‘And just my luck,’ said Kitty, detailing the pleasures of the day when she encountered the others before tea, ’not a Supervisor on the horizon. I bet I fluff next time, and someone is sure to walk in.’
‘We had the Deb.,’ said Alice, smiling happily. ‘She just walked into my Arithmetic lesson and said: “Cheer up, Miss Boorman. I’m twice as frightened as you are.” And then she marked me — look!’
A red star, mark of extreme approbation, blazed, albeit smudgily (for Alice had wept over it in secret joy during the major part of the dinner hour), on the front page of Alice’s notes.
‘She told me off,’ said Laura. ‘Reminded me the teacher is the stage-manager, not the chief actor. Devastating, I call it. Besides, she’s a perfectly rotten teacher herself.’
Her friends giggled unfeelingly, and neither they nor the recipient of Deborah’s uncharitable advice allowed it to interfere in the slightest with their tea.
Between tea and dinner there were no lectures during School Practice. Some of the students commenced their preparation for the next day’s work; Alice was one of them. Laura took Kitty apart, and they walked up and down the gravel path between Athelstan and Beowulf deep in conversation.
‘But I’d be scared stiff, Dog,’ Kitty protested, at the end of ten minutes’ earnest monologue by Laura. ‘Besides, there’s Alice. We can’t leave her on her own. And then, I’ve got P.T. tomorrow. I must swot a beastly drill table. What comes after Group Four?’
‘Lateral,’ Laura replied. ‘But you’d better mug it up, in case I’m wrong. And don’t let ’em do Forward Punching. They only edge up and hit one another in the back.’
‘We’ve got a whale of a P.T. specialist in our school,’ continued Kitty. ‘One of those hags from Rule Britannia’s. She must be at least thirty, but she’s marvellous. Name of Cornflake. I suppose she’s Uncertif. and has come for a year to get the doings.’
‘Name of what?’
‘Cornflake.’
‘Rot.’
‘But I’ve seen it written down.’
Then it can’t be pronounced as it’s written. You couldn’t be called Cornflake.’
‘I don’t see why not. Look at your name.’
‘Less about my name. I’d have you know, you wretched Anglo-Saxon, that the Clan Menzies was out in the Forty-Five, and on the right side, too!’
‘I’m not a wretched Anglo-Saxon,’ said Kitty, wounded. ‘The Trevelyans are a very old Cornish family, as anybody but a halfwit would know.’
‘All the more reason why you should live up to your family traditions and assist me in my ghost-hunt. Don’t tell me a Trevelyan ever turned his back and neglected to march breast-forward.’
‘Oh, all right, but I shall be a rag tomorrow, I warn you. And I have got this wretched P.T.’
‘All right, don’t fret, then. I’ll hunt alone.’
‘No, you won’t. But I think we shall have to tell Alice.’
‘I have other plans for that jolly old nurse of ninety years. She’s got to check up on the personnel of the students, to make certain it’s nobody in Athelstan playing silly tricks.’
‘We know it isn’t. Mrs Croc. called the roll.’
‘Like hell she did! After giving plenty of time for everybody to assemble in the Common Room, no matter where they’d been. I know for a fact that Cartwright was having a surreptitious bath in the maids’ bathroom below stairs when the siren sounded.’
‘Was she?’
‘Of course she was. She said that from where she was it sounded like seventy devils whistling the “Soldiers’ Chorus”.’
‘Was she scared?’
‘Not a bit. Said she thought some fool was pulling a stunt. She just wrapped herself in her bathgown and toddled upstairs, prepared with explanations if asked for; which they weren’t. Now do you see what I mean?’
‘What did she have on her feet?’
‘I don’t know. What’s it matter?’
‘Mrs Croc. is a detective, don’t forget.’
‘I’m not forgetting. Even Sherlock Holmes could slip up. She probably wore her rubber shoes, and put them out on the window-ledge to dry. That’s what I should have done.’
‘I don’t believe you could get away with it without Mrs Croc. knowing, all the same. What’s the odds she knew all about Cartwright and her bath, anyway? Maybe she even gave her time to get to the Common Room in time for Roll-Call. Think that out.’
‘I have. Ad delirium tremens. So what?’
‘Well, she knows it was nothing to do with Cartwright, and she wasn’t going to let her get mixed up in any subsequent inquiry.’
‘Golly,’ said Laura, respectfully. ‘Your own idea?’
‘You’re not the only person who can add up two and two,’ said Kitty, with the sunny good temper which characterized her. ‘Anyway, if she was wise to Cartright she’ll be wise to us if we go poking about down there. That’s my point.’
‘And, granted your premises, not a bad one,’ said Laura thoughtfully. ‘Look here, then, I’ll tell you what we’ll do. We’ll give the ghost another chance, and if we hear that whistling row again we’ll go into action, young Alice and all. She’s game, all right, although her teeth are apt to chatter. How does that strike you?’
‘Alice wouldn’t tackle a ghost.’
‘Ghost your old goloshes. Have you seen young Alice play net-ball? If she can’t jump on a ghost from behind and bite pieces out of its neck, I’m a cow’s grandmother.’
‘That’s still in the future,’ said Kitty, with happy inspiration.
On the following morning, Tuesday, Miss Topas put on her coat and turned the collar up. Then she checked the contents of her attaché-case, added an extra fountain-pen, glanced regretfully at the neat files of her lecture notes on their shelves in the warm, cheerful room, and then looked out of the window. Students in groups were walking across the grounds. There was a thick autumn mist which might turn to fine weather later in the day, or might, Miss Topas gloomily concluded, turn to rain. At any rate, she did not want to go out into it
Her assignments for that morning were to supervise three history lessons; one by Miss Holt, a brilliant student in the Second-Year, a resident of Bede Hall; the second by Miss Pinkley, a doubtful stayer, also in her second year, and the third by a First-Year student from Athelstan, Miss Priest.
Sandwiched between the second and third of these lessons came a physical training lesson by — for Kitty had read and pronounced the name aright — Miss Cornflake, a One-Year student from her own Hall, Columba.
Like many of the lecturers, Miss Topas, as she had already indicated to Deborah, objected strongly to supervising lessons in physical training. She knew nothing about the subject, she protested — nothing at all.
‘You used to play hockey for the County,’ said Miss Rosewell.
‘And since when has hockey-playing become a qualification for judging neck rest and arms upward stretch?’ Miss Topas demanded. Gently supplied with a copy of the Board’s syllabus, she refused to look at it.
‘If she keeps the little brutes on the move and cuts out Country Dancing she’ll be all right, so far as I’m concerned,’ she said.
‘If the students can take P.T. they can take anything,’ said the drawling voice of Miss Pettinsalt, throwing in a bone of contention at which she knew all the Common Room would snap.
Miss Topas, picking up her traps preparatory to departure into the misty morning, went over points in the debate that had followed. Deborah, she remembered, had made one contribution only.
‘I never know why, with some of these students, the children don’t break their necks,’ Deborah had observed.
‘They probably do,’ Miss Topas herself had answered, ‘but it isn’t found out until later.’