productive of interesting by-products. The maxim applies to fat. The
fat was in the fire with a vengeance. A great sheet of flame rushed out
and up. Shoeblossom leaped back with a readiness highly creditable in
one who was not a professional acrobat. The covering of the mantelpiece
caught fire. The flames went roaring up the chimney.
Drummond, cool while everything else was so hot, without a word moved
to the mantelpiece to beat out the fire with a football shirt. Bertie
was talking rapidly to himself in French. Nobody could understand what
he was saying, which was possibly fortunate.
By the time Drummond had extinguished the mantelpiece, Barry had also
done good work by knocking the fire into the grate with the poker.
M'Todd, who had been standing up till now in the far corner of the
room, gaping vaguely at things in general, now came into action.
Probably it was force of habit that suggested to him that the time had
come to upset the kettle. At any rate, upset it he did--most of it over
the glowing, blazing mass in the grate, the rest over Barry. One of the
largest and most detestable smells the study had ever had to endure
instantly assailed their nostrils. The fire in the study was out now,
but in the chimney it still blazed merrily.
"Go up on to the roof and heave water down," said Drummond, the
strategist. "You can get out from Milton's dormitory window. And take
care not to chuck it down the wrong chimney."
Barry was starting for the door to carry out these excellent
instructions, when it flew open.
"Pah! What have you boys been doing? What an abominable smell. Pah!"
said a muffled voice. It was Mr Seymour. Most of his face was concealed
in a large handkerchief, but by the look of his eyes, which appeared
above, he did not seem pleased. He took in the situation at a glance.
Fires in the house were not rarities. One facetious sportsman had once
made a rule of setting the senior day-room chimney on fire every term.
He had since left (by request), but fires still occurred.
"Is the chimney on fire?"
"Yes, sir," said Drummond.
"Go and find Herbert, and tell him to take some water on to the roof
and throw it down." Herbert was the boot and knife cleaner at
Seymour's.
Barry went. Soon afterwards a splash of water in the grate announced
that the intrepid Herbert was hard at it. Another followed, and
another. Then there was a pause. Mr Seymour thought he would look up to
see if the fire was out. He stooped and peered into the darkness, and,
even as he gazed, splash came the contents of the fourth pail, together
with some soot with which they had formed a travelling acquaintance on
the way down. Mr Seymour staggered back, grimy and dripping. There was
dead silence in the study. Shoeblossom's face might have been seen
working convulsively.
The silence was broken by a hollow, sepulchral voice with a strong
Cockney accent.
"Did yer see any water come down then, sir?" said the voice.
Shoeblossom collapsed into a chair, and began to sob feebly.
* * * * *
"--disgraceful ... scandalous ... get _up_, Leather-Twigg ... not to
be trusted ... _babies_ ... three hundred lines, Leather-Twigg ...
abominable ... surprised ... ought to be ashamed of yourselves ...
_double_, Leather-Twigg ... not fit to have studies ... atrocious ...--"
Such were the main heads of Mr Seymour's speech on the situation as he
dabbed desperately at the soot on his face with his handkerchief.
Shoeblossom stood and gurgled throughout. Not even the thought of six
hundred lines could quench that dauntless spirit.
"Finally," perorated Mr Seymour, as he was leaving the room, "as you
are evidently not to be trusted with rooms of your own, I forbid you to
enter them till further notice. It is disgraceful that such a thing
should happen. Do you hear, Barry? And you, Drummond? You are not to
enter your studies again till I give you leave. Move your books down to
the senior day-room tonight."
And Mr Seymour stalked off to clean himself.
"Anyhow," said Shoeblossom, as his footsteps died away, "we saved the
sausages."
It is this indomitable gift of looking on the bright side that makes us
Englishmen what we are.
XI
THE HOUSE-MATCHES
It was something of a consolation to Barry and his friends--at any
rate, to Barry and Drummond--that directly after they had been evicted
from their study, the house-matches began. Except for the Ripton match,
the house-matches were the most important event of the Easter term.
Even the sports at the beginning of April were productive of less
excitement. There were twelve houses at Wrykyn, and they played on the
"knocking-out" system. To be beaten once meant that a house was no
longer eligible for the competition. It could play "friendlies" as much
as it liked, but, play it never so wisely, it could not lift the cup.
Thus it often happened that a weak house, by fluking a victory over a
strong rival, found itself, much to its surprise, in the semi-final, or
sometimes even in the final. This was rarer at football than at
cricket, for at football the better team generally wins.
