gate. The school clock struck the quarter.
It seemed to Mike that Sergeant Collard, even if he had started to wait
for him at the house, would not keep up the vigil for more than half an
hour. He would be safe now in trying for home again.
He walked in that direction.
Now it happened that Mr. Downing, aroused from his first sleep by the
news, conveyed to him by Adair, that MacPhee, one of the junior members
of Adair's dormitory, was groaning and exhibiting other symptoms of
acute illness, was disturbed in his mind. Most housemasters feel uneasy
in the event of illness in their houses, and Mr. Downing was apt to get
jumpy beyond the ordinary on such occasions. All that was wrong with
MacPhee, as a matter of fact, was a very fair stomachache, the direct
and legitimate result of eating six buns, half a coconut, three
doughnuts, two ices, an apple, and a pound of cherries, and washing the
lot down with tea. But Mr. Downing saw in his attack the beginnings of
some deadly scourge which would sweep through and decimate the house. He
had dispatched Adair for the doctor, and, after spending a few minutes
prowling restlessly about his room, was now standing at his front gate,
waiting for Adair's return.
It came about, therefore, that Mike, sprinting lightly in the direction
of home and safety, had his already shaken nerves further maltreated by
being hailed, at a range of about two yards, with a cry of "Is that you,
Adair?" The next moment Mr. Downing emerged from his gate.
Mike stood not upon the order of his going. He was off like an arrow - a
flying figure of Guilt. Mr. Downing, after the first surprise, seemed to
grasp the situation. Ejaculating at intervals the words, "Who is that?
Stop! Who is that? Stop!" he dashed after the much-enduring Wrykynian at
an extremely creditable rate of speed. Mr. Downing was by way of being a
sprinter. He had won handicap events at College sports at Oxford, and,
if Mike had not got such a good start, the race might have been over in
the first fifty yards. As it was, that victim of Fate, going well, kept
ahead. At the entrance to the school grounds he led by a dozen yards.
The procession passed into the field, Mike heading as before for
the pavilion.
As they raced across the soft turf, an idea occurred to Mike, which he
was accustomed in after years to attribute to genius, the one flash of
it which had ever illumined his life.
It was this.
One of Mr. Downing's first acts, on starting the Fire Brigade at
Sedleigh, had been to institute an alarm bell. It had been rubbed into
the school officially - in speeches from the dais - by the headmaster, and
unofficially - in earnest private conversations - by Mr. Downing, that at
the sound of this bell, at whatever hour of day or night, every member
of the school must leave his house in the quickest possible way, and
make for the open. The bell might mean that the school was on fire, or
it might mean that one of the houses was on fire. In any case, the
school had its orders - to get out into the open at once.
Nor must it be supposed that the school was without practice at this
feat. Every now and then a notice would be found posted up on the board
to the effect that there would be fire drill during the dinner hour that
day. Sometimes the performance was bright and interesting, as on the
occasion when Mr. Downing, marshaling the brigade at his front gate, had
said, "My house is supposed to be on fire. Now let's do a record!" which
the Brigade, headed by Stone and Robinson, obligingly did. They fastened
the hose to the hydrant, smashed a window on the ground floor (Mr.
Downing having retired for a moment to talk with the headmaster), and
poured a stream of water into the room. When Mr. Downing was at liberty
to turn his attention to the matter, he found that the room selected was
his private study, most of the light furniture of which was floating in
a miniature lake. That episode had rather discouraged his passion for
realism, and fire drill since then had taken the form, for the most
part, of "practicing escaping." This was done by means of canvas chutes,
kept in the dormitories. At the sound of the bell the prefect of the
dormitory would heave one end of the chute out of the window, the other
end being fastened to the sill. He would then go down it himself, using
his elbows as a brake. Then the second man would follow his example, and
these two, standing below, would hold the end of the chute so that the
rest of the dormitory could fly rapidly down it without injury, except
to their digestions.
After the first novelty of the thing had worn off, the school had taken
a rooted dislike to fire drill. It was a matter for self-congratulation
among them that Mr. Downing had never been able to induce the headmaster
to allow the alarm bell to be sounded for fire drill at night. The
headmaster, a man who had his views on the amount of sleep necessary for
the growing boy, had drawn the line at night operations. "Sufficient
unto the day" had been the gist of his reply. If the alarm bell were to
ring at night when there was no fire, the school might mistake a genuine
alarm of fire for a bogus one, and refuse to hurry themselves.
