. . .

That was all.  The jury, without retiring, returned the inevitable verdict of “Accidental Death”.

Roseveare waited in silence until he could see that Revell had got to the end.  Then, moving forward a little in his chair, he coughed interrogatively.  “Well?  And what do you think of it?”

Revell handed back the cutting.  “It was an odd sort of accident, of course,” he commented.  “But then, odder ones have happened, I daresay.”

“Precisely.”  Roseveare’s grey, deep-set eyes quickened a little.  “I naturally regarded it in that light myself.  So did the poor boy’s guardian, a Colonel Graham, living in India, from whom I received a most courteous and sympathetic letter.  And then, just about a week ago . . .”  He paused.  “You will probably think it was quite a small and insignificant thing.  Indeed, I hope you do.  Anyhow, let me tell you about it.”

Through the haze of cigar-smoke Revell nodded encouragement.  Roseveare continued:  “Last week I had a letter from Colonel Graham— a second letter.  He suggested that Mr. Ellington, as the poor boy’s housemaster and cousin, should take charge of his personal belongings until he himself came home from India in about six months’ time.  I had naturally been expecting instructions of such a kind, and had already had everything collected and stored away.  I was just looking them over before passing them on to Ellington when—to make a longish story a little shorter—I chanced upon this.”  He produced a second slip of paper from his wallet.  “It was between the pages of the boy’s algebra-book.”

It was a sheet of notepaper with the Oakington crest and letter-heading.  At the top was the date—September 18th.  And underneath, in carefully printed capital letters, the following:

 

“IF ANYTHING SHOULD HAPPEN TO ME, I LEAVE EVERYTHING TO MY BROTHER WILBRAHAM, EXCEPT MY THREE-SPEED BICYCLE, WHICH I LEAVE TO JONES TERTIUS.  (SIGNED)--ROBERT MARSHALL.”

 

Revell, after a short pause, handed back the document without remark.  Roseveare went on:  “You can perhaps imagine my feelings at the discovery of such a thing.  It raised—hardly perhaps so much as a suspicion—but a sort of—shall I say a sort of curiosity in my mind.  It was rather disconcerting to reflect that on the very evening before the boy died he had been thinking of his own possible death.”

Revell nodded.  “I suppose there WAS a three-speed bicycle?”

“Oh yes.  And he WAS friendly with Jones—I verified all that.  I couldn’t get hold of another example of his printing to compare with, but the handwriting of the signature seemed authentic enough.”  He clenched his hands on the arms of the chair and added, with a touch of eagerness:  “I daresay the whole thing is just pure coincidence.  I certainly don’t want you to assume that there is more in it than meets the eye.”

Revell nodded once again, but with his glance fixed rather shrewdly on the other.  “What is it,” he asked, “that you would like me to do?”

“Nothing definite, I assure you—nothing definite at all.  Just consider, if I may so express it, that for a few days you hold a watching brief.  Here, as I have told them to you, are the facts— presenting a situation that is, shall we agree to say, abnormal enough to be worth a little extra attention if only for its own sake.  Just look over it yourself and tell me how you feel about it— that’s really all I have in mind.”

“But surely, sir, you don’t suspect—“

“My dear boy, I suspect nothing and nobody.  As a matter of fact”— the emotional inflection was in his voice again—“this terrible business was a great blow to me—far greater than I have allowed people to see.  Apart from personal regrets, the publicity that the whole affair received was a great setback to the School.  You may or may not know, Revell, the state in which I found things when I first came here.  For half a dozen years I have toiled hard to raise and improve, and then—comes THIS.  There is no one on my staff in whom I would care to confide.  I cannot probe into the matter myself—to do so would draw even greater attention to it.  And yet, of course, there may be nothing at all to probe. . . .  My nerves, I am aware, are not in the best condition—I need a long holiday which I shall not be able to take until the summer vacation next year.  I can see you are tremendously mystified by all this.  And no wonder.  It is all, I daresay, perfectly absurd.”

“I must admit, sir, I don’t see a scrap of evidence to suggest anything really wrong.”

“Of course not.  There isn’t any, I don’t suppose.  And yet— there’s that little demon of curiosity in my mind—why WAS the boy thinking of death on that Sunday evening?”

“Who can say?  Coincidences like that DO happen.  And there’s nothing very remarkable in the note itself.  Just the fatuous sort of thing I might have written myself on a Sunday night after chapel when I’d nothing else to do.”

