Free Furious Old Women by Leo Bruce Page B

then?”
    â€œI think it’s very likely.”
    â€œI’ll run round with them straight away,” said Mrs Rumble. “I shouldn’t want anyone to think I’d Take anything.”
    â€œOf course not.”
    She hesitated.
    â€œNearly new, they are. Just my size. Still if you say it’s best I’ll run round with them.”
    â€œDo you mind if I see them? “Carolus asked.
    For one moment Mrs Rumble hesitated, then she said—”
    No. I don’t mind. I’ll fetch them in a minute.”
    Carolus examined a pair of brown galoshes, size eight, nearly new and made by Skilley and Harman.
    â€œYes, I shall run round with them at once,” repeated Mrs Rumble regretfully.
    â€œGood-night. Thank you for my tea.”

7
    C AROLUS wondered whether he was not treating the case in too leisurely a manner, but reflected as he had often done that criminology must remain nothing to him but a hobby. He had no intention of neglecting the job of teaching which he had set himself because without it he was in danger of becoming a mere rich dilettante. The discipline imposed by school life was, he knew, the one thing which kept him from all the fatuous forms of time-wasting practised by people who had money and no occupation.
    So when a case like this came along, however keen his curiosity and however strong his determination to discover the truth, he could only pursue his enquiries when his duties at the Queen’s School, Newminster, permitted him to do so. If the police succeeded before him, or made an arrest while he was still asking questions, it would be just too bad. He could do nothing to prevent it.
    Besides, as he had always recognized, his method was not a rapid one. He had a gift for making people confide in him but it took time to hear them and it was fatal toattempt to hurry them. Out of those confidences would emerge the truth, a hint here, an odd fact there, and slowly the whole thing would fall into shape. But he had to take his time.
    Even so, however conscientiously he might stick to his work at Newminster, he felt that his frequent absences after school hours had not escaped the attention of Mr Gorringer and that sooner or later he would be faced with one of the headmaster’s semi-confidential, for-your-own-good orations. It came sooner than Carolus thought. He found himself one morning striding up and down the quadrangle beside Mr Gorringer, whose hands were clasped behind him under the folds of his gown. The headmaster was even more facetious than Carolus had feared.
    â€œA bird has whispered in my ear …” he began.
    Carolus stared with stupefaction at the huge hairy orifice surrounded with tufted chasms which the headmaster had mentioned and wondered what bird would dare approach its sinister network. A vulture, perhaps.
    â€œThat our Senior History Master is again immersed in the contemporary. That you, Deene, albeit with a discretion for which I am glad, are once more, as it were, on the trail.”
    Carolus wondered. Should he quote Kipling? ‘The Long Trail—the trail that is always new’. On the whole, no.
    â€œAnd unless Rumour plays us false, it is the village of Gladhurst which claims so much of your time.”
    Mr Gorringer was hardest to bear when he was playful.
    â€œThat’s right,” said Carolus.
    â€œAn interesting case?” queried Mr Gorringer.
    â€œQuite.”
    â€œThat, no doubt, accounts for your hasty departures from Newminster,” said the headmaster in a rather more serious voice. “Oh, believe me, Deene, I make no stricture. I recognize each man’s right to his private interests. I have not openly criticized Hollingbourne’s predilectionfor poultry-keeping on a scale which might almost be termed avicultural though I am relieved to know that as he has accepted the housemastership of Plantagenet he will reduce his stock to domestic dimensions. Even Beardley’s commercial