Free A Javelin for Jonah by Gladys Mitchell Page B

in your track suits and were ready to begin the race,” said Henry. “You know that.”
    “Oh, that’s all right, Harry boy,” said Julian. “We’ll remember. Well, then we stationed Jackson and started off, telling him to watch the lap times. That was just to give him something to think about, because his cottage, although a long way off, stands in the open and is visible from the running-track, and we didn’t want him to notice what Kath was up to.”
    “It was my job to get busy on Mrs Jackson and get her out of the cottage, too, while Benjy and Shaun sneaked the stoke-hole key,” put in Kathleen, “that was the tricky bit. She’s a simple soul, like Jackson himself, though, so I asked her whether she’d counted her chickens that morning, because I was pretty certain I’d heard a fox bark in the night.”
    “She fell for it all right,” said Benjy, “and the key, with its label, was hanging just inside the back-door next to the roller towel. We’d prepared a substitute key, of course—my Jewish intelligence thought of that; it was the key to my cupboard in the changing room, as a matter of fact, so I knew it wouldn’t be missed—we’re always losing them—and there we were.”
    “Your film, Harry boy, was a godsend,” said Julian. “As soon as you announced when it was to be, we put Exercise Key in motion and the five of us waited to find out whether Jonah was going in to see the film, although we guessed rightly that he’d take the time off; so when he went round to the staff garages for his car, we collected him and took him along to the stoke-hole and bunged him in.”
    “You’ve forgotten one thing, haven’t you?” asked Henry. The five men looked stolidly at him. The girl caught her breath and said, “No, I don’t think so. That’s the way it went, but now…”
    “Now you can’t find him. Did you ever return the key to Jackson?”
    “Of course not. We needed to hang on to it because we knew we were going to let Jonah out last night, as I told you in hall,” said Kathleen, “but when we went along, he wasn’t there.”
    “I don’t see why you feel so worried. Somebody else must have let him out,” said Henry.
    “How could they, when we’ve got the only key?” demanded Bill.
    “How do you know you’ve got the only key? It is most unlikely that there would be only one key to such an important place as the stoke-hole, as you fellows call it. A nice pass we should all come to during the winter, if the one and only key happened to get lost. Of course there are other keys. There must be.”
    “Well, supposing there are, and somebody got hold of one, what happened to Jonah? That’s what we’re worried about,” said Kathleen. “You see, he doesn’t seem to be anywhere about the place and yet his car is still here.”
    “Oh?” said Henry, who had not thought of this. “Sure it’s his car? Oh, well, yes, you’d know, I suppose, although I don’t know how you expected to acquire access to any of the staff lock-ups.”
    “Easy,” said John. “We followed Jonah, on the day of the film, round to the garages and when we’d got him impounded, we frisked him and pinched the key to his lock-up. That’s where we first thought of putting him, only we thought he’d make enough row for someone to hear him.”
    “Well, you’d better give me the key.”
    John walked up to the dais and handed the little key to Henry, remarking as he did so, “You needn’t worry, Harry boy. We couldn’t have gone joy-riding or anything. There’s only enough petrol in the car to get as far as the village. He hadn’t tanked up.”
    “Probably intended to do that at the pub,” said Julian. “Here’s the key to the stoke-hole. You’d better have that as well.”
    “Well, I’ll look into the matter with Gassie,” said Henry.
    “No names, no pack-drill, of course. That’s understood.”
    “What’s really worrying them?” asked Hamish, when the students had departed.
    “My guess