‘I was about to add, Kemp, that how they spent the holiday is to me immaterial. My only concern is that this morning they ought to have shown up and they have not done so.’
‘No, sir, they couldn’t, sir. They’ve joined a union, sir.’ (This from the form’s ‘funny man’.)
Mr Scaife prided himself upon being a broadminded person and was sufficiently to the left in politics to be interested in this statement.
‘Oh, yes?’ he said. ‘What sort of a union?’
‘Travis said he didn’t see any point in coming back to school on a Monday, sir. He said that Monday morning was a dead loss anyway, so he and Maycock would be back on Tuesday, sir. That’s tomorrow.’
‘Well, it will be nice to see them and very nice for them to explain themselves to the headmaster.’
‘The difficulty there, sir, is that they may not turn up tomorrow, either. Their union may not allow them to work a broken week, sir.’
‘Take fifty lines for insolence!’ snapped Mr Scaife, coming to his senses. He inserted two black noughts in the register, closed it and mustered his class for assembly. However, his absentees did not show up on Tuesday, either, so again he had to mark them absent. As there was now only a fortnight to go before the great day, Mr Ronsonby, having conducted the assembly service on Tuesday morning, left the platform to Mr Burke, who surveyed and then addressed the school.
‘I am giving you ample time,’ said Mr Burke, ‘to present yourselves on opening day in a manner which will do us and yourselves credit. You now have a full fortnight in which to get school blazers cleaned, grey flannel trousers pressed and school ties bought (if yours looks like some I have seen lately). On the day, every boy will be personally inspected by his form master. Any boy falling short of what is expected of him so far as his appearance is concerned will be referred to me. Shoes are to shine, hair is to be trimmed and then well brushed to present a tidy appearance, and I need hardly say that a clean shirt and a sweater free of the ravages of the moth’s tooth and Old Father Time are de rigueur. Every boy will also come provided with a clean pocket handkerchief. We need no midshipmen here. Right? First-year boys, lead off.’
So far as the senior master in a boys’ school can be popular, Mr Burke was well liked and his remark about ‘the moth’s tooth and Old Father Time’ had gone down well — a little too well, in fact, for the comfort of Mr Scaife and other inexperienced masters.
‘Sir, do moths have teeth, sir?’
‘How could they eat, you ass, if they didn’t have teeth? They couldn’t, could they, sir?’
‘Tortoises don’t have teeth. I’ve got one, so I know.’
‘Sir, if a moth got into Old Father Time’s beard, would it nest there, sir?’
‘Do spiders eat moths, sir, as well as flies?’
‘No, you ass! Spiders eat their mates.’
‘Sir, are spiders cannibals, then? Cor! Suppose my mum ate my dad!’
‘Do cannibals eat their own family, sir, or only their friends and enemies?’
‘Pity someone doesn’t eat you!’
‘Sir, why did Mr Burke talk about midshipmen, sir?’
‘Snotties, you fool. Don’t you know any history? I bet you haven’t even got a clean handkerchief!’
This humming from the hornets’ nest came to an end with the entrance of Margaret Wirrell with a message from the headmaster for Mr Scaife. Would Mr Scaife please set his form to work and go down to Mr Ronsonby’s office.
Mr Scaife gladly complied, leaving his form captain in charge of the class, but his relief at being able to leave his devil’s brood behind him was short-lived.
‘What does he want me for?’ he asked, when he and Margaret were in the corridor. Her answer was hardly reassuring.
‘Parent.’
‘Oh, Lord! Irate?’
‘I expect so. They don’t come up for much else.’
‘This is Mr Scaife,’ said the headmaster. ‘Scaife, this is Mr Travis.’
Mr Travis, full of bluster, as nervous parents often are when they come to a school with a complaint, burst out, ‘Why wasn’t I told my boy was not at school? He’s playing hooky, I suppose.’
