Her immediate reaction was to sit down on the box-room floor and cry; her second to find her sister. Margaret Carroway gave one look at the damage and then threw open the lid of her own trunk. Here the damage was even worse. Her dance frock had been torn to shreds, and not only her winter coat but two pairs of heavyweight winter pyjamas had been cut and torn until they were quite beyond repair.
Margaret kicked the lid of her trunk to close it, took her sister by the hand, and went off to lay the facts before the Warden.
Fortunately, although it was Saturday, the Warden was in. She accompanied the tearful Annet and the white-faced Margaret downstairs, and inspected the damage. She said very little. These were poor girls whose family, at some sacrifice, had allowed them to come to College. Infuriating and inconvenient as the loss of the clothes must have been to anyone, to these two girls it was something not far short of tragedy.
‘The College,’ said Mrs Bradley, when they had returned to her room, ‘will, of course, make good the damage. In fact, unless you have any very definite plans for this afternoon, I should suggest that you take a ‘late leave’ from me, your fare and some money, and go into York — or Leeds, if you can get a train — and see what you can do in the way of a little shopping. And — may I ask this of you, my dear students? — please don’t tell anybody else about this until I have spoken to the Principal. She is away for the week-end, so I shall not see her until Monday.’
They promised, murmured against taking the money but had it forced on them, and were hustled out of the house with time to catch the train which Mrs Bradley had looked up for them. When they had gone she went very thoughtfully down the stairs again to the basement, and stood for a long time looking at the door which led into the box-room. Then she went along the passage towards the bakehouse, then walked back, through the basement of Athelstan, towards the next Hall. There was a door to separate Athelstan from the bakehouse, another to separate Athelstan from the connecting piece of corridor, and still another, she knew, to separate this connecting corridor from the next Hall. All these doors were locked, as usual.
She took out her keys — a formidable bunch — unlocked the door to the bakehouse and the door to the passage, went down on hands and knees, and carefully inspected the floor. It had been so carefully swept, however, that nothing was to be gained by even the closest scrutiny. She went along to the kitchen to question the servants. The floor had been swept that morning at nine o‘ clock or thereabouts. It was swept every day. There were always students in and out of the box-room to get things out of their trunks or put things in. The wardrobe space in the study-bedrooms was so extremely limited that the trunks were continually requisitioned. The floor was often muddy. It was washed over twice a week. Students came down into the basement straight from muddy walks or from the games fields.
Mrs Bradley locked the box-room door, returned to her room and rang up Columba. To her delight, Miss Topas was in.
‘Yes,’ she said, in answer to Mrs Bradley’s inquiry, ‘I’ll come over at once. I wanted to go to York this afternoon, but I’ve only got thirty bob and couldn’t be bothered to go to the bank to cash a cheque. How’s Deborah?’
‘Out,’ replied Mrs Bradley. That’s the only reason I want to see you. Oh, and I want to try your keys, so bring them with you’.
She hung up, and had not long to wait, for Miss Topas appeared in less than five minutes, having run, she explained, falling into a chair and puffing loudly, all the way. What, she inquired, had Mrs Bradley discovered?
Mrs Bradley informed her.
‘And I’m sending a round robin to all Wardens and Sub-Wardens to check up on their students at night, as far as is possible,’ she added.
‘Clothes-slashing?’ said the Principal. ‘Have you any theories?’
‘None,’ said Mrs Bradley, ‘that you would wish to hear. For instance,’ she continued before the Principal could deny this, ‘I might say that I have a theory that it was not done by any student in my Hall, but you would reply, most justifiably, that it is a dirty bird that fouls its own nest.’ She watched, with bright black eyes, the Principal’s mental struggle, and then continued: ‘Or I might say that I have a theory that none of the students anywhere, in any Hall, is responsible.’
‘That brings us to the servants,’ said the Principal, in a tone of relief. ‘Or to the Staff,’ said Mrs Bradley, with a loud chuckle. ‘Or even to someone outside the College altogether,’ she concluded kindly.
‘Yes, but — ’ said the Principal.
‘I know. We have no proof, and we can do no good by formulating theories which at present are incapable of proof.’
‘At any rate we can change the locks at Athelstan,’ said the Principal. ‘That should prevent any unauthorized person from breaking in. I am rather inclined to your idea that it must be someone from outside. All our students come with such very good records.’
Mrs Bradley sighed inwardly. There was nothing, naturally, the Principal would have liked better than to believe that the culprit would be found outside the College, but she felt compelled to point out that she had presented other theories.
‘The Staff? Oh, nonsense, Mrs Bradley,’ said the Principal. ’The servants, if you like!’
Mrs Bradley pointed out that the servants came with even better records than the majority of the students. She added, to the mystification of the Principal, that she did not want the locks on the doors at Athelstan to be changed.
‘I don’t quite see your point, but I must agree, I suppose,’ said the Principal. ‘It is a very unfortunate occurrence, but if you don’t suspect your own students I can’t see why you are determined to appear to lay the blame on them. At least, that is the interpretation which will be put on it by the College. Why are you?’
‘Because the hunt is up,’ Mrs Bradley replied, ‘and although it is not yet well-nigh day, I do begin to see my way a little more clearly in the matter of Miss Murchan’s disappearance.’
‘I don’t really see that destructive ragging can have much to do with poor Miss Murchan, and I am seriously concerned about this clothes’ slashing. But, still, we cannot expect you to take breaches of the College peace as seriously as we do ourselves, I suppose,’ said the Principal. ’But if you have already come to some conclusions about poor Miss Murchan, that is most satisfactory.’
‘Conclusions is not perhaps the best term,’ said Mrs Bradley. ‘But I am at the point of having thought out one or two questions which I ought to ask you. It appears that Miss Murchan can hardly have been spirited away from the end of term dance without her knowledge and consent. It also appears that if she had a companion when she left the College, that companion must have been a woman, at any rate in the immediate environs of the building.’
‘It is very easy to get into and out of the grounds on such a night,’ remarked Miss du Mugne. ‘A great many of the visitors come by car and motor-cycle, owing to the distance from the station, and so the gates are left open until half-past eleven, half an hour after the official ending of the dance.’
‘Do you know that they were closed at half-past eleven that night?’
‘Oh, yes. In view of the unusual nature of the proceedings, Charles, the garage-and-groundsman, has orders to make sure that all except the Staff cars are off the premises by that time, and then he brings me the keys. It is the only occasion, I may say, on which we lock the main gate. Charles made his report as usual. Further, he declares that no car left before eleven, and Miss Murchan, of course, was not seen, so far as can be discovered, after half-past ten, when she went off to tidy her hair.’