A MYSTERY UNRAVELLED
Such was the rapid succession of events that Fane and Jack Symonds
remained for a few seconds rooted to the spot, by sheer stupefaction
and surprise. That Billy should thus be walking in his sleep, and
bearing the lost Star in his hands, was strange enough, but that he
should be attacked before their very eyes was quite astounding. They
might well have been pardoned for a moment of inaction. Then the
tension snapped. "Come on!" said Jack quietly. "It's that beast Daw!"
In their stockinged feet the two boys darted along the corridor. Billy
Faraday had come back to the waking world with a startled cry, and
seemed quite incapable of movement, while Doctor Daw, in his black
suit, bent over him like a carrion crow, and struggled to wrest the
Star from the boy's grasp.
He succeeded at last, and with a low cry of triumph, turned to escape.
At that moment he was tackled madly by a bunched-up body that he might,
given the requisite time, have recognized as Fane's. His legs were
whisked from beneath him, and he sat down with an agonizing thump,
while Jack Symonds collapsed upon him with all his heavy weight. The
Black Star escaped from his fingers, and slithered along the tiled
floor, where the now awakened Billy secured it eagerly.
"Give it up, give it up," ground out Jack, apparently endeavouring to
fracture the tiles with Daw's head. "Come on--you're caught this time!"
"Gr-rr-r!" gurgled Daw. "Clug--gump!"
"All right," panted Billy in Jack's ear. "I've got it!"
Slowly the two boys allowed the infuriated master to regain his feet.
He did so, and stood there, panting and scowling at them.
"You brats--you brats!" he gritted, between his teeth. "You infernal
brats!"
"I fancy," said Jack quietly, "that we've put a finger in your
pie--what?"
Mr. Daw took a step forward, and his eyes blazed with intense anger. It
looked very much as if he would strike the cool youngster before him,
but his hand fell to his side again.
"Yes," went on Jack, "we've just about spoked your wheel!"
Daw seemed to make an immense effort for self-control. He swallowed
several times. Then, "I don't know what you mean, you insolent puppy!"
he burst out. "And I'd like to know just what you mean by attacking
your master in this disgraceful manner--and also what you are doing out
of your dormitory at this time of night!"
"Well, I like that!" exclaimed Jack. "After you jumped on poor Billy
here, and--"
"That was my mistake," said Daw, who had recovered a great measure
of his composure. "I took him for a burglar, as was quite natural.
No boy should be out of his dormitory at this hour. I was bent on
capturing what I imagined to be an intruder. But your offence demands
explanation--and I must have it, at once."
"What about the Black Star?" asked Jack boldly.
Daw's self-control was excellent. "Black Star?" he repeated. "You are
trying to be impudent, I suppose! Well, you'll suffer for it, upon
my word. Go back to your dormitory at once--I'll send for you in the
morning."
He turned and stalked away, a tall, black figure passing the floods of
moonlight that entered the row of windows. The three chums watched him
out of sight with mingled feelings.
"Well," said Jack grimly, "that was quick work, with a vengeance! I
don't know what really happened now, if you ask me. Billy, old chap,
what on earth were you doing with the Star? Where did you find it?"
"That's what beats me," said Billy, scratching his tousled hair. "I was
asleep, wasn't I?"
"You were, until that brute Daw bolted at you. Didn't know you were a
sleep-walker, all the same."
"Nor did I, old fellow. I thought I was safe in my little bunk, and I
woke up to find myself on the floor and Daw falling all over me. I tell
you, it shook me up a bit! I didn't know whether I was asleep or awake."
"That's all right," broke in Fane, "but, you mysterious blighter, where
did the Star come from? Seems to me this beats Conan Doyle and his
spooks into a cocked hat. I suppose a bally spirit guided you to the
spot, or something--ten to one it was Daw's room, and the blinking old
thief bolted after you and tried to get the Star back. Does that fit?"
"My only aunt!" exclaimed Jack. "My head's fairly spinning with
the business. Old Billy must have supernatural powers--any of your
ancestors witches, or anything like that, old man? Come on, don't let
us worry about the rotten affair any more to-night. I've bitten off
more mystery than I can chew! Off to bed, and be jolly thankful that
we've got the Star back again. It is the real Star, by the way, and not
a fake?"
"Oh, it's the real Star all right," returned Billy. "It's not going out
of my pocket until we can find an absolutely safe hiding-place. Twice
lost and twice found! Bit of a record, don't you think?"
"Bit of whacking great luck," said Jack.
