A Murder of Quality

'Gosh, no! We're miles behind. That's all the stuff downstairs, waiting to be unpacked and sorted. It comes from the voluntary reps, at each school—sometimes boys and sometimes Staff—and they put all the clothes together and send them up in big parcels, either by train or ordinary mail, usually by train. We sort them here before sending abroad.'

'That's what I gathered from Jane. As soon as she realized she'd made this mistake she got hold of the woman doing the collecting and sending, but of course it was too late. The parcel had gone.'

'How frantic… Do you know when the parcel was sent off?'

'Yes. On Friday morning.'

'From Carne? Train or post?'

Miss Brimley had been dreading this question, but she made a guess:

'Post, I believe.'

Darting past Miss Brimley, the girl foraged among the pile of papers on her desk and finally produced a stiff-backed exercise book with a label on it marked 'Ledger'. Opening it at random, she whisked quickly back and forth through the pages, licking the tip of one finger now and then in a harassed sort of way.

'Wouldn't have arrived till yesterday at the earliest,' she said. 'We certainly won't have opened it yet. Honestly, I don't know how we shall ever cope, and with Easter coming up we shall just get worse and worse. On top of that, half our stuff is rotting in the Customs sheds—hullo, here we are!' She pushed the ledger over to Miss Brimley, her slim finger pointing to a pencilled entry in the central column: 'Carne, parcel post, 27 lb.'

'I wonder,' said Miss Brimley, 'whether you would mind awfully if we had a quick look inside?'

They went downstairs to the hall.

'It's not quite as hideous as it looks,' the girl called over her shoulder. 'All the Monday lot will be nearest the door.'

'How do you know where they come from if you can't read the postmark?' asked Miss Brimley as the girl began to forage among the parcels.

'We issue volunteer reps, with our printed labels. The labels have an originator's number on. In other cases we just ask them to write the name of the school in capitals on the outside. You see, we simply can't allow covering letters; it would be too desperate. When we get a parcel all we have to do is send off a printed card acknowledging with thanks receipt of a parcel of such and such a date weighing so and so much. People who aren't reps, won't send parcels to this address, you see—they'll send to the advertised address in Belgrave Square.'

'Does the system work?'

'No,' replied the girl, 'it doesn't. The reps either forget to use our labels or they run out and can't be bothered to tell us. Ten days later they ring up in a rage because they haven't had an acknowledgement. Reps change, too, without letting us know, and the packing and labelling instructions don't get passed on. Sometimes the boys will suddenly decide to do it themselves, and no one tells them the way to go about it. Lady Sarah gets as mad as a snake if parcels turn up at Head Office—they all have to be carted over here for repacking and inventories.'

'I see.' Miss Brimley watched anxiously as the girl foraged among the parcels, still talking.

'Did you say your friend actually taught at Carne? She must be terribly grand. I wonder what the Prince is like: he looks rather soft in his photographs. My cousin went to Carne—he's an utter wet. Do you know what he told me? During Ascot week they all… Hello! Here we are!' The girl stood up, a large square parcel in her arms, and carried it to a table which stood in the shadow of the staircase. Miss Brimley, standing beside her as she began carefully to untie the stout twine, looked curiously at the printed label. In its top left-hand corner was stamped the symbol which the Committee had evidently allocated to Carne: C4. After the four the letter B had been written in with ballpoint pen.

'What does the B mean?' asked Miss Brimley.

'Oh, that's a local arrangement at Carne. Miss D'Arcy's the rep. there, but they've done so well recently that she coopted a friend to help with dispatch. When we acknowledge we always mention whether it was A or B. B must be terribly keen, whoever she is.'

Miss Brimley forebore from inquiring what proportion of the parcels from Carne had originated from Miss D'Arcy, and what proportion from her anonymous assistant.