“Probably—you comfort me even by saying so.  Nevertheless, you will not decline my vague and probably quite ridiculous commission?”

“Oh, of course not, if you would really like me to look into it.”

“Good.  You see, no doubt, how well suited you are for the task.  As a distinguished Old Boy of the School, you have the best of reasons for being here as my guest.  You can talk to both boys and masters without anyone questioning your bona-fides.  No one, of course, knows or need know why you are really here.  You understand?”

“Oh yes.”

“Then I leave things in your hands.  I have heard splendid accounts, my dear Revell, of your work in connexion with a certain regrettable affair at Oxford.  This, I hope, will be less serious. . . .  You were in School House, I believe, when you were here?”

“Yes.”

“Good—that will give you a convenient excuse for meeting Ellington.  I mentioned your visit to him, in fact—he suggested you might care to breakfast with him to-morrow morning.”

“I should be delighted.”

“Most likely he will drop in later on to-night to meet you. . . .  Another cigar?  Yes, do, please.  Are you interested, by the way, in etchings?  I have one or two here that are considered to be rather choice.”

Revell perceived that the discussion, for the time being, was over, and he could not but notice and admire the ease with which the other resumed his earlier manner.  Nerves or not, he certainly had them well under control.  They talked on for over an hour on varied topics; Roseveare showed himself to be a man of remarkably wide interests, and obviously enjoyed an exchange of views with the younger generation.  Yet there was not a trace of patronage or of condescension in his attitude.  He listened sympathetically when Revell told him of his literary work and of the Don Juan epic.  Revell liked him more and more; it was as if their recent more serious talk had been a strange interlude in a much more real intimacy.

Towards ten o’clock Ellington arrived and was introduced.  He was a heavily built, middle-aged fellow, thick-set of feature and going a little bald.  Under his impact the conversation sagged instantly.  He appeared cordial enough about the breakfast invitation, but Revell gathered that it was his housemasterly habit to ask School House old boys to breakfast, and that he did it as a sort of routine duty.  Revell, in fact, was not greatly attracted to him.  When he had gone Roseveare faintly shrugged his shoulders.  “A hard worker, Ellington, and a devoted colleague.  But not much of a conversationalist, I am afraid.  However . . .  Perhaps you will take a little whisky before going up to bed?  I usually do so myself.”

And, since Revell usually did so whenever he had the chance, the ritual was jointly observed.

 

 

CHAPTER II

SOLVED!

 

Sunday at Oakington in Revell’s time had always been a depressing day.  No cooked foods were served from the kitchens; all newspapers (except religious weeklies) were removed from the School reading-room; no boy could leave the grounds without special permission; games and gramophones were alike forbidden; three chapel services had to be attended; and it was also a day of compulsory black suits, shoes, and ties.

To Revell, comfortably dozing while the chapel bell importunately rang for the first service, there came the jumbled memories of some hundred or so of such days.  Not that he had had an unhappy time at School.  But there was an unholy glee to be derived from lying between warm sheets and thinking of the Oakington multitude shivering in its pews on a December morning with the prospect of nothing but cold brawn for breakfast.  He wondered also, since Roseveare was not apparently a cleric, who read the lessons. . . .

Roseveare. . . .  The name somehow managed to banish his drowsiness; after a little delay he got up, enjoyed the steamiest of hot baths, dressed, and went downstairs.  The butler met him with a reminder of his breakfast engagement with Mr. Ellington.  He nodded and walked out through the porch into the chill wintry air.  From the chapel across the intervening lawn came the sound of a hymn.  Ellington’s house, viewed from where he was, presented the appearance of a suburban villa leaning coyly against the massive flanks of School House.  It was not perhaps very elegant, but it had enabled four generations of pedagogues to combine marriage and housemastership in a manner both effective and discreet.

Revell walked briskly across the quadrangle, climbed the short flight of steps, and rang the door-bell.  A woman’s voice from the interior called “Come in!”  He entered and waited a few seconds in the hall.  The voice again cried “Come in!”—whereupon, fired with a little determination, he walked over to the room from which the sound had seemed to proceed and boldly pushed open the door.  He found himself immediately in the presence of a dark-haired, bright-eyed little woman, almost pretty, who was frying rashers of bacon at a gas-cooker.

“Oh, I’m so sorry,” she stammered, seeing him.  “I thought—I thought you might be the boy bringing the milk. . . .  Oh, do forgive me. . .