Mrs Bradley stood for about three seconds looking upon this scene of devastation. Then she turned about very sharply, but still silently, and went upstairs to the study-bedroom of the head student.
‘Miss Mathers, dear child,’ she said, waking her. Miss Mathers woke without either surprise or resentment.
‘Oh, good morning, Warden,’ she said. In place of the genial cackle she anticipated, Mrs Bradley said urgently:
‘Who, among these students, is particularly friendly with Miss Vincent, the student who had appendicitis?’
‘Oh — er — Miss Smith, from the same Hall, I think, Warden.’
‘Miss Smith’s number?’
‘Number Three.’
‘Go and rouse her. Tell her to put on her dressing-gown and report to me on the ground floor immediately. Reassure her. I don’t want her descending on me in a state of nerves or peevishness.’
‘I see, Warden.’
‘I’ll tell you all about it later on. Bless you, dear child. Be just as quick as ever you can.’
‘Is Miss Vincent worse, Warden?’
‘No, not worse. Just in need of an affectionate friend.’
‘I understand.’
The admirable girl leapt out of bed, and, pulling her dressing-gown about her as she went, made her way to Miss Smith’s room and roused that somewhat lymphatic student from slumber.
‘Miss Vincent’s taken a funny fit. Nothing serious, the Warden says, but she’s got a bit nervy, or something. Will you tazz down to the ground floor? Quicker the better. It’s nothing much. Don’t worry.’
Miss Smith, a good soul, thrust back counterpane, blankets and sheet, abandoned, without a sigh, the laze in bed she had promised herself that morning (for another student had volunteered to bring up her breakfast) and went down to the ground floor, a trifle flummoxed by the sudden awakening and the summons, but anxious to do what she could.
‘Ah, Miss Smith, my dear,’ said Mrs Bradley, ‘you are fond of Miss Vincent?’
‘Oh, yes, we’re bosoms,’ observed Miss Smith, eagerly extending her chest.
‘Right. Well, now, Miss Smith, I don’t need to tell you that people under the influence of a single, terrifying idea can sometimes contrive to do extraordinary things. Miss Vincent has had in her mind, poor girl, for some time now, the terrifying idea of an operation — cutting, cutting, cutting. The consequence is, that (quite unconsciously, of course), she has cut off, in her sleep (a kind of sleep-walking we should call it), all her beautiful hair. It is a perfectly natural reaction, but, as you can imagine, it will be a very considerable shock to her to find out what she has done. You are well-disposed enough to bear the brunt of that shock for the poor child. Go in to her, and when she wakes up, break the news to her, and comfort her, as I know you certainly can.’
‘Oh, Warden!’ said the dismayed Miss Smith. ‘I shall make a mess of it!’
‘No, you won’t,’ said Mrs Bradley. ‘You’re fond of her, you see.’
‘Oh, I do wish I hadn’t left you!’ said Deborah, on Tuesday evening, when she heard of it. ‘I knew I ought not to have gone.’
‘You look the better for the change,’ said Mrs Bradley, ‘and you couldn’t have done anything if you’d been here, I’m sure. And Miss Smith managed beautifully, bless her heart! They had a nice little cry together, and then, of all things, Miss Vincent admitted that she’d wanted to have her hair off for years, ever since she was nine, and her parents wouldn’t hear of it. So we sent straight away for a hairdresser, who trimmed up the hair, and later on she’s going to have it waved, and she’s perfectly happy about it, and has written home to break the news. So all has ended very nicely, except for me.’
‘How…for you?’
‘She didn’t cut her own hair, child.’
‘I should have thought it would have been quite a natural thing. I read of a case just like it. The girl had had a serious operation…’
‘Nonsense, child.’
‘No, really.’
‘I don’t think so. Do you mean the case of Miss E., as the psychologists so enthrallingly put it? Miss E. of Attleborough?’
‘I think it was.’
‘Well, she cut off her hair before the operation. She knew she’d got to have the operation, and it preyed on her mind.’
‘Oh, yes, you’re right. You mean that Miss Vincent would have got over all the horror…’
‘Yes. You see, in the case of acute appendicitis the whole thing is over and done with in a few hours. In goes the patient and out comes the appendix, and that’s all there is to it, except a certain amount of inconvenience afterwards.’
‘Then…?’
‘Yes, I’m afraid so. Somebody is determined to make my stay at Athelstan as uncomfortable as possible.’
‘Miss Murchan’s disappearance…?’
‘I imagine so. It should not be difficult to put one’s finger on the mischief-maker.’
‘You don’t mean that you know who is at the bottom of all this business?’ asked Deborah.
‘Well, child, let us ask ourselves a few questions. Ah, here is Lulu with the coffee.’
The negro maid, her broad face beaming, put down the tray and began to pour.
‘Hullo, Lulu,’ said Deborah. ‘Had a good holiday?’
‘Yes, Miss Cloud. Ah nebber work so hard in ma life! C’lectin’ up dem coconuts Ephraim knock down, until he was warned off three shies, and nobody else wouldn’t let him have no balls because dey’d had word from de udders dat he was a one ball one coconut man.’
She went out, beaming proudly. Deborah turned to Mrs Bradley for enlightenment. Mrs Bradley grinned.
‘I have become Lulu’s confidante,’ she observed. ‘She has a young man named Ephraim Duke, a mulatto. He can hit any-thing he throws at, up to a distance of thirty yards, twenty times out of twenty. I told Lulu I had a passion for coconuts.’
‘You haven’t!’
‘Actually, in the sense you mean, no. Well, she brought back two suitcases full. I told her to take a taxi to the station at the other end, and George went to meet her with my car at this end. Very good of Ephraim, wasn’t it?’
Deborah looked at her suspiciously, but Mrs Bradley’s face told her nothing at all.
‘I suppose it makes sense somewhere,’ she admitted. ‘But what were you saying when Lulu came in? Do you mean you’ve decided which student it was who gave the wrong name when you collared her out of that circle of young men who were dancing round the bonfire on the first night of term?’
‘No, child. But I can find her when I want her. She’s in Columba, I should say, on present evidence.’
‘How do you know?’
‘I deduced it. You see, she can’t be on the Staff, unless she is Miss Topas. She can’t be Miss Topas — or can she?’
‘How do you mean?’
‘Has Miss Topas an alibi for the night of last Saturday, child?’
‘Well, she was talking to your nephew, his wife and myself up to midnight. Does that give her an alibi?’
‘Yes, child. It must be quite two hundred miles, from my nephew’s pig-farm to this equally remote spot. Yes, I think we may say Pass, Miss Topas; all’s well.’
‘But you have never thought Miss Topas had anything to do with all these ridiculous goings-on, have you?’
‘No, child; but it is as well to eliminate our friends as soon as we can.’
She grinned again.
‘Besides,’ said Deborah hotly, ‘Miss Topas wouldn’t go about cutting off people’s hair.’
‘Miss Topas is very intelligent,’ said Mrs Bradley, ’and if it was thought that there was someone sneaking about Athelstan at night cutting off people’s hair, there would be immediate panic. In fact, among girls of the age of these students I cannot think of anything more likely to cause disquiet, except…’
‘Yes?’