‘There wasn’t anything hidden there, I can tell you that. We went through it with a tooth comb—the girls’ lockers, Miss Springer’s ditto. Sports equipment of various kinds, all normal and accounted for. And a brand new building! There wasn’t anything there in the nature of jewellery.’

‘Whatever it was it could have been removed, of course. By the murderer,’ said Adam. ‘The other possibility is that the Sports Pavilion was simply used as a rendezvous—by Miss Springer or by someone else. It’s quite a handy place for that. A reasonable distance from the house. Not too far. And if anyone was noticed going out there, a simple answer would be that whoever it was thought they had seen a light, etc., etc. Let’s say that Miss Springer went out to meet someone—there was a disagreement and she got shot. Or, a variation, Miss Springer noticed someone leaving the house, followed that someone, intruded upon something she wasn’t meant to see or hear.’

‘I never met her alive,’ said Kelsey, ‘but from the way everyone speaks of her, I get the impression that she might have been a nosey woman.’

‘I think that’s really the most probable explanation,’ agreed Adam. ‘Curiosity killed the cat. Yes, I think that’s the way the Sports Pavilion comes into it.’

‘But if it was a rendezvous, then—’ Kelsey paused.

Adam nodded vigorously.

‘Yes. It looks as though there is someone in the school who merits our very close attention. Cat among the pigeons, in fact.’

‘Cat among the pigeons,’ said Kelsey, struck by the phrase. ‘Miss Rich, one of the mistresses, said something like that today.’

He reflected a moment or two.

‘There were three newcomers to the staff this term,’ he said. ‘Shapland, the secretary. Blanche, the French Mistress, and, of course, Miss Springer herself. She’s dead and out of it. If there is a cat among the pigeons, it would seem that one of the other two would be the most likely bet.’ He looked towards Adam. ‘Any ideas, as between the two of them?’

Adam considered.

‘I caught Mademoiselle Blanche coming out of the Sports Pavilion one day. She had a guilty look. As though she’d been doing something she ought not to have done. All the same, on the whole—I think I’d plump for the other. For Shapland. She’s a cool customer and she’s got brains. I’d go into her antecedents rather carefully if I were you. What the devil are you laughing for?’

Kelsey was grinning.

‘She was suspicious of you,’ he said. ‘Caught you coming out of the Sports Pavilion—and thought there was something odd about your manner!’

‘Well, I’m damned!’ Adam was indignant. ‘The cheek of her!’

Inspector Kelsey resumed his authoritative manner.

‘The point is,’ he said, ‘that we think a lot of Meadowbank round these parts. It’s a fine school. And Miss Bulstrode’s a fine woman. The sooner we can get to the bottom of all this, the better for the school. We want to clear things up and give Meadowbank a clean bill of health.’