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Miss Plummer.
    â€œAnd once the pictures are in the paper,” Cribb continued with a long-suffering sigh, “it means we’ll have to have a squad of constables on duty here protecting Miss Shaw. There’s always a possibility of the murderers returning to silence the witness, you understand.”
    Miss Plummer closed her eyes and swayed slightly.
    â€œSo in all the circumstances it might be wiser if I took Miss Shaw along with me, don’t you think?” said Cribb.
    Miss Plummer wrung her hands in anguish. “I really don’t know whether such a thing is proper.”
    Cribb’s eyebrows peaked in surprise. “Not proper? Not proper to assist a police officer in the execution of his duty?”
    â€œHow do I know she will be safe?”
    In a confidential tone Cribb said, “I’ve guarded the Sovereign herself in my time, ma’am. Have no fears about that. Go back into the room now and tell her you’re suspending her and committing her into my custody. She has half an hour to pack her things. We shall leave by the front door”—he drew out his watch—“at half-past eleven. Just think of the effect it will have on the other students.”

CHAPTER
    7
    The Bushman of the Yard—Literary pursuits of the police—Concerning the corpse
    T HAT WAS HOW H ARRIET found herself bowling along the Henley road in a growler in the company of three policemen. Her travelling bag sat importantly on the roof—privileged treatment, because P. C. Hardy’s bicycle, which could have been strapped up there, was left behind, propped against the gardener’s shed. Sergeant Cribb had made a pointed remark about the pace of life in the country and indicated with a jerk of his thumb that he wanted the constable to travel with the rest of the party in the cab. The bicycle had not been mentioned. It said much for P. C. Hardy’s judgment, in Harriet’s view, that he did not contest the point.
    She was seated next to Cribb, with the two constables opposite: a daunting experience considering that Miss Plummer allowed no member of the opposite sex except the Vicar of Henley into the same room with her students. It would have been gross bad manners to stare out of the window for the whole of the journey, however, but unendurably embarrassing to have caught P. C. Hardy’s eye (for he seemed determined not to look out of the window), so when she shifted her gaze from the beech trees, it turned without deviation to Constable Thackeray. And, most unusually when she first examined a face, the image that came to her was not from her atlas but her geography textbook, which had a frontispiece illustrating the multiformity of facial characteristics throughout the world. There was a striking resemblance between Constable Thackeray and Bushman, New Guinea. Harriet had never been quite sure whether “bush” referred to the man’s prodigious growth of whiskers or the sparse vegetation in the background. But Scotland Yard was quite the equal of New Guinea in growth of beard. Thackeray had the same broad forehead, shaggy eyebrows and generously proportioned ears, and if he lacked the finishing touch of a quill through his nostrils, at least he sported a fine brown bowler hat with a curly brim! Harriet decided she would not be intimidated by a set of whiskers. The face behind them was probably quite as jolly in reality as Esquimau, North America.
    â€œHave you read it yet?” Sergeant Cribb asked unexpectedly.
    After reflection, Thackeray replied, “Read what, Sarge?”
    â€œ Three Men in a Boat. Appeared this summer. Popular book. You see it on the bookstalls at every London terminus.”
    â€œI’ve heard of it.”
    â€œI have, too,” contributed P. C. Hardy.
    â€œWhat about you, Miss Shaw?” asked Cribb, ignoring such meagre responses. “Student like yourself must read books by the dozen.”
    Harriet shook her head.