Love Lies Bleeding. Edmund Crispin
along the tow path. The late afternoon sun flared on the red brick wall enclosing the small garden, drawing the scent from the roses, lying in rich, butter-gold streaks across the lawn where a tall gate intercepted its rays. Beyond the wall was a huddle of old houses, and beyond them the spire of St Sepulchre’s, its brazen weathercock motionless and glittering against the sky.
At five o’clock on the afternoon in question, Miss Parry was gazing at this scene, in an attempt to dispel the mental indigestion occasioned by reading thirty consecutive essays on the pontificate of Leo X, when her telephone rang. She reached for the instrument a little reluctantly. In the normal way she enjoyed responsibility, but for one reason and another the past week had been abnormally trying, and she was conscious of a growing desire for solitude and leisure. Feeling this a treachery, and having a practical rather than an analytical mind, she was inclined to blame the heat. On the other hand…
‘Castrevenford 473,’ she said. ‘Yes, this is Miss Parry speaking. Who is that?…Oh, Mrs Boyce…Brenda hasn’t arrived home?…I see…To the best of my knowledge she left here just after four, yes…Possibly she’s gone to the shops, or to a cinema…Oh, I see. Yes, that does rather alter the situation…Naturally you’re worried, if you particularly asked her not to linger on the way home…Yes…Yes…Well, there are still a few of the older girls in the building; I’ll ask them…Of course…Yes. I’ll ring you back immediately. Goodbye.’
The bell jangled spectrally as she replaced the receiver. After a moment’s consideration she got to her feet, left the study, walked along the short passage which connected her house with the school buildings, crossed the gymnasium, and entered a corridor of studies. From one of the nearest, youthful voices could be heard arguing. Her arrival at its door was heralded by a furious noise suggestive of the Deutschland breaking up on the Kentish Knock.
‘Damn these hockey sticks,’ said one of the voices with injured fervour.
‘Elspeth, you shouldn’t swear so.’
‘I shall say damn, and I shall say blast, and I shall say bloody hell—’
‘Elspeth!’
With raised eyebrows Miss Parry opened the door.
The study appeared to be occupied chiefly by comestibles, textbooks, games equipment and bedraggled wild flowers wilting over the edges of jam-jars. Its furniture was rudimentary, and its windows looked out over the tennis courts. Crammed into it were four sixth-form girls, wearing pleated navy-blue skirts, black shoes and stockings, short-sleeved blouses and ties. Officially, they were a committee meeting of the High School Literary Society; actually, they appeared to be doing little beyond eating. They stood petrified at their headmistress’s apocalyptic entry, like those Cornish maids whom the wrath of Jehovah transmogrified in granite for dancing naked on the sabbath day.
Miss Parry favoured them with a comprehensively omniscient and admonitory stare. She said, ‘Has any of you girls seen Brenda Boyce since school ended?’
There was a moment’s silence until someone plucked up courage to reply. Then, ‘No, Miss Parry,’ said Elspeth.
And, ‘No, Miss Parry,’ the others chorused respectfully.
‘Did any of you see her leave for home?’
‘No, Miss Parry,’ said Elspeth.
‘No, Miss Parry,’ said the others.
The generalized lack of information conveyed by this liturgical responsory struck Miss Parry as profitless. She directed her attention to Janice Dalloway, the girl (she was suffering, it should be said, from a temporary access of evangelical mania) who had rebuked Elspeth’s blaspheming.
‘When did you last see Brenda?’ Miss Parry demanded.
‘Oh, Miss Parry, it was at the end of history, only Miss Fitt kept me behind to talk about my work and then I came straight here so I didn’t see her when she went out of school.’
‘Perhaps she’s in her study,’ a third girl volunteered.
Miss Parry, expectant of further suggestions, received none. ‘Very well,’ she said at last. ‘Go on with your meeting. And remember that you must be out of the building by six o’clock.’
‘Yes, Miss Parry,’ said Elspeth.
‘Yes, Miss Parry,’ the others chanted dutifully.
‘In the normal way,’ Miss Parry added in parting, ‘I like to regard your studies as inviolate – which is to say that I don’t take official cognizance of what is said in them. But swearing, Elspeth, is another matter.’ She paused; Elspeth went rather pale, and studied the floor intently. ‘If I hear you using language like that again, there will be trouble.’
She departed, closing the door behind her. A gust of awe-stricken whispering pursued her along the corridor.
The study which Brenda Boyce shared with another girl was very similar to the first, but tidier, and at present empty. Miss Parry was on the point of quitting it when she caught sight of an envelope lying on a desk by the open window. Investigating, she found it was addressed to herself, and opened it.
Dear Miss Parry
Please don’t worry about me. I’m going away with someone who will make me happy. I can look after myself, so don’t worry. I’ll be writing to Mother and Father. Thanking you for everything you’ve done for me,
Yours sincerely,
Brenda Boyce
Miss Parry uttered an involuntary exclamation of annoyance and dismay, yet – oddly enough – the first thought that occurred to her was that Brenda’s prose style had undergone a remarkable change. None of the usual prolonged euphuistic periods were in evidence – though this rather consciously unlettered simplicity might be due to the stress of some emotion…Miss Parry hunted out a specimen of Brenda’s handwriting and compared it with the handwriting of the note; they tallied exactly – but the stylistic dissimilarity remained. From the laborious flamboyance of ‘the visit to France, the spectacle of bare scaffolds streaming with aristocratic gore, awoke multifarious echoes in Wordsworth’s rhythmicized autobiography’ it was a far cry to ‘I’m going away with someone who will make me happy’. Too far a cry, Miss Parry reflected. She put the paper and envelope carefully into a pocket, and strode back to her study, little relishing the job of communicating her discovery to Brenda’s parents.
In the event, however, they were contained and sensible about it – the more so as Miss Parry did not apprise them of her vague doubts regarding the authenticity of Brenda’s letter. Mr Boyce asked her to communicate immediately with the police; she had more information than they, he said, and the superintendent had better see her first.
But the superintendent, she was informed over the telephone by the sergeant in charge at the police station, was at present visiting the headmaster of Castrevenford School. Miss Parry thanked him, replaced the receiver, and, lifting it again, dialled the number of the headmaster’s study.
The call came through just as the superintendent was on the point of departure. He was a tall, burly, youngish man in plain clothes whose features some freak of heredity had assembled into a perpetual expression of muted alarm, so that to be in his company was like consorting with a man dogged by assassins. Apparently he regarded the business of the cupboard as a will-o’-the-wisp, and he was rehearsing his views to Fen, who had that moment returned from his period with the Classical Sixth, when the telephone rang. It was the headmaster who answered it.
‘Yes, Miss Parry,’ he said. ‘What? Disappeared?…Good God…Yes, the superintendent’s here. One moment.’
He handed the instrument to Stagge, who listened in silence to Miss Parry’s narrative. ‘Very well, ma’am,’ he said finally. ‘I’ll come down immediately. We’ll trace her if it’s humanly possible…Yes. Goodbye.’
He rang off, and explained the situation to the others. ‘So it’s possible she’s gone away with some man,’ he concluded, and glanced at the headmaster.