So Mr. Downing had had to be content with day drill.
The alarm bell hung in the archway, leading into the school grounds. The
end of the rope, when not in use, was fastened to a hook halfway up
the wall.
Mike, as he raced over the cricket field, made up his mind in a flash
that his only chance of getting out of this tangle was to shake his
pursuer off for a space of time long enough to enable him to get to the
rope and tug it. Then the school would come out. He would mix with them,
and in the subsequent confusion get back to bed unnoticed.
The task was easier than it would have seemed at the beginning of the
chase. Mr. Downing, owing to the two facts that he was not in the
strictest training, and that it is only a Bannister who can run for any
length of time at top speed shouting "Who is that? Stop! Who is that?
Stop!" was beginning to feel distressed. There were bellows to mend in
the Downing camp. Mike perceived this, and forced the pace. He rounded
the pavilion ten yards to the good. Then, heading for the gate, he put
all he knew into one last sprint. Mr. Downing was not equal to the
effort. He worked gamely for a few strides, then fell behind. When Mike
reached the gate, a good forty yards separated them.
As far as Mike could judge - he was not in a condition to make nice
calculations - he had about four seconds in which to get busy with that
bell rope.
Probably nobody has ever crammed more energetic work into four seconds
than he did then.
The night was as still as only an English summer night can be, and the
first clang of the clapper sounded like a million iron girders falling
from a height onto a sheet of tin. He tugged away furiously, with an eye
on the now rapidly advancing and loudly shouting figure of the
housemaster.
And from the darkened house beyond there came a gradually swelling hum,
as if a vast hive of bees had been disturbed.
The school was awake.
17
THE DECORATION OF SAMMY
Psmith leaned against the mantelpiece in the senior day room at
Outwood's - since Mike's innings against Downing's the Lost Lambs had
been received as brothers by the center of disorder, so that even
Spiller was compelled to look on the hatchet as buried - and gave his
views on the events of the preceding night, or, rather, of that morning,
for it was nearer one than twelve when peace had once more fallen on
the school.
"Nothing that happens in this loony bin," said Psmith, "has power to
surprise me now. There was a time when I might have thought it a little
unusual to have to leave the house through a canvas chute at one o'clock
in the morning, but I suppose it's quite the regular thing here. Old
school tradition, etc. Men leave the school, and find that they've got
so accustomed to jumping out of windows that they look on it as a sort
of affectation to go out by the door. I suppose none of you merchants
can give me any idea when the next knockabout entertainment of this kind
is likely to take place?"
"I wonder who rang that bell!" said Stone. "Jolly sporting idea."
"I believe it was Downing himself. If it was, I hope he's satisfied."
Jellicoe, who was appearing in society supported by a stick, looked
meaningly at Mike, and giggled, receiving in answer a stony stare. Mike
had informed Jellicoe of the details of his interview with Mr. Barley at
the White Boar, and Jellicoe, after a momentary splutter of wrath
against the practical joker, was now in a particular lighthearted mood.
He hobbled about, giggling at nothing and at peace with all the world.
"It was a stirring scene," said Psmith. "The agility with which Comrade
Jellicoe boosted himself down the chute was a triumph of mind over
matter. He seemed to forget his ankle. It was the nearest thing to a
Boneless Acrobatic Wonder that I have ever seen."
"I was in a beastly funk, I can tell you."
Stone gurgled.
"So was I," he said, "for a bit. Then, when I saw that it was all a rag,
I began to look about for ways of doing the thing really well. I emptied
about six jugs of water on a gang of kids under my window."
"I rushed into Downing's, and ragged some of the beds," said Robinson.
"It was an invigorating time," said Psmith. "A sort of pageant. I was
particularly struck with the way some of the bright lads caught hold of
the idea. There was no skimping. Some of the kids, to my certain
knowledge, went down the chute a dozen times. There's nothing like doing
a thing thoroughly. I saw them come down, rush upstairs, and be saved
again, time after time. The thing became chronic with them. I should say
Comrade Downing ought to be satisfied with the high state of efficiency
to which he has brought us. At any rate I hope - "
There was a sound of hurried footsteps outside the door, and Sharpe, a
member of the senior day room, burst excitedly in. He seemed amused.
"I say, have you chaps seen Sammy?"
"Seen who?" said Stone. "Sammy? Why?"
"You'll know in a second. He's just outside. Here, Sammy, Sammy, Sammy!
