RANDOM REMINDER

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32659, 15 July 1971, Page 9

RANDOM REMINDER

GUILT-EDGED

“Caught redhanded” is the common figure of speech; but in the two lurid detective stories we have for you today, “redfaced” would be more appropriate. Both stories are from schools where there was petty thieving.

In one school, a class teacher had four suspects—all primers, but hard doers just the same. Questioning got him nowhere, so he called in his superiors; but they had no success either. So the teacher, reaping the benefit of all those hours spent at the feet of Barlow and Ironside, and

drawing heavily on his wealth of Indian lore

gleaned from comic-books, lined up the suspects and told them he had an infallible method of turning a criminal’s hands a bright red. He poured out a bowl of water in front of them and into it emptied a small bottle of colourless liquid; then he told them to dip in their hands. Three did, but their hands remained uncoloured. The fourth refused: his hands didn’t become red, but his face did. As you’ll have guessed, the liquid in the bottle was also water. The other school from

which we have a red face to report is . a secondary school.

Because of persistent thefts from the sports changing-rooms, a “plant” was made of money covered with a brilliant purple dye. The thief was duly caught, but so was someone else. A respected seventh-former prominent in the soccer First XI also had purple hands. The explanation was that he had sneaked the afternoon off to do some painting at home; but to prove it he was reduced to taking hiS headmaster on a conducted tour.