. Look how he behaved at the cricket match.’

‘It isn’t his money,’ said the Judge. ‘He extracted it from us by threats.’

‘No more than any other plaintiff does. What do you say, Mr Buckram?’

Mr Buckram was in a difficulty. On the legal aspect he agreed with the General, but he hardly felt it politic to disagree with the Judge, before whom he was to appear the next day.

‘I think,’ he said after a pause, ‘that I understand both points of view. I will do whatever I’m instructed.’

‘But you must have a mind, man,’ said the General. ‘What do you think? We’ll instruct you later on. At the moment we’re asking for your advice. That’s what you’re here for, isn’t it?’

‘Well, Sir Bragge,’ said Mr Buckram rather unhappily, ‘if it were my money . . .’ He paused.

The General and the Judge looked hard at him. He did quite a lot of work for the General, and sometimes he did it before the Judge.

‘Yes, if it were your money,’ said the General and the Judge together.

Mr Buckram gulped and plunged. ‘I should take it,’ he said.

‘You lawyers,’ said the General. ‘What about your pride man?’

‘It’s easy for you to talk,’ said the Judge. ‘Rich men can afford to have pride. What do you say, Doctor?’

‘If you ask me,’ said the Doctor, ‘the man’s mad. He’s a pathological case. In the normal way, I shouldn’t take money from a lunatic, but as he’s taken it off me first, I don’t see why I shouldn’t. Yes, I support you, George.’

‘Well, Vicar,’ said the General, ‘you’ve been very quiet.’

‘You forget. I don’t really come into this. Nicholas insisted on paying my share. I wouldn’t take it. So we compromised by giving it to the Church Restoration Fund.’

‘But he’s included it in the cheque.’

‘Yes, of course, he would. He wouldn’t know about Nicholas. Well, that had better go to the Restoration Fund too. I personally wouldn’t touch a penny from the man.’

The Vicar recollected with some feeling his last two interviews with Basil. ‘But I don’t see why he shouldn’t help the Church. No, on the whole I agree with the Judge.’

Eventually it was agreed by a large majority to accept the money.

‘Very well, then,’ said Mr Buckram. ‘What shall I say in reply?’

‘I acknowledge with thanks your cheque, which will be distributed among the parties entitled thereto,’ said the judge.

‘Oh, no,’ said the General. ‘I’m entirely against taking the money, but you’ve outvoted me. So that’s that. But if we are taking it we must take it graciously. Give the fellow his due, he needn’t have sent it. We needn’t take it, but if we do we should do it properly.’

As a result of some further discussion Basil eventually received the following letter:

Dear Sir, My Clients were, as you imagined, astonished to hear of your letter and enclosure. They are bound to say that they did not understand your behaviour at Tapworth Magna any more than they understand your present attitude. At the same time they recognize that you are plainly making a most generous gesture towards them, and while still puzzled at it they have instructed me to accept your cheque in the same spirit as that in which it is offered

— whatever that may have been.

‘Good,’ said Basil. ‘We can close that episode now. Now what about the expelled schoolboy? I must say it rather intrigues me.’

He was referring to another of the replies to their advertisement. It ran as follows:

In answer to your advertisement, we should like to consult you about a most painful matter which seems incapable of remedy. Our only son has been expelled from his preparatory school for cheating in an examination. We are quite sure that he is innocent, but apparently have no redress. His whole career will be ruined and our hearts broken. We note that you do not require financial assistance, but we should make it plain that we should be very pleased to pay anything in order to get this grave injustice put right.

‘Let’s see them,’ said Basil.

‘No harm,’ said Nicholas.

So an appointment was arranged.

Mr and Mrs Wesley-Hart were the proud but unhappy parents of one son, Kenneth, who was just thirteen at the time of their appointment with Basil and Nicholas. Until his retirement from a successful drapery business, started in a small way by his father, Mr Wesley-Hart had been known as Hart, but Mrs Hart thought that the addition of Wesley might take people’s minds off the drapery business. They sent their boy to a large and expensive preparatory school called ‘The Summit’. They intended him to go to a well known public school and thence to Oxford or Cambridge. After that the Bar and politics. It all sounded so good and Mrs Wesley-Hart was never tired of telling her friends about young Kenneth’s prospects. No business career for him. She had been delighted when her husband sold out lock, stock, and barrel. They were not wealthy, but they had ample means to carry out their plans for their boy and to ensure themselves a comfortable home. And now it was all finished. No public school would take a boy expelled for cheating, no university, no Inn of Court. It might be that the House of Commons did contain here and there a member whose past would not bear the closest scrutiny, but how awkward at an election.