Sam! Sam!"
A bark and a patter of feet outside.
"Come on, Sammy. Good dog."
There was a moment's silence. Then a great yell of laughter burst forth.
Even Psmith's massive calm was shattered. As for Jellicoe, he sobbed
in a corner.
Sammy's beautiful white coat was almost entirely concealed by a thick
covering of bright-red paint. His head, with the exception of the ears,
was untouched, and his serious, friendly eyes seemed to emphasise the
weirdness of his appearance. He stood in the doorway, barking and
wagging his tail, plainly puzzled at his reception. He was a popular
dog, and was always well received when he visited any of the houses, but
he had never before met with enthusiasm like this.
"Good old Sammy!"
"What on earth's been happening to him?"
"Who did it?"
Sharpe, the introducer, had no views on the matter.
"I found him outside Downing's, with a crowd round him. Everybody seems
to have seen him. I wonder who on earth has gone and mucked him up
like that!"
Mike was the first to show any sympathy for the maltreated animal.
"Poor old Sammy," he said, kneeling on the floor beside the victim, and
scratching him under the ear. "What a beastly shame! It'll take hours to
wash all that off him, and he'll hate it."
"It seems to me," said Psmith, regarding Sammy dispassionately through
his eyeglass, "that it's not a case for mere washing. They'll either
have to skin him bodily, or leave the thing to time. Time, the Great
Healer. In a year or two he'll fade to a delicate pink. I don't see why
you shouldn't have a pink bull terrier. It would lend a touch of
distinction to the place. Crowds would come in excursion trains to see
him. By charging a small fee you might make him self-supporting. I think
I'll suggest it to Comrade Downing."
"There'll be a row about this," said Stone.
"Rows are rather sport when you're not mixed up in them," said Robinson,
philosophically. "There'll be another if we don't start off for chapel
soon. It's a quarter to."
There was a general move. Mike was the last to leave the room. As he was
going, Jellicoe stopped him. Jellicoe was staying in that Sunday, owing
to his ankle.
"I say," said Jellicoe, "I just wanted to thank you again about that - "
"Oh, that's all right."
"No, but it really was awfully decent of you. You might have got into a
frightful row. Were you nearly caught?"
"Jolly nearly."
"It _was_ you who rang the bell, wasn't it?"
"Yes, it was. But for goodness' sake don't go gassing about it, or
somebody will get to hear who oughtn't to, and I shall be sacked."
"All right. But, I say, you _are_ a chap!"
"What's the matter now?"
"I mean about Sammy, you know. It's a jolly good score off old Downing.
He'll be frightfully sick."
"Sammy!" cried Mike. "My good man, you don't think I did that, do you?
What absolute rot! I never touched the poor brute."
"Oh, all right," said Jellicoe. "But I wasn't going to tell anyone, of
course."
"What do you mean?"
"You _are_ a chap!" giggled Jellicoe.
Mike walked to chapel rather thoughtfully.
18
MR. DOWNING ON THE SCENT
There was just one moment, the moment in which, on going down to the
junior day room of his house to quell an unseemly disturbance, he was
boisterously greeted by a vermilion bull terrier, when Mr. Downing was
seized with a hideous fear lest he had lost his senses. Glaring down at
the crimson animal that was pawing at his knees, he clutched at his
reason for one second as a drowning man clutches at a life belt.
Then the happy laughter of the young onlookers reassured him.
"Who - " he shouted, "WHO has done this?"
"Please, sir, we don't know," shrilled the chorus.
"Please, sir, he came in like that."
"Please, sir, we were sitting here when he suddenly ran in, all red."
A voice from the crowd: "Look at old Sammy!"
The situation was impossible. There was nothing to be done. He could not
find out by verbal inquiry who had painted the dog. The possibility of
Sammy being painted red during the night had never occurred to Mr.
Downing, and now that the thing had happened he had no scheme of action.
As Psmith would have said, he had confused the unusual with the
impossible, and the result was that he was taken by surprise.
While he was pondering on this, the situation was rendered still more
difficult by Sammy, who, taking advantage of the door being open,
escaped and rushed into the road, thus publishing his condition to all
and sundry. You can hush up a painted dog while it confines itself to
your own premises, but once it has mixed with the great public, this
becomes out of the question. Sammy's state advanced from a private
trouble into a row. Mr. Downing's next move was in the same direction
that Sammy had taken, only, instead of running about the road, he went
straight to the headmaster.
