UNRAVELLING A CLUE
Mr. Salmon, who was the house-master over that section of Deepwater
College in which the chums led a more or less care-free existence, was
the best of good sorts, but hopeless as a disciplinarian. To begin
with, he was partly deaf, and disrespectful juniors took advantage of
the weakness in season and out of season. His own form, the sixth, to
which all four of the Study 9 boys belonged, also contrived to have
an easy time of it while he was in charge. So that if he observed a
certain uneasiness on the part of the sharers of the Black Star secret,
he might have ascribed it to post-holiday skittishness--at any rate, he
said nothing about it, and the four of them hastened into conference
immediately studies were over, and lent ear to the wise sayings of the
eccentric genius, Septimus Patch.
"To begin with," said Patch, in his best Dear-Watson manner, "there's
precious little beyond these footprints, in the shape of clues, but to
a trained eye like mine those slight, almost meaningless marks have a
story to tell. They are to me as an open book, and--"
"Cut out the cackle," said Jack Symonds brusquely, "and return to the
washing. Get on with it."
"Examine this footprint closely," invited Patch, "and tell me what you
see."
"A footprint, of course," said Jack. "In other words, a depression
in the earth, caused by the yielding of the soil under a boot, which
causes it to assume the shape--"
"Ass!" said Septimus cuttingly. "I mean, do you observe anything
peculiar about it?"
"No. Why?"
"You see that snake-like mark across the place where the sole has
rested?"
"We're not blind, professor. What of it?"
"Well, that's where the bootlace was stamped into the earth under
the foot. You see that! Now, that means that the fellow had his boot
unlaced."
"Marvellous!" exclaimed Jack. "How do you do it?" he added, peering
anxiously at Patch. "Are you quite sure that you have come to no harm?
The severe mental effort--"
"Cut the joking a moment. The man's boots were unlaced. What was the
reason for that? Is it likely that a man who was planning a burglary
would come in with unlaced boots? The thing is absurd. There are no
houses within miles of this place, and if the fellow had been hiding
in the bush, he would scarcely have had his boots unlaced. No; the
deduction from that lace is that the chap belonged to the school."
"Yes, that sounds pretty right. You mean, he put on his boots to give
the impression that he'd come from outside, but as he'd just slipped
them on, he didn't lace them up, meaning to take them off again shortly
afterwards."
"That's just it, comrade. Also, he was probably carrying them in his
hand and getting around the corridors in stockinged feet. I think we've
just about narrowed the search down to the school."
"Yes;" broke in Billy Faraday, who had been listening to the discussion
with deep interest, "that's all right, but it's absurd to imagine that
anyone from the Coll. had a hand in this affair. Fane says that the
chap was a big fellow--"
"There wasn't much light," said Fane, "and I didn't see him for more
than half a minute. All the same, he looked big. There was a scarf over
the bottom of his face, of course, so I couldn't tell him that way."
"We've got no chance of finding out who he is, then," said Billy. "Even
if it was one of the chaps, which is hard to believe. I had an idea
that it was the bag-snatcher in the train, but he was quite short."
"Wait just a minute," interrupted Patch. "You want to hear all the
detective's got to say, and then you can back-chat each other all day
if you want to. I say we can find out who that chap was, and merely by
this footprint again."
"Spit it out," invited Jack.
"Well, you can see the mark of the metal tag of that lace, can't you?
And you will observe that it's broken in half. The jagged edge has left
an unmistakable impression--see it? Just a minute."
He bent down, took a knife from his pocket, and detached a tiny square
of the mud with the impression of the broken tag in it. This he held
in the palm of his hand, and continued. "All we've got to do now is
to find who owns the pair of boots that'd make an impression like
this. There can't be any mistake, and it shouldn't take us long to run
through all the boots in the school."
"When?"
"To-night, when they're downstairs for cleaning. They are brought back
by the boy about half-past five--if we get down to-night we'd be able
to examine them safely."
"Good on you," said Jack, slapping Septimus on the back with
heartiness. "I didn't think you could do it, but it's a good notion all
the same. By George, we ought to be able to find out who it is!"
"But--who could it be?" asked Billy, a furrow of puzzlement showing
itself on his forehead. "That's what gets me! I can't imagine--"
"The bootlace will show--don't worry," said Septimus. "We can't do
anything until we find that."
The four of them were wondering, as they sat in class that afternoon,
who the intruder could be, and they looked at their class-mates with
suspicious eyes. Big Martin, on account of his size, came in for
furtive glances, but it was manifestly absurd that he could have been
the culprit.
