Cat Among the Pigeons - Agatha Christie [37]
“Somebody should have told me about him,” said Kelsey sharply.
“What do you mean, told you about him?”
“He’s not on my list,” said the Inspector. “Of people employed here, I mean.”
“Oh, well, you can see him tomorrow, mister,” said Briggs. “Not that he can tell you anything, I don’t suppose.”
“You never know,” said the Inspector.
A strong young man who had offered himself at the beginning of the term? It seemed to Kelsey that here was the first thing that he had come across which might be a little out of the ordinary.
IV
The girls filed into the hall for prayers that evening as usual, and afterwards Miss Bulstrode arrested their departure by raising her hand.
“I have something to say to you all. Miss Springer, as you know, was shot last night in the Sports Pavilion. If any of you has heard or seen anything in the past week—anything that has puzzled you relating to Miss Springer, anything Miss Springer may have said or someone else may have said of her that strikes you as at all significant, I should like to know it. You can come to me in my sitting room anytime this evening.”
“Oh,” Julia Upjohn sighed, as the girls filed out, “how I wish we did know something! But we don’t, do we, Jennifer?”
“No,” said Jennifer, “of course we don’t.”
“Miss Springer always seemed so very ordinary,” said Julia sadly, “much too ordinary to get killed in a mysterious way.”
“I don’t suppose it was so mysterious,” said Jennifer. “Just a burglar.”
“Stealing our tennis racquets, I suppose,” said Julia with sarcasm.
“Perhaps someone was blackmailing her,” suggested one of the other girls hopefully.
“What about?” said Jennifer.
But nobody could think of any reason for blackmailing Miss Springer.
V
Inspector Kelsey started his interviewing of the staff with Miss Vansittart. A handsome woman, he thought, summing her up. Possibly forty or a little over; tall, well-built, grey hair tastefully arranged. She had dignity and composure, with a certain sense, he thought, of her own importance. She reminded him a little of Miss Bulstrode herself: she was the schoolmistress type all right. All the same, he reflected, Miss Bulstrode had something that Miss Vansittart had not. Miss Bulstrode had a quality of unexpectedness. He did not feel that Miss Vansittart would ever be unexpected.
Question and answer followed routine. In effect, Miss Vansittart had seen nothing, had noticed nothing, had heard nothing. Miss Springer had been excellent at her job. Yes, her manner had perhaps been a trifle brusque, but not, she thought, unduly so. She had not perhaps had a very attractive personality but that was really not a necessity in a Games Mistress. It was better, in fact, not to have mistresses who had attractive personalities. It did not do to let the girls get emotional about the mistresses. Miss Vansittart, having contributed nothing of value, made her exit.
“See no evil, hear no evil, think no evil. Same like the monkeys,” observed Sergeant Percy Bond, who was assisting Inspector Kelsey in his task.
Kelsey grinned. “That’s about right, Percy,” he said.
“There’s something about schoolmistresses that gives me the hump,” said Sergeant Bond. “Had a terror of them ever since I was a kid. Knew one that was a holy terror. So upstage and la-di-da you never knew what she was trying to teach you.”
The next mistress to appear was Eileen Rich. Ugly as sin was Inspector Kelsey’s first reaction. Then he qualified it; she had a certain attraction. He started his routine questions, but the answers were not quite so routine as he had expected. After saying No, she had not heard or noticed anything special that anyone else had said about Miss Springer or that Miss Springer herself had said, Eileen Rich’s next answer was not what he anticipated. He had asked:
“There was no one as far as you know who had a personal grudge against her?”
“Oh no,” said Eileen Rich quickly. “One couldn’t have. I think that was her tragedy, you know. That she wasn’t a person one could ever hate.”
“Now just what do you mean by that, Miss Rich?”
“I mean she wasn’t a