The Head, who had had to leave his house in the small hours in his
pajamas and a dressing gown, was not in the best of tempers. He had a
cold in the head, and also a rooted conviction that Mr. Downing, in
spite of his strict orders, had rung the bell himself on the previous
night in order to test the efficiency of the school in saving themselves
in the event of fire. He received the housemaster frostily, but thawed
as the latter related the events which had led up to the ringing of
the bell.
"Dear me!" he said, deeply interested. "One of the boys at the school,
you think?"
"I am certain of it," said Mr. Downing.
"Was he wearing a school cap?"
"He was bareheaded. A boy who breaks out of his house at night would
hardly run the risk of wearing a distinguishing cap."
"No, no, I suppose not. A big boy, you say?"
"Very big."
"You did not see his face?"
"It was dark and he never looked back - he was in front of me all the
time."
"Dear me!"
"There is another matter ..."
"Yes?"
"This boy, whoever he was, had done something before he rang the
bell - he had painted my dog Sampson red."
The headmaster's eyes protruded from their sockets. "He - he - _what_, Mr.
Downing?"
"He painted my dog red - bright red." Mr. Downing was too angry to see
anything humorous in the incident. Since the previous night he had been
wounded in his tenderest feelings, his Fire Brigade system had been most
shamefully abused by being turned into a mere instrument in the hands of
a malefactor for escaping justice, and his dog had been held up to
ridicule to all the world. He did not want to smile; he wanted revenge.
The headmaster, on the other hand, did want to smile. It was not his
dog, he could look on the affair with an unbiased eye, and to him there
was something ludicrous in a white dog suddenly appearing as a red dog.
"It is a scandalous thing!" said Mr. Downing.
"Quite so! Quite so!" said the headmaster hastily. "I shall punish the
boy who did it most severely. I will speak to the school in the Hall
after chapel."
Which he did, but without result. A cordial invitation to the criminal
to come forward and be executed was received in wooden silence by the
school, with the exception of Johnson III, of Outwood's, who, suddenly
reminded of Sammy's appearance by the headmaster's words, broke into a
wild screech of laughter, and was instantly awarded two hundred lines.
The school filed out of the Hall to their various lunches, and Mr.
Downing was left with the conviction that, if he wanted the criminal
discovered, he would have to discover him for himself.
The great thing in affairs of this kind is to get a good start, and
Fate, feeling perhaps that it had been a little hard upon Mr. Downing,
gave him a most magnificent start. Instead of having to hunt for a
needle in a haystack, he found himself in a moment in the position of
being set to find it in a mere truss of straw.
It was Mr. Outwood who helped him. Sergeant Collard had waylaid the
archaeological expert on his way to chapel, and informed him that at
close on twelve the night before he had observed a youth, unidentified,
attempting to get into his house _via_ the water pipe. Mr. Outwood,
whose thoughts were occupied with apses and plinths, not to mention
cromlechs, at the time, thanked the sergeant with absent minded
politeness and passed on. Later he remembered the fact apropos of some
reflections on the subject of burglars in medieval England, and passed
it on to Mr. Downing as they walked back to lunch.
"Then the boy was in your house!" exclaimed Mr. Downing.
"Not actually in, as far as I understand. I gather from the sergeant
that he interrupted him before - "
"I mean he must have been one of the boys in your house."
"But what was he doing out at that hour?"
"He had broken out."
"Impossible, I think. Oh yes, quite impossible! I went around the
dormitories as usual at eleven o'clock last night, and all the boys were
asleep - all of them."
Mr. Downing was not listening. He was in a state of suppressed
excitement and exultation, which made it hard for him to attend to his
colleague's slow utterances. He had a clue! Now that the search had
narrowed itself down to Outwood's house, the rest was comparatively
easy. Perhaps Sergeant Collard had actually recognized the boy. On
reflection he dismissed this as unlikely, for the sergeant would
scarcely have kept a thing like that to himself; but he might very well
have seen more of him than he, Downing, had seen. It was only with an
effort that he could keep himself from rushing to the sergeant then and
there, and leaving the house lunch to look after itself. He resolved to
go the moment that meal was at an end.
Sunday lunch at a public-school house is probably one of the longest
functions in existence. It drags its slow length along like a languid
snake, but it finishes in time. In due course Mr. Downing, after sitting
still and eyeing with acute dislike everybody who asked for a second
helping, found himself at liberty.
Regardless of the claims of digestion, he rushed forth on the trail.