‘Weren’t you expelled for cheating?’

‘That was twenty years ago.’

‘Have you improved since then?’

The hecklers would be able to have a high old time with him, they thought, as their imagination ran riot. But worse than that was the immediate future. He was just about to go to his public school. And now this. Where could he go? It was too dreadful. They had interviewed the Headmaster three times, they had employed a solicitor and they had been to counsel. Each time the answer was the same: ‘I’m sorry, but it is quite hopeless.’ Then they saw the strange advertisement. It could do no harm to try.

‘Come in, Mr and Mrs Wesley-Hart,’ said Basil.

‘And this, I suppose, is your son?’

‘Yes; this is Kenneth. How d’you do? It’s kind of you to see us.’

‘Your letter interested us. Please tell us all about it. I realize how strongly you feel, but try to explain about it as objectively as possible.’

‘What does that mean?’ said Mrs Wesley-Hart.

‘Never mind,’ said Basil. ‘Just tell us the story.’

What had happened was this. Kenneth and another boy, Leader, had been sitting next to each other during the end-of-term examination. The practice at the school for that examination was for each paper to be marked by two masters independently. The average mark was awarded. After the examination the papers had been collected and Kenneth’s paper had gone to Mr Scales and Leader’s to Mr Twine. When they exchanged papers they chatted for a few minutes about them.

‘Quite a good paper from Wesley-Hart,’ said Mr Scales. ‘A few silly mistakes, though.’

‘It’s a pity they so often spoil it like that. I’ve the same tale to tell. A good paper by Leader, but again some silly mistakes.’ So spoke Mr Twine.

Much was the surprise of Mr Scales and Mr Twine — and it afforded some relief to the burden of correcting papers — to find that the mistakes of Kenneth and the boy Leader, some of which had the merit of considerable originality, were almost identical. At precisely the same moment — by coincidence, they were correcting the respective papers at the identical time — Mr Scales and Mr Twine let out a whistle.

‘My goodness me,’ said Mr Scales.

‘Gracious goodness,’ said Mr Twine.

Coincidence was out of the question. Putting down the other papers, Mr Twine sought out Mr Scales, and Mr Scales sought out Mr Twine. They almost collided in the corridor.

‘Extraordinary,’ said Mr Scales.

‘Amazing,’ said Mr Twine.

It was unnecessary to mention to what they were referring. ‘They must have been sitting next to each other. Let’s find the invigilator?

They found him, and on referring to his records it appeared indeed that Kenneth had sat immediately on the right of Leader. Both masters at once sought out the Headmaster, Mr Bulmer Riddington.

‘May we speak to you for a moment, Chief,’ they asked.

‘I am always available to my staff and pleased to be of such assistance as I can. I myself often find that it helps to discuss one’s problems with someone older and of more experience. But, alas, that is now denied to me and I have to commune with myself.’

This was quite true, and some of the more daring boys used to climb underneath his study window so as to hear the good man communing with himself.

Mr Scales and Mr Twine explained the object of their visit. ‘I shall investigate this myself at once,’ said the Headmaster. ‘I can’t believe that any boy in my school would stoop so low. What a disgrace! But it cannot be.’

However, on looking at the papers, he saw plainly that it had been.

‘Send both boys to me at once,’ he said.

They came, the one with some trepidation, the other wondering what it was all about — but which was which? That was not written on either of their faces.

‘Boys,’ said the Headmaster, ‘never since I became Headmaster of this school has such a thing happened. I assume you know what I am talking about.’

‘No, sir,’ they each said.

‘One of you is a cheat.’

They remained silent.

‘A cowardly, wicked thing to do. Such a boy may well end up in prison — if not worse.’