Billy grinned happily, overjoyed at the recovery of the Star, and the
three of them trooped off to their dormitory.
The next morning Septimus Patch listened to a full account of the
events of that memorable night, and regretted that he had been absent,
"snoring," as he expressed it, "in a manner more worthy of a pig than
an investigator."
"What do you make of Billy's find?" Jack asked him, and the inventor
wrinkled his brows in perplexity.
"Well, for one thing," he said, "I don't believe that Daw had the Star.
It seems incredible that Billy could have walked in his sleep and just
collared the thing calmly! Look at it--the idea's piffle, plain piffle.
No, the solution is something different, but I'm blessed if I can
find--wait a moment!"
He held his head in both hands, and walked rapidly up and down the
carpet of the study. Then he turned and looked out on the quadrangle
for a few minutes. When he again faced his pals, they observed that his
face was alight with what might prove the solution of the mystery.
"I believe I've got it, comrades," he said. "I believe I know what
happened. Billy took the Star out of the hollow under the loose board,
and hid it elsewhere. Last night he returned in his sleep and got it
back again."
"My poor fellow!" exclaimed Jack. "It is so very painful."
"What's painful?"
"That rush of brains to the head! Doesn't your cranium feel
tight--almost bursting?"
"Seriously, comrade." Patch's idea rode superior to Jack's frivolity.
"Just cast your mind back over what happened. Billy had concealed the
Star, but, of course, he didn't know that it was safe, even under the
boards. The business preyed on his mind. It worked on him to such an
extent that in his sleep one night he came and took the Star away--to
put it in some safer place, goodness knows where.
"Then, we find that the Star is missing--how long after Billy shifted
it, we don't know. But it was gone, we all know that. Billy here knew
nothing about his sleep-walking--didn't even know that he was addicted
to sleep-walking. And so he remembered nothing of having moved the
Star. Of course, he worried some more about the thing, and did the same
thing again--went out, got the Star from where he had hidden it, and
was bringing it to another place, when Daw happened to spot him, and,
of course, pounced on it."
"By Jingo!" said Fane, regarding Patch with an admiring eye.
"Yes, that's what happened, comrades. And goodness knows where Billy
would have put it if he hadn't been pulled up--perhaps in the Head's
waistcoat, or else up the fireplace. Lucky things panned out as they
did, eh?"
"I keep telling Billy he ought to go on the Stock Exchange," said Jack.
"His luck's blown in the bottle, all wool and a yard wide!"
"Of course, we'll have to guard against this sort of thing in the
future, however good his luck is. Next time coincidences might fail
to--to--"
"--to coincide," finished Jack brightly. "Exactly. The best thing for
us to do is to let me hide the Star, and then Billy can't get at it
without my telling him, sleep-walking or otherwise."
"That's the ticket! You take the thing and hide it in some secure place
or other--be sure we don't make a miss of it, this time--and then you
can tell Fane and me, but not Billy. I don't think I walk in my sleep,
and, as for Fane, he walks often enough when he should be asleep, but
that's a different matter."
And so it was arranged. Jack concealed the Star that afternoon, in
the most unlikely of places. He got an old rubber-grip from a bat,
and inserted the Star in this, while he tied both ends securely with
twine. The whole thing he attached to a fine fishing-line. Walking
along to the river, he flung the Star into the water, and fixed the end
of the line to the root of a tree some six inches under water. The line
would never be seen; and unless something very like a miracle occurred,
the package could hardly be recovered from the thick mud at the bottom
of the river. He breathed a sigh of relief.
"Well, it's safe enough there," he murmured, looking round him. He had
been only a few minutes at work, and there was no one in sight. "And
nobody's noticed," he added, strolling off in the direction of the
school.
Still pondering the matter of the Black Star and all the trouble and
excitement it had brought in its train, he was passing a clump of
thorn-bushes, called by the College "Willy-Whiskers," when the hum of
voices was borne to his ears by the breeze.
"Hullo!" said Jack, and pulled up. The place Willy-Whiskers was used,
nowadays, only as a fighting-ground, when some particularly important
encounter was mooted. Here the spectators could yell to their hearts'
content, without fear of being "dropped on" by a passing master. Jack
wondered. Was a fight in progress?
Irresolutely he moved forward; the sounds were totally unlike those
usually accompanying schoolboy battles. Instead, it looked much as if
there was a meeting of some sort being held in the heart of the thick
tangle of thorn, the quaint shape of which had given it its name.
