“Is that you, Miss Vane? The Warden wants to see you.”
“What’s the matter, Dean?”
The Dean took Harriet by the arm.
“Newland hasn’t come in. You haven’t seen her anywhere?”
“No-I’ve been round at Somerville. It’s only just after twelve. She’ll probably turn up. You don’t think-?”
“We don’t know what to think-it’s not like Newland to be out without leave. And we’ve found things.”
She led Harriet into the Warden’s sitting-room. Dr. Baring was seated at her desk, her handsome face stern and judicial. In front of her stood Miss Haydock, with her hands thrust into her dressing-gown pockets; she looked excited and angry. Miss Shaw curled dismally in a corner of the big couch, was crying; while Miss Millbanks the Senior Student, half-frightened and half-defiant, hovered uneasily in the background. As Harriet came in with the Dean, everybody looked hopefully towards the door and then away again.
“Miss Vane,” said the Warden, “the Dean tells me that you saw Miss Newland behaving in a peculiar manner on Magdalen Tower last May Day. Can you give me any more exact details about that?”
Harriet told her story again. “I am sorry,” she added in conclusion, “that I didn’t get her name at the time; but I didn’t recognize her as one of our students. As a matter of fact, I don’t remember ever noticing her at all, until she was pointed out to me yesterday by Miss Martin.”
“That’s quite right,” said the Dean. “I’m not at all surprised you shouldn’t have known her. She’s very quiet and shy and seldom comes in to Hall or shows herself anywhere. I think she works nearly all day at the Radcliffe. Of course, when you told me about the May-Day business I decided that somebody ought to keep an eye on her. I informed Dr. Baring and Miss Shaw, and I asked Miss Millbanks whether any of the Third Year had noticed that she seemed to be in any trouble.”
“I can’t understand it,” cried Miss Shaw. “Why couldn’t she have come to me about it? I always encourage my pupils to give me their full confidence. I asked her again and again. I really thought she had a real affection for me.”
She sniffed hopelessly into a damp handkerchief.
“I knew something was up,” said Miss Haydock, bluntly. “But I didn’t know what it was. The more questions you asked, the less she’d tell you-so I didn’t ask many.”
“Has the girl no friends?” asked Harriet.
“I thought she looked on me as a friend,” complained Miss Shaw.
“She didn’t make friends,” said Miss Haydock.
“She’s a very reserved child,” said the Dean. “I don’t think anybody could make much out of her. I know I couldn’t.”
“But what has happened, exactly?” asked Harriet.
“When Miss Martin spoke to Miss Millbanks about her,” said Miss Haydock, cutting in without respect of persons upon the Warden’s reply, “Miss Millbanks mentioned the matter to me, saying she couldn’t see that we could be expected to do anything.”
“But I scarcely knew her…” Began Miss Millbanks.
“Nor did I,” said Miss Haydock. “But I thought something had better be done about it. I took her out on the river this afternoon. She said she ought to work, but I told her not to be an idiot, or she’d crack up. We took a punt up over the Rollers and had tea along by the Parks. She seemed all right then. I brought her back and persuaded her to come and dine properly in Hall. After that, she said she wanted to go and work at the Radder. I had an engagement, so I couldn’t go with her-besides, I thought she’d think it funny if I trailed after her all day. So I told Miss Millbanks that somebody else had better carry on.”
“Well, I carried on myself,” said Miss Millbanks, rather defiantly. “I took my own work across there. I sat in a desk where I could see her. She was there till half-past nine. I came away at ten and found she’d gone.”
“Didn’t you see her go?”
“No. I was reading and I suppose she slipped out. I’m sorry; but how was I to know? I’ve got Schools this term. It’s all very well to say I oughtn’t to have taken my eyes off her, but I’m not a nurse or anything-”
Harriet noticed how Miss Millbanks’s self-assurance had broken down. She was defending herself angrily and clumsily like a schoolgirl.
“On returning,” pursued the Warden, “Miss Millbanks-”
“But has anything been done about it?” interrupted Harriet, impatient with this orderly academic exposition. “I suppose you asked whether she’d been up to the gallery of the Radcliffe.”
“I thought of that later on,” replied the Warden, “and suggested that a search should be made there. I understand that it has been made, without result-However, a subsequent-”
“How about the river?”
“I am coming to that. Perhaps I had better continue in chronological order. I can assure you that no time has been wasted.”
“Very well, Warden.”
“On returning,” said the Warden, taking up her tale exactly where she had left it, “Miss Millbanks told Miss Haydock about it, and they ascertained that Miss Newland was not in College. They then, very properly, informed the Dean, who instructed Padgett to telephone through as soon as she came in. At 11.15 she had not returned, and Padgett reported that fact. He mentioned at the same time that he had himself been feeling uneasy about Miss Newland. He had noticed that she had taken to going about alone, and that she looked strained and nervous.”
“Padgett is pretty shrewd,” said the Dean. “I often think he knows more about the students than any of us.”
“Up till tonight,” wailed Miss Shaw, “I should have said I knew all my pupils intimately.”
Padgett also said he had seen several of the anonymous letters arrive at the Lodge for Miss Newland.
“He ought to have reported that,” said Harriet.
“No,” said the Dean. “It was after you came last term that we instructed him to report. The ones he saw came before that.”
“I see.”
“By that time,” said the Warden, “we were beginning to feel alarmed, and Miss Martin rang up the police. In the meantime, Miss Haydock made a search in Miss Newland’s room for anything that might throw light on her state of mind; and found-these.”
She took a little sheaf of papers from her desk and handed them to Harriet, who said, “Good God.”
The Poison-Pen, this time, had found a victim ready made to her hand. There were the letters, thirty or more of them (“and I don’t suppose that’s the lot, either,” was the Dean’s comment)-menacing, abusive, insinuating-all hammering remorselessly upon the same theme. “You needn’t think you will get away with it”-“What will you do when you fail in Schools?”-“You deserve to fail and I shall see that you do”-then more horrible suggestions: “Don’t you feel your brain going?”-“If they see you are going mad they will send you down”-and finally, in a sinister series: “You’d better end it now”-“Better dead than in the loony-bin”-“In your place I should throw myself out of the window”-“Try the river”-and so on; the continuous, deadly beating on weak nerves that of all things is hardest to resist.
“If only she had shown them to me!” Miss Shaw was crying.
“She wouldn’t, of course,” said Harriet. “You have to be very well balanced to admit that people think you’re going mad. That’s what’s done the mischief.”
“Of all the wicked things-” said the Dean. “Think of that unfortunate child collecting all these horrors and brooding over them! I’d like to kill whoever it is!”
“It’s a definite effort at murder,” said Harriet. “But the point is, has it come off?”
There was a pause. Then the Warden said in an expressionless voice: “One of the boat-house keys is missing.”