Furious Old Women Read Free Page B

Stick’s remarks to her husband he had never once been supplied with the reply.
    â€œStick says what
I
say,” said Mrs Stick vehemently, and Carolus did not doubt it.
    â€œI don’t think there’s much fear of your being involved this time, Mrs Stick.”
    â€œThen you
are
up to something,” said the little woman triumphantly. “I knew it as soon as you came in late like that. Not that poor lady battered to death over at Gladhurst, is it?”
    â€œYou wouldn’t want to see an elderly woman murdered and the murderer go unpunished, would you?”
    â€œThere’s police to see to that and no call for you to start upsetting us all. It’s no good, Sir. Stick and I will have to leave and go somewhere where we don’t have the horrors every day of our lives. Put into an open grave, wasn’t she? Look at that and tell me how I’m expected to sleep sound at night. Besides, there’s what my sister will say. Last time I saw her she was on about my workingwhere there are all these murders. I don’t know. I really don’t.”
    But Carolus had an even more difficult interview next morning when Mr Gorringer the headmaster sent for him during the Break.
    Carolus was speeding towards the common-room in order to seize
The Times
before Hollingbourne could despoil the virginity of its crossword puzzle with the two clues he usually managed to solve, when he was waylaid by Muggeridge, the school porter.
    â€œHe wants you,” said Muggeridge sulkily, not needing to enlarge on this.
    â€œDamn,” said Carolus.
    â€œI know. That’s what I said when he rang that blasted bell of his.” Muggeridge found his life a wearisome one and resented the uniform, including a gold-braided top-hat, on which Mr Gorringer insisted. “He could just as well have come and spoken to you himself. But no, he has to sit at his blasted desk and ring his blasted bell and send me chasing all over the blasted place looking for you while my tea’s getting cold. He’s got something up his sleeve, too.”
    â€œThank you, Muggeridge.”
    â€œOh, I don’t blame
you,”
conceded Muggeridge. “You can’t help it any more than what I can if he wants to get on his high horse. I shall tell him, one of these days.”
    Carolus found Mr Gorringer if not on his high horse at least very upright and pontifical as he sat at his enormous study table.
    â€œAh, Deene,” he greeted Carolus in a manner neither over-friendly nor hostile. It was hard to guess what direction the interview would take. “I wanted a word with you.”
    Carolus nodded.
    â€œPray take a seat,” said Mr Gorringer. “We were disappointed not to see you at the house match yesterday. A very creditable show on the part of Plantagenet.” The houses at the Queen’s School, Newminster, apart fromSchool House, were known as Plantagenet and Stuart. “But doubtless you had more pressing matters to attend to?”
    â€œYes,” said Carolus.
    â€œIt is in some way connected with this that I wished to see you. I cannot help feeling, my dear Deene, that, while you carry out your duties as Senior History Master with conspicuous care and success, your interest in what we might call the life of the school is apt to wander into regions remote from ours. I recognize your right to occupy your own time as you wish but it has come to my ears that the other men are a trifle hurt by your indifference to our extra-academic activities.”
    Carolus waited.
    â€œIt happens, though, that a situation has arisen which will solve this little difficulty in a way most satisfactory to us all.
Breadman has decided to retire.”
    For a moment Carolus did not catch the awful implications of these last five words.
    â€œAs you know, he has been at the school as boy and master since the turn of the century and his going will leave a gap difficult indeed to fill. It will also mean that