"... Those rotten Crees ... we'll be able ... shock of their lives ..."
came the words, with significant gaps; and Jack immediately considered
it his business to investigate. He thought that this was a meeting of
the Calamitous Cripples, the rival society to the Crees--and he was not
mistaken.
Approaching silently in the long grass, Jack Symonds peered curiously
through the interstices of the jungle-like mass of thorn. There was
Cummles, the renegade Cree, holding the floor, as usual; his fellows
were asking him questions, to which he was replying confidently.
"We'll reel off as many copies of the notice as we'll want," he was
saying. "The Crees will all fall for the wheeze, and everything should
go well, with ordinary luck."
"How about the notice?" asked one of the Cripples.
"I've got a copy of it here," said Cummles; "we've got a jelly
thingummy in our study that'll print off as many sheets as you like.
I'll read it: 'Dear brother Cree, This is to let you know that a
special banquet is being given by the under-signed in honour of Jack
Symonds, Chief Cree, in the old Science room on Friday night next, at
half-past nine. As it is intended as a surprise to the Chief, the
matter must be kept a secret from him and his immediate friends. All
Crees to be present. Signed, S. Fane.'"
"That's all right!" agreed the Cripples, readily. "But how does it go
on then?"
"Why, it's just like falling off a log--they all crowd into the old
Science room, and then one of us will slip out and lock the door. Then
the fun starts. We've saved up lots of bottles of that sulphuretted
hydrogen stuff--you know, that rotten-egg smell--and we're just going
to let them loose on the poor beggars. And other things that I've
thought of. When they're just about done, old Simpole here will light a
flashlight affair and take their photo--all sneezing and wrinkling up
their noses with snuff and the awful smells--and we'll circulate that
photo, or copies of it, all over the House. We'll call it, 'A Meeting
of the Crees,' or something like that. The Crees will just about buck
up when they see it, and it'll be the most spiffing score this term.
Think of them--all dancing and prancing there, looking as scared as a
lot of boxed-up rabbits!"
"I vote it a bonzer scheme!" came the admiring voice of one of
Cummles's friends. "The only thing is, will it work all right?"
"Will it work?" demanded Cummles indignantly. "I should just say it
will! How on earth can it go wrong?"
His questioner subsided into silence, and then Jack deemed it prudent
to move quietly away.
"Will it work?" repeated the Chief Cree to himself. "Well, rather! Only
in a different way from the one these Cripples intend...."
He chuckled to himself as he threw open the door of Study No. 9. Billy
Faraday and Patch were there, and they had a queer-looking contraption
on the table that Jack did not remember to have seen before. Patch's
fingers were liberally stained with black ink, and as Jack entered he
scratched his forehead in a worried manner, leaving sundry streaks and
blotches on his face.
"Hullo, Patchie!" exclaimed Jack. "What a dandy you are--always
titivating yourself up. If it's not rouge or face-powder, then it's
ink. A nice thick coating of tar would improve the appearance of your
face wonderfully."
"Well, comrade, I do not grudge you your meed of humour. I know it's a
bright spot in an otherwise gloomy life. But you might put it to better
use--what about writing a funny column for our paper?"
"For your what?"
"Paper, comrade," explained Patch pityingly. "In the big cities they
print the news on big sheets of paper, which people buy and often read.
Ours will not stop at news, though. Critical comment on curious members
of the school--frightful libels on all and sundry--all that sort of
thing."
Jack's interest was now thoroughly aroused.
"What," he said, "you're not going to run a rival show to the
_Gazette_?"
The _Deepwater Gazette_ was the somewhat staid official journal of
the College, which issued twice a year, and was religiously bought by
the collegers, who read nothing of it excepting the sporting records.
Patch showed, by a shake of his head, that he did not mean to push the
official paper out of business.
"No, comrade," he said; "our paper will be brighter, full of
snappy snips, and nifty news, quips and jests. This is a small
printing-press"--he indicated the machine on the table--"and we'll turn
out any number of copies, and--"
"Hold hard," said Jack suddenly, interrupting him, "I've just
remembered...."
He went on to tell the tale of the plot that the Cripples were
preparing against them. When he had come to the end of his recital his
companions whistled concernedly. But he went on--speaking in a low
voice to them as they sat attentively listening to him--to outline a
scheme for the reversal of the proposed jape. When he had finished they
were both grinning broadly.
"Comrade," said Patch, "you have some of the elements of the practical
joker in you."
"It'll be a tremendous thud for Cummles and his bright boys, at any
rate," Jack assured him. "And Simpole isn't the only one who can take
photographs!"