Sergeant Collard lived with his wife and a family of unknown dimensions
in the lodge at the school front gate. Dinner was just over when Mr.
Downing arrived, as a blind man could have told.
The sergeant received his visitor with dignity, ejecting the family, who
were torpid after roast beef and resented having to move, in order to
ensure privacy.
Having requested his host to smoke, which the latter was about to do
unasked, Mr. Downing stated his case.
"Mr. Outwood," he said, "tells me that last night, Sergeant, you saw a
boy endeavoring to enter his house."
The sergeant blew a cloud of smoke. "Oo-oo-oo, yer," he said; "I did,
sir - spotted 'im, I did. Feeflee good at spottin', I am, sir. Dook of
Connaught, he used to say, ''Ere comes Sergeant Collard,' 'e used to
say, ''e's feeflee good at spottin'.'"
"What did you do?"
"Do? Oo-oo-oo! I shouts 'Oo-oo-oo yer, yer young monkey, what yer doin'
there?'"
"Yes?"
"But 'e was off in a flash, and I doubles after 'im prompt."
"But you didn't catch him?"
"No, sir," admitted the sergeant reluctantly.
"Did you catch sight of his face, Sergeant?"
"No, sir, 'e was doublin' away in the opposite direction."
"Did you notice anything at all about his appearance?"
"'E was a long young chap, sir, with a pair of legs on him - feeflee fast
'e run, sir. Oo-oo-oo, feeflee!"
"You noticed nothing else?"
"'E wasn't wearing no cap of any sort, sir."
"Ah!"
"Bare'eaded, sir," added the sergeant, rubbing the point in.
"It was undoubtedly the same boy, undoubtedly! I wish you could have
caught a glimpse of his face, Sergeant."
"So do I, sir."
"You would not be able to recognize him again if you saw him, you
think?"
"Oo-oo-oo! Wouldn't go as far as to say that, sir, 'cos yer see, I'm
feeflee good at spottin', but it was a dark night."
Mr. Downing rose to go.
"Well," he said, "the search is now considerably narrowed down,
considerably! It is certain that the boy was one of the boys in Mr.
Outwood's house."
"Young monkeys!" interjected the sergeant helpfully
"Good afternoon, Sergeant."
"Good afternoon to you, sir."
"Pray do not move, Sergeant."
The sergeant had not shown the slightest inclination of doing anything
of the kind.
"I will find my way out. Very hot today, is it not?"
"Feeflee warm, sir; weather's goin' to break' workin' up for thunder."
"I hope not. The school plays the M.C.C. on Wednesday, and it would be a
pity if rain were to spoil our first fixture with them. Good afternoon."
And Mr. Downing went out into the baking sunlight, while Sergeant
Collard, having requested Mrs. Collard to take the children out for a
walk at once, and furthermore to give young Ernie a clip side of the
'ead, if he persisted in making so much noise, put a handkerchief over
his face, rested his feet on the table, and slept the sleep of the just.
19
THE SLEUTH-HOUND
For the Doctor Watsons of this world, as opposed to the Sherlock
Holmeses, success in the province of detective work must be, to a very
large extent, the result of luck. Sherlock Holmes can extract a clue
from a wisp of straw or a flake of cigar ash. But Doctor Watson has got
to have it taken out for him, and dusted, and exhibited clearly, with a
label attached.
The average man is a Doctor Watson. We are wont to scoff in a
patronizing manner at that humbler follower of the great investigator,
but, as a matter of fact, we should have been just as dull ourselves. We
should not even have risen to the modest level of a Scotland Yard
bungler. We should simply have hung around, saying: "My dear Holmes,
how...?" and all the rest of it, just as the downtrodden medico did.
It is not often that the ordinary person has any need to see what he can
do in the way of detection. He gets along very comfortably in the
humdrum round of life without having to measure footprints and smile
quiet, tight-lipped smiles. But if ever the emergency does arise, he
thinks naturally of Sherlock Holmes, and his methods.
Mr. Downing had read all the Holmes stories with great attention, and
had thought many times what an incompetent ass Doctor Watson was; but,
now that he had started to handle his own first case, he was compelled
to admit that there was a good deal to be said in extenuation of
Watson's inability to unravel tangles. It certainly was uncommonly hard,
he thought, as he paced the cricket field after leaving Sergeant
Collard, to detect anybody, unless you knew who had really done the
crime. As he brooded over the case in hand, his sympathy for Doctor
Watson increased with every minute, and he began to feel a certain
resentment against Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. It was all very well for Sir
Arthur to be so shrewd and infallible about tracing a mystery to its
source, but he knew perfectly well who had done the thing before
he started!
