It's Murder at St. Basket's (4 page)

I ate my rice pudding slowly, kind of dawdling over it, and then I went into the yard out back where we had games, and moped around in the dark, trying to think over what I was going to say. After a while I realized I was just stalling. It was almost seven-thirty. So I went back in again and walked slowly up the stairs. It was pretty quiet in the house. Miss Grime wouldn't allow a television set or even a radio in the masters' commons room. She said they were vulgar, but Shrimpton said it was because she was too cheap, and so usually the masters went up to the pub in the evening. Mrs. Rabbit had gone home, and I couldn't hear any sound from the fourth floor.

Being
so quiet, I could hear the stairs creak under my feet as I went up to the second floor. It added to the creepiness; it gave me the feeling that I was all alone in a big house out in the middle of nowhere, held prisoner by some crazy people. If you want to know the truth, Mr. and Miss Grime always seemed a little weird to me. They were brother and sister; only I guess it would be better to say sister and brother, because Miss Grime was the boss. She was headmistress. Mr. Grime was called Elector of the College, which was supposed to make him boss, but that was a crock, because he did whatever Miss Grime told him to do. There was something crazy about it, the two of them being fifty or sixty years old or whatever they were, and living up there together, and bossing us all around.

I got up to their floor and stood in front of the big wooden door, listening I was hoping that I wouldn't hear anything—that maybe they'd have gone out to the theatre, which is what they sometimes did, and wouldn't be home until late. But there were murmurous voices coming through the door, and I knew I had to knock. So I did; but it was a pretty timid knock, just a light tap, and they didn't hear. I took a deep breath, got up my courage, and knocked again, pretty loud. The murmurous voices stopped, and I heard footfalls, and in a minute the door opened and Mr. Grime put his head out. “Yes? Oh, it's you.” He turned his head around. “It's the little American chap, my dear, “he said. Only he pronounced it “Amedican.”

“Let him in, Charles.” She had this boomy voice and I didn't have any trouble hearing it.

“Come in, lad,” he said. He opened the door and I walked in. I'd been in there a couple of times before, but not much, because mostly they didn't like people coming in and bothering them. It was a pretty crazy room, with an old worn Turkish rug, and a lot of stuffed chairs and heavy tables made of dark wood, with sort of lace doilies on them, and piled up with useless junk—old-time souvenirs like snuffboxes, and little carvings of animals, and tiny books and decks of cards, and little glass shepherds with glass sheep, and things made out of tortoise shell. There were bookcases with lots of old books, too, so old that you could smell the mustiness of them. In fact, the whole room was musty. It gave you the idea that the windows had never been opened, and that the Grimes never went in or out, but stayed there year after year, never changing, never getting older, but just going on like that over the centuries. They looked musty themselves. Miss Grime was pretty fat and always wore a huge dress that was some color like purple or bright green or maroon. Mr. Grime wore the same suit all the time, a black, kind of shiny suit with a vest and a little maroon tie with a yellow diagonal stripe in it. Maybe it wasn't
the
same suit—maybe he just had a lot alike. If he did, they were all old and musty.

Miss Grime sat on a sofa with a low table in front of her, and an old cut-glass decanter on it full of sherry.

“Good evening, Quincy,” she boomed out. I was glad to see she remembered my name: I guess she'd seen it on my father's checks and had taken the trouble to memorize it.

“Good evening, M'am,” I said, reminding myself to be polite.

She took a sip of her sherry. “I was reading something in the paper about one of your Amedican chaps the other day,” she boomed out. “Most amusing. Man bought his wife a Jaguar for her birthday. I daresay she asked him for it, in that pushy way Amedican women have. When she unwrapped it, it bit her. That's a good one, isn't it? You get the nub, of course, she wanted a Jaguar motor car and the silly fool thought she wanted the animal.” I worked up a little smile. There isn't any point in trying to straighten out the English on things about America.

She poured herself another glass of sherry. “Don't imagine she fancied that, getting eaten by her birthday present. Fortunately, the man pulled his gun in time and shot it before it did much damage.”

