Not until late that same evening did Glyn have an opportunity of
investigating the mystery, for he had purposely refrained from making a
confidant of Singh; so that it was after the latter was asleep that
Glyn, rising softly, went over to the dressing-table and there lighted
the chamber candle, which stood at the side of the looking-glass.
"Will it be too blurred?" he thought, and he held up in front of the
mirror a piece of blotting-paper, and then started, for the occupant of
the other bed stirred slightly, causing Glyn to step cautiously to the
side of the sleeper.
"He won't wake," muttered Glyn, and he went back to the table and
recommenced his task, to find that with the aid of reflection the
written words on the spongy surface of the blotting-paper stood out
fairly plain, though there was a break here and there. And this is what
he read:
"_it was g----ern oo thev the princes_--"
Then there was a blurred line where the ink had run, with only a letter
or two distinct at intervals. Then half a blank line, and then, very
much blurred and obscure, more resembling a row of blots than so much
writing:
"_e as idden--sum whare--for sertane_."
Another line all blotted and indistinct; then:
"_umble Suvvent,--Wun oo nose_."
Then a line in which so obscure and run were the letters that minutes
had elapsed before the reader could make out what they meant:
"_toe the doktor_."
Glyn drew back from the glass as if stung, and then the question which
came to him was who had written this abominable, ill-spelt accusation,
evidently pointed at himself?
"That was the letter, then, that the Doctor mentioned," he said to
himself, and he tried to read the words again, instinctively filling up
some of the blanks so as to make the letter fit himself; and it seemed
to him that there could only have been one person who was capable of
writing such a thing.
He examined the lettering once again--a back-slanting hand, disguised.
"And I have only one enemy--Slegge," he thought to himself, as he softly
blew out the candle and crept back into bed; but it was long ere sleep
came, for the writing, run by the blotting-paper but still vivid, seemed
to dance before his eyes, and as he now mentally read it: "It was Glyn
Severn who stole the Prince's belt."
And it was with this to form the subject of his dreams that he fell fast
asleep.
On the following morning Glyn entered the class-room early and proceeded
to Slegge's desk.
"Just as I thought," he said, and he took up one of the writing folio
books which lay with other volumes on the desk-cover.
There was no one else in the theatre at that early hour, and Glyn had
time to compare as he wished certain of the letters and capitals in
Slegge's handwriting with the wording on the blotting-paper.
"It was he; there can be no doubt," he exclaimed, and he went out of the
room, making for the playground, intending to find his detractor; but he
was not to be seen.
Fortune, however, favoured him as he was making his way back to the
schoolhouse, for near the boys' gardens he suddenly caught sight of the
object of his search.
"I say, Slegge," he said, approaching the lad, "I want to talk to you."
It did not seem to be quite the same self-confident bully of the day
previous who responded, "Eh? You do, Severn? What's up?"
"Come into the class-room," said Severn. "I want you."
"What!" began Slegge. "What do you mean? Why are you trying to order
me about?"
"Because I have something to tell you."
"Ha, ha, Cocky Severn! It's time you had that thrashing."
"Is it?" said Glyn. "Well, I don't think I should care to fight with a
fellow who writes anonymous letters."
"What do you mean by that?" cried the other.
"I will show you what I mean if you come with me. I don't suppose you
want the other fellows to hear it."
"I don't care," said Slegge. "Some cock-and-bull story you are
hatching, Severn."
"You wrote that letter," said Glyn abruptly, and his voice sounded husky
with the emotion and rage that were gathering in his breast.
"Letter? Letter? What do you mean? Has one come for me by the post?"
"You know what letter I mean," burst out Severn.
"Here, I say," cried Slegge, with a most perfect assumption of
innocence; and he looked round as if speaking to a whole gathering of
their schoolfellows, "what's he talking about? I don't know. Isn't
going off his head, is he?"
"That letter the Doctor was talking about yesterday morning," cried
Glyn, with the passion within beginning to master him.
"Here, I don't know what you mean," cried Slegge. "You seem to have got
out of bed upside down, or else you haven't woke up yet. What do you
mean by your letters?"
"You miserable shuffler!" cried Glyn, in a voice almost inaudible from
rage. "The Doctor only talked about a letter; but I've found you out."
"No, you haven't," cried Slegge truculently; "you have found me in--in
here by the gardens, and if you have come down here to have it out once
more before breakfast, come along down to the elms. I am your man."
"That's just what I should like to do," panted Severn, whose hands kept
opening and shutting as they hung by his sides; and there was something
in the boy's looks that made Slegge change colour slightly, and he
glanced quickly to right and left as if in search of the support of his
fellows; but there was no one within sight.
