‘Hid in the ditch? Why on earth didn’t you challenge him? It must be one of the people who broke down the fences and let out the pigs. We might have found a scapegoat and got hold of the names of the others.’
‘But, Miss Considine, he was perfectly enormous and all in white and he didn’t have a head! It was awful!’
‘You little goose!’
‘No, really! I—I thought it was a ghost!’
‘Now, really, Miss Good! What did you have to drink last night, you foolish child? Sit down, and tell me all about it. I can’t go to Miss McKay with a tale like that!’
‘But it’s true! Really, really it is. I could have made you any sort of excuse, but this is the truth. I was petrified! I didn’t think what I was doing! I just ran for my life and hid in the ditch until it went!’
‘How do you know that it went?’
‘It came out of the college gate. It passed quite close.’
‘What did it look like? Could you see through it? What had you had to drink?’
The student looked reproachful and then said sullenly, staring down at the carpet the while:
‘I’d had a Bronx and then we shared a bottle of Burgundy, but Barry drank more of it than I did, and we had coffee to finish up.’
‘That shouldn’t have been enough to make you tumble into the ditch. Now, look here, you saw this horseman twice, the second time closely. Forget this ghost nonsense and think hard. Couldn’t you possibly identify him? Horses sound like Highpepper Hall, now I come to think of it, and, in spite of what Mr Sellaclough had to say, I’m not at all convinced that the previous damage and mischief was not the work of the Highpeppers. For the sake of the college, Miss Good, you’ve got to think hard. Cast your mind back to the last Highpepper ball. Does nothing seem to ring a bell?’
‘No, it certainly doesn’t. As I told you, he didn’t seem to have a head.’
‘That only means that he must have been wearing a hood. Look here, my dear, we must get to the bottom of this. We can’t have people coming here and working destruction. And just remember that the quality of mercy may not be strained, but my patience will be if you overstay your late leave again, whatever excuse you may offer.’
She went to the Principal, who was not particularly impressed by her report.
‘Girls?’ said Miss McKay sceptically. ‘Well, of course, they can tell the truth. Some of them even do. Ring up her young man and let’s get the first part straight. His name’s Cleeves. That much I know. Get his story. Simply ask him where he left her last night. If he says he drove her up to the hostel door, she’s had it, and that’s her last late pass this term.’
Cleeves, with no clue to guide him, decided that the truth would be more likely to prevail than would a lie.
‘I decanted Miss Good at the college gates at a quarter to eleven,’ he said. ‘She had plenty of time to get in. I didn’t drive her up to the door of her hostel because she’d left a ring behind at the hotel where we dined. Oh, yes, thanks, I’ve got the ring. Somebody had turned it in to the office and I was able to describe it, so they handed it over. I say, I hope everything’s all right!’
‘If you are asking whether Miss Good is all right, the answer is in the affirmative. Next time you take her out you had better not give her quite so much to drink. She thought she saw a ghost in the college grounds.’
‘Oh, I say! It couldn’t have been the drinks. She didn’t have more than a thimbleful all the evening.’
‘Then it was one of the Highpepper students fooling about. As he frightened Miss Good almost into hysteria, you might care to find out who it was. His horse trampled down my brussels sprouts. I set a very high value on those sprouts, and I’m out for blood.’
chapter three
Posted as Missing
‘… and if I may judge by the absence of beard, it is a female.’
Ibid.
« ^ »
Over one thing, Miss McKay was in full agreement with Miss Considine.
‘Unless the girl was suffering from hallucinations or a hangover, a ghostly rider on a grey horse spells Highpepper Hall. That being so, I do not feel inclined to make trouble. I’ve made a nuisance of myself there already, and not for the first time, either. We must keep watch and apprehend the gentleman if he appears again. Then, when we get his name, we can take appropriate action,’ she declared.
The appropriate action had to be taken sooner than she expected and for a more serious reason than the trampling of brussels sprouts by a ghostly horseman. The head of another of the hostels came to her immediately she had concluded her discussion with Miss Considine to inform her that one of the students was missing.
‘Missing?’ Miss McKay drew a jotter towards her. ‘Since when, Miss Paterson?’
‘Well,’ replied Miss Paterson, ‘that’s just the difficulty. You know that I spent this last week at the Autumn Show of root vegetables on Monday and Tuesday, and went on to that exhibition of new farming machinery?’
‘Yes, of course. Oh, dear! You don’t mean she’s been missing for several days? What does your head student say?’
‘She’s still in quarantine, poor girl—suspected mumps. She knows nothing about it, and I can’t get much sense out of the rest of them. It seems that the missing student went to her room to put in an extra study period on Saturday night as (so she seems to have told the others) she wasn’t satisfied with the marks she got for her last essay and practical test, and on Sunday, of course, what with my preparations for my journey and the fact that Sunday is a free day, so that the students don’t even come in to meals unless they like— they even take turns to give each other breakfast in bed—it didn’t dawn on me that anybody could be missing. I mean, I wasn’t told.’
‘No, I quite see that.’
‘Then, you see, I had a very early breakfast on Monday, to give myself time to get to the first day of the Autumn Show in good time, so that I still didn’t realise…’
‘Quite so. No blame attaches to you in the matter at all. I think one of your students should have had sufficient common sense to report to me, though.’
‘They said they didn’t like to run the girl into trouble. They do not seem to have taken a serious view of her absence. Thought it was a case of Cat’s Away, Mice Will Play, apparently. She is very well-off, of course, compared with some of my students, keeps sherry and biscuits in her room— that sort of thing. They just thought she’d decided to be A.W.O.L., that’s all.’
‘A man,’ said Miss McKay briskly. ‘That’s the answer. Well, she’ll have to be traced and found. Our ghostly friend, of course. I suppose, when Miss Good saw him, he was reconnoitring,’ she added, to Miss Considine.
Miss Considine said that she doubted it.
‘Why dress up in such a noticeable way if he wanted to elope with the girl?’ she asked. ‘Besides, why a horse? Surely a car would have been much more sensible.’
‘Not as romantic. Young Lochinvar stuff, without a doubt.’
‘It doesn’t seem practical, all the same,’ said Miss Paterson, who thereupon took herself off.
‘Romanticism never is practical. That’s the beauty of it, from their point of view. And you do realise, don’t you, Miss Considine, that if it hadn’t been for your little Miss Good and her absurd engagement ring, nobody would have known that this horseman had ever existed? To that extent, I’m grateful to her,’ declared Miss McKay.
Miss Considine respected and liked her Principal, but she was not prepared to allow this remark to pass unchallenged.
‘Oh?’ she said. ‘What about my brussels sprouts? I should have known, all right, that he existed.’