“I’ll tell you what there is, now I come to think of it,” said Henry. “There’s the underground installation for the central heating. I wonder whether they can have thought of that? It’s known to the College as the stoke-hole. That might fit the bill if they could get hold of the key.”
“How does one get to it?”
“Well, there’s a kind of janitor who looks after it. Access to it is by what looks like a half-door, with a tiny round-headed window, in the wall round by the kitchens, It’s down a steep step. I went in once with Jackson—that’s the janitor fellow—and he showed me round. I believe you may have hit on the very place, although I’m surprised the students should have known how to gain access to it. Well, one thing: if Jonah is down there he’ll be all right. It’s warm and dry, and there must be plenty of ventilation because Jackson has a sort of cubby-hole down there and uses it quite a lot in winter weather, he informed me. There’s an armchair—basket-work, with cushions—and a primus stove and a food cupboard—all modern conveniences, so to speak.”
“Well, shall we go and take a look?”
“Have to wait until I can get the key off Jackson tomorrow morning before we can get in, I’m afraid, but we could go to the doorway and speak. I don’t suppose the door is soundproof, so at least we may be able to establish whether Jones is there or not.”
“Could Jones have been down there for a couple of days without Jackson finding him, though?”
“Oh, yes. Jackson wouldn’t go down there in this weather. Let’s make a recce and take a butchers.”
As they had keys to the front door, they let themselves out that way and walked round the side of the mansion towards the kitchen regions. When they were under the pantry window, Henry switched on a torch and played the spotlight from it over the surrounding brickwork. A couple of yards further on, Hamish saw the round-headed glass in the half-door which Henry had mentioned. They pushed at the door and tried to rattle it, but it was well-fitted and did not budge. Hamish descended the step, knelt on the narrow stone doorsill, put his lips close to the key-hole and called out Jones’s name, but there was no response. Then Henry tried. His voice boomed back at him, but that was all.
“There’s no supervision in the halls of residence, is there?” asked Hamish, as Henry stood up.
“No, and to those I do have a key. We shan’t be popular if we go invading them at this time of night, though. Much better wait until the huts are empty tomorrow morning. Not that I think they’ll have hidden him there. Servants go in to clean up and make the beds and collect the laundry, you know, and there’s an odd-job fellow who empties waste-paper baskets and cleans boots and shoes.”
“The servants could be squared, perhaps.”
“By penniless students?”
“Well, scared into keeping quiet, then.”
“Possibly. All right, we’ll take a look round while the chaps are having breakfast. Is there anywhere else you can think of?”
“Well, he would hardly have been hidden in the room of one of the girls, but what about trying the attics?”
“The girls’ rooms?” said Henry thoughtfully. “You know, you may have hit on something there. It’s quite clear that the women students are in on the rag. It’s also fairly certain that they’re nervous about it. It’s true that most of the lasses hate old Jonah like poison, but there are one or two types who might take a pop at him and think the fun and games worthwhile. His prowess with Bertha may have given the hussies— and we’ve got our share of them—a bit of a kick.”
“Isn’t there the same objection, though?”
“How do you mean?”
“The servant problem.”
“No, as it happens, there isn’t. The girls are supposed to make their own beds and keep their rooms tidy.”
“What about their laundry, though?”
“They wash and iron their own bits of frippery and just chuck their bed-linen and so forth outside their bedroom doors every Thursday morning. I believe Miss Yale does an occasional inspection of rooms, but she always gives warning of her visits, so the girls are never taken on the hop. I really think, you know, James, that I’ll go and rake her out and suggest she does a round-up. If there’s anything scandalous going on, I think we should nip it in the bud.”
“I should think Miss Yale would nip us in the bud, if we go disturbing her at one o’clock in the morning.”
“Not she. Come along. Let’s chance it.”
Miss Yale’s large bed-sitter had a fanlight over the door and they could see that her light was on. Henry tapped and they waited. There was no invitation to them to enter, but after a few moments Miss Yale opened the door.
“Oh, it’s you two,” she said. “Come in. Sorry to have kept you waiting, but thought I’d better hide my chunk of porn in case it was one of the hussies. What can I do for you? If you’re looking for Jonah, try elsewhere. I haven’t got him.”
“How did you guess we were looking for Jonah?” Henry enquired, closing the door behind himself and Hamish.
“Spotted you snooping round the house. No luck, I suppose?”
“We’ve tried the changing-rooms and the stoke-hole,” said Hamish, “but haven’t found him.”
“I suppose you’ve tried his own room to make sure they haven’t trussed him up and bundled him into his own wardrobe or somewhere?”
“We wondered,” said Henry, with some diffidence, “whether, while we do that, you could make sure that none of your young ladies is giving him her hospitality.”
“Think it’s likely? I don’t. I’ll go the rounds, if you like, but it won’t be any help. Good thing I hadn’t gone to bed. You push along to Jonah’s quarters, then, and I’ll give the girls’ rooms the once-over. They are three to a room, so it won’t take me all that long.”
“Not much privacy for the girls, then,” said Hamish, when they had inspected Jones’s two splendid rooms and had assured themselves that he was not in residence or captivity there.
“Oh, they can curtain all the rooms into cubicles, I believe,” said Henry. “They probably like it quite well. Lots of delinquent girls are definitely gregarious, curiously enough. In fact, I would say that our young women are far more homogeneous than the men.”
Miss Yale returned at the end of twenty-five minutes.
“Nothing doing,” she reported. “A few cases of incipient lesbianism, but nothing more. They get lonely, you know, and as they can’t co-habit with the men, what can you expect? After all, they’re in prison here, poor little stinkers.” With this sympathetic pronouncement she said goodnight and closed her door.
“Now for the attics,” said Henry. But in the attics they drew blank once more. “Well, we shall have to give it up for tonight,” he added at last, “but in the morning I’ll inspect the halls of residence, just to leave no stone unturned, and get keys to the changing-rooms. I’m beginning not to like the look of things, and that’s a fact.”
chapter
5
Interviews
« ^ »
Well,” said Henry on the following morning, “there seems to be nobody in the stoke-hole, or anywhere else we thought of. If Jones doesn’t turn up at lunch I shall speak to Gassie and get him to utter threats.”
“What sort of threats?” asked Hamish.
“That is up to him. Expulsion of ringleaders, I suppose, although I do hope it won’t really come to that. The threat may be sufficient to bring them to their senses.”
“Who are the ringleaders?”
“One can do no more than guess, at this juncture. After all, there are those among us who have grievances, are there not?”
“Yes, but the chief sufferers from Jones’s machinations are still in hospital.”