‘I have no idea,’ said Mr Scaife. ‘I do my job, which is to mark a boy absent and wait for a note from his parents. Travis was not present on Monday and has failed to turn up again this morning. I was about to report to Mr Ronsonby that I had received no note from you when I was asked to come down to his room.’
‘You must have guessed Donald was truanting. Why wasn’t I notified?’
‘My dear Mr Travis,’ said Mr Ronsonby, ‘it is no part of Mr Scaife’s duties to report absentees to their parents unless the circumstances are special or suspicious. Your son is not a troublesome boy. There was no reason for us to assume that you were not aware of his absence from school’
‘Young monkey left me a note to say he was going camping for a few days and spending Sunday night at his aunt’s place, and that he would come straight to school from there on Monday morning.’
‘He probably did stay with his aunt,’ said Mr Scaife. ‘Why don’t you ask her?’
‘Of course I’ve asked her. Well, I’ll tell you one thing. You had better know that I’ve been to the police, that’s what I’ve done. His mother’s nearly off her head with worry and I’ve lost a morning’s work coming here.’
‘Been to the police?’ said Mr Ronsonby, who hoped he had seen the last of them at least until the adjourned inquest on Mr Pythias had taken place.
‘When Donald didn’t come home from school last night I came up here at seven, but I couldn’t get in, so I rang, but there was no answer.’
‘The caretaker’s cottage really ought to be on the telephone,’ said Mr Ronsonby, ‘but the charges are extremely high and the education committee were not satisfied that a caretaker’s telephone would be used solely for school business. There is nobody at the school office after about five o’clock on a Monday.’
‘How do I know what’s happened to my boy if nobody notifies me he isn’t at school? It’s disgraceful, that’s what it is! In school time my boy is your responsibility.’
‘Look, Mr Travis,’ said Scaife, ‘I’m very sorry you’re so worried, but I really don’t think you can blame us if Donald is playing truant.’
‘Had a murder here already, haven’t you? How do I know my boy is still safe?’
‘Well, for one thing — ’ Mr Scaife hesitated, not at all sure that he was on safe ground.
‘Go on, Scaife,’ said the headmaster. ‘Tell us anything which may help.’
‘Well, Headmaster, I think Travis is safe enough so long as he had a companion with him. Young Maycock —’
‘Of course he did! We know all that, and Mrs Maycock is with my wife now. Mrs Maycock is a one-parent family. She and my wife are both out of their minds with worry. I have been in touch with Donald’s aunt. She knows nothing, either, as I told you.’
‘Well, if the matter is in the hands of the police there will soon be some news,’ said Mr Ronsonby.
‘Has anybody been to the place where the boys were thought to be camping?’ asked Mr Scaife.
‘Of course they have. I took the police there first thing this morning. Nothing to be seen, not even the ashes of a camp fire. Nothing! If I find my boy has been lying to me and they camped somewhere else, I’ll kill him when I get hold of him. He never asked me for permission to go camping. Just left a note. Look here, I want to question the other boys in Donald’s class. Some of them must be in the know and can tell me what he’s been up to.’
‘Any questioning will be done by myself, Mr Scaife and the police. I cannot possibly allow you to go into a form room during school hours and question the boys,’ said Mr Ronsonby. ‘It is against all school rules.’
‘We’ll see about that!’
‘What I am prepared to do,’ continued Mr Ronsonby, ‘is to send for the form captain and let you speak to him down here.’ He spoke to Margaret Wirrell and in a few moments there was a tap on the headmaster’s door. ‘Well, Spens,’ said Mr Ronsonby, ‘don’t look alarmed, boy. There is nothing to be afraid of. I expect that in Mr Scaife’s temporary absence from the form room, information, speculation and a good deal of ribaldry have been flying around. What have you to tell us about the absence of Travis and Maycock? This is Travis’s father. Apparently Travis did not return home after his camping holiday with Maycock and naturally we are all wondering where the two boys can be.’