At this early stage of the term, nobody felt much like work,
particularly Septimus Patch, who always contrived to be doing as much
of his own private business as possible, and never paid much attention
to the lesson in hand. Just at this moment he had arranged a big
barrier of books all along the front of his desk, and, concealed behind
the screen, he was tinkering with a weir-looking model of many springs,
screws, and cogwheels.
Consequently he did not notice that the boy in front of him had
been surreptitiously unlacing his boots. His first intimation that
something was amiss was when he felt a sharp tug at his feet, and
both his boots came off. He gasped with horror, and, peering over his
barricade, observed that his two boots were travelling the round of
the class, in different directions. His loud socks, of purplish and
yellow colour-scheme, brought a snigger from the class. He wriggled,
protesting.
"Patch!" It was the voice of Mr. Salmon, who was all unconscious of the
diversion, but who saw Patch's movement. "Are you paying attention?"
"Yes, sir," mumbled Patch, reddening, and glaring, through his great
horn-rimmed glasses, at his companions. "Back here with the giddy old
boots, you asses!" he whispered, in a furious aside.
"Well, then," said Mr. Salmon, arranging his spectacles so that he
could get a good view of the boy, "we were talking about Charles XII.
Patch, tell me why he was unsuccessful against Peter in this campaign."
"You said, sir?" replied Patch.
"Why was he unsuccessful?"
"Ah, why?" said Patch, innocently.
"I don't believe you've been paying any attention whatever." The master
ran round the class with a rapid cross-fire of questions, but the
answers were unsatisfactory. He frowned, and coughed. "Here, Patch, you
come out and read the account aloud," he commanded.
"Here, back with those boots," said Patch, frantically. But the boots
had arrived at the other end of the room, and seemed likely to remain
there.
"Do you hear me, boy?" demanded Mr. Salmon. "Come out at once. I never
saw such indolence!"
With a groan Patch got up, and, amid the chuckles of the class, stepped
forward to the dais where Mr. Salmon stood. But he had barely set foot
on the stage, when he began a series of extraordinary antics.
"Ouch!" he howled, leaping four feet in the air, and bouncing with a
thud. He danced about the dais on one foot, upsetting globes and maps,
and tipping over one of the front desks upon its unfortunate occupant.
"Take it out--take it out!"
"Ha, ha, ha!" roared the class, both at the wild leaps of Patch and the
astounded horror of Mr. Salmon.
"Boy, boy!" cried the latter, "have you gone mad? Stop this at
once--stop it, I say! Really I--!"
"Yow! It's sticking into me--quick! My foot--it's sharp!"
"His foot's sharp?" queried Mr. Salmon. "Patch--calm yourself, my poor
fellow," he went on, imagining that, if Patch had really gone off his
head, it would be safer to keep him calm.
"You are quite all right--you really are. Just keep calm, and the
effects will--"
"Ha, ha, ha!" The class was convulsed, and rocked with merriment as
Septimus Patch was seen to sit down on the floor and painfully extract
a drawing-tack from his stockinged foot. The tack had been lying
harmlessly on the dais, and Patch had planted his foot fairly upon it.
Mr. Salmon adjusted his spectacles, and took in the amazing sight. The
vivid colours of Patch's hose met his eye, and he gasped.
"Boy! What do you mean by this? Where are your boots?"
"Ah, where?" said Patch dreamily.
Mr. Salmon coloured deeply. "You are insolent--you will be punished,"
he affirmed. "Explain at once. Where have you put your boots?"
Squinting over the tops of his goggles, Patch descried his boots in
place underneath his desk, standing demurely side by side as if nothing
had ever been amiss with them.
"You will forgive me, comrade," he said, in his most buttery tones,
"but I had to take them off. My feet got very hot."
"Your feet got hot?"
"Yes--just a physical weakness of mine. Whenever it occurs I simply
have to take my boots off. I can't bear them."
"So you are hot-footed as well as hot-headed!" said Mr. Salmon.
The class simply roared. They kicked their feet, and rattled rulers
on the desk. They always made a stupendous row whenever Mr. Salmon
cracked one of his very mild jokes, and the genial house-master was so
very deaf that the din came to his ears in the form of a loud titter,
which had always pleased him greatly. The noise they made now could be
heard a couple of corridors away, but Mr. Salmon nodded and smiled,
satisfied with the reception of his sally.
"Go back to your seat, boy," he said, restored to good humour once
more. "If your feet feel warm, it is doubtless because you wear such
very hot socks."
At this remark there was a repetition of the hideous row; and Patch
strolled back to his seat and his model-making without the slightest
concern.
