The Curious Case of the Copper Corpse Read Free Page B

it, with the name
W. O. G. Denning
lettered neatly on a card.
    I suffered a brief pang as I realized I should have brought the keys from Mr. Denning’s pocket. Perhaps, though, a man of such authority would have no need to secure his doors: Respect would serve as its own lock and key. Even if he had shot the bolt, I could always count on my powers of lock-picking, for which I am eternally grateful to Dogger. A bent fork from the dining hall or a bit of stout wire from a stovepipe was as good as a Yale key in the right hands. As it turned out, though, I needn’t have worried: The door opened at a touch, and I had locked myself into the housemaster’s study before you could say “Spit!”
    My stealth was wasted. The room was as empty of personal belongings as a tomb. Save for a foxed Christmas card from four years ago, propped open on a windowsill, addressed “Dear Mr. Denning,” and signed “Norah Willett (for the Battersea Dogs’ Home),” there was nothing but a bed, a desk, and a shelf of dusty schoolbooks. The desk drawers were empty except for a red pencil, a ruler, scissors, an India-rubber eraser, a box of drawing pins, and a spoon.
    It was as if the man had no more needs than a phantom: as if he scarcely existed.
    Although I checked under the mattress and pillows and inspected the undersides of drawers and the insides of rolled-up socks, my heart was not in it. I expected to find nothing, and nothing’s what I found.
    I let myself out.
    In order to reach the stairs, I had first to run the gauntlet of staring, black-framed faces that lined both sides of the hall: those Old Boys of Greyminster, students and masters, who had graduated into death “That Others Might Live,” as it said on each of the frames. I kept eyes front as I passed in review before these now-dead eyes, trying with all my strength not to break into a run before I reached the staircase.
    At the back of the next floor up was the chemistry lab: a shameful jungle of unwashed flasks, stained beakers, and soiled petri dishes which showed clearly that Mr. Winter, the chemistry master, was more obsessed with Jaguars and speed than with cleanliness. I could have swatted him!
    The blackboard was covered with equations, as well as a list of test results, upon which the names of Somerville and Plaxton led all the rest.
    The chemicals were stored on shelves in a long, dim, narrow anteroom, and were arranged more or less alphabetically, although not always, since zinc sulfate came before sulfur. I could see, even before I came to it, what I was looking for. An empty space between calcium carbonate and hydrochloric acid showed that a large jar of copper sulfate was missing. I had no doubt that it would turn up sooner or later in one of the rubbish bins at Anson House. The question was this: Who had moved the jar from here to there? Fingerprints might or might not come to light, but all of that was still in the future.
    For now, there was only one thing left to do before I took my leave. I erased a few of the chemical equations on the blackboard and, taking a stub of chalk in my left hand so as to obscure my handwriting, I wrote on the board in large letters: CLEANLINESS > GODLINESS, which could be read in several ways. Actually, I was quite proud of myself.
    As I emerged into the quad, a stream of boys and masters came spilling out of the chapel’s open mouth. The sun had made its appearance, promising a fine day after all. I drifted slowly over to an old oak, where, after shedding and spreading my mackintosh, I sank demurely and sat with my hands folded in my lap, my placid face upturned to the sunshine in a slight smile. Somebody’s sister, up for Sunday tea and biscuits: no more, no less.
    How easy it is, on the whole, to pull the wool over the eyes of men and boys.
    As I waited for the worshippers to disperse, I began to review the facts and possibilities in the case.
    First and foremost was the evidence of the tub itself, and the copper-plated body