3
An Addition to the List of Missing Persons
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After Boxing Day the weather had become so inclement that for the following week no outside work was done on the school buildings. However, to the disgust of the women cleaners, the painters and decorators came to do the inside jobs and, as one disgruntled cleaner put it, ‘brought in with them all the muck as would stick to their boots before it got on to our floors’. By the time term began, clear, frosty weather had replaced the sleet and the rain and outside work had been resumed. Unexpectedly, the mess in the quad had been tidied up. It was assumed that either the builders had had a change of heart or that Mr Filkins had enlisted the help of the keener members of his gardening club to do the work before the beginning of term.
On the first day of term, Mr Burke came to report to Mr Ronsonby the caretaker’s story of the break-in on breaking-up Friday night.
‘I checked very carefully,’ said Burke, ‘and nothing is missing or damaged, neither has Sparshott heard or seen anything else untoward, so far as I know. I do think, though, Headmaster, now that the buildings are so nearly finished and the official opening seems to be in sight next term, that we ought to have a nightwatchman on the premises. There are loutish types about nowadays who have only to see something fresh, clean, admirable and new to be seized by a lust to vandalise and defile it.’
‘I’ll put to the committee this evidence of illegal entry given us by Sparshott, but I’ve tried before, as you know. Still, now that the school has definitely been broken into, my arguments may carry more weight.’
However, they did not carry any weight at all. Nothing had been stolen, the education office pointed out, nothing damaged or defaced, and the property was fully covered by insurance. No nightwatchman was appointed and, when this was relayed to the caretaker, Sparshott replied: ‘Well, Mr Ronsonby, sir, I shall continue to keep ears and eyes open, but a twenty-four hour day is asking too much of a man.’
‘I agree entirely, Sparshott. The ball, I feel, is in the committee’s court, and it is up to the education office to deal with it. Please don’t worry. After all, nothing but a bit of skylarking seems to have happened. One thing, the workmen have filled in the hole in the quad.’
There was another matter which was very much on the headmaster’s mind. Ought he or ought he not to report the absence of the Greek journey money? Mr Pythias’s continued non-appearance had been reported as a matter of routine, but the money, the headmaster decided, was a different kettle of fish. The education committee left the arrangements for all school journeys entirely to the discretion of the head teacher on the understanding that the committee accepted no responsibility for insuring the party against death, accident or the theft of personal property while the journey was taking place. Not all local authorities followed this plan, but in Mr Ronsonby’s area it operated. It was up to the sponsors of the trip to make certain that the money paid to the tour company included the personal insurance of every passenger.
‘I suppose it might be thought necessary to make a report that the money is missing,’ said Mr Ronsonby to his wife, ‘but I’m damned if I’m going to give anybody the satisfaction of believing that one of my staff has decamped with the takings. I would rather put up the cash for the trip myself. In fact, it looks as though I may have to do so.’
‘It would make a pretty big hole in our savings.’
‘I know, but I’d much rather carry the can than face a scandal involving one of my staff. Besides, I can’t believe that Pythias has defaulted. There must be some other explanation.’
‘One thing; it isn’t like the school fund. That has to be audited,’ said Mrs Ronsonby.
‘Oh, if it were the school fund, I’d have to report it. As it is, so long as I make good the money, nobody need be any the wiser.’
‘Mrs Wirrell knows the money has gone.’
‘Oh, Lord! If I couldn’t trust Margaret Wirrell not to talk out of turn, I would begin to distrust myself!’
‘I’m glad Margaret isn’t young and glamorous,’ said Mrs Ronsonby, smiling.
‘She was a chief petty officer in the WRNS in her young days. She could manage the school and the staff with one hand while she was signing for the latest consignment of stationery stock with the other.’
‘So you have quite decided that you are not going to report the loss of the money?’
‘So long as I make it good, nobody can complain, and if I did report it I should gain nothing but a name for washing the school dirty linen in public’
‘What do you think has happened to Mr Pythias? Can he have been set upon and hurt?’
‘I think we should have heard if that were the case. I don’t know what to think except, as I say, the one thought I am determined to put out of my mind.’
‘It’s much the most likely explanation, you know. If he had been beaten up and robbed, surely we should have heard of it by now, as you say.’
‘Not if he had been struck on the head and is suffering from amnesia. He may be wandering about, not knowing who he is or where he is supposed to be. Margaret suggested this and it does seem feasible.’
‘Surely the police would have picked him up before this if he were found wandering.’
‘One would think so. Anyway, I shall have to report to them that he is missing. We can’t go on in this state of uncertainty. It’s over three weeks since his landlady saw him last.’
‘That is the trouble, I suppose. The whole of the Christmas holiday and now these early days of the term have had to go by before anybody realised that he was missing. I blame that landlady. She must have known that something was wrong when he did not turn up again at his digs after Christmas. He would have gone to collect his things, even if there had been a row.’
The police took the same view. A plain-clothes detective turned up at the school and introduced himself as Detective-Inspector Routh. He brought a sergeant with him. Mr Ronsonby soon found that he had better revise his plan of saying nothing about the missing money.
‘We have visited the address you gave us, sir. The landlady can be of no help. Says the missing gentleman went away for Christmas and she hasn’t set eyes on him since. Thinks he took umbrage when she refused to accept responsibility for some money he was carrying. Do you know anything about that, sir? Would the money have amounted to anything in the nature of a considerable sum?’
‘I imagine so. I cannot give you any figures. It had been paid by boys, parents and staff to cover a school journey to Greece next summer. Mr Pythias preferred to keep everything in his own hands, as the trip was entirely his own idea. He is of Greek extraction and has travelled widely in his own country. He is also the senior geography master here. I was entirely happy to leave everything in his hands, but as to the actual amount—’
‘May I ask whether you parted from him on amicable terms, sir?’
‘Oh, yes, very much so. The senior staff always pop into my room on the last day of term to say goodbye and Pythias came in as usual with the others.’
‘To the best of your knowledge, did he get on with the other masters?’
‘So far as I know, yes, he did. My staff are a very united and friendly bunch.’
‘Can you tell me anything more about this money the landlady says he was carrying? You cannot name the exact sum, but is there anything else you know about it?’
‘I know people were very slow at paying it in to him. Practically all of it, I believe, came in on his deadline, which was the last day of term. He was occupied during that last school dinner-hour, and that meant that he took the money home with him, no doubt with the intention of placing it in a safe deposit for the weekend, as the bank would not be open to receive it over the counter until the Monday morning. That was too long a time to leave it unprotected.’