He looked to his wife for approval, but Lydia glared at him and he plunged deeper into the mire: “You have to take your hats off to these schoolmaster chappies—facing up to serried ranks of brats like this just to earn a crust. Imagine being greeted by this lot on the front row on a Monday morning!” Something in his arrangement caught his attention and he picked out one face and thoughtfully placed it on the extreme left of the line.
“Marcus! You’re being facetious! I thought you’d understood! We don’t know who they are or where they are. These poor little sausages could well be victims of some unspeakable crime. These photos were secreted away in the pocket of a notebook of a dubious character violently done to death almost under the eyes of our Jackie!”
“If you say so, my dear,” Marcus batted on. “Though I don’t see what his death has to do with his photo album. Perhaps he owes the racecourse bookies a bundle? The Brighton gangs are notoriously strict about payment of debts. Leg-breaking and worse goes on! I get some of these cases up before me in the Magistrate’s Court after every big race. Or—more likely—he’s got Matron into trouble and she’s wreaked vengeance on him. Grabbed a tongue depressor and inserted it into a soft part? Something on those lines? I can’t see why you and Joe are making such a song and dance over these. Am I the only one to notice the obvious?”
Marcus collected their enquiring glances and shrugged his shoulders. “The tenth photograph!”
They looked again and counted silently.
“Conspicuous by its absence, you’d say. Hey? No sign here of Joe’s nephew, is there? I search for but I don’t find his handsome features in the gallery! If there’s anything going on, your Jackie has nothing to do with it. Not on the menu, I’d say.”
Lydia and Joe exchanged looks.
Married couples, Joe had observed, soon fell into a mutually agreed role-playing arrangement. In this marriage, Lydia was always presented as the clever one, the undervalued mainspring of the family and Marcus her largely ineffectual but indulgent and loving husband. Not all true, Joe considered. He turned to the comfortable figure of Marcus, fair hair glittering with silver in the lamp light, florid features beginning to show the effects of a second brandy. Joe resisted any invitation to patronise or underestimate his brother-in-law. The sharp eyes missed little, the good humour in his remarks often masked a fund of cool common sense.
“So how then, Marcus, would you account for this unusual collection in our victim’s private journal?” Joe appealed to him. “Any theories? Help us out!”
Marcus turned over one of the images. “Oh, right-o. If you like. For a start, they’ve been roughly cut with scissors from a larger print, see here.… And we’re all familiar with this size of head shot. Been taken from the annual class photograph. You know—line them up on the first day of term … shoot ’em … and there they are preserved in the amber glow of happy schooldays forever more. The girls have both got their own class photos in their rooms. Compare them for size in the morning if you like.”
Joe nodded encouragement.
“And, if you look on the back, as I just did,” Marcus went on, gaining confidence, “you’ll see something remarkable, which is to say, nothing at all! The girls—and all the children I know—write the name of their classmates on the back. But as you see, nothing here to identify these fellows. I dare say this Rapson knew exactly who was in his collection but was too discreet to record it. You’ll just have to find other means of identifying them. If you think it will help. Mightn’t be easy. Some of these are much older than the others. The photos I mean. This one here’s in sepia.” He pointed to the one he’d moved to the end of his row. “Pre-war, would you say?”
Joe nodded again.
“I know you detectives look for links and, apart from the obvious ones like uniform, I’d say there’s just one.”
“Which is?”
“Age.”
“Age? They’re all prep-school boys. Between the ages of seven and thirteen. Colonial and foreign pupils a speciality. All dietary requirements catered for.…” Joe quoted from the brochure he’d been handed.
“I’d judge first year of prep school. Not much older. None post-pubertal. One of them, you see, is very young—he still has a gap where his second teeth should be. Late developer? Early entrant? And if you think about it, that would put Jack into a different space, wouldn’t it? Didn’t someone tell me he was a late arrival at St. Magnus?”
“Yes. That hadn’t occurred to me,” Joe said. “He was sent up a year or so after the normal entry. He tells me his mother hung on to him as long as she could. It was his father who insisted on sending him to his own old prep school. They came over and stayed with him in the neighbourhood and visited the school before the start of the school year last summer. It would seem to have passed muster as the boy stayed and they went back to India.”
“But they would have had no way of knowing that this establishment is the subject of an enquiry at the highest and most secret level of government,” Lydia said. “Go on! Tell him about Truelove’s interest, Joe!”
“Truelove? James Truelove?”
“Ah, yes, I believe you know the man, Marcus.…”
“Shall we say he’s known in this house?” He exchanged looks with his wife.
Marcus was fascinated to hear of Joe’s encounter with the Secretary of State but confessed himself nonplussed. Finally he gave his verdict: “Politicians! They’re a mystery to us all! Never trust ’em! Though if you had to take one seriously, you could do worse than pick this one. At least he’s consistent. He’s clever … wonderful orator—go and hear him in the House one day, Joe. He’s got the most solid of backgrounds and he’s charming. He’ll need all of those assets if he’s going to win round the crusty old buffers in his party. He’s a Tory, of course, but … um … rather of the left wing, it’s whispered. The words ‘socialist leanings’ have been mentioned.”
“Perhaps the day will come when we no longer have to whisper them,” Lydia commented sweetly. “Whatever his politics, I’m glad to hear there’s a man of strength and principle in this ragbag of assorted egotists you men call a government.”
“Is that quite fair, my love?” Marcus protested mildly.
“Oh, I don’t know,” said Joe. “How else do you describe a Tory majority run by a Labour prime minister with the fickle support of the Liberals? A coalition? That is to imply some sort of working together, perhaps even with a plan in mind to advance the general good. This mob is uncontrollable. Ever tried to herd mountain sheep without a good dog at your beck and call? You can’t. They scatter and run in all directions. Ramsay MacDonald will need to call on all his ancient farming skills if he’s to shepherd this bunch to a safe place. No—I prefer Lydia’s label.”
“They style themselves the ‘National Government,’ and who can argue with that? It will do for the moment. But there are those who’ve concluded that the head of our government is quite unqualified for the job: He’s self-educated, the illegitimate son of a Scottish farm-labourer and house-maid, he’s an advocate of Scottish home rule and seemingly over-indulgent towards our enemies, the Germans. That sort of thing doesn’t go down well in the Shires, you know.”
“It goes down well in the cities where he’s tackling unemployment, alleviating poverty and improving schooling,” Lydia said. “And besides, you’ve got to admire a man who dares to appoint a woman to a cabinet post.”
“A good move, Lydia, as all agree, but—he also appointed that scallywag young fascist Mosley to the Privy Seal’s office,” Marcus countered equably. “That alone makes the old man’s judgement questionable in my book. Tired? Ill? Too many lavish suppers chez Lady Londonderry? So—the jury’s out, I’d say, on his latest appointee—the holder of this new Office of State. Reform, eh? A broad canvas. I expect he’s treading on a lot of toes while he sets about marking out his territory.”