He didn’t like it at all.
‘What are you doing with these pinned in your jacket?’ he cried in bewilderment. It was always the same. One inquiry always led into another you hadn’t expected. You started to question a boy who had simply played truant and before you had finished finding out where he went, you were on the track of a series of thefts from shops and lorries.
‘That’s where Maverick keeps his money,’ Savage stalled.
Mr Daunders wouldn’t admit to a scruffy schoolboy that he too followed the adventures of Maverick.
‘Whose class is he in?’ he asked judicially.
‘He’s no’ in a class, he’s on the telly,’ Savage explained.
‘That hardly tells me what you’re doing with four pound notes pinned inside a very expensive leather jacket, does it?’ Mr Daunders murmured.
Savage said nothing.
‘Where did you get this money?’ Mr Daunders asked wheedlingly. ‘Come on, you’ll save a lot of time, and save yourself a lot of trouble if you tell me the truth. Where did you get it?’
‘Wee Noddy gave it to me to keep for him,’ Savage answered. He was quick in his own way. He knew it was safe to mention Noddy, because Noddy wouldn’t give anything away. He couldn’t, because he couldn’t speak. To tell about the cellar was far beyond Noddy’s powers of speech.
‘Who?’ said Mr. Daunders, just as unwilling to admit he knew nicknames as to admit he knew Maverick.
‘Nicky Mann,’ said Savage, ‘in Jasper’s class.’
‘In whose class?’ Mr Daunders asked gently. He knew quite well who Jasper was. He had often commented on the amazing knack schoolboys had for giving a teacher a nickname. Jasper was an admirable name for the blue- jowled, villainous-looking young man with the lock of jet- black hair always falling over his right eye.
‘Mr Whiffen’s,’ said Savage. ‘Nicky Mann in Mr Whiffen’s class.’
‘Oh no!’ Mr Daunders groaned, his compulsive act of judicial ignorance over. He had to face it.
‘I’m keeping this money,’ he said. ‘Send Mann to me.’
He knew he had blundered the moment Savage crossed the door. He should have kept Savage incommunicado and had someone else fetch Noddy. But he was tired. Tired of evasive, deceitful, dirty-faced schoolboys. He had another spasm of longing for his retirement and his Horace.
Noddy arrived, briefly but efficiently warned by Savage, and Mr Daunders knew he was beaten before he started.
‘I never,’ said Noddy.
‘But he says you gave him it,’ said Mr Daunders.
‘I never,’ said Noddy.
‘Where did you get it?’ asked Mr Daunders.
‘I never,’ said Noddy.
‘Are you saying Savage is telling lies then?’ Mr Daunders asked.
‘I never,’ said Noddy.
‘Well, where do you think Savage got it?’ Mr Daunders asked.
‘I never,’ said Noddy.
‘You’re not answering my question,’ Mr Daunders said.
‘Just listen to me. Now—’
‘I never,’ said Noddy.
Mr Daunders gave in. He had to admit it was impossible to get a statement from a boy who was inarticulate, but that was only what Savage had seen before him.
He kept the four pound notes, though he wasn’t happy about it. He insisted on seeing Savage’s parents, but it was no use. They never answered his letter inviting them to call, for Savage made sure he got his hands on it first. The loss of the money didn’t bother him, he had plenty more. He was more concerned to keep his father out of it.
Mrs Mann was no help either. Noddy told her no more than he told Mr Daunders, and she was too cautious to claim the money. She had a nose. So had Mr Daunders.
‘It smells very fishy to me,’ he told his chief assistant, a superior person from a Border family with the double- barrelled name of Baillie-Hunter. ‘There seems to be a lot of money floating round this school just now. Miss Nairn told me she found McGillicuddy with a pound note inside his reader. He was apparently using it as a book- mark.’
‘He always reminds me of those odd mountains in Ireland,’ said Mr Baillie-Hunter, sniffing languidly. ‘McGillicuddy’s Reeks.’
‘He does smell a little,’ Mr Daunders conceded. ‘You see, they never wash all over, and they sleep in their shirt, these boys.’
‘And McCutcheon had money last week,’ said Mr Baillie-Hunter.
‘Yes, Mr Whiffen caught him passing a ten-shilling note to Morrison when they were supposed to be doing their sums,’ said Mr Daunders. ‘And Miss McIvory found out Somerled was paying McIntosh and Crombie five bob a week each to do his homework for him. One of them did his arithmetic and the other did his grammar. There he was, getting his homework right every time and couldn’t get a thing right in class. The deceit was as gross as a mountain, open, palpable. They’ve no craft, these boys. His mother was up to see me only yesterday. Quite cross because I hadn’t approved him for a full senior secondary course. She wanted to argue he was a clever boy. Always got his homework right. She damn soon changed her tune when I showed her his dictation book. Forty, fifty and sixty errors in dictations of less than a hundred words.’
‘Oh, we could never send him to a senior secondary school,’ said Mr Baillie-Hunter, appalled. ‘Why, he doesn’t even know his tables.’
‘Ah, they’re a great lot!’ Mr Daunders sighed. ‘I don’t know what I did to be sent here as headmaster in my declining years. I might as well be in the CID, the things I’ve got to investigate. And what am I to do about this four pound? It isn’t mine, and I’m damn sure it isn’t Savage’s. Do you think they could be selling what they steal? There’s a sort of gang there, you know, Savage – he’s the ring-leader, I’m sure – and Noddy and Cuddy and Cutchy and Somerled. Wherever you find trouble in this school you find they’re mixed up in it.’
‘What about Tosh and Crumbs?’ Mr Baillie-Hunter asked.
‘No, they’re not in it,’ Mr Daunders was sure. ‘They’re just a couple of sycophants. Anyway, Somerled was paying them. He wouldn’t be paying them if they were in the gang. They would have their share of whatever money’s going. Whatever it comes from.’
‘Gambling?’ suggested Mr Baillie-Hunter.
‘I hardly think so. What kind of odds with the money a schoolboy has would let Savage win four pounds?’
Mr Baillie-Hunter finished his mid-morning coffee with his headmaster and returned to his class for a poetry lesson. He was reading to them ‘Lord Ullin’s Daughter’ and acting it well, changing his voice to be the chief of Ulva’s isle, the boatman and Lord Ullin, and even