The English believe that all Americans carry guns around all day, like movie cowboys. When I first got to school the kids asked me how many guns I had, and what kind they were, and for a long time they wouldn't believe me when I said I didn't even know how to shoot a gun. I wanted to say something snotty back to Miss Grime, but I managed to control myself, and said only, “I wonder where he got the gun, M'am?”

She ignored that. “Who's your President now, Quincy? Is it what's-his-name still? Roosevelt?”

“Eisenhower, I think, my dear,” Mr. Grime said.

“Rubbish, Charles. That was years ago. Eisenhower was here during the war, I distinctly remember.”

I told them who the President was.

“Never heard of him,” she said. “I don't believe you can have that right, Quincy. Well, never mind, you change them so often over there it's hard to keep up. Charles, this sherry is vile. Tell Mr. Vines I want him to replace the bottle. And by the bye, I think you had better say something to Mrs. Rabbit about the boys getting into the stout. They— You still here, Quincy?”

I swallowed. “Yes, M'am.”

“
Well, all right, that's enough. Toddle along now.”

“The thing is, I wanted to mention about Choudhry.”

She frowned. “Choudhry? Who's that?”

“The Pakistani boy, my dear,” Mr. Grime said. When he said that I got a sinking feeling; I knew how they felt about Pakistanis.

“Ah. What's the matter with him?”

“I think—”

“Don't mumble, boy, speak up.”

“I think he's—”

“You think what, Quincy?”

“He's got a broken leg.”

“You think he's got a broken leg, eh, Quincy?”

I didn't like the sound of that any. “Yes, M'am.”

“You're a doctor, I suppose, eh, Quincy? Four years of medical studies at the university and all that? Quite competent to make a diagnosis on a simple thing like a broken leg. Is that it, Quincy?”

I was beginning to sweat. I took out my handkerchief and wiped my face. “No, no, I don't mean that I'm a doctor or anything.”

“Glad to hear that, Quincy. Never know what kind of wonders to expect from Amedica.”

I knew I had to make myself say something. “But M'am—”

“All right, Quincy, toddle off. And next time leave the diagnosis to the professionals.”

“But still we think it's broken. I mean if Dr. Corps-Deadly could look at it, so we'd know for sure—”

She held up her hand like a traffic cop, and I stopped talking. For a moment she didn't say anything; and when she began, her voice wasn't boomy anymore, but low and mean. “Quincy, suppose I told you that Mr. Jaggers has already reported Choudhry's unfortunate misbehavior? Suppose I told you that Mr. Jaggers has informed me about Choudhry's little escapade?”

“Escapade?” My mouth gaped open.

“Come, come, Quincy, I haven't been running St. Basket's for thirty years without learning something about the nasty habits of boys. If Choudhry felt he had to climb the
waterspout
to peer in at that silly fool Margaret Fallows when she was dressing, it is hardly Mr. Jaggers' fault that he fell. No doubt, the rest of you put him up to it. And for your information, Quincy, Mr. Jaggers informs me that he has examined the injury and that it is nothing more than a bruise. And now, Quincy, you may toddle along.”

I stood there staring at her with my mouth open, and I knew I'd better get it shut if I could, because I was about to mouth off.

“Come, come, Quincy, go along. Well have no further discussion of it.”

Still I didn't move, but stood there trying to think of some polite argument. I kept having the feeling that if it had been an English kid instead of a Pakistani, it would have been different.

“Quincy—” She reached for her sherry glass.

“It's not true,” I blurted out. “It's a lie. I was there. I saw him hit David.”

Miss Grime's hand stopped dead in the air halfway to the sherry glass, and Mr. Grime made a little gasping noise. Then there was complete silence and they both stared at me. Finally Miss Grime spoke in a deadly quiet voice. “Quincy, you are not accusing one of the masters of lying, I hope?”

