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“Very wise. We would always want to avoid a lecture on the dangers of fraternization. I hope you got further with the research clinic.”
“A little. Again, I can find no trace of young Spielman. The duty matron I spoke to refused to discuss patients or admissions. I threw everything I had at her, including manly charm, but she resisted me. Quoted hospital policy. I might be a scurrilous journalist, after all. Any rogue with tuppence in his pocket can ring them up from a phone box these days, she explained. Their patients value their anonymity. But she did offer to make an appointment for you. Three P.M. This afternoon. Professor Bentink will grant you fifteen minutes. That’s if you are who you say you are. You must be sure to have your authorisation with you. Sorry, sir. It’s the best I could do. They’re well within their rights, of course.”
“That will do well, Gosling. Anything more of any urgency?”
“No sir. I’ve really got to dash—fourteen small boys waiting down in the gym for seven-a-side hockey. They’re armed with sticks. Lord knows what they’re up to! The rest of my report can wait until you’ve seen old Godwit. Sir—he’s always worth hearing.”
“Thank you, Gosling. Wheel him in will you?”
Mr. Godwit entered, twitching with excitement. “Ten minutes to go before my class,” he said. “I have something to confide.”
He declined to take a seat, and they stood together on the rug. “You remember asking me what the three headmasters had in common? I told you nothing. And I still believe nothing. But—”
“The slightest thing, sir, will interest me.” Joe was determined to encourage him. “They wore the same stone in their cufflinks. Each had a na
“No, no, nothing like that at all. But there’s one thing they have all done. A rather strange habit. Being so old—bridging the three tenures—I’m the only one who would have noticed and remembered. The first Wednesday of each month, Streetly-Standish used to go off into town—Brighton, I mean. By himself. No one thought anything of it. He never spoke of it. In the school carriage. Horse-drawn, of course, in those days. Oddly, he used to dispense with the services of the groom and drive himself.”
“Returning?”
“Always before midnight. Then Dr. Sutton took over, and he did exactly the same thing. Straight after tea on the first Wednesday of every month, a taxi would come to pick him up. Mrs. Sutton used to wave him off. Clearly no clandestine object to these excursions. Then our present head, Mr. Farman, took over seamlessly and—blow me if he didn’t keep up the tradition. The Wednesday taxi comes for him. At exactly the same time. Oh, sorry. It’s not much is it?”
“On the contrary, it’s very interesting,” Joe said, trying not to sound disappointed. A monthly trip to Brighton was all too easily explained, even for a married head. Hadn’t Godwit put two and two together? Obviously too unworldly for such suspicions. “Well, well! Are we perhaps thinking … cinema visit?” he suggested i
“The visits of Streetly-Standish predate the arrival of a picture palace, Sandilands. And he couldn’t bear the notion of moving pictures. A bad influence on the young, he thought. None of the men were involved with masonry or druidry or any such mumbo jumbo. Perfectly normal, all three.”
“Think back, Mr. Godwit. Their behaviour when they returned—did they show any signs of, um, weariness, elation, resolve, mood or behaviour change of any kind?”
Godwit pondered this for a moment. “Ah, yes. Two of those: elation and resolve. It would take a knowing eye to discern it.” He smiled with quiet triumph. “And a sharp mind to co
“The theme, Mr. Godwit?”
“Oh, an entirely i
Joe shook his head. “You’ll have to remind me, sir.”
“It’s the grape-picking bit.”
Godwit recited from memory in a suddenly firm and mellifluous tone:
“ ‘Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?
“ ‘Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit.
“ ‘A good tree ca
“ ‘Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire.
“ ‘Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them.’ ”
“Ah, yes. The apple scrumper’s license to rob the best trees. I remember quoting bits of that to my father before he gave me a well-earned whacking for scrumping in our neighbour’s orchard. He wasn’t amused.”
“Another Thursday morning favourite of the headmasters was the parable of the sower. Matthew again: chapter thirteen. He seemed to relish the bit about the seeds being scorched in the sun and withering away because they had no root. He finishes with much benignity: ‘But others fell into good ground and brought forth fruit, some an hundredfold, some sixtyfold, some thirtyfold.’ Then he tells them they are good little seeds of good stock and he expects them to go forth and multiply. Thank heaven they’re all too young to fall in with his exhortations.”
“Mmm … that chimes well with the views he was expressing to Miss Joliffe over lunch. He seems to have dismissed three quarters of the population of the capital as seed sown on stony ground, I’m afraid. Any mention of Sodom and Gomorrah? Noah and his Ark, perhaps?”
Godwit beamed. “Rem acu tetigisti, Sandilands! I thought you’d get there.”
“It’s a fascinating insight you hand me, Mr. Godwit. I shall go and confer with my local colleague and seek his opinion. If you have any further thoughts, I shall be pleased to hear them.”
Joe closed the door as the old man left, and he stood, head bent, collecting his thoughts. He battled hard to ward off the swooping attack of the direst suspicions, gulping, chewing dry lips, breathing deeply, calling on common sense to come to his rescue. But panic was getting the better of him. When his knees began to twitch, he did what he had learned to do on the battlefield—he took action.
He raced downstairs to the equipment room and burst in on Inspector Martin, who was briefing his sergeant.
“Martin! I need your help, man! I need some local knowledge. Could you possibly find out, using the telephone, what social, political or other meetings are held in Brighton on the first Wednesday of each month? And have been held there for at least … oh … thirty years. It may be the key to this whole business. Rapson’s murder, the boys’ disappearance. They’re all linked. It’s not upstairs and downstairs—it’s all the same thing.”
Chilled by the set face and sharp tone, Martin dismissed his sergeant and listened to Joe’s brief account of fears he hurried to admit were unreasoning. The inspector responded in his measured, countryman’s voice: “Sit down. You’re not mad, just careful and damned suspicious. Like me. Help yourself to a cup of tea from my flask and listen in while I phone. I’ll try first Mabel in the city library. I’m sure she’ll have a list of gatherings. I warn you it’ll be a long and probably surprising one. Brighton’s a busy place, and there’s a lot of foreigners, loose-livers and eccentrics about with time on their hands.”