‘Come now, which of you was it? Own up.’

‘To what?’ said Kenneth.

‘To what?’ said Leader, a fraction of a second behind.

‘This is worse than I could possibly have expected. To cheat is bad enough — but to lie as well, and to your own Headmaster. This is beyond bearing. Come now, which of you was it?’

Both boys said nothing.

‘Will neither of you speak? One’s as bad as the other. Now out with it? Was it you, Wesley-Hart?’

‘No, sir.’

‘Then it was you, Leader.’

‘No, sir. I didn’t cheat.’

‘Nor me neither,’ said Kenneth lapsing into his early grammar under the strain.

‘You mean “Nor I either,” said Mr Riddington, and paused for a moment. That didn’t sound right. But it must be. However, this was no time for grammar. Cheating. And at The Summit.

‘I will ask you again. You two boys sat next to each other at the end-of-term examination. Your papers bear such resemblance that one must have copied from the other. Come now. Which was it?’

‘Not me, sir,’ said Leader.

‘Not I, sir,’ said Kenneth in a slightly superior voice.

‘I will send for you again in half an hour and then I will ask you again. You both know well enough who it was. One of you is a very wicked boy, and the other is not helping me as much as he could. The one cheated. The other didn’t. The one who didn’t must know the other did. Speak up, boy, and tell me.’

They both spoke up.

‘It was him, sir;’ they said in chorus.

‘Go away, boys, and come back in half an hour.’ As soon as the boys got outside the Headmaster’s study, they turned and looked at each other.

‘Dirty cheat,’ they said.

Meanwhile, Mr Riddington was communing with himself. ‘If it was Leader, it wasn’t Wesley-Hart,’ he said. ‘If it was Wesley-Hart, it wasn’t Leader. So far, so good. And now what?’

He frowned. He clasped his hands together. He could not see what. He tried to think what the great Arnold would have done. Bulmer Riddington had been brought up to be a schoolmaster, and he imagined himself to be like one of the great headmasters. He tried, as he thought, to fashion himself on their lines, and Arnold was his idol. ‘He would have seen it in the boy’s face,’ he went on. ‘His eyes would have pierced the boy’s soul.’

He looked in the glass to see what chance he would have. He was not entirely happy about what he saw.

Meanwhile, the two boys were having it out together.

‘You know you did it,’ said the one.

‘You know it was you,’ said the other.

‘I’ll fairly kill you,’ said the one.

‘Dead men can’t cheat,’ said the other.

So the half-hour passed with a duet for the boys and a solo for their Headmaster. At the end of it they knocked at his study and were told to come in. He looked at them with the most searching gaze he had practised. Nothing happened. They both looked blankly back.

‘Now, boys,’ he said, ‘I’ll give you one last chance. Which was it?’

They pointed to each other.

‘I see it’s useless to argue with you,’ said Mr Riddington. ‘I must use sterner methods.’

He had considered thrashing both boys until they both confessed, and imputing guilt to the one who confessed the sooner. But, on the whole, although this would have rid him of some nervous energy, it did not seem an entirely satisfactory solution. Although, however, he had rejected this method, both boys suddenly thought of it and looked extremely apprehensive, the innocent one in particular feeling a horrible sense of frustration. They were both wondering what form their protest should take to the awful suggestion when Mr Riddington went on.

‘Now, listen,’ he said. ‘Listen very carefully. One of you may think that he is very clever, but he isn’t as clever as he thinks. There are ways and means of finding out these things. It is only a matter of time and the truth will be clear and will shine as brightly as ever. It will take a day or two, maybe a week, but no more. Now — now — if the guilty boy confesses at once, his punishment will be great: he will be expelled forthwith, but that is all. But if he does not confess now and we have to prove his guilt by the various methods open to us, then before he is expelled he will be thrashed in front of the whole school — and he will receive such a thrashing as will make the legendary ones of old seem like a caress. Now, Leader,’ and he turned suddenly and snapped at him. ‘Was it you?’

‘No,’ said Leader, and with sudden inspiration added: ‘I can prove it wasn’t.’

‘How? Show me? Why didn’t you say so before?’

