Arthur & George

had been taught in the schools of Staffordshire for as long as the oldest master could recall, and indeed was still being taught. Harry Charlesworth reported that he had traced Fred Wynn, once the schoolfellow of the Brookes boy, now a house painter of Cheslyn Hay, and would ask him about Speck. Three days later a telegram with an agreed formula arrived: INVITED DINNER HEDNESFORD TUESDAY CHARLESWORTH STOP .
    Harry Charlesworth met Sir Arthur and Mr Wood at Hednesford station and walked them to the Rising Sun public house. In the saloon bar they were introduced to a lanky young man with a celluloid collar and frayed cuffs. There were some whitish stains on one sleeve of his jacket, which Arthur thought unlikely to be either horse’s saliva or even bread and milk.
    ‘Tell them what you told me,’ said Harry.
    Wynn looked at the strangers slowly and tapped his glass. Arthur sent Wood off for the necessary encouragement to their informant’s voice box.
    ‘I was at school with Speck,’ he began. ‘He was always at the bottom of the class. Always in trouble. Set a rick on fire one summer. Liked to chew tobacco. One evening I was on the train with Brookes when Speck came running into the same compartment, straight to the end of the carriage and stuck his head through the window smashing it to bits. Just started laughing at what he’d done. Then we all moved to another carriage.
    ‘A couple of days later some railway police arrived and said we are to be charged with breaking the window. We both said Speck did it, so he had to pay for it, and they caught him cutting the straps of the window as well, and he had to pay for that too. Then Brookes’s Pa started getting letters saying Brookes and me had been spitting on an old lady at Walsall Station. He was always in mischief, Speck. Then the school had him taken away. I don’t recall he was exactly expelled, but as good as.’
    ‘And what became of him?’ asked Arthur.
    ‘A year or two later I heard he’d been sent to sea.’
    ‘To sea? You’re sure? Absolutely sure?’
    ‘Well, that’s what they said. Anyway, he disappeared.’
    ‘When would this have been?’
    ‘As I say, a year or two later. He probably fired the rick in about ’92, I’d say.
    ‘So he would have gone to sea at the end of ’95, beginning of ’96?’
    ‘That I couldn’t say.’
    ‘Roughly?’
    ‘I couldn’t say nearer than I’ve said already.’
    ‘Do you remember which port he departed from?’
    Wynn shook his head.
    ‘Or when he returned? If he did return?’
    Wynn shook his head again. ‘Charlesworth said you’d be interested.’ He tapped his glass once more. This time Arthur ignored the gesture.
    ‘I am interested, Mr Wynn, but you’ll forgive me if I say there’s a problem with your story.’
    ‘Is there just?’
    ‘You went to Walsall School?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘And so did Brookes?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘And so did Speck?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘Then how do you account for the fact that Mr Mitchell, the current Headmaster, assures me that there has been no boy of that name at the school in the past twenty years?’
    ‘Oh, I see,’ said Wynn. ‘Speck was just what we called him. He was a little fellow, like a speck. That’s probably why. No, his real name was Sharp.’
    ‘Sharp?’
    ‘Royden Sharp.’
    Arthur picked up Mr Wynn’s glass and handed it to his secretary. ‘Anything with that, Mr Wynn? A chaser of whisky, perhaps?’
    ‘Now that would be very noble of you, Sir Arthur. Very noble. And I was wondering if in return I might request a favour of you.’ He reached down to a small haversack, and Arthur left the Rising Sun with half a dozen narrative sketches of local life – ‘I thought of calling them “Vignettes”’ – on whose literary merit he had promised to adjudicate.
    ‘Royden Sharp. Now that’s a new name in the case. How would we set about tracing him? Any ideas, Harry?’
    ‘Oh yes,’ said Harry. ‘I didn’t want to mention it in front of Wynn in case he drank the house dry. I can give you a lead on him. He used to be the ward of Mr Greatorex.’
    ‘Greatorex!’
    ‘There were two Sharp brothers, Wallie and Royden. One of them was at school with George and me, though I can’t remember which at this distance. But Mr Greatorex can tell you about them.’
    They took the train two stops back up the line to Wyrley & Churchbridge, then walked to Littleworth Farm. Mr and Mrs Greatorex were a comfortable, easy couple in late middle age,