“One of the shots?”
“Yes, for shot-putting, you know. They each weigh seven point two five seven kilo, or, in plain English, very nearly sixteen pounds. Give you quite a bump on the head if anybody dropped one on you.”
chapter
13
A Shot in the Dark
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Martin was giving a coaching to his hammer-throwers. Noting the wide arc which some of the throws covered, Dame Beatrice advanced towards the instructor with caution. As soon as he spotted that she was heading in his direction, however, Martin ordered his squad to abandon practice and went over to meet her.
“I see that you use a standard protection cage,” she said.
“Yes. It’s necessary with tyros. Besides, it has been known for the head to fly off the wire, or the wire to part company with the handle. It’s a marvellous event, but could be lethal. It nearly did for the Lord Lieutenant one year, or so I’m told.”
“Indeed? I came not about the hammer, but about a shot which I’m told is missing. It seems to coincide with a missing student.”
“Yes. Richard told me.”
“So there is a shot missing?”
“Yes, indeed. I’ve questioned the rest of the staff, the only people who have keys to the stock-cupboard, but I can’t raise any answers that might help.”
“I imagine that a search will be instituted for the missing student. I only hope that Richard’s misgivings will not prove to be well-founded.”
“That somebody bounced the missing shot on the missing student’s head? I could believe anything after this Jonah business. And Kirk is a nasty little bit of work, you know. If he’s been doing any snooping and got on to something connected with Jonah’s death, well, I imagine murderers are not the most squeamish of people, otherwise they wouldn’t be murderers.”
“A just and logical summing up. Tell me, Mr. Martin, how did you come to seek a post here?”
“I was glad to get one anywhere,” said Martin frankly. “My mother is a widow and we were left very badly off when my father died. I got a very poor sort of degree, which wasn’t much of a return for the way she’d seen me through Cambridge, so when I came down I applied for anything which was going, and came up with this. The advertisement mentioned athletics as a useful side-line, so, as I’d got my Blue, I thought I might stand a chance.”
“And you did, it seems.”
“Matter of fact, old Gassie jumped at me. It was a very pleasant surprise, I can tell you, and the pay is much better than I ever expected.”
“Do you like it here?”
“Very much, especially since James came. I say, what’s going to be done about Kirk? Do they think he’s skipped? I hope that’s all it is.”
“Well, a search will be instituted before Mr. Medlar informs his parents that he is missing.”
“That means another film show, I suppose. Poor old Henry!”
“Mr. Henry thinks it will be unnecessary to stage a film show. As it is tea-time the students can be left to occupy themselves. Are you proposing to join the search-party?”
“Oh, yes, of course. As I say, I only hope the wretched kid has run home, though, because, if we find him here, I don’t think we’ll find him alive. He was all kinds of a little snooper and—well, murder often leads to murder, doesn’t it?”
Dame Beatrice returned to the house and encountered the searchers who were setting out in couples or threes. This was by Medlar’s instructions.
“It will be as well,” he had said, “for each of you to have at least one witness if you should come upon anything suspicious concerning this unfortunate lad. I have telephoned the police to let them know that he is missing. I dare not take chances after what happened to Davy.”
Laura was with Hamish and they were joined by Martin, who had dismissed his squad to go to their tea. It was Henry and Miss Yale who found the body, Laura who found the shot. There had been no attempt to hide either. The body was seated with its back against the only tree in a little clearing in the woods. The shot was lying in a ditch near by and had been caught up in some brambles.
Henry, who had brought a whistle, blew three blasts on it to call off the search and then he hurried back with the others to report to Gascoigne, who sent at once for Dame Beatrice.
“The police cannot be here just yet,” he said. “Nobody has touched the body. Do you wish to see it before the police arrive?”
“I think not. Matters had better be left entirely to them and their surgeon. I hope they will soon be here.”
“Yes, indeed,” said Gascoigne. “This is a most terrible business. Could there be any connection between this and Davy’s death, do you suppose? The youth was in his squad.”
“Oh, I am convinced that there is a connection.”
“We cannot be harbouring a maniac, can we?”
“I do not know. There is certainly a ruthless killer in the neighbourhood. It is too early, perhaps, to theorize, but is it possible that Kirk knew something about Mr. Jones’s death which he did not disclose?”
“I could not say. As I remarked just now, he was a member of Davy’s gymnastics squad, but that would hardly entitle him to be cognizant of all Davy’s affairs.”
“How many students are accommodated in each hall of residence?”
“There are nine huts. Each holds nine men except for Drake Hall, which houses ten.”
“I know that Mr. Richard was a member of Kirk’s hall…”
Before the conversation could continue, a maid announced the arrival of the police.
“You reported a missing student, sir,” said the inspector.
“His body has been found since first I telephoned,” said Gascoigne.
“His body? Where, sir?”
“I will send for Miss Yale. She was present when it was discovered. The Dean is on guard at the spot, and Miss Yale will guide us to it. I waited for you to get here, so I have no details to give you. The assumption is that the boy was hit over the head. We have reason to think that a sixteen-pound shot was the weapon. One is known to be missing from our store and one has been found not far from the body.”
“Well, there’s one thing,” said the inspector, “if ever we had any doubts about Mr. Jones—not that we had—there doesn’t seem any doubt about this one being culpable homicide, I take it.”
“To drop a heavy weight—our shots are of turned bronze of the kind which were first introduced at the Commonwealth Games—on one’s own head, seems a bizarre way of committing suicide, Inspector, I must admit.”
“May I use your telephone, sir? I had not realized that I should need a photographer and a doctor, to say nothing of a finger-print man. Turned bronze, you say? It ought to yield some useful evidence unless the chap wore gloves, as I expect he did.”
Gascoigne led him to the telephone and in a very few minutes he joined them again.
“Will you wait, or shall we go over to the woods?” asked Gascoigne. “I have sent for Miss Yale.”
“I’d like to take a look, sir. Perhaps you would post Miss Yale, after she has guided us, at some convenient spot where she can flag down the police-car and bring my men along. Was the young chap known to have any enemies, sir?”
“He was not popular, but I can think of nobody who would go to the length of killing him, Inspector.”
Miss Yale materialized and guided the small party into the woods and up to the clearing. The dead boy was still seated with his back against the only tree and, except that the top of his head was grievously misshapen, he might have been deeply asleep.
“I can’t do anything until the doctor gets here,” said the inspector. He squatted down and looked closely at the dead face. “Looks as though he’d been given a good crack on the jaw as well,” he said, “a boxer’s knock-out, or something of that sort. I’d say he was killed somewhere else and carried here and positioned before he could stiffen, but that’s only theory. Where did you say you found the weapon?”