"But," continued Glyn, "if you think I am going to lower myself by
fighting a dirty, cowardly hound who has struck at me behind the back
like the dishonourable cur that the Doctor said he was waiting to see
come and confess what he had done, you are mistaken."
"There, I knew it!" cried Slegge. "You are afraid. Put up your hands,
or I will give you the coward's blow."
To the bully's utter astonishment, one of Glyn's hands only rose quick
as lightning and had him by the throat.
"You dare!" he cried. "Strike me if you dare! Yes, it would be a
coward's blow. But if you do I won't answer for what will happen, for I
shall forget what you have done, and--and--"
"Here, Severn! Severn! What's the matter with you?" gasped Slegge
excitedly. "I haven't done anything. Are you going mad?"
"You have, you blackguard!" cried Glyn, forcing the fellow back till he
had him up against the garden-fence. "You have always hated me ever
since I licked you, and like the coward you are you stooped to write
that dirty, ill-spelt, abominable letter to make the Doctor think I had
stolen Singh's belt."
"Oh, I don't know what you mean," whined Slegge. "Let go, will you?"
"No!" cried Glyn, raising his other hand to catch Slegge by the wrist.
"Not till I've made you do what the Doctor asked for--taken you to his
room and made you confess."
"Confess? I haven't got anything to confess. You are mad, and I don't
know what you mean," cried Slegge, whose face was now white. "Let go,
or I'll call for help."
"Do," cried Glyn, "and I'll expose you before everybody. You coward!
Why, a baby could have seen through your miserable sham, ill-spelt
letter, with the words all slanting the wrong way."
"I don't know what letter you mean. Has the Doctor been showing you the
letter he was talking about?"
"No," said Glyn mockingly, as he read in the troubled face before him
that he was quite right. "But I have read it all the same, on the piece
of blotting-paper that you used to dry what you had written--the sheet
of blotting-paper that was put ready on my desk so that if it were found
it might seem that I was the writer."
"That I wrote?" said Slegge, with a forced laugh. "That you wrote, you
mean, before you sent it. I don't know what for, unless you wanted
people to think that it was done by some one who didn't like you. What
do you mean by accusing me?"
"Because you are not so clever as you thought. Come on here to the
class-room. I have been there this morning, and laid the blotting-paper
by the side of one of your exercises on your desk; and, clever as you
thought yourself, the Doctor will see at a glance that some of the
letters, in spite of the way you wrote them, could only have been
written by you." And here he took a piece of paper out--a piece that he
had torn from Slegge's exercise-book--and laid beside it the unfolded
blotting-paper.
Slegge made a dash at them, but Glyn was too quick. Throwing one hand
behind his back, he pressed Slegge with the other fiercely against the
fence.
"There!" he cried triumphantly. "That's like confessing it. Come on to
the Doctor. There's Mr Morris yonder.--Mr--"
"No, no, don't! Pray don't call!"
"Hah!" cried Glyn triumphantly. "Then you did write it?"
"I--I--"
"Speak! You did write it, you coward! Now confess!"
"Well, I--I was in a passion, and I only thought it would be a lark."
"You were in a passion, and you thought it would be a lark!" cried Glyn
scornfully. "You muddle-headed idiot, you did it to injure me, for you
must have had some idea in your stupid thick brain that it would do me
harm. But come on. You have confessed it, and you shan't go alone to
the Doctor to say that you repent and that you are sorry for it all, for
you shall come with me. Quick! Now, at once, before the breakfast-bell
rings; and we will see what the Doctor says. Perhaps he will understand
it better than I do, for I hardly know what you meant."
"No, no, don't! Pray don't, Severn! Haven't I owned up? What more do
you want?" And the big lad spoke with his lips quivering and a curious
twitching appearing about the corners of his mouth; but Glyn seemed as
hard as iron.
"What more do I want? I want the Doctor to know what a miserable coward
and bully he has in the school."
"No, no," gasped Slegge, in a low, husky voice, and with his face now
all of a quiver. "I can't--I won't! I tell you I can't come!"
"And I tell you you shall come," cried Glyn, dragging him along a step
or two.
"Don't, I tell you! You will have Morris see," gasped Slegge.
"I want him to see, and all the fellows to see what a coward we have got
amongst us. So come along."
Slegge caught him by the lapel of his jacket, and with his voice
changing into a piteous whisper, "Pray, pray don't, Severn!" he panted.
