‘Jane, one of our pupils, had earache. She woke up with a rather bad attack of it and came to me. I got some remedies and when I’d got her back to bed, I saw the window curtains were flapping and thought perhaps it would be better for once if her window was not opened at night as it was blowing rather in that direction. Of course the girls always sleep with their windows open. We have difficulties sometimes with the foreigners, but I always insist that—’

‘That really doesn’t matter now,’ said Miss Bulstrode. ‘Our general rules of hygiene would not interest Inspector Kelsey.’

‘No, no, of course not,’ said Miss Johnson. ‘Well, as I say I went to shut the window and what was my surprise to see a light in the Sports Pavilion. It was quite distinct, I couldn’t mistake it. It seemed to be moving about.’

‘You mean it was not the electric light turned on but the light of a torch or flashlight?’

‘Yes, yes, that’s what it must have been. I thought at once “Dear me, what’s anyone doing out there at this time of night?” Of course I didn’t think of burglars. That would have been a very fanciful idea, as you said just now.’

‘What did you think of?’ asked Kelsey.

Miss Johnson shot a glance at Miss Bulstrode and back again.

‘Well, really, I don’t know that I had any ideas in particular. I mean, well—well really, I mean I couldn’t think—’

Miss Bulstrode broke in. ‘I should imagine that Miss Johnson had the idea that one of our pupils might have gone out there to keep an assignation with someone,’ she said. ‘Is that right, Elspeth?’

Miss Johnson gasped. ‘Well, yes, the idea did come into my head just for the moment. One of our Italian girls, perhaps. Foreigners are so much more precocious than English girls.’

‘Don’t be so insular,’ said Miss Bulstrode. ‘We’ve had plenty of English girls trying to make unsuitable assignations. It was a very natural thought to have occurred to you and probably the one that would have occurred to me.’

‘Go on,’ said Inspector Kelsey.

‘So I thought the best thing,’ went on Miss Johnson, ‘was to go to Miss Chadwick and ask her to come out with me and see what was going on.’

‘Why Miss Chadwick?’ asked Kelsey. ‘Any particular reason for selecting that particular mistress?’

‘Well, I didn’t want to disturb Miss Bulstrode,’ said Miss Johnson, ‘and I’m afraid it’s rather a habit of ours always to go to Miss Chadwick if we don’t want to disturb Miss Bulstrode. You see, Miss Chadwick’s been here a very long time and has had so much experience.’

‘Anyway,’ said Kelsey, ‘you went to Miss Chadwick and woke her up. Is that right?’

‘Yes. She agreed with me that we must go out there immediately. We didn’t wait to dress or anything, just put on pullovers and coats and went out by the side door. And it was then, just as we were standing on the path, that we heard a shot from the Sports Pavilion. So we ran along the path as fast as we could. Rather stupidly we hadn’t taken a torch with us and it was hard to see where we were going. We stumbled once or twice but we got there quite quickly. The door was open. We switched on the light and—’