two-fifteen?’
‘Yes.’
The superintendent creaked forward in his chair, rummaging in a pocket, and pulled forth an envelope; allowed something to roll out of it on to the table in front of him.
‘And how do you account for this pencil of yours being found in the haystack where the body was? These are your initials, aren’t they?’
Hell and damnation! That’s torn it. Must have dropped out when I was kissing Hero. Didn’t miss it this afternoon. He tried to assume a look of injured innocence.
‘Well, I really don’t know. Unless it dropped out during the hay battle yesterday. I was ragging about with the boys a good deal.’
‘Oh, you missed it yesterday, did you?’
Michael became vaguely aware of another pitfall. Always keep as near the truth as possible when you’re lying – he seemed to remember as a convincing maxim.
‘No. I’d no idea I’d lost it till you turned it up in that rather melodramatic way.’ Michael was amazed to feel a wave of apparently genuine righteous indignation surging up in him. He added, with some heat, ‘And I may say, if these are your usual methods of interrogation, I don’t wonder the papers make a fuss about the third degree.’
‘Perhaps we are both being a little melodramatic, sir,’ said the superintendent, retreating in as good order as possible from his false position. To tell the truth, he felt considerably nonplussed, as Michael might have noticed if he had not been too occupied wondering whether the superintendent could have failed to observe the gaping and guilty chasm between his first question about the pencil and its answer. However, Armstrong began to show signs of apology rather than suspicion. Michael found himself giving a lively account of the hay battle, and in the end left the presence with a feeling of doubt as to whether its Machiavellian manoeuvres had not been a product of his own guilty imagination.
To him succeeded Griffin, evidently prepared to lose his temper on the least provocation. This was duly given to him by the superintendent’s question about his unwary breakfast table remark.
‘Oh, my holy heavens! If that’s what you’re getting at, you’d better arrest every schoolmaster in England on suspicion of murder.’
The superintendent handled this highly combustible article with great delicacy. ‘Come, sir,’ he said, ‘you must realise that we policemen have to go into every detail, however trivial it may seem. You remember the case of Jones-Evans?’
‘Jones-Evans? The Llanttyprid forward? Do I not. I always said that fellow would come to no good. Bit my – ear once in the scrum. Yes, I see what you mean.’
‘I take it, then, that your remarks were not meant in earnest?’
‘Oh, I don’t know about that. I might well have screwed the poor little blighter’s neck for him. But, as it happens, I didn’t, if that’s what you want to know.’
‘Exactly. You were out in the field, weren’t you, after lunch? See anything peculiar?’
‘No, except Mouldy – he’s the groundsman; descended from a long line of village idiots, I think. Found he’d put out one too many sets of hurdles this time.’
‘What did you do about it, sir?’
‘Oh, I spoke a few words to him on the subject. Then we put them back in his shed again.’
‘About what time was that?’
‘Ten or fifteen minutes before the sports began, I should say. Why?’
‘Well, sir, it is possible that the body was not placed in the haystack till some time after the murder. I am naturally wondering where it might have been hidden in the interval, if this theory should be correct.’
‘No, there were no bodies lying about in the shed when we went in. Couldn’t have been hidden, either, because Mouldy yammered something about his sacks having been moved, and shifted them all back; so we should have seen if there’d been anything behind them.’
Armstrong creaked slightly in his chair. ‘Well, that is about all then, sir. You didn’t happen to
‘Yes.’
The superintendent creaked forward in his chair, rummaging in a pocket, and pulled forth an envelope; allowed something to roll out of it on to the table in front of him.
‘And how do you account for this pencil of yours being found in the haystack where the body was? These are your initials, aren’t they?’
Hell and damnation! That’s torn it. Must have dropped out when I was kissing Hero. Didn’t miss it this afternoon. He tried to assume a look of injured innocence.
‘Well, I really don’t know. Unless it dropped out during the hay battle yesterday. I was ragging about with the boys a good deal.’
‘Oh, you missed it yesterday, did you?’
Michael became vaguely aware of another pitfall. Always keep as near the truth as possible when you’re lying – he seemed to remember as a convincing maxim.
‘No. I’d no idea I’d lost it till you turned it up in that rather melodramatic way.’ Michael was amazed to feel a wave of apparently genuine righteous indignation surging up in him. He added, with some heat, ‘And I may say, if these are your usual methods of interrogation, I don’t wonder the papers make a fuss about the third degree.’
‘Perhaps we are both being a little melodramatic, sir,’ said the superintendent, retreating in as good order as possible from his false position. To tell the truth, he felt considerably nonplussed, as Michael might have noticed if he had not been too occupied wondering whether the superintendent could have failed to observe the gaping and guilty chasm between his first question about the pencil and its answer. However, Armstrong began to show signs of apology rather than suspicion. Michael found himself giving a lively account of the hay battle, and in the end left the presence with a feeling of doubt as to whether its Machiavellian manoeuvres had not been a product of his own guilty imagination.
To him succeeded Griffin, evidently prepared to lose his temper on the least provocation. This was duly given to him by the superintendent’s question about his unwary breakfast table remark.
‘Oh, my holy heavens! If that’s what you’re getting at, you’d better arrest every schoolmaster in England on suspicion of murder.’
The superintendent handled this highly combustible article with great delicacy. ‘Come, sir,’ he said, ‘you must realise that we policemen have to go into every detail, however trivial it may seem. You remember the case of Jones-Evans?’
‘Jones-Evans? The Llanttyprid forward? Do I not. I always said that fellow would come to no good. Bit my – ear once in the scrum. Yes, I see what you mean.’
‘I take it, then, that your remarks were not meant in earnest?’
‘Oh, I don’t know about that. I might well have screwed the poor little blighter’s neck for him. But, as it happens, I didn’t, if that’s what you want to know.’
‘Exactly. You were out in the field, weren’t you, after lunch? See anything peculiar?’
‘No, except Mouldy – he’s the groundsman; descended from a long line of village idiots, I think. Found he’d put out one too many sets of hurdles this time.’
‘What did you do about it, sir?’
‘Oh, I spoke a few words to him on the subject. Then we put them back in his shed again.’
‘About what time was that?’
‘Ten or fifteen minutes before the sports began, I should say. Why?’
‘Well, sir, it is possible that the body was not placed in the haystack till some time after the murder. I am naturally wondering where it might have been hidden in the interval, if this theory should be correct.’
‘No, there were no bodies lying about in the shed when we went in. Couldn’t have been hidden, either, because Mouldy yammered something about his sacks having been moved, and shifted them all back; so we should have seen if there’d been anything behind them.’
Armstrong creaked slightly in his chair. ‘Well, that is about all then, sir. You didn’t happen to
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