"Do you know what it means?"
"I know what it ought to mean," cried Glyn mockingly; "a good flogging;
but the Doctor won't give you that."
"No," whispered the lad piteously. "I'd bear that; but he'd send me
back home in disgrace. There was a fellow here once, and the Doctor
called it expelled. Severn, old chap, I am going to leave at the end of
this half. It will be like ruin to me, for everything will be known.
There, I confess. I was a fool, and what you called me."
"Then come like a man and say that to the Doctor."
"I can't! I can't! I--oh, Severn! Severn!"
The poor wretch could get out no more articulately, but sank down upon
his knees, fighting hard for a few moments to master himself, but only
to burst forth into a fit of hysterical sobbing.
The pitiful, appealing face turned up to him mastered Glyn on the
instant, and he loosened his hold, to glance round directly in the
direction of Morris, and then back.
"Get up," he said, "and don't do that. Come along here."
"No, no; I can't go before the Doctor. Severn, you always were a good
fellow--a better chap than I am. Pray, pray, forgive me this once!"
"And you will never do so any more?" cried Glyn half-mockingly.
"Never! never! I swear I won't!"
"Well," said Glyn, whose rage seemed to have entirely evaporated, "I
suppose that it would pretty well ruin you, at all events for this
school. I don't want to be hard on you; but I can't help half-hating
you, Slegge, for the way you have behaved to that poor little beggar
Burton. Look here, Slegge, if you say honestly that you beg pardon--"
"Yes," cried the lad. "I do beg your pardon, Severn!"
"No; I don't want you to beg my pardon," cried Glyn. "I can take care
of myself. I want you to tell that poor little chap that you are sorry
you ill-used him, and promise that you will never behave badly to him
again."
"Yes, yes. I will, I will. But you are going to tell the Doctor?"
"No, I shall not. I am not a sneak," said Glyn, "nor a coward neither.
I have shown you that, and I am not going to jump on a fellow when he's
down. But come along here."
"To the Doctor's? Oh no, no!"
"Be quiet, I tell you, and wipe your eyes and blow your nose. You don't
want everybody to see?"
"No, no.--Thank you!--No," cried the big fellow hurriedly. "I couldn't
help it. I am not well. I must go to my room and have a wash before
the breakfast-bell rings. May I go now?"
"No; you will be all right. The fellows won't see. I only want you to
come over here to where Burton is. No, there he goes! I'll call him
here. There, don't show that we have been quarrelling.--Hi! Burton!"
cried Glyn, stepping to the garden-hedge and shouting loudly, with the
effect that as soon as the little fellow realised who called he came
bounding towards him, but every now and then with a slight limp.
"Just a quiet word or two that you are sorry you hurt him; and I want
you to show it afterwards--not in words."
"You want me, Severn?" cried the little fellow, looking from one to the
other wonderingly as soon as he realised that his friend was not alone.
"Yes. Slegge and I have been talking about you. He wants to say a word
or two to you about hurting you the other day."
The little fellow glanced more wonderingly than ever at his big enemy.
"Does he?" he said dubiously, and he turned his eyes from one to the
other again.
"Oh yes," said Slegge, with rather a pitiful attempt to speak in a
jocular tone, which he could not continue to the end. "I am precious
sorry I kicked you so hard. But you'll forgive me and shake hands--
won't you, Burton?"
"Ye-es, if you really are sorry," said the little fellow, slowly raising
his hand, which was snatched at and forcibly wrung, just as the
breakfast-bell rang out, and Slegge turned and dashed off towards the
schoolhouse as hard as he could run.
"I say, Severn," said little Burton, turning his eyes wonderingly up at
his companion, who had playfully caught him by the ear and begun leading
him towards where the bell was clanging out loudly as Sam Grigg tugged
at the rope, "do you think Slegge means that?"
"Oh yes. I have been talking to him about it, and I am sure he's very
sorry now."
"Oh, I say, Severn," cried the little fellow joyously, and with his eyes
full of the admiration he felt, "what a chap you are!"
Some one who sat near took an observation that morning over the
breakfast that Slegge did not seem to enjoy his bread and butter, and
set it down to the butter being too salt; and though the Doctor waited
for days in the anticipation that the sender of the anonymous letter
would come to him to confess, he expressed himself to the masters as
disappointed, for the culprit did not come, and the affair died out in
the greater interest that was taken later on in the matter of the belt.
Still, somebody did go to see the Doctor, and he looked at him
wonderingly, for it was not the boy he expected to see, but the very
last whom he would have ventured to suspect.