For Mrs. Trust the evidence was not as easy to collect, and Mrs. Bradley took no particular trouble to collect it. She haunted the two shelters which were all that had been erected on what, later on, she supposed, would be a made-up promenade, and questioned a nursemaid with a perambulator. A foreign lady, looking very ill, had sat and talked a bit one afternoon; she could not remember which. Oh, wait a bit, though. Yes, perhaps—no—yes, it would be a Monday. They had had the cold lamb and nothing but mashed potatoes and, of all things, boiled rice to follow. No, well, you could not hardly expect to have the oven on, not with no roast joint, but—boiled rice! Well, she asked you!
Mrs. Bradley expressed comprehension, sympathy and amazement. The evidence made no difference to the enquiry. No time could be established, the nursemaid saying definitely that she had not the very foggiest, only Brian was being a bit awkward, and she took him in earlier than usual, fancying he felt a bit cold and it made him pulish.
Mrs. Bradley, treasuring the Shakespearian derivative, got up and walked west towards the convent. The coast road, high and lonely, led away from the raw little town until from its eminence nothing could be descried but rough grass, cloud and sky. Even the sea was hidden, for the road did not follow the cliff, but kept, for safety, inland. Gorse was in bud, and at one place she came upon a goat tethered to a thick, tough stem. It ran at her with its head down until its chain brought it up short. Further on she met a man with a dog. There was no other sign of life, apart from the promise of heather, bramble and bracken, except for the gulls.
She reached the convent at four, having sent George back with the car some hour or so earlier, had tea in the guest-house, and then walked into the village of Blacklock Tor. Three minutes after her arrival at the inn she was in the car again, being driven to Kelsorrow High School. Although school hours were over by the time she arrived, she had planned her visit well. Several of the mistresses were still on the building, and the headmistress was still in her room. The caretaker, an ex-soldier, who gave her the information, recognised George. Mrs. Bradley left them in delighted conversation whilst the caretaker’s wife conducted her to the secretary’s office, and the secretary took her in to the headmistress.
“If you had come an hour earlier, you might have given a travel talk to the school,” was the headmistress’ characteristic lament upon recognising her visitor. Mrs. Bradley grinned, and stated her errand.
“I want to know all you can tell me about Miss Bonnet,” she said.
“But you don’t suspect Miss Bonnet of murdering a child of thirteen?”
“I should if I could find that she had a motive,” Mrs. Bradley replied. The headmistress rang for the secretary and asked her to make some tea. She was a young headmistress, and had held the post for three years.
“I don’t know much about her, you know,” she said. “She’s efficient, and I don’t make the private lives of the staff my concern as long as their work is satisfactory.”
“I understand that she was lucky to get a post here, even a temporary one.”
“I don’t know what you mean by a temporary one. She’s been here longer than I have, and I shouldn’t dream of trying to get rid of her. I believe she was dismissed from her last post for theft, but—-you ought to know—aren’t these cases so often pathological? It turned out that she’d had a row with her young man, and the thefts followed hard upon that.”
“She didn’t go to prison, I believe?”
“No, but the school governors dismissed her without a testimonial. Then it turned out that she had a friend —her father’s friend, actually—on the governing body here, and he persuaded the rest of them to give her a trial. That was four years ago, or very nearly. She’s been here ever since.”
“And you’ve no fault to find with her at all?”
“Her discipline is military, but I don’t know that I object to that, within reason. She is not too popular with the girls, but neither is she disliked. The girls respect efficiency, and like to be bossed—more’s the pity.”
“What did she steal?”
“Pictures.”
“Valuable ones?”
“Yes, very.”
“Did she sell them?”
“She didn’t, no. But whether she was caught too soon, or whether she never intended to part with them, I don’t think anybody knew. Personally, I feel sorry for the girl. Of course, if the case had gone to the police, as some people, I expect, thought it ought, no doubt they would have found out whether she was in touch with a receiver and so on. But my view, and I’ve known her for three years now, is that the girl passed through an abnormal phase consequent on this quarrel with her lover. There was an abnormal aunt, or something, too, so heredity may be against her.”
“What happened to the lover, do you know?”
“Oh, yes. He married, and went to East Africa to live. I suppose he has leave at times, but I don’t think she’s ever seen him since they parted.”
“What made her confide in you?”
“She had been taking a hockey practice, and one of the half-backs rolled the ball in from the side-line after it had been hit out of play, and it slipped from her hand and struck Miss Bonnet on the head. They had to carry her here, and I looked after her a bit. She got a pretty good crack on the temple—rather nasty—and spent the afternoon in here on my settee. We talked a bit, and she told me about herself.”
Mrs. Bradley was not surprised. There are people who seem to be the natural confidantes of those with whom they come in contact, and Mrs. Bradley could readily understand that the head mistress of Kelsorrow would give an impression of sympathetic understanding.
“How was it discovered that she was the thief?” she asked.
“Rather oddly. Of course, Miss Bonnet said nothing to me about the thefts, only about her young man, and I should not dream of mentioning them to her. That sort of thing is far better over and forgotten. But I was told of her record when I received the appointment here. The governors thought it fair to me to tell me. It seems that she got rather drunk one night at a dinner. The rowing club she belonged to had won an important race at Henley, and were celebrating. During the evening she happened to describe one of the pictures to a man who knew that, unless she had stolen the picture, the probability was that she couldn’t even have seen it.”
“How extraordinary!”
“Indeed it was. Of course, she had no idea that he was an expert. She knew him only as the chairman of her rowing club, not as an expert in pictures. Actually he happens to be a dealer.”
“Whose were the pictures, then?”
“They were the property of the school at which she taught, and were kept in the Governors’ Room, as it was called, on the second floor. This room was sometimes used, apart from meetings of the Governors, but when it was, two of the pictures whose subject-matter was thought unsuitable for children—rather peculiar and horrid martyrdoms, I believe—were carefully covered up. The others were left on view, and were familiar, probably to the staff of the school. But the hidden pictures, one of which she described, were not. When the room was not in use it was always kept locked because the pictures were valuable. Of course, it was recognised that she might have seen the pictures at some time, but the chairman, who was anxious, naturally, to get them back, had enquiries made, and very soon they were recovered.”
“What excuse did she offer?”
“None.”
“What reason, then, for having stolen them?”