The Murdered Schoolgirl: A Classic Crime Novel. John Russell Fearn
Читать онлайн книгу.
one of our little confabs.”
“Very well, Miss Black,” Tanby answered, folding her angular figure on to a chair.
“You know, for instance, that I have the rather disturbing weakness of being in love with criminology—”
“Yes, Miss Black, I know all about your private hobby—your study of crime, your deductive capacities, your passion for the unusual.… I even remember,” she added in a hushed voice, “how you solved the mystery of your brother’s death in America last summer—calling yourself ‘Black Maria’ and enlisting the help of a—er—Bowery thug for the purpose.”
“That,” Maria sighed reminiscently, “was a truly glorious vacation, and I really did enjoy myself in the company of Mr. ‘Pulp’ Martin. However, that is behind us, Miss Tanby, and thanks to your silence no girl in this school—or the public either—knows that I solved that mystery. It would hardly do for the girls to know: they might start calling me ‘Black Maria’ to my face!”
Miss Tanby shifted uneasily.
“Tell me, Miss Tanby, what do you think of a man whose high colour smears when he gets warm?”
Miss Tanby frowned. She had never studied the colour of men very closely: they had never given her the chance. “I don’t quite understand, Miss Black—”
“I am referring to our departed friend, Major Hasleigh. There is something distinctly peculiar about that upright military gentleman! Something that arouses my suspicions.…”
“I thought he seemed a very respectable gentleman,” Tanby said timidly.
“Respectable, I grant you—but most unorthodox! I was struck from the moment I first saw him by his very high colour. It was not the pink and purple bloom of cardiac trouble, nor the brick-red or nut-brown of exposure to the elements. No, it was an odd shade of matt red, rather like the colouring matter some young ladies put on their legs in these days of stocking shortage.…” Maria coughed a little and halted. “It was utterly unnatural! So, rather at the expense of my own legs and heart, I gave him a miniature marathon round the school’s appointments to see what happened when he really became warm,” Maria smiled wickedly. “As he left I was rewarded with the amazing sight of seeing white trickles in the redness about his forehead! His colour was applied, and in places perspiration removed it. Normally I should think he is fairly pale.”
Tanby simply sat and said nothing. Maria gave her an irritated look. “Well?” she asked.
“I’m sorry, Miss Black, but I was just wondering if there is really anything significant about it. Presumably the major thinks sunburn powder makes him attractive.”
“Sunburn powder?” Maria repeated.
“Quite different from the lotion used for legs,” Tanby explained. “The leg lotion doesn’t have to smear because of rain; but sunburn powder is used very often by people with pale skins to—er—enhance their attractiveness.…” Tanby stopped as though she were astonished at her own revelations; then she added mildly, “I’ve seen the powder and the lotion both advertised.”
“And no doubt have used them,” Maria commented drily. “However, we are not here to discuss feminine frivolities or the virtues of cosmetics. What I want to know is why a military man should be so effeminate as to use such a powder. I suspect, too, that his hair was powdered, though I could not exactly blow on it to find out. So, Miss Tanby, a man with powdered face and hair and an intense dislike for ultraviolet equipment suddenly arrives and places his daughter with us, leaving a year’s fee in advance. It is, to say the least of it—peculiar.”
“Surely, then, you should have refused to take his daughter?” Tanby asked, rather bluntly.
“I could hardly do that because her father powders his face and hair, could I? He paid the fees by cheque, which I find is quite genuine.…” Maria gave a little sigh, “I suppose that I am so accustomed to looking for peculiarities in people that I am making a mountain out of a molehill.… All the same, I would like to know why he doesn’t wish his daughter to undergo ultraviolet ray treatment at any time. It is such a stimulating process, too. There have been times when the girls have been in class when I have myself— Hmm, we have no need to go into that.… You will see to it, Miss Tanby, that the girl does not have the treatment if you can prevent it, and if any of the girls try and make her, she is to report it to me.”
“Yes, Miss Black,” Tanby nodded.
“Thank you for listening to my little—er—investigative talk. I find you a great help at such times. Amongst other things, keep your eye on this girl Frances. If she proves as unique as her father, she will be well worth watching.”
Tanby waited, then seeing the imperious nod of the hair bun she went out silently.… Alone again, Maria’s thoughts were not on the biology class she was due to take at three o’clock. They were on the address of Hasleigh’s sister-in-law, which she had scribbled down.
“Prominent financier,” she mused. “I wonder if prominent enough to be in Who’s Who?”
Evidently not, for all her searching failed to reveal any trace of the name. It seemed reasonable enough that a house with such an impressive address should have a telephone, anyway, so she dialled inquiry and asked for the number. Politely she was advised that “The Willows, Sundale, Essex,” was not listed.
“Extraordinary!” Maria muttered, “or is it?”
She turned next to her index of British schools, but she failed to trace the girl’s previous seat of learning—Elmington High School. Small the place might be, but every college and school in the country was included here, as she well knew.
“Maria, you are learning things,” she muttered. “Out of nowhere, literally, you’ve got a new pupil. Maybe Major Hasleigh handed to me what the films call a—ah—‘bum steer,’ so he could get out without evading my questions. However, there are other ways yet.”
Accordingly she sent a telegram to the sister-in-law over the phone, reading— Are you relative of Major Hasleigh? Reply to Black, Roseway College, near Langhorn, Sussex. Then, satisfied that she had done all she could for the moment, she hurried off to take the biology class.
The girls, however, found that their empress was right off her form. She even muffed that technical bit about the sub-clavicle artery, which was her favourite bit of bonework. They little knew that her eyes and mind were trained on the school gates, through the big classroom window, otherwise they might have understood.
When the telegraph boy did eventually appear Maria had moved on to the Fourth Form. She brought the lesson to a hurried close, then hastened to her study just as the porter was bringing the telegram in. She took it from him, dismissed him briefly. Then when she had the buff form in her hand, she frowned over it.
It had a blue ink rubber-stamp right across it—
UNDELIVERABLE. ADDRESS UNKNOWN.
“Extraordinary, even incredible,” she reflected. “A girl from nowhere, indeed, whose associations seem to have melted like her father’s sunburn. Definitely I must keep an eye on her—definitely!”
CHAPTER TWO
All unaware of the effect she had produced on her crime-sensitive Headmistress, Frances Hasleigh domiciled herself in Study F the moment she had freshened up and placed her belongings in the dormitory locker assigned to her by Miss Tanby. There were no studies for her until tomorrow, so until classes were ended for the afternoon she spent a little while tidying up the none too orderly study, a job she had just completed when Beryl Mather and Joan Dawson entered, their textbooks slung in leather straps over their shoulders.
“Well!” exclaimed the dark girl, throwing down the books. “A newcomer, eh? How are you? I’m Joan Dawson.”
Frances shook hands. “I’m Frances Hasleigh. Glad to know you both—”
Beryl Mather, thirteen stone of a girl, shook hands, too. “Call me