Apart from a regular cleaning up and re-painting once in every five years, the coach was completely neglected in the ordinary way, so that Miss Hopkins’ idea of using it as a cache for the rhubarb crowns until they could be dumped by moonlight in the Highpepper policies was, so far as it went, a sound one.
The knowledge that a rag against the men’s college was impending and that it could be carried into effect as soon as the ground was cleared of rats and rhubarb, lent such goodwill to the work that by three o’clock on the half-holiday, while all the rest of the college was at games or off the premises bent on relaxation or the pursuit of outside interests, the rhubarb was all gathered and stacked and willing hands were putting it into sacks.
A telephone message to the firm in Garchester who supplied motor-coaches for college outings brought a driver to the Calladale gates by four o’clock, and, with his assistance, the bulging sacks were loaded into the boot. Rhubarb and students were then driven to the back gates of Highpepper Hall, where the cargo was unloaded, under the direction of Miss Hopkins and Miss Casey, her second in command, and there was no lack of volunteers to reload it into the derelict stage-coach.
The stage-coach was on the blind side of the inn, so that there was little fear, at that time of day—it was a quarter to five:—of the proceedings being overlooked, and the old road was always very quiet except when the gentlemen-farmers were about. The rhubarb sacks having been stacked by the roadside, the driver was bidden to drive on and to return for the students in half an hour.
As soon as he had gone, the students humped the sacks of sprouting rhubarb crowns from the parking-place of the motor-coach to the strip of grass which bore the stage-coach. Willing and careful hands unlatched the inside door. The creaking hinges gave a note between a moan and a scream which ought to have served as a warning had any of the girls possessed second sight.
On the floor was a heap of rags which gave forth an unusual and suspect odour, but a bold hand plucked the rags forth to make room for the rhubarb. Somebody screamed. There was a general sortie from the vicinity of the stagecoach. One student, less impressionable and possibly more realistic than the others, craned her neck—she had been at the back of the queue—gave a long, incredulous look at the contents of the coach, and exclaimed in shocked, Midlands accents: .
‘Good Lord! It’s poor old Palliser!’
chapter five
The Corpse Speaks in Riddles
‘Ernest remarked that the flamingo had feet formed for running like swans and for swimming like geese, and he was astonished that the two faculties were given to the same individual.’
Ibid.
« ^ »
One of the many phenomena of the Atomic Age is the curious process of osmosis which has taken place in the speech-forms of the sexes. In earlier but still comparatively modern times, the remark, ‘Good Lord! It’s poor old Palliser!’ would have justified a student, given such an exclamation out of context, in stating, without hesitation, that the speaker must be male. The remark had been made, however, by an insensitive and inquisitive student named Diana Coots, as she stared incredulously at the huddled body.
‘We’d better phone the college,’ said a hesitant voice, ‘and tell them to send a doctor, or something.’
‘Miss McKay…’ began the realist who had named the corpse; but she was cried down. The nearest telephone was the one at the inn, but, for obvious reasons, the students were not anxious to make a connection there.
‘I’ll go to that house just inside the Highpepper gates,’ volunteered a student named Jones. (Later, when the numbing effect of shock had worn off, she wondered why she had felt so efficient and so calm.) ‘It belongs to one of the lecturers, so he’s sure to be on the phone.’
Unfortunately he was not in and the house was locked up, so, buoyed up by the knowledge that the occasion was one of crisis and great importance, she braved the portals of Highpepper Hall and soon found herself opposite the pigeonhole which communicated with the secretary’s office. Breathlessly she explained her need and her mission. The secretary, a curiously, but perhaps necessarily, cold-blooded young woman of twenty-eight, put a call through to the nearest police station and then to the Calladale doctor, whose telephone number Miss Jones, her brain still ice-cold from shock, happened to know and to recollect.
‘And now,’ said Miss Jones, ‘I’d better ring up the college.’
The college, in the persons of Miss McKay and Dame Beatrice, in the latter’s powerful car, beat the police by ten minutes and the doctor, because he was out on his afternoon round, by more than an hour. Dame Beatrice, therefore, was enabled to obtain a short but uninterrupted first sight of the body. This, although interesting, was of no great help because it was not her province to move it.
She closed the door of the coach upon the poor, huddled remains and withdrew Miss McKay from their vicinity.
‘There will have to be a post-mortem medical examination, of course,’ she said. ‘So far as I could see there is no external injury sufficient to cause death, but until the body can be moved we cannot be sure of that.’
‘It couldn’t be suicide, or she would never have been found in such a strange place,’ said Miss McKay. ‘I’m so thankful you could come back to us. You are a tower of strength. It looks like foul play to me. But who would wish to injure the girl? Our students are utterly harmless.’
‘Let us speak to the group over there. They have had a severe shock, and so may make available to us some information which, in cooler moments, they might prefer to keep to themselves.’
Miss McKay, uncertain as to the ethics of this opportunist theory, nevertheless saw its usefulness.
‘This is no time to withhold information,’ she agreed. ‘Will you bounce it out of them, or shall I?’
‘Perhaps, if you would begin, I could put a question or two later on, as the spirit moves.’
‘Yes, that would be best. I shall resign to you, then, as soon as you think you have a lead.’ She marched up to the huddled little group. ‘Now,’ she said briskly, ‘you must tell us all that you can. First of all, who found out where she was?’
‘I did,’ said a Miss Brander. ‘I opened the door and lifted up the rags—those on the grass—and there it was.’
‘There were several of us round the coach,’ said Miss Jones, ‘but Brander was the one who opened up.’
‘I actually recognised who it was, I think,’ said Miss Coots, ‘as soon as Brander did.’
‘Ah,’ said Dame Beatrice. ‘How was that, Student?’
Miss McKay, recognising her cue, nodded.
‘Well, the college blazer. You couldn’t mistake it,’ Miss Coots explained.
‘Of course not. So, seeing the badge on the blazer pocket…’
‘I just called out that it was Miss Palliser.’
‘Ah, yes. On the strength of the badge.’
‘Well,’ said Miss Jones, ‘it would stand to reason, Dame Beatrice.’ She seemed about to go on when a surreptitious kick from Miss Coots silenced her.
‘True, child. And now—since all sins’—Dame Beatrice, who had seen the warning kick administered, glanced at Miss McKay, who nodded—‘must of necessity be swallowed up by death, exactly what were you all up to that you opened the coach door at all?’
Miss McKay tactfully moved out of earshot and Miss Hopkins, as the organiser of the expedition, stepped forward. She pointed to the sacks of rhubarb crowns which were lying near the wheels of the coach.