I felt like shouting out, yes, I was accusing one of the masters of lying, and that if they didn't do something about David Choudhry I was going to call the police or his father or my father or something. But I knew it wouldn't do any good. You could see how shocked they were by what I'd said already. In the States nobody would have got so excited by what I'd said, but in England the bosses of the Establishment aren't used to anybody mouthing off. It just
isn't done
at a place like St. Basket's. And I knew I'd better shut my mouth before I got things into a worse mess. So I said, “No, M'am,” in a whispery voice. And then I left.

CHAPTER
4

I
DIDN
'
T FEEL
too good when I walked back up to the fourth floor. I kept telling myself that there wasn't anything more I could have done, that Miss Grime had made up her mind to believe Jaggers, and nobody, especially some vulgar Amedican kid, was going to get her to change her mind. Still, I kept having this hollow, empty feeling in my stomach that I should have done something about it. I wished I'd argued with her some more. I wished I'd told her that David probably was dying or might have to have his leg amputated at least, if she didn't call the doctor. Probably it wouldn't have done any good; probably she'd have just put me down for a punishment, or maybe even kicked me out of school. Even so, I would have felt a lot better for shouting at her, even if I did get expelled, because I'd have done what I thought was right. I'd have done what I believed in.

Actually, I even felt a little ashamed to go into the dorm and face Choudhry and Plainfield; but it was too late to do anything about it now, and I told myself to stop being ashamed, shouting out might have made me feel better, but it wouldn't have helped David any.

Margaret and Leslie were sitting by Choudhry's bed, looking at him. David's eyes were closed, and his face was pale and covered with sweat. They'd got an extra blanket on him.

Leslie gave me a signal. “He's sort of passed out,” he whispered. In England that means asleep. I nodded, and they got up and we all went into Margaret's little room to have a conference. I must say, Margaret doesn't keep her room much cleaner than ours, except just by a little.

Her chairs were all covered with clothes, so we distributed them around, mostly onto her desk because she screamed when we tried to just dump them onto the floor, and sat down.

They were pretty anxious to find out what happened. “Were you scared?” Margaret asked.

Luckily I didn't have to answer that, because Leslie interrupted. “What did the old crow say?”

“Well, first she said about five snotty things about the States. She doesn't even know who the President is. She thought it was Roosevelt.”

“I'll bet you didn't know who our Prime Minister was before you came here,” Leslie shot
back.

“No, but I knew who your King was. I mean Queen.”

“Yes, but that's easy, Quincy. I mean the Queen stays on for years, and your President only stays for five.”

“Four,” I said. “See, Plainfìeld, you don't even know how long the President's term is.”

“I'll bet you don't know how long the Prime Minister's in for,” he said.

“Yes, I do,” I said. “Five years, unless he calls an election earlier.”

“But that's because you've lived here. If I had lived in the States I'd know how long the President stays in.”

Margaret began hitting Leslie on the shoulder. “Stop your bloody noise, you chaps. What about old David?”

“Well, here's the thing,” I said. “Jaggers told her a whole long story about Choudhry falling down from the fourth floor. He said he was climbing up there to peek in on Margaret when she was undressed.”

“Fancy that,” Margaret said. “How rude. What a filthy thing to say.”

“She said probably we'd put him up to it, and he was shinnying up the drainpipe and slipped.”

“But I bloody well
saw
him hit David,” Plainfield said.

“I don't even think you could climb up to Margaret's window,” I said.

We got up and rushed to the window and jammed together, looking down. It wasn't too easy to see, in the dark. “It looks jolly hard,” Margaret said.

“If you managed to pull yourself up the drainpipe and then got your feet on the cornice there and hung onto the window ledge, you might do it,” Leslie said.

“I doubt it,” I said. “You'd have to be pretty strong to shinny up a drainpipe four floors.” “I think I could do it,” Leslie said. “Maybe you could or I could. I don't think Choudhry could. Anyway, it doesn't make any difference. Grime believes it. Besides, she could always say he got tired halfway up and slipped or something.”

We went back and sat down. “Surely you told her it wasn't true?” Margaret said.

“Of course I told her it wasn't true, what do you think?”

“But we all saw it,” Leslie said. “Surely you told her about hearing that cracking noise.” “She wouldn't let me.”