7. A School Assembly

An enquiry moves to the local school

Percival Praxis, Headmaster of Brumpton Academy, the establishment where David Rozelle managed the class reserved for special needs children and Rufus Enderby, bright-as-a-button boy who’d never met Mr Rozelle on account of him never needing anything special, was sitting at his desk when the geriatric lollipop man, Joe Wimple, knocked his door and entered without being invited, something that Mr Praxis abhorred. After all, he was a headmaster of a school in which a motley selection of children spent their lives learning how to spell such phrases as knock and wait.

Mr Praxis was about to pour oceans of sarcasm onto the head of the child who hadn’t waited, but was lucky enough to look up first and notice that it wasn’t a boy or girl standing quivering there in expectation of a good ticking off and possibly a slap across the head, but the man who carried a STOP: CHILDREN CROSSING lollipop and smiling faintly.

“Ah, Mr Wimple,” he said, trying to sound breezy and everyone’s friend and failing on both counts, “what can I do for you?”

“I thought I’d warn you, sir as you can expect the coppers to turn up with their nosey questions, which explains why the sweet child Rufus, what is it, Wender-something-or-other, is late.

“Enderby,” came a quietly nervous voice from behind him.

“Enderby,” grunted Mr Wimple, self-correcting.

“And what was it that concerns thre officers of the law that you mentioned?” demanded the Headmaster, “has the boy been up to something evil, something for which I ought to punish him for by administering a good dose of detentions?”

“No, sir, nothing like that!” said an outraged Mr Wimple angrily, “the boy, sir, is a hero! He is the one person out of all the people in the world, to discover a dead person, and to have looked him in the eye despite the scary nature of such an acquaintance so early in the morning.”

“Oh, I see,” muttered Mr Praxis without really seeing anything of any importance, “You say he has been in communion with a corpse? How did this happen, Mr Wimple, how was it that a human person chanced to pass from the state of being a living, breathing, loving being to a dead, deceased, unbreathing one and in the company of Ender… by? Was he a parent. Or she. Was it a man or a woman departed to the hereafter? And in the presence of an innocent child? And was sickness involved?”

Mr Wimple, snorted. “Not sickness sir, because the dead person was stabbed,” he said, and added, “with a sharp knife, by the look of it, and not a pleasant sight for an elderly person who himself is shortly to be on the way to walk with the grim reaper down shadowy, sinewy passages, let alone a smart young fellow like Rufus Enderby!”

“Oh dear,” sighed the headmaster, not quite sure of how he should reply to such terrible news. He might have made a valiant effort at saying something meaningful whilst being sympathetic at te same time, but his secretary, whose office was next door to his own, burst in past the elderly lollipop man who was shaking his head at every word the headmaster uttered as if he couldn’t believe that somebody as highly qualified as he was could sound so stupid.

Miss Johnson was that secretary and if looks could kill the headmaster would be dropping down dead as she glared at him.

“There’s the fuzz wanting a word, Headmaster,” she said tartly.

Mr Praxis had lived a somewhat sheltered life, being the youngest of five sons bred by a local bigwig and his wife, who had jointly agreed that three lads would be quite enough, that four would just about be tolerable and that a fifth would be a mistake. So that fifth son had been left to his own devices, and those devices were mostly to do with space adventures in children’s and teenage fiction, and the fuzz hadn’t entered into them once, unless fuzz was another word for hairy and very green Martians.

“The police, guv,” explained Mr Wimple, “on account of there being a murder that involved one of your brightest boys. That’s true, isn’t it Rufus? You are one of Mr Praxis’s brightest boys, aren’t you?”

Before the confused boy could reply a detective Inspector, DI Glumpy barged into the room and grunted, “a word, Headmaster?”

“Of course,” came the reply because although Praxis had no idea what the fuzz might be he did understand the term Detective Inspector when he read it on a warrant card being held in front of his eyes.

“The reclaimed land that has been turfed over for children to play on has become a crime scene, I’m afraid. A man, unidentified as yet, has been found murdered on it by one of your pupils, a Rufus Enderby, and I wish to ask if you could make a complete enquire as to whether any other children who pass that way on their way to this academy might have witnessed anything that may help us investigate what looks to be a very nasty murder.”

“Of course, officer,” Mr Praxis agreed in an instant, “What do you want me to do? Gather all the children together in the hall so that you can question them en masse, as it were?”

“That would be most helpful and save valuable time,” thanked the DI, “and DC Pincher will take notes if anyone has anything to add to our knowledge, which at the moment is very limited, I’m afraid.”

“Then it shall be arranged,” said the headmaster eagerly, “then, when you are satisfied, we can continue with the valuable work we are doing with impressionable children without having to trouble our minds by wondering who the killer might stab next.”

So it was arranged. A child went round the school going from class to class with the simple scribbled message “all children to assemble in the school hall immediately”.

DI Glumpy explained why they were there and so much praised was poured onto Rufus Enderby’s shoulders that the poor boy earned the nickname of grass, which persisted for the rest of his time at Brumpton Academy. But that was of no importance whatsoever against the genuine fact that one of the teachers left the school premises once his own class of remedial pupils had gone to the unusual assembly. He was Mr Rozelle, and only one person saw him go.

And that was the lollipop man, who having done his duty to the school, was on his way to the Groomsman’s Arms where he hoped to earn the gift of several free pints if he told his story about the boy and the murdered body cleverly enough.

© Peter Rogerson 26.05.24