Was It Murder? Read Free Page A

fittings that had seen many years’ service, especially if they had been subjected to any particular sort of strain.  Questioned by the Coroner on this point, he said that he had in mind another and a similar fitting at the School that had been pulled down as a result of some of the boys swinging on it.
    Dr. Roseveare next gave evidence, if evidence it could be called.  The Coroner allowed him latitude to make a few kindly remarks concerning the dead boy and to express sympathy with his relatives.  From that he passed to the more practical announcement that the governors of the School had already given orders for the complete electrification of the entire buildings.  He also craved leave to state, since the point had been raised, that there never had been, to his knowledge, any instance of Oakington boys swinging on the gas-fittings.  The incident presumably referred to by one of the witnesses had been that of a window-cleaner who had carelessly broken off one of the fittings with his ladder.  As Headmaster he thought it only fair, in the interests of the School, to mention this. . . .
    That was all.  The jury, without retiring, returned the inevitable verdict of “Accidental Death”.
    Roseveare waited in silence until he could see that Revell had got to the end.  Then, moving forward a little in his chair, he coughed interrogatively.  “Well?  And what do you think of it?”
    Revell handed back the cutting.  “It was an odd sort of accident, of course,” he commented.  “But then, odder ones have happened, I daresay.”
    “Precisely.”  Roseveare’s grey, deep-set eyes quickened a little.  “I naturally regarded it in that light myself.  So did the poor boy’s guardian, a Colonel Graham, living in India, from whom I received a most courteous and sympathetic letter.  And then, just about a week ago . . .”  He paused.  “You will probably think it was quite a small and insignificant thing.  Indeed, I hope you do.  Anyhow, let me tell you about it.”
    Through the haze of cigar-smoke Revell nodded encouragement.  Roseveare continued:  “Last week I had a letter from Colonel Graham— a second letter.  He suggested that Mr. Ellington, as the poor boy’s housemaster and cousin, should take charge of his personal belongings until he himself came home from India in about six months’ time.  I had naturally been expecting instructions of such a kind, and had already had everything collected and stored away.  I was just looking them over before passing them on to Ellington when—to make a longish story a little shorter—I chanced upon this.”  He produced a second slip of paper from his wallet.  “It was between the pages of the boy’s algebra-book.”
    It was a sheet of notepaper with the Oakington crest and letter-heading.  At the top was the date—September 18 th .  And underneath, in carefully printed capital letters, the following:
     
    “IF ANYTHING SHOULD HAPPEN TO ME, I LEAVE EVERYTHING TO MY BROTHER WILBRAHAM, EXCEPT MY THREE-SPEED BICYCLE, WHICH I LEAVE TO JONES TERTIUS.  (SIGNED)--ROBERT MARSHALL.”
     
    Revell, after a short pause, handed back the document without remark.  Roseveare went on:  “You can perhaps imagine my feelings at the discovery of such a thing.  It raised—hardly perhaps so much as a suspicion—but a sort of—shall I say a sort of curiosity in my mind.  It was rather disconcerting to reflect that on the very evening before the boy died he had been thinking of his own possible death.”
    Revell nodded.  “I suppose there WAS a three-speed bicycle?”
    “Oh yes.  And he WAS friendly with Jones—I verified all that.  I couldn’t get hold of another example of his printing to compare with, but the handwriting of the signature seemed authentic enough.”  He clenched his hands on the arms of the chair and added, with a touch of eagerness:  “I daresay the whole thing is just pure coincidence.  I certainly don’t want you to assume