Now that he began really to look into this matter of the alarm bell and
the painting of Sammy, the conviction was creeping over him that the
problem was more difficult than a casual observer might imagine. He had
got as far as finding that his quarry of the previous night was a boy in
Mr. Outwood's house, but how was he to get any further? That was the
thing. There was, of course, only a limited number of boys in Mr.
Outwood's house as tall as the one he had pursued; but even if there had
been only one other, it would have complicated matters. If you go to a
boy and say, "Either you or Jones were out of your house last night at
twelve o'clock," the boy does not reply, "Sir, I cannot tell a lie - I
was out of my house last night at twelve o'clock." He simply assumes the
animated expression of a stuffed fish, and leaves the next move to you.
It is practically stalemate.
All these things passed through Mr. Downing's mind as he walked up and
down the cricket field that afternoon.
What he wanted was a clue. But it is so hard for the novice to tell what
is a clue and what isn't. Probably, if he only knew, there were clues
lying all over the place, shouting to him to pick them up.
What with the oppressive heat of the day and the fatigue of hard
thinking, Mr. Downing was working up for a brainstorm when Fate once
more intervened, this time in the shape of Riglett, a junior member of
his house.
Riglett slunk up in the shamefaced way peculiar to some boys, even when
they have done nothing wrong, and, having "capped" Mr. Downing with the
air of one who had been caught in the act of doing something
particularly shady, requested that he might be allowed to fetch his
bicycle from the shed.
"Your bicycle?" snapped Mr. Downing. Much thinking had made him
irritable. "What do you want with your bicycle?"
Riglett shuffled, stood first on his left foot, then on his right,
blushed, and finally remarked, as if it were not so much a sound reason
as a sort of feeble excuse for the low and blackguardly fact that he
wanted his bicycle, that he had got leave for tea that afternoon.
Then Mr. Downing remembered. Riglett had an aunt resident about three
miles from the school, whom he was accustomed to visit occasionally on
Sunday afternoons during the term.
He felt for his bunch of keys, and made his way to the shed, Riglett
shambling behind at an interval of two yards.
Mr. Downing unlocked the door, and there on the floor was the Clue!
A clue that even Doctor Watson could not have overlooked.
Mr. Downing saw it, but did not immediately recognize it for what it
was. What he saw at first was not a clue, but just a mess. He had a tidy
soul and abhorred messes. And this was a particularly messy mess. The
greater part of the flooring in the neighborhood of the door was a sea
of red paint. The tin from which it had flowed was lying on its side in
the middle of the shed. The air was full of the pungent scent.
"Pah!" said Mr. Downing.
Then suddenly, beneath the disguise of the mess, he saw the clue. A
footmark! No less. A crimson footmark on the gray concrete!
Riglett, who had been waiting patiently two yards away, now coughed
plaintively. The sound recalled Mr. Downing to mundane matters.
"Get your bicycle, Riglett," he said, "and be careful where you tread.
Somebody has upset a pot of paint on the floor."
Riglett, walking delicately through dry places, extracted his bicycle
from the rack, and presently departed to gladden the heart of his aunt,
leaving Mr. Downing, his brain fizzing with the enthusiasm of the
detective, to lock the door and resume his perambulation of the
cricket field.
Give Doctor Watson a fair start, and he is a demon at the game. Mr.
Downing's brain was now working with a rapidity and clearness which a
professional sleuth might have envied.
Paint. Red paint. Obviously the same paint with which Sammy had been
decorated. A footmark. Whose footmark? Plainly that of the criminal who
had done the deed of decoration.
Yoicks!
There were two things, however, to be considered. Your careful detective
must consider everything. In the first place, the paint might have been
upset by the groundsman. It was the groundsman's paint. He had been
giving a fresh coating to the woodwork in front of the pavilion scoring
box at the conclusion of yesterday's match. (A labor of love which was
the direct outcome of the enthusiasm for work which Adair had instilled
into him.) In that case the footmark might be his.
_Note one_: Interview the groundsman on this point.
In the second place Adair might have upset the tin and trodden in its
contents when he went to get his bicycle in order to fetch the doctor
for the suffering MacPhee. This was the more probable of the two
contingencies, for it would have been dark in the shed when Adair
went into it.
