Adders on the Heath

'We didn't believe him at first,' put in Maidston. 'I remember saying to my wife that, if anybody did any bullying, it would be Clive, and that, if anybody got another boy into trouble, it would again be Clive.'

'In the end, though,' said Mrs Maidston, 'the letters got so hysterical that we were forced to believe him.'

'So we took him away. It's been a great nuisance, of course. Had to pay a tutor. Turned out to be a real young rogue. Don't wonder he was dismissed his post at the school. Didn't know what he was like when we took him on, but found out soon enough and he had to go,' said Maidston.

'Ah, yes, you refer to Mr Richardson. I understood that Clive liked him, though.'

'He would!' said Mrs Maidston. Dame Beatrice wondered what Clive had been up to since her last visit.

'I suppose you will eventually find another school for him,' she said, 'as the tutoring was so unsatisfactory.'

'Oh, he's no longer with us,' said Maidston. 'Did you not notice how peaceful everything is?'

'Not with you?'

'No. His mother, a former servant of ours, came along a few days ago and demanded the boy back. Said she was now married and that her husband was prepared to have Clive live with them. We tried to persuade her that we could do a great deal more for the boy than she could, but she wouldn't be convinced. In fact, she became extremely abusive to my wife-I was not at home at the time, unfortunately-so my wife asked her to wait while she telephoned me and as soon as I heard the story I agreed that the woman should take the boy away. There seemed nothing else for it, and really, as my wife will tell you, Clive had been such a little pest and nuisance, since the tutor went, that I was not altogether sorry to see the back of him.'

'I asked the girl for her address and said we should like to keep in touch-write to Clive, you know, and send to him for Christmas and his birthday, take him out sometimes, all that sort of thing-but she refused to give me her address and told me, very rudely, to mind my own business,' said Mrs Maidston.

'I see. Have you no idea where he has gone?'

'I have not. It could be Southampton or even London, or, of course, it might be one of the villages round here. I couldn't do more than ask for the address, could I?'

'How long had you had Clive? Since babyhood?' asked Dame Beatrice.

'Oh, no! I couldn't possibly look after a baby! I told the girl before she left us to go into hospital to have the child, that if she put in into an orphanage until it was old enough to wash itself and so on, I would consider adopting it, whether boy or girl. I heard from her again when Clive was six. Well, I went to see him and it was arranged that we should have him on trial with a view to adoption later.'

'We have had him for nearly four years,' said Maidston. 'It was only my wife's kind heart and my own rooted objection to giving in without a struggle, which caused us to keep him so long. Actually, as I have indicated, it was a great relief to me to come home the other evening and find that the boy had gone. Of course,' he added with some suddenness, 'Richardson could have known about those test-tubes you mentioned. He had complete charge of the boy for several hours a day.'

'Ah, yes,' said Dame Beatrice. Maidston narrowed his eyes and asked,

'What is all this about the test-tubes, anyway? It couldn't by any chance, have anything to do with the inquest on those two chaps found dead in the Forest, could it? I read about that in the local paper.'

'A most curious affair,' said Dame Beatrice. 'Yes, you have made a correct deduction.' Maidston raised his eyebrows questioningly, but she did not say anything more. She thanked the couple for having accorded her what she described as a fruitful interview and took leave of them. Maidston, however, insisted upon seeing her to her car and said, on the way out to the drive, 'Is young Richardson involved more deeply than we know?'

'There is no reason to think that he was responsible for murder, especially as you took care to destroy the poisons Clive brought back from school,' Dame Beatrice tartly replied.

'I'm still very doubtful whether the test-tubes contained poisons, Dame Beatrice,' returned Maidston. 'All the same, if Clive could get hold of poisons at school, what was to prevent Richardson doing the same?' he added. 'After all, he was a master there and so in a position, I suppose, to help himself to the stock.'

'How right you are. Well, good-bye, Mr Maidston. I hope we shall meet again.'

'Good-bye, Dame Beatrice.' He stood on the steps to wave as the car moved off. Dame Beatrice drove straight to the hotel for lunch. She had decided slightly to alter her previous plan of campaign and to tackle Richardson next. Laura had remained in the car, as she had suggested, during both the visits and had been given an account of each. When they got back, Laura, under instructions, did some telephoning and then took Denis for a short walk while Dame Beatrice had a private session with Richardson.

Richardson seemed nervous, she thought, when told of her plan. He also seemed surprised when she said she had visited the school again, and when she added that she had followed up her encounter with the Headmaster by going straightway to interview the Maidstons, he was moved to protest.

'They wouldn't do much to help me. On the contrary,' he said. 'We parted brass-rags, you know, although they sent me a full month's pay.'

Dame Beatrice agreed that she did know, but that the Maidstons had been very helpful indeed, although not, perhaps, in the way that they had intended.

'But I can't go into that at the moment,' she added. 'My comments must be reserved for the Superintendent.'

That bloke is still out to get me,' said Richardson lugubriously. 'He really believes I'm guilty, and there's no way I can think of to prove to him that he's wrong.'

'My interviews gave me a pointer or two, if it is of any comfort to you to know it.'

Richardson was cheered up miraculously by this remark and lost his embarrassed and nervous manner.

'I say,' he exclaimed with some eagerness, 'that means you're still on my side!'

'I am on the side of truth. I do not claim to be on the side of justice, because there is no such thing, as every schoolboy knows. Even the Almighty, we are told, has a slight bias in favour of mercy, and the mystical poet Blake goes even further and suggests that we pray also for pity, peace and love. You recollect the passage, perhaps?'

'Yes,' replied Richardson, 'but what's that got to do with it?'

'Almost nothing. I pity the child Clive and I would be prepared to extend mercy to him. To connect him with peace and love is beyond my scope. One thing I can, and will, tell you about him. The Maidstons have given him up.'

'Given him up? I thought the little perisher was the apple of Mrs Maidston's eye. It certainly seemed like that when I was there.'

'She seems to have altered her opinion. What I want you to do is to give me as clear an account as you can of the time you spent there, and then I want you to answer one question. I do not wish to sound dramatic, but I want you to answer it as though you were on oath.'

'Heavens!' said Richardson, with a return of his former nervousness. 'That sounds most fearfully sinister.'

'Never mind. Just you fire away. Oh, one point before you begin. Have you any reason to think that Mr Maidston is, or was, connected in any way with the Scylla and District Athletic and Social Club?'

'Not that I know of, but the only real contact I had with that club was in competing against them, and, of course, my two rows with Colnbrook. Both were individual events, so to speak, if you remember, so the club, as such, didn't come into it except at the feed they gave us, and Maidston certainly wasn't present at that.'