Cat Among the Pigeons - Agatha Christie [41]
“Absolutely none, I’m afraid. I’ve got my own sitting room, and I don’t see much of the staff. The whole thing’s unbelievable.”
“In what way unbelievable?”
“Well, first that Miss Springer should get shot at all. Say somebody broke into the gymnasium and she went out to see who it was. That’s all right, I suppose, but who’d want to break into the gymnasium?”
“Boys, perhaps, some young locals who wanted to help themselves to equipment of some kind or another, or who did it for a lark.”
“If that’s so, I can’t help feeling that what Miss Springer would have said was: ‘Now then, what are you doing here? Be off with you,’ and they’d have gone off.”
“Did it ever seem to you that Miss Springer adopted any particular attitude about the Sports Pavilion?”
Ann Shapland looked puzzled. “Attitude?”
“I mean did she regard it as her special province and dislike other people going there?”
“Not that I know of. Why should she? It was just part of the school buildings.”
“You didn’t notice anything yourself? You didn’t find that if you went there she resented your presence—anything of that kind?”
Ann Shapland shook her head. “I haven’t been out there myself more than a couple of times. I haven’t the time. I’ve gone out there once or twice with a message for one of the girls from Miss Bulstrode. That’s all.”
“You didn’t know that Miss Springer had objected to Mademoiselle Blanche being out there?”
“No, I didn’t hear anything about that. Oh yes, I believe I did. Mademoiselle Blanche was rather cross about something one day, but then she is a little bit touchy, you know. There was something about her going into the drawing class one day and resenting something the drawing mistress said to her. Of course she hasn’t really very much to do—Mademoiselle Blanche, I mean. She only teaches one subject—French, and she has a lot of time on her hands. I think—” she hesitated, “I think she is perhaps rather an inquisitive person.”
“Do you think it likely that when she went into the Sports Pavilion she was poking about in any of the lockers?”
“The girls’ lockers? Well, I wouldn’t put it past her. She might amuse herself that way.”
“Does Miss Springer herself have a locker out there?”
“Yes, of course.”
“If Mademoiselle Blanche was caught poking about in Miss Springer’s locker, then I can imagine that Miss Springer would be annoyed?”
“She certainly would!”
“You don’t know anything about Miss Springer’s private life?”
“I don’t think anyone did,” said Ann. “Did she have one, I wonder?”
“And there’s nothing else—nothing connected with the Sports Pavilion, for instance, that you haven’t told me?”
“Well—” Ann hesitated.
“Yes, Miss Shapland, let’s have it.”
“It’s nothing really,” said Ann slowly. “But one of the gardeners—not Briggs, the young one. I saw him come out of the Sports Pavilion one day, and he had no business to be in there at all. Of course it was probably just curiosity on his part—or perhaps an excuse to slack off a bit from work—he was supposed to be nailing down the wire on the tennis court. I don’t suppose really there’s anything in it.”
“Still, you remembered it,” Kelsey pointed out. “Now why?”
“I think—” she frowned. “Yes, because his manner was a little odd. Defiant. And—he sneered at all the money that was spent here on the girls.”
“That sort of attitude … I see.”
“I don’t suppose there’s really anything in it.”
“Probably not—but I’ll make a note of it, all the same.”
“Round and round the mulberry bush,” said Bond when Ann Shapland had gone. “Same thing over and over again! For goodness’ sake let’s hope we get something out of the servants.”
But they got very little out of the servants.
“It’s no use asking me anything, young man,” said Mrs. Gibbons, the cook. “For one thing I can’t hear what you say, and for another I don’t know a thing. I went to sleep last night and I slept unusually heavy. Never heard anything of all the excitement there was. Nobody woke me up and told me anything about it.” She sounded injured. “It wasn’t until this morning I heard.”
Kelsey shouted a few questions and got a few answers that