_Note two_: Interview Adair as to whether he found, on returning to the
house, that there was paint on his shoes.
Things were moving.
* * * * *
He resolved to take Adair first. He could get the groundsman's address
from him.
Passing by the trees under whose shade Mike and Psmith and Dunster had
watched the match on the previous day, he came upon the Head of his
house in a deck chair reading a book. A summer Sunday afternoon is the
time for reading in deck chairs.
"Oh, Adair," he said. "No, don't get up. I merely wished to ask you if
you found any paint on your shoes when you returned to the house
last night."
"Paint, sir?" Adair was plainly puzzled. His book had been interesting,
and had driven the Sammy incident out of his head.
"I see somebody has spilled some paint on the floor of the bicycle shed.
You did not do that, I suppose, when you went to fetch your bicycle?"
"No, sir."
"It is spilled all over the floor. I wondered whether you had happened
to tread in it. But you say you found no paint on your shoes
this morning?"
"No, sir, my bicycle is always quite near the door of the shed. I didn't
go into the shed at all."
"I see. Quite so. Thank you, Adair. Oh, by the way, Adair, where does
Markby live?"
"I forget the name of his cottage, sir, but I could show you in a
second. It's one of those cottages just past the school gates, on the
right as you turn out into the road. There are three in a row. His is
the first you come to. There's a barn just before you get to them."
"Thank you. I shall be able to find them. I should like to speak to
Markby for a moment on a small matter."
A sharp walk took him to the cottages Adair had mentioned. He rapped at
the door of the first, and the groundsman came out in his shirt sleeves,
blinking as if he had just waked up, as was indeed the case.
"Oh, Markby!"
"Sir?"
"You remember that you were painting the scoring box in the pavilion
last night after the match?"
"Yes, sir. It wanted a lick of paint bad. The young gentlemen will
scramble about and get through the window. Makes it look shabby, sir. So
I thought I'd better give it a coating so as to look shipshape when the
Marylebone come down."
"Just so. An excellent idea. Tell me, Markby, what did you do with the
pot of paint when you had finished?"
"Put it in the bicycle shed, sir."
"On the floor?"
"On the floor, sir? No. On the shelf at the far end, with the can of
whitening what I use for marking out the wickets, sir."
"Of course, yes. Quite so. Just as I thought."
"Do you want it, sir?"
"No, thank you, Markby, no, thank you. The fact is, somebody who had no
business to do so has moved the pot of paint from the shelf to the
floor, with the result that it has been kicked over and spilled. You had
better get some more tomorrow. Thank you, Markby. That is all I
wished to know."
Mr. Downing walked back to the school thoroughly excited. He was hot on
the scent now. The only other possible theories had been tested and
successfully exploded. The thing had become simple to a degree. All he
had to do was to go to Mr. Outwood's house - the idea of searching a
fellow master's house did not appear to him at all a delicate task;
somehow one grew unconsciously to feel that Mr. Outwood did not really
exist as a man capable of resenting liberties - find the paint-splashed
shoe, ascertain its owner, and denounce him to the headmaster. There
could be no doubt that a paint-splashed shoe must be in Mr. Outwood's
house somewhere. A boy cannot tread in a pool of paint without showing
some signs of having done so. It was Sunday, too, so that the shoe would
not yet have been cleaned. Yoicks! Also tally-ho! This really was
beginning to be something like business.
Regardless of the heat, the sleuth-hound hurried across to Outwood's as
fast as he could walk.
20
A CHECK
The only two members of the house not out in the grounds when he arrived
were Mike and Psmith. They were standing on the gravel drive in front of
the boys' entrance. Mike had a deck chair in one hand and a book in the
other. Psmith - for even the greatest minds will sometimes unbend - was
wrestling with a Yo-Yo. That is to say, he was trying without success to
keep the spool spinning. He smoothed a crease out of his waistcoat and
tried again. He had just succeeded in getting the thing to spin when Mr.
Downing arrived. The sound of his footsteps disturbed Psmith and brought
the effort to nothing.
"Enough of this spoolery," said he, flinging the spool through the open
window of the senior day room. "I was an ass ever to try it. The
philosophical mind needs complete repose in its hours of
leisure. Hello!"
He stared after the sleuth-hound, who had just entered the house.
"What the dickens," said Mike, "does he mean by barging in as if he'd
bought the place?"