The favourites this year were Donaldson's, though some fancied
Seymour's. Donaldson's had Trevor, whose leadership was worth almost
more than his play. In no other house was training so rigid. You could
tell a Donaldson's man, if he was in his house-team, at a glance. If
you saw a man eating oatmeal biscuits in the shop, and eyeing wistfully
the while the stacks of buns and pastry, you could put him down as a
Donaldsonite without further evidence. The captains of the other houses
used to prescribe a certain amount of self-abnegation in the matter of
food, but Trevor left his men barely enough to support life--enough,
that is, of the things that are really worth eating. The consequence
was that Donaldson's would turn out for an important match all muscle
and bone, and on such occasions it was bad for those of their opponents
who had been taking life more easily. Besides Trevor they had Clowes,
and had had bad luck in not having Paget. Had Paget stopped, no other
house could have looked at them. But by his departure, the strength of
the team had become more nearly on a level with that of Seymour's.
Some even thought that Seymour's were the stronger. Milton was as good
a forward as the school possessed. Besides him there were Barry and
Rand-Brown on the wings. Drummond was a useful half, and five of the
pack had either first or second fifteen colours. It was a team that
would take some beating.
Trevor came to that conclusion early. "If we can beat Seymour's, we'll
lift the cup," he said to Clowes.
"We'll have to do all we know," was Clowes' reply.
They were watching Seymour's pile up an immense score against a scratch
team got up by one of the masters. The first round of the competition
was over. Donaldson's had beaten Templar's, Seymour's the School House.
Templar's were rather stronger than the School House, and Donaldson's
had beaten them by a rather larger score than that which Seymour's had
run up in their match. But neither Trevor nor Clowes was inclined to
draw any augury from this. Seymour's had taken things easily after
half-time; Donaldson's had kept going hard all through.
"That makes Rand-Brown's fourth try," said Clowes, as the wing
three-quarter of the second fifteen raced round and scored in the
corner.
"Yes. This is the sort of game he's all right in. The man who's marking
him is no good. Barry's scored twice, and both good tries, too."
"Oh, there's no doubt which is the best man," said Clowes. "I only
mentioned that it was Rand-Brown's fourth as an item of interest."
The game continued. Barry scored a third try.
"We're drawn against Appleby's next round," said Trevor. "We can manage
them all right."
"When is it?"
"Next Thursday. Nomads' match on Saturday. Then Ripton, Saturday week."
"Who've Seymour's drawn?"
"Day's. It'll be a good game, too. Seymour's ought to win, but they'll
have to play their best. Day's have got some good men."
"Fine scrum," said Clowes. "Yes. Quick in the open, too, which is
always good business. I wish they'd beat Seymour's."
"Oh, we ought to be all right, whichever wins."
Appleby's did not offer any very serious resistance to the Donaldson
attack. They were outplayed at every point of the game, and, before
half-time, Donaldson's had scored their thirty points. It was a rule in
all in-school matches--and a good rule, too--that, when one side led by
thirty points, the match stopped. This prevented those massacres which
do so much towards crushing all the football out of the members of the
beaten team; and it kept the winning team from getting slack, by urging
them on to score their thirty points before half-time. There were some
houses--notoriously slack--which would go for a couple of seasons
without ever playing the second half of a match.
Having polished off the men of Appleby, the Donaldson team trooped off
to the other game to see how Seymour's were getting on with Day's. It
was evidently an exciting match. The first half had been played to the
accompaniment of much shouting from the ropes. Though coming so early
in the competition, it was really the semi-final, for whichever team
won would be almost certain to get into the final. The school had
turned up in large numbers to watch.
"Seymour's looking tired of life," said Clowes. "That would seem as if
his fellows weren't doing well."
"What's been happening here?" asked Trevor of an enthusiast in a
Seymour's house cap whose face was crimson with yelling.
"One goal all," replied the enthusiast huskily. "Did you beat
Appleby's?"
"Yes. Thirty points before half-time. Who's been doing the scoring
here?"
"Milton got in for us. He barged through out of touch. We've been
pressing the whole time. Barry got over once, but he was held up.
Hullo, they're beginning again. Buck up, Sey-_mour's_."
His voice cracking on the high note, he took an immense slab of vanilla
chocolate as a remedy for hoarseness.
"Who scored for Day's?" asked Clowes.
"Strachan. Rand-Brown let him through from their twenty-five. You never
saw anything so rotten as Rand-Brown. He doesn't take his passes, and
Strachan gets past him every time."
"Is Strachan playing on the wing?"
Strachan was the first fifteen full-back.
"Yes. They've put young Bassett back instead of him. Sey-_mour's_.
Buck up, Seymour's. We-ell played! There, did you ever see anything
like it?" he broke off disgustedly.
The Seymourite playing centre next to Rand-Brown had run through to the
back and passed out to his wing, as a good centre should. It was a
perfect pass, except that it came at his head instead of his chest.
Nobody with any pretensions to decent play should have missed it.
Rand-Brown, however, achieved that feat. The ball struck his hands
and bounded forward. The referee blew his whistle for a scrum, and a
certain try was lost.