‘I’ve only just thought of it, sir,’ said Leader quite truthfully. ‘But I’d rather not tell you in Wesley-Hart’s presence. Otherwise he might get round it somehow.’

The Headmaster seized at the chance.

‘Leave the room, Wesley-Hart,’ he said. ‘Remain outside — beyond earshot,’ he added. He rang for a porter. It was as well to be certain. As soon as the porter had come and withdrawn with Kenneth, Mr Riddington turned, almost too eagerly, to the boy.

‘The proof,’ he said. ‘What is it?’

‘I haven’t any,’ began Leader.

‘You abominable liar,’ said Mr Riddington. ‘You are obviously the cheat. Heaven has cursed you and shown me the light. You wicked boy. Now you shall see my promise come true. Now you shall . . .’

‘Please wait a moment, sir,’ said the boy, ‘I hadn’t finished.’

‘What more is there to be said?’

‘That’s what I want to tell you, sir, if you’ll let me.’

‘Then speak, boy. But I warn you that if any more lies fall from your lips I will thrash you here and now as well. Oh — never did I think that this would happen to me. Well?’

‘It’s just this, sir. I know I didn’t cheat. So I know that Wesley-Hart did. When I said I had proof; you thought I had. He’s only a boy, sir, so he must think so too. You know, sir, something connected with the two papers. Now sir, you’ve given him a chance to get off with expulsion. It’s worth his while to take it if he knows he’s going to be found out. Well, sir, if you pretend, when he comes back, that I have given you the proof, ten to one he’ll throw his hand in. Don’t you see, sir? He knows he’s guilty. You don’t, but I do, and so does he.’

‘You mean,’ said Mr Riddington, who began to see some force in the argument, ‘that I am to lie to one of my own boys?’

‘Oh, no, sir. I wouldn’t suggest that. But if you just give him the impression that I’ve said something to you fairly convincing — if you just turn to him when he comes in and say: “Well, Wesley-Hart” — and here Leader gave a very creditable and somewhat courageous imitation of his Headmaster — ‘If you just say that, he’ll crumple up. If he doesn’t at first, you enlarge on the public thrashing. He’ll say to himself: “If I’m going to be thrown out, I might as well go in one piece.” ’

‘Well, boy,’ said Mr Riddington after a short pause, ‘I can’t pretend I like the idea particularly, but there can’t be - anything wrong in just saying, “Well, Wesley-Hart?” and seeing if it has any effect. But if it doesn’t, boy — if it doesn’t—’

‘If it doesn’t, sir, you’ll be where you started. So you won’t be any worse off.’

‘That borders on the impertinent, boy. Hold your tongue. Now,’ and he rang for the porter.

‘Send in Wesley-Hart, please.’

As soon as Kenneth came in, Mr Riddington turned to him and said in his most awful voice, ‘Well, Wesley-Hart?’

Kenneth remained silent.

‘Well?’ he repeated, and then, throwing discretion to the winds, he took the plunge. Taking out his watch, he said: ‘My offer of a painless expulsion will remain open for ten seconds, Wesley-Hart.’

Kenneth thought hard. What could Leader have said?

‘Five seconds are gone,’ said Mr Riddington, feeling almost as nervous as Kenneth. If the boy didn’t own up he’d be sunk.

‘Four, three,’ he went on — in rather slower time than his watch was showing. Just as he was wishing he had never listened to Leader’s suggestion and wondering what on earth he could do to save his face, Kenneth capitulated.

‘All right,’ he said, ‘I did it. It’s a fair cop,’ he added.

‘Don’t use that disgusting language to me, boy,’ said the Headmaster, but there was relief in his voice as well as anger. It had been a great strain.

‘I’m not in your ruddy school now,’ said Kenneth, ‘and I’ll say what I something well like.’

Mr Riddington was genuinely appalled at the language. ‘You have not yet been officially expelled,’ he said, ‘and I warn you that if you use any more of that language, I shall thrash you for that. Now go and pack your things while I telephone your father. Leader, you may go too. I’m glad your good name has been cleared. I may tell you both now that I never had the least doubt as to which of you it was. It was clear to me from the start, but I wanted the culprit to have a chance of owning up like a man. Now go, both of you.’