Eleven

CONFERENCE

When Inspector Kelsey returned to the station, the sergeant on duty said:

“We’ve got Adam Goodman here, waiting, sir.”

“Adam Goodman? Oh yes. The gardener.”

A young man had risen respectfully to his feet. He was tall, dark and good-looking. He worestained corduroy trousers loosely held up by an aged belt, and an open-necked shirt of very brightblue.

“You wanted to see me, I hear.”

His voice was rough, and as that of so many young men of today, slightly truculent.

Kelsey said merely:

“Yes, come into my room.”

“I don’t know anything about the murder,” said Adam Goodman sulkily. “It’s nothing to dowith me. I was at home and in bed last night.”

Kelsey merely nodded noncommittally.

He sat down at his desk, and motioned to the young man to take the chair opposite. A youngpoliceman in plainclothes had followed the two men in unobtrusively and sat down a little distanceaway.

“Now then,” said Kelsey. “You’re Goodman—” he looked at a note on his desk—“AdamGoodman.”

“That’s right, sir. But first, I’d like to show you this.”

Adam’s manner had changed. There was no truculence or sulkiness in it now. It was quiet anddeferential. He took something from his pocket and passed it across the desk. Inspector Kelsey’seyebrows rose very slightly as he studied it. Then he raised his head.

“I shan’t need you, Barbar,” he said.

The discreet young policeman got up and went out. He managed not to look surprised, but hewas.

“Ah,” said Kelsey. He looked across at Adam with speculative interest. “So that’s who you are?

And what the hell, I’d like to know, are you—”

“Doing in a girls’ school?” the young man finished for him. His voice was still deferential, buthe grinned in spite of himself. “It’s certainly the first time I’ve had an assignment of that kind.

Don’t I look like a gardener?”

“Not around these parts. Gardeners are usually rather ancient. Do you know anything aboutgardening?”

“Quite a lot. I’ve got one of these gardening mothers. England’s speciality. She’s seen to it thatI’m a worthy assistant to her.”

“And what exactly is going on at Meadowbank—to bring you on the scene?”

“We don’t know, actually, that there’s anything going on at Meadowbank. My assignment is inthe nature of a watching brief. Or was—until last night. Murder of a Games Mistress. Not quite inthe school’s curriculum.”

“It could happen,” said Inspector Kelsey. He sighed. “Anything could happen—anywhere. I’velearnt that. But I’ll admit that it’s a little off the beaten track. What’s behind all this?”

Adam told him. Kelsey listened with interest.

“I did that girl an injustice,” he remarked—“But you’ll admit it sounds too fantastic to be true.

Jewels worth between half a million and a million pounds? Who do you say they belong to?”

“That’s a very pretty question. To answer it, you’d have to have a gaggle of internationallawyers on the job—and they’d probably disagree. You could argue the case a lot of ways. Theybelonged, three months ago, to His Highness Prince Ali Yusuf of Ramat. But now? If they’dturned up in Ramat they’d have been the property of the present Government, they’d have madesure of that. Ali Yusuf may have willed them to someone. A lot would then depend on where thewill was executed and whether it could be proved. They may belong to his family. But the realessence of the matter is, that if you or I happened to pick them up in the street and put them in ourpockets, they would for all practical purposes belong to us. That is, I doubt if any legal machineexists that could get them away from us. They could try, of course, but the intricacies ofinternational law are quite incredible….”

“You mean that, practically speaking, it’s findings are keepings?” asked Inspector Kelsey. Heshook his head disapprovingly. “That’s not very nice,” he said primly.

“No,” said Adam firmly. “It’s not very nice. There’s more than one lot after them, too. None ofthem scrupulous. Word’s got around, you see. It may be a rumour, it may be true, but the story isthat they were got out of Ramat just before the bust up. There are a dozen different tales of how.”

“But why Meadowbank? Because of little Princess Butter-won’t-melt-in-my-mouth?”

“Princess Shaista, first cousin of Ali Yusuf. Yes. Someone may try and deliver the goods to heror communicate with her. There are some questionable characters from our point of view hangingabout the neighbourhood. A Mrs. Kolinsky, for instance, staying at the Grand Hotel. Quite aprominent member of what one might describe as International Riff Raff Ltd. Nothing in your line,always strictly within the law, all perfectly respectable, but a grand picker- up of usefulinformation. Then there’s a woman who was out in Ramat dancing in cabaret there. She’s reportedto have been working for a certain foreign government. Where she is now we don’t know, wedon’t even know what she looks like, but there’s a rumour that she might be in this part of theworld. Looks, doesn’t it, as though it were all centring round Meadowbank? And last night, MissSpringer gets herself killed.”

Kelsey nodded thoughtfully.