"Comrade Downing looks pleased with himself. What brings him around in
this direction, I wonder! Still, no matter. The few articles which he
may sneak from our study are of inconsiderable value. He is welcome to
them. Do you feel inclined to wait awhile till I have fetched a chair
and book?"
"I'll be going on. I shall be under the trees at the far end of the
ground."
"'Tis well. I will be with you in about two ticks."
Mike walked on toward the field, and Psmith, strolling upstairs to fetch
his novel, found Mr. Downing standing in the passage with the air of one
who has lost his bearings.
"A warm afternoon, sir," murmured Psmith courteously, as he passed.
"Er - Smith!"
"Sir?"
"I - er - wish to go round the dormitories."
It was Psmith's guiding rule in life never to be surprised at anything,
so he merely inclined his head gracefully, and said nothing.
"I should be glad if you would fetch the keys and show me where the
rooms are."
"With acute pleasure, sir," said Psmith. "Or shall I fetch Mr. Outwood,
sir?"
"Do as I tell you Smith," snapped Mr. Downing.
Psmith said no more, but went down to the matron's room. The matron
being out, he abstracted the bunch of keys from her table and rejoined
the master.
"Shall I lead the way, sir?" he asked.
Mr. Downing nodded.
"Here, sir," said Psmith, opening the door, "we have Barnes's dormitory.
An airy room, constructed on the soundest hygienic principles. Each boy,
I understand, has quite a considerable number of cubic feet of air all
to himself. It is Mr. Outwood's boast that no boy has ever asked for a
cubic foot of air in vain. He argues justly - "
He broke off abruptly and began to watch the other's maneuvers in
silence. Mr. Downing was peering rapidly beneath each bed in turn.
"Are you looking for Barnes, sir?" inquired Psmith politely. "I think
he's out in the field."
Mr. Downing rose, having examined the last bed, crimson in the face with
the exercise.
"Show me the next dormitory, Smith," he said, panting slightly.
"This," said Psmith, opening the next door and sinking his voice to an
awed whisper, "is where _I_ sleep!"
Mr. Downing glanced swiftly beneath the three beds.
"Excuse me, sir," said Psmith, "but are we chasing anything?"
"Be good enough, Smith," said Mr. Downing with asperity, "to keep your
remarks to yourself."
"I was only wondering sir. Shall I show you the next in order?"
"Certainly."
They moved on up the passage.
Drawing blank at the last dormitory, Mr. Downing paused, baffled. Psmith
waited patiently by. An idea struck the master.
"The studies, Smith," he cried.
"Aha!" said Psmith. "I beg your pardon, sir. The observation escaped me
unawares. The frenzy of the chase is beginning to enter into my blood.
Here we have - "
Mr. Downing stopped short.
"Is this impertinence studied, Smith?"
"Ferguson's study, sir? No, sir. That's farther down the passage. This
is Barnes's."
Mr. Downing looked at him closely. Psmith's face was wooden in its
gravity. The master snorted suspiciously, then moved on.
"Whose is this?" he asked, rapping a door.
"This, sir, is mine and Jackson's."
"What! Have you a study? You are low down in the school for it."
"I think, sir, that Mr. Outwood gave it us rather as a testimonial to
our general worth than to our proficiency in schoolwork."
Mr. Downing raked the room with a keen eye. The absence of bars from the
window attracted his attention.
"Have you no bars to your windows here, such as there are in my house?"
"There appears to be no bar, sir," said Psmith, putting up his eyeglass.
Mr. Downing was leaning out of the window.
"A lovely view, is it not, sir?" said Psmith. "The trees, the field, the
distant hills ..."
Mr. Downing suddenly started. His eye had been caught by the water pipe
at the side of the window. The boy whom Sergeant Collard had seen
climbing the pipe must have been making for this study.
He spun around and met Psmith's blandly inquiring gaze. He looked at
Psmith carefully for a moment. No. The boy he had chased last night had
not been Psmith. That exquisite's figure and general appearance were
unmistakable, even in the dusk.
"Whom did you say you shared this study with, Smith?"
"Jackson, sir. The cricketer."
"Never mind about his cricket, Smith," said Mr. Downing with irritation.
"No, sir."
"He is the only other occupant of the room?"
"Yes, sir."
"Nobody else comes into it?"
"If they do, they go out extremely quickly, sir."
"Ah! Thank you, Smith."
"Not at all, sir."
Mr. Downing pondered. Jackson! The boy bore him a grudge. The boy was