‘I’ve got to know how Miss Murchan was decoyed,’ she insisted, ‘and as I can’t imagine the circumstances I must attempt to reproduce them.’
‘But it will turn College upside-down,’ wailed the Principal. ‘And, after all,’ she added, with the first gleam of humour which Mrs Bradley had seen in her, ‘you’ve already gone outside the scope which was to be allowed you. We asked you to investigate privately a College mystery — the disappearance of Miss Murchan. You would never have been asked, nor given any scope at all, if we had dreamed you were going to find a murderer, and let us in for all the horrible publicity of a trial.’
‘It hasn’t come to that yet,’ said Mrs Bradley. ‘But there it is,’ she concluded. ‘I want you to ask in the Staff Common Room for a volunteer to take the part of Miss Murchan. Please don’t select Miss Topas. She’s far too intelligent and enterprising. What I want is a good stupid horse that will eat his oats, as I feel that Miss Menzies would say. Miss Harbottle might do, and Miss Crossley would be excellent, so if either of them volunteers, please snap her up at once and ask her to come and see me.’
Miss du Mugne, although giving no impression that she was entering into the spirit of the thing, said she would do what she could, and next morning, the Wednesday before that Saturday on which the dance was to be held, a dignified but apprehensive victim, in the person of Miss Crossley, the Bursar, presented herself in Mrs Bradley’s sitting-room at Athelstan and announced that she had come to be instructed.
‘That’s very nice indeed of you,’ said Mrs Bradley. ‘I hope you don’t mind, but a particularly graceless nephew of mine is going to assist in the proceedings. I want someone very strong, so I had to get a young man, for I don’t think we have another woman in College with the vigour and muscular control of Miss Cornflake.’
‘Not the P.T. people?’ inquired Miss Crossley.
‘They might, but then, they’ve no imagination,’ replied Mrs Bradley.
‘I feel flattered!’ exclaimed Miss Crossley. As it was kinder not to disabuse her of the notion that the same quality was required in the passive as in the active partner in the experiment, Mrs Bradley made no comment on this exclamation and invited the guest to have some sherry. Miss Crossley preferred coffee, she said, in the morning, so, with this and some biscuits to assist them, they got down to the plan of campaign.
‘Don’t bother about anything at all until ten o’clock,’ said Mrs Bradley. ‘Enjoy the dance, have supper with the students, and try to keep your mind off our little reconstruction of Miss Murchan’s disappearance.
‘At ten we shall have the twilight waltz. During it somebody will tweak your hair, and as soon as the lights go up a student will come up to you and ask you whether you know that your hair is coming down. That is your cue. Go at once to the hall door, as though you were going along to the Staff cloakroom.’
‘Yes?’ said Miss Crossley. ‘And then?’
‘Your part is over, except so far as you may be directed by my nephew, to whom, by the way, I will introduce you if you would care to come to dinner this evening. By the way, you will scarcely need to be told that you need fear no violence, either from my nephew or from anybody else. I say this, in case you thought there would be a struggle. There will be nothing unpleasant.’
‘Oh, thank you for the assurance, but, really, I shouldn’t have minded in the least,’ replied the Bursar, surprisingly.
Jonathan presented himself before his aunt at a quarter past five, whilst the students were having tea. Deborah, who always had tea with the Warden unless they decided that one of them ought to be on duty, had not been informed that he was coming and nearly jumped out of her chair when he was announced.
Jonathan kissed his aunt between her brilliant black eyes, kissed the tip of Deborah’s nose, took the lid off the teapot, sniffed, said: ‘Lapsang? All right, I’ll have some,’ took the plate of cakes to the light and selected the largest, and generally behaved in the idiotic but attractive manner adopted by young men in front of affectionate women.
‘But what are you doing here?’ asked Deborah, when Mrs Bradley, by providing her nephew with the lowest chair in the room, had made it easier for him to remain seated in it than to attempt to get up and torment either of them.
‘Come to take up my new appointment, please, ma’am,’ replied her swain, stretching out his long legs and looking at them with great satisfaction. ‘I’ve been given a job at this College.’
‘I don’t believe it! And, if you have, I shall resign. I can’t bear the thought of having you all over the place all the time,’ said Deborah decidedly.
‘And to think we’re going to be married in a couple of months! Still, never mind that now. How much of the terrain have I got to encompass this evening?’ he demanded, turning to his aunt.
‘None, dear child. Tomrrow morning you can walk round with George, who will show you the grounds and paths and the possible pitfalls you will encounter after dark, and then in the afternoon Deborah can show you all over the College buildings, including the best way to get to the Halls from College itself.’
‘Including Columba?’ inquired Jonathan. ‘I must see Columba again. It represents the scene of my most ill-conceived and misdirected action. Deborah’s hated me ever since she accepted me! Haven’t you, Deb?’
‘I’m not going to take him over College tomorrow,’ said Deborah firmly. ‘I refuse to be seen about with him. Until he knows how to behave, you can take him over College yourself.’
‘I can’t. I’m going to the mental hospital to visit Mr Princep,’ said Mrs Bradley. ‘And don’t forget,’ she smiled, favouring Deborah with a slight lowering of the left eyelid, ‘that the Principal will expect to be introduced to him.’
‘Good idea,’ said Deborah, brightening up. ‘Then he’ll have to ask her for at least one dance on Saturday. That’ll learn you, my lad,’ she added triumphantly.
‘I shall refer to you throughout as my girl friend,’ said Jonathan, with a leer which vied in malevolence with the best efforts of his aunt. But when Mrs Bradley had gone, and Lulu had cleared, he got up out of his chair, stubbed out his cigarette, stood by the table a minute or two, and then, stooping over Deborah, picked her up with a grunt and carried her over to the settee.
‘Don’t!’ said Deborah, who was still afraid of him.
‘Mean it?’ said Jonathan. Deborah, who realized that the question was rhetorical, did not answer.
The young gentlemen from Wattsdown, all washed behind the ears, as Kitty put it, arrived in private buses or in cars or on motor-cycles — the last-named carrying any number of passengers from two to five — at seven o’clock, to find the girls already in the College hall, for the proceedings had begun officially at half past six, following the usual Saturday high tea instead of dinner.
There was a programme of twenty-four dances, with space for extras, supper was to be at half past nine, and the party would be declared over at eleven.
There were banked flowers and evergreens on the front and sides of the dais, sitting-out corners had been devised with skill, taste and discretion, an orchestra, hired at Mrs Bradley’s expense from Leeds, was looming behind the potted plants, and except for the one or two students who had asked for week-end leave, the whole of the College was prepared to be en fête.
Mrs Bradley had bought a new frock, not for herself but for Deborah. She had sworn Kitty to secrecy, and, to the mystification of the whole Hall, had sneaked her out of Miss Topas’s lecture on Richard the Second with the full connivance and support of that enthusiast for Plantagenet kings, and had taken her, George driving, all the way to London, where they had spent the night at an hotel. Next morning they had gone out and chosen the frock, judging it for size and fit by one which Mrs Bradley had borrowed (on the excuse that she wanted to try it on?) and at nightfall on the Friday they made a triumphant return, pulled Deborah out of ‘a mess of English essays’, said Kitty, recounting the exciting story to an awe-stricken group, and put the frock on her.