Sir Peregrine sat down and took a quick swig straight from the half bottle of whisky concealed in his bottom drawer. He pressed a button underneath his desk. Miss Davis appeared as if by magic.
‘Get me the bloody solicitors,’ he snarled. ‘And get them now!’
Mrs Hamilton’s spoken French classes were going well. The Lower Sixth were well advanced into ‘A Scandal in Bohemia’. They had passed the point where the King of Bohemia reveals himself to Holmes and Watson and they have made the acquaintance of Irene Adler, the well-known adventuress. Mrs Hamilton wondered if she had picked too exotic a story, if she wouldn’t have done better with some more domestic problem set in Surrey with governesses and gamekeepers. She hadn’t yet tried to change the subject to murder at Allison’s — she rather feared there was no actual murder in ‘Scandal in Bohemia’ — as she hadn’t deemed it appropriate.
The boys read their section of the story or gazed longingly at Mrs Hamilton when they were not on duty. She had become the focus, the depository of the teenage longings and the teenage fantasies of an entire class. As she made her way back to the hotel that afternoon she checked behind herself a couple of times. It was as she thought. She was being followed. Francis had told her years before of a tingling sensation when somebody is coming after you. For Mrs Hamilton this was the second day of the pursuit. It was as she had predicted. She smiled slightly as she went into the hotel. Then she ran up the stairs and turned all the lights on in her suite of sitting room, bedroom and bathroom. After that she went out of the side door of the Crown, round the back of the green and tapped David Lewis lightly on the shoulder. ‘Come and have some tea,’ she said sweetly. ‘You’ll catch your death of cold out here.’
David Lewis followed his new teacher into the hotel. He thought he had turned red permanently. He suspected his face might never return to its normal condition. His eyes still had the look of puppy-like devotion they had shown in class.
Lady Lucy ordered tea and scones. The room was large with Georgian windows looking out over the green. ‘You’ll never make a detective like Sherlock Holmes if you follow people like that, David,’ she said with a smile. ‘I think you need to be more subtle, not so much sudden jumping behind trees.’
‘I just wanted to be close to you, Mrs Hamilton. I don’t quite know how to say this. I’ve never felt like this in my whole life, not ever…’
Lady Lucy was saved by the arrival of the tea. The maid poured two cups and handed them round before she left. Lady Lucy had been wondering how to extricate herself from this situation which could prove so embarrassing.
‘My husband should be here in a minute,’ she said brightly, buttering a scone. ‘He’s on his way up from London.’ She thought that might buy some time. She watched as David’s face fell. Maybe he hadn’t thought of her with a husband at all. Lady Lucy decided to take a gamble, a huge gamble.
‘He’s a detective, my husband, like Sherlock Holmes, only he’s real, my husband I mean.’
‘Really?’ said David Lewis. ‘And is he working on a case at present?’ There had been mention in the school of a detective who had talked to the headmaster and to Inspector Grime. What was his name? David Lewis didn’t think it was Hamilton.
Lady Lucy got there before him. ‘My married name is Powerscourt, Lady Lucy Powerscourt,’ she said. ‘Before that I was called Hamilton. And my husband’s called Francis.’
‘And are you detecting something up here?’ David Lewis had temporarily forgotten about love in favour of crime and investigation. This was like one of those shockers that passed round the school.
‘Of course we are, silly. And we’d like you to join us, to become part of our team. It depends, of course, on your being able to keep a secret.’
‘Of course I can keep a secret, Lady Powerscourt, Mrs Hamilton, dear me, what should I call you?’
‘You’d better go on calling me Mrs Hamilton, I think, David. In case the other name slips out in class.’
David Lewis stared at Lady Lucy for a moment. ‘You’re here because of the death of the bursar, aren’t you? Mr Gill. Is that the secret?’
‘Part of it, David, just part of it. There are other matters I can’t tell you about just yet. Very deep, very dark matters.’
‘What can I do to help? I’ll do anything, Mrs Hamilton, I’m so happy to be a part of the team.’
Lady Lucy cut him off. She thought he might be about to go back on to dangerous ground.
‘There is one thing,’ she said, ‘that would really help the investigation.’
‘What’s that?’
‘You remember there was a lot of talk about the false postman who came to the school, and who was almost certainly the murderer? And how the police repeated the exercise a couple of days later, exactly like the first visit?’
‘I do.’
‘The strange thing is that nobody has come forward with a description of the fake postman. Somebody must have seen him. If you’re looking for somebody, it helps if you know something of what he looked like. Was he short, was he tall, was he clean shaven, was he bald, did he have a crutch and a parrot on his shoulder, that sort of thing.’
David Lewis gazed helplessly into Lady Lucy’s eyes. ‘Some of us have felt badly about this for some time, Mrs Hamilton. It’s just that Inspector Grime rubbed so many of the boys up the wrong way. They decided not to cooperate.’
‘Of course,’ said Lady Lucy, unwilling to be drawn on the matter of the Inspector, ‘but what a way to begin your work with us, David. The information would be so very valuable. And inside our little band of investigators you would get the credit.’
This was it, David Lewis thought to himself, he was becoming part of a secret society like the Red-Headed League in the Sherlock Holmes stories. ‘Well, I was one of three or four people who got a good look at the man on the day of the murder,’ he began. ‘He looked about thirty to thirty-five, just under six feet tall, I would say, with an enormous black beard.’
‘Anything else?’
‘Just one tiny thing. He bumped into me quite heavily and said, “I’m so sorry.” The thing is, Mrs Hamilton, I have a bit of a reputation for being a mimic which means I always listen very carefully to how people sound when they talk. This chap didn’t come from round Norfolk way. I don’t think he was English at all. And he wasn’t American either. I lived in Washington for a while when my papa was at the embassy there and I can tell a Southern drawl from the sound of New York.’
‘Fascinating,’ said Lady Lucy. ‘That’s really useful, David. What a way to join the team! Francis will be so pleased when I tell him.’
‘Would it have been easier if he had been English, Mrs Hamilton? Easier for the detecting team, I mean?’
‘I’m not quite sure I follow you.’
‘Well, if he had been English, he would be here in England, wouldn’t he? But think of all the other places he could have come from. Australia? New Zealand? South Africa? What happens if he’s going home? Or if he’s already gone home? That would make our lives very difficult.’
Lady Lucy thought that young David Lewis might have a promising career in the detection business.
‘Just think of them as fresh fields to conquer, David. Fresh fields to conquer. Now then,’ she said, smiling at the boy, ‘we need to make a plan. We need to secure our communications. I think it would be best if we kept our meetings absolutely secret. You mustn’t tell anybody, not even your best friend in school.’
‘Of course, Mrs Hamilton. If I told anybody it wouldn’t be a secret.’
‘Quite right. I think we should meet here every other day. If we made it every day then somebody might notice. And there is one thing I would like you to do before our next meeting.’
‘What’s that, Mrs Hamilton?’
‘I want you to find out everything you can about the man who was killed, Roderick Gill the bursar. I know he didn’t teach you or anything like that, but there’s usually some gossip or scrap of information that might be useful.’