“Proper mix-up,” he observed. He struggled a moment with his feelings. “You see this sort ofthing on the telly … far-fetched—that’s what you think … can’t really happen. And it doesn’t—not in the normal course of events.”

“Secret agents, robbery, violence, murder, double crossing,” agreed Adam. “All preposterous—but that side of life exists.”

“But not at Meadowbank!”

The words were wrung from Inspector Kelsey.

“I perceive your point,” said Adam. “Lese-majesty.”

There was a silence, and then Inspector Kelsey asked:

“What do you think happened last night?”

Adam took his time, then he said slowly:

“Springer was in the Sports Pavilion—in the middle of the night. Why? We’ve got to start there.

It’s no good asking ourselves who killed her until we’ve made up our minds why she was there, inthe Sports Pavilion at that time of night. We can say that in spite of her blameless and athletic lifeshe wasn’t sleeping well, and got up and looked out of her window and saw a light in the SportsPavilion—her window does look out that way?”

Kelsey nodded.

“Being a tough and fearless young woman, she went out to investigate. She disturbed someonethere who was—doing what? We don’t know. But it was someone desperate enough to shoot herdead.”

Again Kelsey nodded.

“That’s the way we’ve been looking at it,” he said. “But your last point had me worried allalong. You don’t shoot to kill—and come prepared to do so, unless—”

“Unless you’re after something big? Agreed! Well, that’s the case of what we might callInnocent Springer — shot down in the performance of duty. But there’s another possibility.

Springer, as a result of private information, gets a job at Meadowbank or is detailed for it by herbosses—because of her qualification—She waits until a suitable night, then slips out to the SportsPavilion (again our stumbling-block of a question—why?)—Somebody is following her—orwaiting for her—someone who carries a pistol and is prepared to use it … But again—why? Whatfor? In fact, what the devil is there about the Sports Pavilion? It’s not the sort of place that one canimagine hiding anything.”

“There wasn’t anything hidden there, I can tell you that. We went through it with a tooth comb—the girls’ lockers, Miss Springer’s ditto. Sports equipment of various kinds, all normal andaccounted for. And a brand new building! There wasn’t anything there in the nature of jewellery.”

“Whatever it was it could have been removed, of course. By the murderer,” said Adam. “Theother possibility is that the Sports Pavilion was simply used as a rendezvous—by Miss Springer orby someone else. It’s quite a handy place for that. A reasonable distance from the house. Not toofar. And if anyone was noticed going out there, a simple answer would be that whoever it wasthought they had seen a light, etc., etc. Let’s say that Miss Springer went out to meet someone—there was a disagreement and she got shot. Or, a variation, Miss Springer noticed someone leavingthe house, followed that someone, intruded upon something she wasn’t meant to see or hear.”

“I never met her alive,” said Kelsey, “but from the way everyone speaks of her, I get theimpression that she might have been a nosey woman.”

“I think that’s really the most probable explanation,” agreed Adam. “Curiosity killed the cat.

Yes, I think that’s the way the Sports Pavilion comes into it.”

“But if it was a rendezvous, then—” Kelsey paused.

Adam nodded vigorously.

“Yes. It looks as though there is someone in the school who merits our very close attention. Catamong the pigeons, in fact.”

“Cat among the pigeons,” said Kelsey, struck by the phrase. “Miss Rich, one of the mistresses,said something like that today.”

He reflected a moment or two.

“There were three newcomers to the staff this term,” he said. “Shapland, the secretary. Blanche,the French Mistress, and, of course, Miss Springer herself. She’s dead and out of it. If there is a catamong the pigeons, it would seem that one of the other two would be the most likely bet.” Helooked towards Adam. “Any ideas, as between the two of them?”

Adam considered.

“I caught Mademoiselle Blanche coming out of the Sports Pavilion one day. She had a guiltylook. As though she’d been doing something she ought not to have done. All the same, on thewhole—I think I’d plump for the other. For Shapland. She’s a cool customer and she’s got brains.

I’d go into her antecedents rather carefully if I were you. What the devil are you laughing for?”

Kelsey was grinning.

“She was suspicious of you,” he said. “Caught you coming out of the Sports Pavilion—andthought there was something odd about your manner!”

“Well, I’m damned!” Adam was indignant. “The cheek of her!”

Inspector Kelsey resumed his authoritative manner.

“The point is,” he said, “that we think a lot of Meadowbank round these parts. It’s a fine school.

And Miss Bulstrode’s a fine woman. The sooner we can get to the bottom of all this, the better forthe school. We want to clear things up and give Meadowbank a clean bill of health.”

He paused, looking thoughtfully at Adam.

“I think,” he said, “we’ll have to tell Miss Bulstrode who you are. She’ll keep her mouth shut—don’t fear for that.”

Adam considered for a moment. Then he nodded his head.

“Yes,” he said. “Under the circumstances, I think it’s more or less inevitable.”