After "lights-out" that night the four pals got out of their dormitory,
and in slippers made their way down to the boot-room, where they
tumbled around among boots and blacking and brushes, before Patch
applied a light to a fragment of candle that shed a flickering
illumination over the rows of neatly cleaned boots.
"Now for it," said Billy Faraday, and without any more ado they set to
work to examine the great stack of boots. It was fully half an hour
before they had run through the pile, and then they had drawn a blank.
"It's no go," said Jack Symonds. "How now, professor?"
"The other House," said Patch calmly.
"What--Cooper's?"
"Of course," said Septimus. "Forward, comrades all!"
They crossed the quadrangle and the playing-fields to the other house
of Deepwater College--Cooper's House.
"You were here last term, of course," said Jack Symonds to Patch. "You
know your way about?"
"Rather, comrade; like the palm of my hand. Give us a leg up through
this window."
Jack obliged him with a shove that nearly sent the investigator on
to his head in the passageway beyond. In a little while the four had
gained the boot-room, and there a much more cautious examination took
place--more cautious because, if Cooper's masters or boys discovered
them by any chance, then things would go hard with the intruders.
Inside of an hour the detectives had satisfied themselves that the
boots had not been worn by any of the boys of Deepwater College.
"You've drawn another blank, Patchy," said Billy Faraday. "How do you
account for this?"
"Account for it?" asked Patch, in wonderment. "What do you mean? This
only brings us closer to our solution, as the great Holmes said--"
"Which Holmes? Oliver Wendell?" inquired Jack, with an air of acute
interest.
"Sherlock Holmes, of course," returned Patch, with scorn. "I forgot
that you are unfamiliar with the classics. Well, he laid it down as an
axiom, once, that when you have disproved all but one of a number of
solutions, that solution must be the correct one, no matter how absurd
it seems."
"I get you. But how does it apply?"
"Why, if it wasn't one of the boys here, it must have been one of the
masters that made the footprint."
"But what master would come at that game?" asked Billy incredulously.
"Think it was old Salmon?"
"By the Great Moa!" exclaimed Jack in a loud tone, which called rebukes
from his companions.
"Cut the shindy," advised Patch tersely, "or you'll have the whole
House down on us. What's stung you?"
"Doctor Daw!" whispered Jack. "What about him?"
"Is he in his right mind?" asked Patch anxiously. "And who may Doctor
Daw be? I've heard of his daughter, Marjory, but that was in my
nursery-rhyme days. Expound."
In low tones, and as briefly as possible, Jack explained the strange
connection which he suspected between Doctor Daw, the new master, and
Tiger, the man who had run off with Billy's bag.
"What could be more likely," he said, "but that the two are in league
with one another, and associates of old Lazare what's-his-name? Why
didn't I think of it before?"
"This is important," said Patch, seriously. "Daw is a big man, and it
might well have been him. Now, the only thing to do is to compare his
bootlaces with that impression we've got. And how are we to do that?"
"Sneak up into his room and take a look at them," said Jack.
"Who's going, though? Four of us can't do it."
"Draw lots, then. Here, wait a minute till I collect some pieces of
grass."
Outside, in the shadow of the school buildings, they drew for the
honour of investigating the room of Mr. Daw, and the shortest straw
fell to the lot of Jack.
"You can go up now," said Fane, suddenly. "I remember that Daw went out
this evening, and he hasn't come back yet, for he'd have to pass the
boot-room to do so. If you're slippy you can get up there, examine the
boots and get away again in about a minute."
"I'll do it," said Jack, as they came through once more to the
corridors of Salmon's House. He rubbed his chin with his forefinger.
"Let me see," he asked, "isn't there an electric torch of yours in the
study?"
"Of mine?" said Billy doubtfully. "We'll see." They proceeded to the
study, and there Billy unearthed an old, but still serviceable, torch.
Armed with this, Jack went upstairs to the upper floor, where the
masters' rooms were.
"Tit for tat," he murmured, turning the handle of Daw's door and
opening it quietly. He let himself inside, and closed the door
noiselessly. For half a minute he stood still, to assure himself
that Doctor Daw had not returned, and then, flashing his torch, made
a hurried search for the master's boots. He found a few pairs, all
showing signs of recent use, but none with the distinctive tag.
"Ten to one he's wearing them," murmured Jack. At that moment his heart
beat furiously. Steps were coming along the corridor, and they stopped
outside the door. For a second he was paralysed; then he acted swiftly.
He had barely time to roll under the bed before Doctor Daw himself
entered the room--and with him his strange friend Tiger!