Was It Murder?

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Book: Was It Murder? Read Online Free PDF
Author: James Hilton
Tags: Fiction, General
pacing along the felt matting in between the tiers of beds in the dormitories.  In neither of them could Revell feel quite sure which bed he had once occupied—so lightly did sentimental recollections weigh on him.  He found, indeed, that his thoughts were far more on the boy Marshall than on his own schooldays.  The bright new electric lamps suspended from the ceiling over the central gangway drew his attention to the double row of scars on either side, where formerly had been the gas-fittings.  Certainly, as Daggat had said, it was a curious thing that one of them should have fallen directly on to a sleeping boy.  And yet such curious things DID happen.  Perhaps the boys HAD been swinging on it previously, despite Roseveare’s denial at the inquest.  Heads could not know everything that happened.
    During lunch, however, he did not mention the matter, nor did Roseveare.  After a pleasant meal, punctuated with equally pleasant conversation, the weather improved, and Revell, leaving the other in his study, strolled out into the world of leafless trees and sodden turf.  There was really not much that he could do.  In his own mind he was quite certain that young Marshall had met his death by an unusual sort of accident, and that the note left in his algebra-book a few hours previously was nothing more significant than a rather remarkable coincidence.  What did puzzle him was not so much the Marshall affair itself, as Roseveare’s extraordinary fit of nerves over it.
    Still, he might as well fill in the time with some sort of inquiry.  A chat with Jones Tertius, for instance, was an obvious step, though he did not expect it to yield very much.  The junior boys, he knew, usually spent winter Sunday afternoons in the Common Room; so he re-entered School House, put his head in at the familiar door, and asked the nearest occupant if he could tell him Jones’s whereabouts.  The cry went round, and in a moment or two he found facing him a small, spectacled, rather shy youngster dressed in Oakington’s compulsory Sunday blacks.
    Revell, when he chose to exert himself, had a distinct way with people.  He was young enough, too, to be able to approach a thirteen-year-old without any sign of adult condescension.  “Hullo, Jones,” he began, with a pleasant smile.  “Sorry to drag you away from your friends”—not “pals” or “chums”, as Daggat would have said—“but I thought you might have a minute or two to spare.  Perhaps we could take a turn round the pitch—it’s stopped raining.”
    The boy accompanied him willingly enough but with very natural
    surprise.  “I’m an O.O. up for the week-end, you see,” went on
    Revell, “and when I saw your name on the School list, I thought I’d
    look you up in case you were the brother of a fellow I knew very
    well when I was here.  Of course, I know the name isn’t exactly a
    rare one, but—“
    And so on.  It turned out that the boy had no brothers, either past or present, but by the time the matter had been fully elucidated, the pair had reached the sports pavilion and were faced with the return walk.  And what more natural, therefore, than that Revell should say, as if making conversation:  “Awfully bad business about that boy who was killed here at the beginning of Term, wasn’t it?  Did you know him?”
    But beyond the fact that Jones had known him, and had been his particular friend, Revell learned practically nothing.  Jones was one of those boys who do not respond to pumping, even by the most expert pumper.  It was evident, though, that he shared none of the Head’s curiosity, misgiving, or whatever exactly it was.  And as Revell had fully expected this, he bade farewell to the boy at the door of School House with a satisfied smile.
    Like some rather preposterous slow-motion film the pageant of an Oakington Sunday tortuously unwound itself.  Revell took tea with the Head and dazzlingly propounded his pet theory that Charlotte, Emily,
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