From the scrum the Seymour's forwards broke away to the goal-line,
where they were pulled up by Bassett. The next minute the defence had
been pierced, and Drummond was lying on the ball a yard across the
line. The enthusiast standing by Clowes expended the last relics of his
voice in commemorating the fact that his side had the lead.
"Drummond'll be good next year," said Trevor. And he made a mental note
to tell Allardyce, who would succeed him in the command of the school
football, to keep an eye on the player in question.
The triumph of the Seymourites was not long lived. Milton failed to
convert Drummond's try. From the drop-out from the twenty-five line
Barry got the ball, and punted into touch. The throw-out was not
straight, and a scrum was formed. The ball came out to the Day's
halves, and went across to Strachan. Rand-Brown hesitated, and then
made a futile spring at the first fifteen man's neck. Strachan handed
him off easily, and ran. The Seymour's full-back, who was a poor
player, failed to get across in time. Strachan ran round behind the
posts, the kick succeeded, and Day's now led by two points.
After this the game continued in Day's half. Five minutes before time
was up, Drummond got the ball from a scrum nearly on the line, passed
it to Barry on the wing instead of opening up the game by passing to
his centres, and Barry slipped through in the corner. This put
Seymour's just one point ahead, and there they stayed till the whistle
blew for no-side.
Milton walked over to the boarding-houses with Clowes and Trevor. He
was full of the match, particularly of the iniquity of Rand-Brown. "I
slanged him on the field," he said. "It's a thing I don't often do, but
what else _can_ you do when a man plays like that? He lost us
three certain tries."
"When did you administer your rebuke?" inquired Clowes.
"When he had let Strachan through that second time, in the second half.
I asked him why on earth he tried to play footer at all. I told him a
good kiss-in-the-ring club was about his form. It was rather cheap, but
I felt so frightfully sick about it. It's sickening to be let down like
that when you've been pressing the whole time, and ought to be scoring
every other minute."
"What had he to say on the subject?" asked Clowes.
"Oh, he gassed a bit until I told him I'd kick him if he said another
word. That shut him up."
"You ought to have kicked him. You want all the kicking practice you
can get. I never saw anything feebler than that shot of yours after
Drummond's try."
"I'd like to see _you_ take a kick like that. It was nearly on the
touch-line. Still, when we play you, we shan't need to convert any of
our tries. We'll get our thirty points without that. Perhaps you'd like
to scratch?"
"As a matter of fact," said Clowes confidentially, "I am going to score
seven tries against you off my own bat. You'll be sorry you ever turned
out when we've finished with you."
XII
NEWS OF THE GOLD BAT
Shoeblossom sat disconsolately on the table in the senior day-room. He
was not happy in exile. Brewing in the senior day-room was a mere
vulgar brawl, lacking all the refining influences of the study. You had
to fight for a place at the fire, and when you had got it 'twas not
always easy to keep it, and there was no privacy, and the fellows were
always bear-fighting, so that it was impossible to read a book quietly
for ten consecutive minutes without some ass heaving a cushion at you
or turning out the gas. Altogether Shoeblossom yearned for the peace of
his study, and wished earnestly that Mr Seymour would withdraw the
order of banishment. It was the not being able to read that he objected
to chiefly. In place of brewing, the ex-proprietors of studies five,
six, and seven now made a practice of going to the school shop. It was
more expensive and not nearly so comfortable--there is a romance about
a study brew which you can never get anywhere else--but it served, and
it was not on this score that he grumbled most. What he hated was
having to live in a bear-garden. For Shoeblossom was a man of moods.
Give him two or three congenial spirits to back him up, and he would
lead the revels with the _abandon_ of a Mr Bultitude (after his
return to his original form). But he liked to choose his accomplices,
and the gay sparks of the senior day-room did not appeal to him. They
were not intellectual enough. In his lucid intervals, he was accustomed
to be almost abnormally solemn and respectable. When not promoting some
unholy rag, Shoeblossom resembled an elderly gentleman of studious
habits. He liked to sit in a comfortable chair and read a book. It was
the impossibility of doing this in the senior day-room that led him to
try and think of some other haven where he might rest. Had it been
summer, he would have taken some literature out on to the cricket-field
or the downs, and put in a little steady reading there, with the aid of
a bag of cherries. But with the thermometer low, that was impossible.
He felt very lonely and dismal. He was not a man with many friends. In
fact, Barry and the other three were almost the only members of the
house with whom he was on speaking-terms. And of these four he saw very
little. Drummond and Barry were always out of doors or over at the
gymnasium, and as for M'Todd and De Bertini, it was not worth while
talking to the one, and impossible to talk to the other. No wonder
Shoeblossom felt dull. Once Barry and Drummond had taken him over to
the gymnasium with them, but this had bored him worse than ever. They
had been hard at it all the time--for, unlike a good many of the
school, they went to the gymnasium for business, not to lounge--and he
had had to sit about watching them. And watching gymnastics was one of
the things he most loathed. Since then he had refused to go.
