‘I should not think that would apply to the scouts here, either. I don’t think we pay them nearly enough for what they do.’
‘I was speaking in general terms. However, to return to the special subject under discussion, it appears that this particular scout had taken umbrage over some triviality or other – the disappearance of some bottles of wine, I believe.’
‘Scarcely a trivial matter with wine the price it is since the last budget,’ said Laura.
‘Well, at any rate, the Warden’s nephew, a man named Lawrence, appears to have accused the scout in front of the College Bursar. The case was disproved, but the man seems to have been determined upon some form of revenge. Apparently he had overheard part of a conversation involving a woman he knew, a woman who used her stage name of Coralie St Malo, although he knew her as a Miss Piggen. Anyhow, the fellow seems to have come to the conclusion that it was a clandestine assignment, since he could think of no good reason for a meeting between Lawrence who, after all, is the Warden of Wayneflete’s nephew, and a girl from Headman’s Lane. He decided that it might be interesting to follow up the matter, so he sneaked along and was a witness of the meeting at a public house between Lawrence and this woman. It was the second time he had seen them together, the first having been in the market, where he overheard their conversation.’
‘So the Wayneflete College scout had known the young woman,’ said Dame Beatrice.
‘She had lived in the next street from his. It’s rather a poor quarter of the town and Headman’s Lane is not the most salubrious part of it, even at that. The residents in his own street regard themselves as a cut above the Laneites. That is why he thought there was something very fishy about Lawrence’s getting together with the girl in a public house so far out of the town. But what do you know about Coralie St Malo, Beatrice?’
‘Oh, I heard her name mentioned some week or so ago,’ said Dame Beatrice evasively. ‘Did the College servant gain anything from his eavesdropping?’
‘He claims that he was a witness of the public house meeting. It began cordially, but degenerated into a quarrel. He was in the public bar, but the two met in the saloon bar. However, the counters are at right angles to one another so that, at slack times, one barman or barmaid can attend to both. He was in a strategic position, therefore, for a little spying and eavesdropping. He seems, from what he overheard, to have come to the conclusion that the woman was demanding some kind of compensation. He assumed that it was for breach of promise of marriage, for she said that if she did not obtain satisfaction she (in her own words, according to this fellow) would know what to do about it.’
‘Well,’ said the High Mistress, ‘Mr Lawrence could hardly give her one sort of satisfaction, seeing that he is already married to the Dean’s secretary.’
‘He told my son that it was to one of your dons,’ said Dame Beatrice. ‘He must be a man of shallow character if snobbishness of that sort is part of his make-up.’
‘Under present conditions, Miss St Malo might be unwise to invoke the law over a question of compensation,’ said the redhaired Fairlie, pursuing his own train of thought, ‘especially if there were no witnesses to an offer of marriage. I don’t know much about that side of the law, but I do know that breach of promise cases don’t by any means always succeed, especially nowadays.’
‘In this instance,’ said Dame Beatrice, ‘it was not a question of breach of promise in the sense that you mean.’
The others looked at her, but she added nothing to this statement. The Chief Constable went on with his story.
‘Apparently, by the time they left the public house, the quarrel had been resolved, for Lawrence drove the woman in his own car to her lodging-house. The scout, who had gone to their rendezvous on his motorcycle, followed them. Lawrence and the girl went to the house in Headman’s Lane and the man says he waited outside for an hour, but Lawrence did not emerge, so he went to his own home, intending to call upon Miss St Malo on the following morning to find out what he could and, presumably, to cut himself in on any deal which might have been made between the two parties. I suppose he intended to offer to support Miss St Malo’s claim if his deductions as to a possible breach of promise action proved to be correct.’
‘You said that this man lived in her neighbourhood, but how well did he know Miss St Malo?’ asked Dame Beatrice.
‘That is one of the things we have to find out. However, to go on with the man’s story, it appears that he did call on the following morning, only to find nobody at home.’
‘Why wasn’t he about his College duties?’
‘Oh, didn’t I mention that? The fellow had taken so much umbrage over the accusation of having stolen the wine that he had handed in his notice, so for the time under consideration he was unemployed.’
‘With leisure to make as much mischief as he could,’ said Laura.
‘That’s it. He says he called several times on Miss St Malo after that, but she was not in residence. He questioned the other residents, but nobody had seen her leave, so he states that he thought it his duty to contact the police because of the quarrel in the pub and the threats he had heard the woman utter. We made enquiries and we turned up a very significant fact. Lawrence and Miss St Malo were married twelve years ago at a registrar’s office in Portsmouth and we can find no evidence that they were ever divorced.’
‘But that is impossible!’ exclaimed the High Mistress. ‘As I said, he is married to the Dean’s secretary.’
‘Well, he may be married to her now,’ said the Chief Constable drily, ‘but he wasn’t a few weeks ago, not legally anyway, because then this St Malo woman was still alive and we can prove it.’
‘You have nothing, then, except this servant’s somewhat tainted evidence, to indicate that she is not alive at this moment,’ said Dame Beatrice.
‘The fact remains that she has disappeared from her lodging, and that the last time she was seen was in company with Lawrence. Then there was the demand for money and a quarrel.’
‘Are there any other witnesses, apart from this disgruntled manservant?’ asked Dame Beatrice.
‘The barmaid at the public house remembers the quarrel. It was too early in the evening for the bar to be much patronised, so she noticed the couple particularly, and states that they seemed ill-assorted. In her own words, ‘him being quite the gentleman and her as common as muck’. However, she also states that the man talked the woman round, bought her a second drink and that they left the bar apparently on friendly terms. Later, two women who have rooms in the same lodginghouse as Miss St Malo saw her come back that same evening with a man, but this was so common an occurrence that they were not even interested and cannot describe the man. Miss St Malo seems to have done a moonlight flit, however.’
Lunch over, Dame Beatrice and Laura took the path between the High Mistress’s and the Fellows’ gardens and reached Bessie’s Quad. Here they found the student awaiting them. Laura went over to where she had parked the car on the previous afternoon and Dame Beatrice greeted Miss Runmede.
‘I do hope you have not been waiting long,’ she said. ‘I don’t want to take up too much of your time, but I am more than ever interested in your ghostly prowler. I wonder whether you will be kind enough to show me exactly where he was on the occasions on which you saw him?’
‘Yes, of course I will.’
‘And, after that, if you have no objection, I should like to be taken to the window from which you observed him.’
‘Well,’ said Miss Runmede, when the two ghost-walks were completed, ‘that’s as near as I can remember, but it seems very different by daylight and of course it’s different from down here. I was high up in the building when I saw him each time.’