‘Too bad! And there shall I be teaching wretched kids about the lesser hogweed and the greater bladderwort! Our botany syllabus belongs to the age of faith and not of reason. In other words, it’s at least forty years out of date. I suspect that Miss Faintley botched it up from what she remembered of her own schooldays. You never knew such silly muck!’
‘Never mind. There is something else you can do. Find out, as circumspectly as possible, exactly which of the staff did, and which did not, put in an appearance at that end-of-term party. Somebody on the staff knows that Miss Faintley used to deliver those parcels, and I’d rather we found out than the police, and so would you.’
‘You’d be far better than I at that sort of game. Couldn’t we change places for the day?’
‘No. I have forgotten all I ever knew about the lesser hogweed. Besides, the Inspector won’t talk to you as he is going to talk to me. But be of good cheer! At the end of next week, unless our problem is solved, we are going back to Cromlech to continue our investigation from there.’
‘Lovely! All right, then. I’ll continue to wrestle with kids and conscience for another few days. I know now why T.G.I.F. is the harassed teacher’s favourite slogan! I wonder…’
‘Yes?’
‘I wonder whether Bannister could help us? He’s supposed to be a woman-hater, so he may have a line on Faintley that the others haven’t got.’
‘You could try, but I think the first step will be to establish which of the staff were and which were not at that end-of-term dance.’
‘All right. I can pump Cardillon on that. I’d have done it before, but she’s rather intelligent and I want to do it so that she doesn’t realize I’m pumping her. Any suggestions?’
‘Yes. Take her into your confidence if you discover that she herself was present the whole time at the dance. If she was not, she won’t be of very much help. She may, however, be able to tell you of somebody who was there the whole time.’
Laura tackled Miss Cardillon on the following morning before school began. She was lucky enough to find her alone in her classroom. It was a golden opportunity.
‘I say,’ she said, ‘when is half-term?’
‘I don’t know. We haven’t had the list round yet.’
‘I hope this isn’t a school where we’re expected to take parties of kids out, or run an Old Scholars’ evening, or something of that kind, in the half-term break?’
‘Oh, no. We have the Old Scholars twice… just before Christmas and at the end of the summer term.’
‘Does everybody turn up? I shouldn’t know any Old Scholars, you see.’
‘It’s optional… although, of course, Rankin does push it a bit to make sure that enough of us are here to make the thing go.’
‘How about you? Do you roll along?’
‘Oh, yes. It seems part of the job. We’re not asked to do much in the way of outside activities. Miss Golightly’s pretty reasonable like that, and I’m one of those who can be led but hates being driven, so I feel it’s the thing to show willing.’
‘Pity everybody doesn’t think the same, but my experience is that the willing horses always do the pulling for the slackers, especially in jobs like this.’
‘Yes, that’s pretty true. We don’t have much bother here, though. Miss Ellersby and Mr Trench are the only ones who never turn up to anything. She’s got an ancient father and he’s got an invalid wife, so we can’t say much, although we feel sometimes that their troubles aren’t really our business.’
‘Were they the only two who didn’t come to the end-of-term dance, then?’
‘Oh, well, except for Bannister. He never comes to dances. Says he hates them. Everybody else turned up either for the whole or part of the time, and on the evening in question Mrs Moles stayed on to help in checking the needlework accounts. But what’s all this in aid of? There’s something behind it. I’ve an instinct in these matters.’
‘Quite so. I’ll come clean on two conditions.’
‘This sounds interesting.’
‘It is. I’m not really a teacher, as you’ve probably guessed by now, although I was properly trained, but, before I say more, you’ve got to promise that not one word of this goes a step further… Miss Golightly knows it already, so that needn’t trouble your conscience… and, then, you’ve got to give me the names of at least two people who can swear that you were here the whole evening at that dance.’
‘Heavens alive! It sounds like a spy story!’
‘That’s just what it may be. I’m not, as I say, quite what I seem.’
‘Well, of course, I won’t breathe a word, and, as for the witnesses, well, Batt, Fennison, and I were running the thing, so we could all swear to one another. Then Welling, as cookery teacher, was in charge of all the refreshments, so she, and her helper, Franks, would have been on the premises all the time, too, if that’s any good to you. And now, do relieve my curiosity or I shall burst! It’s about Faintley, isn’t it? Are you a female sleuth? I don’t believe it!’
‘I am and I’m not.’ Laura gave a full account of how she and Mrs Bradley had first become involved in Miss Faintley’s affairs, and she had only just finished when it was time to go to her classroom. She was delighted, however, with the information she had received. It seemed that most people on the staff could be written off so far as the telephone call was concerned. Of the others, it was in the highest degree unlikely that the plump and shrill-voiced Miss Ellersby, the rather unsuitable music specialist, could have impersonated a man, so Laura decided that she also could be passed over. There remained, as possible, collaborators with Miss Faintley over the affair of the parcels, Messrs Taylor, Roberts, Bannister, Trench, and Tomalin. Therefore it had been a real man, and not a masquerading woman, who had walked away from the telephone on the night when Mandsell had taken the call intended for somebody else… not that Laura had ever thought otherwise. One thing only nagged at her. She felt that if Miss Faintley had expected to hear the voice of a colleague, she must have been surprised when Mandsell answered, particularly as he had made several attempts to explain that he was not the person who had arranged to take the call.
The surprise of the day was to come. Just after the mid-morning break a girl came in with a note. Laura opened it and read:
Can you go out to lunch to-day? Something important.
H.H.T.
Laura recognized these initials as those of Mr Tomalin. Full of zeal for her task, she decided at once that he had something to contribute about Miss Faintley, so she scribbled at the bottom of the note:
Many thanks. See you at 12.15. L.M.
She felt contrite. Obviously she had misjudged Mr Tomalin. He must be much more intelligent and perceptive than she had supposed. He had tumbled to the reason for her presence at the school and was prepared to offer important information. It was in the friendliest spirit that she greeted him after morning school.
‘Oh, yes,’ said Tomalin, shortly, ‘but it isn’t me, of course. It’s Bannister. I said I’d ask you on his behalf. He wouldn’t ask you himself in case you refused.’
Laura laughed, and said she never refused an invitation to eat. Three minutes later the misanthropic Mr Bannister was blurting out that he thought they had better go to Hagford. ‘If you don’t mind using your car,’ he concluded. ‘That would give us nice time.’
‘I’m going to drive, then.’
‘Oh, yes. I can’t, anyway. It’s like this,’ he went on, when they were in the car and Laura was on the straight road for Hagford, ‘I’ve been thinking about that woman Faintley and I want to give you a bit of advice, if you wouldn’t think it cheek. Anyway, I felt I ought to warn you that she wasn’t everything she seemed, not by a long chalk, either. Don’t you go getting mixed up in her affairs. If the school stock has to be called for at Hagford station, you let somebody else call for it. I don’t like to see a young girl taking risks, if you don’t think it impudent to say so.’