Free Adders on the Heath by Gladys Mitchell

lunatic, you know. I doubt whether he's got a close pal in the world besides myself. I gather that he wanted to do a bit of badger-watching and so forth, and, of course, I did let him down. I couldn't help it, but there it was. He had two days more on his own than we'd planned. It was damned bad luck that this business of two dead men should have cropped up.'
    'Yes. One might argue that one dead man was enough. Two...'
    'Overdoing it? I agree. But what's the answer?'
    'That is what we have to find out, dear child.'
    'In the old days, I got half a crown when you called me that. Do you remember?'
    'I hardly think that you are in dire need of half a crown in these days.'
    'You never know,' said Denis.
    'What is this athletics club of which Mr Richardson is a member? And what kind of people are the other members?'
    'They call themselves the Hen-Harriers-a sort of play upon words, if you take me, although they don't have women members. They're a casual bunch, as he indicated. They're the sort of chaps who ran as second strings for their colleges in the three miles when they were up-third strings, most likely-plus a sprinkling of hockey players who turn up for cross-country running when they haven't a fixture, or, more likely, when a fixture falls through at the last minute. Happy-go-lucky types, I should say, on the whole. I only know what Tom tells me about them.'
    'You would not call them a desperately keen band?'
    'Lord, no! They really do run for the fun of it, and, if nobody bothers to finish, well, nobody bothers!'
    'It sounds an ideal arrangement.'
    'Oh, it is, and old Tom enjoys it. He has to be pubbable and clubbable, you see, and it's jolly good for him, otherwise he'd probably turn into every kind of hermit.'
    'Girls?'
    'He's a bit like the hero of She Stoops to Conquer -good with barmaids, but otherwise, I fear, not even a spent force, although I did hear a rumour that he might be getting engaged. I haven't met the girl.'
    'What does he do for a living?'
    'Oh, prep-school master, as long as he can stick the school, and then a bit of private tutoring while he works up steam to apply for another post. Lives with a widowed mother who, I gather, has plenty of dough. What Tom really ought to do is to write, but his first novel was turned down by the only two publishers he sent it to, and that seems to have soured on the boy. He's by way of being Shelley's original sensitive plant.'
    'Interesting.'
    'You can tell the sort of chap he is by the way he's taking these deaths. They can't possibly be anything to do with him, but his attitude is that the black cap is already on the judge's head. It gets fatiguing. It will be a jolly good thing when the inquest is over and he can breathe again.'
    'How did you come to make his acquaintance?'
    'A common interest in music'
    'Does he play an instrument?'
    'No, but he understands the Elizabethans.'
    Dame Beatrice, who understood Bach and nobody else, allowed this statement to pass without challenge. Richardson and Laura were in the garden admiring the dahlias and some late carnations and Denis and his great-aunt were walking on the finely-cut lawn.
    'In what way do you think I can help your friend?' Dame Beatrice enquired. She bent to pick up a handsome fir-cone which had fallen from Pinus Pinea , the Stone Pine (introduced, as she remarked to her great-nephew, four hundred years ago, in the time (more or less) of his friend's Elizabethans), and studied it while Denis answered.
    'Well, I think you've given his morale a considerable boost by coming down here at all, and now he knows you're going to attend the inquest it's made his day. What do you want to do this afternoon? See the spot where we found Colnbrook's body?'
    'No, child. Did I understand from Mr Richardson that Mr Colnbrook belonged to an association of mixed athletes (in the sense, I mean, of the way one describes a co-educational school as being mixed) called the Scylla and District Club?'
    'Yes, that's Colnbrook's mob.