That night matters came to a head. Just as he had settled down to read,
somebody, in flinging a cushion across the room, brought down the gas
apparatus with a run, and before light was once more restored it was
tea-time. After that there was preparation, which lasted for two hours,
and by the time he had to go to bed he had not been able to read a
single page of the enthralling work with which he was at present
occupied.
He had just got into bed when he was struck with a brilliant idea. Why
waste the precious hours in sleep? What was that saying of somebody's,
"Five hours for a wise man, six for somebody else--he forgot whom--eight
for a fool, nine for an idiot," or words to that effect? Five hours
sleep would mean that he need not go to bed till half past two. In the
meanwhile he could be finding out exactly what the hero _did_ do when
he found out (to his horror) that it was his cousin Jasper who had
really killed the old gentleman in the wood. The only question was--how
was he to do his reading? Prefects were allowed to work on after lights
out in their dormitories by the aid of a candle, but to the ordinary
mortal this was forbidden.
Then he was struck with another brilliant idea. It is a curious thing
about ideas. You do not get one for over a month, and then there comes
a rush of them, all brilliant. Why, he thought, should he not go and
read in his study with a dark lantern? He had a dark lantern. It was
one of the things he had found lying about at home on the last day of
the holidays, and had brought with him to school. It was his custom to
go about the house just before the holidays ended, snapping up
unconsidered trifles, which might or might not come in useful. This
term he had brought back a curious metal vase (which looked Indian, but
which had probably been made in Birmingham the year before last), two
old coins (of no mortal use to anybody in the world, including
himself), and the dark lantern. It was reposing now in the cupboard in
his study nearest the window.
He had brought his book up with him on coming to bed, on the chance
that he might have time to read a page or two if he woke up early. (He
had always been doubtful about that man Jasper. For one thing, he had
been seen pawning the old gentleman's watch on the afternoon of the
murder, which was a suspicious circumstance, and then he was not a nice
character at all, and just the sort of man who would be likely to murder
old gentlemen in woods.) He waited till Mr Seymour had paid his nightly
visit--he went the round of the dormitories at about eleven--and then he
chuckled gently. If Mill, the dormitory prefect, was awake, the chuckle
would make him speak, for Mill was of a suspicious nature, and believed
that it was only his unintermitted vigilance which prevented the
dormitory ragging all night.
Mill _was_ awake.
"Be quiet, there," he growled. "Shut up that noise."
Shoeblossom felt that the time was not yet ripe for his departure. Half
an hour later he tried again. There was no rebuke. To make certain he
emitted a second chuckle, replete with sinister meaning. A slight snore
came from the direction of Mill's bed. Shoeblossom crept out of the
room, and hurried to his study. The door was not locked, for Mr Seymour
had relied on his commands being sufficient to keep the owner out of
it. He slipped in, found and lit the dark lantern, and settled down to
read. He read with feverish excitement. The thing was, you see, that
though Claud Trevelyan (that was the hero) knew jolly well that it was
Jasper who had done the murder, the police didn't, and, as he (Claud)
was too noble to tell them, he had himself been arrested on suspicion.
Shoeblossom was skimming through the pages with starting eyes, when
suddenly his attention was taken from his book by a sound. It was a
footstep. Somebody was coming down the passage, and under the door
filtered a thin stream of light. To snap the dark slide over the
lantern and dart to the door, so that if it opened he would be behind
it, was with him, as Mr Claud Trevelyan might have remarked, the work
of a moment. He heard the door of study number five flung open, and
then the footsteps passed on, and stopped opposite his own den. The
handle turned, and the light of a candle flashed into the room, to be
extinguished instantly as the draught of the moving door caught it.
Shoeblossom heard his visitor utter an exclamation of annoyance, and
fumble in his pocket for matches. He recognised the voice. It was Mr
Seymour's. The fact was that Mr Seymour had had the same experience as
General Stanley in _The Pirates of Penzance_:
The man who finds his conscience ache,
No peace at all enjoys;
And, as I lay in bed awake,
I thought I heard a noise.
Whether Mr Seymour's conscience ached or not, cannot, of course, be
discovered. But he had certainly thought he heard a noise, and he had
come to investigate.
The search for matches had so far proved fruitless. Shoeblossom stood
and quaked behind the door. The reek of hot tin from the dark lantern
grew worse momentarily. Mr Seymour sniffed several times, until
Shoeblossom thought that he must be discovered. Then, to his immense
relief, the master walked away. Shoeblossom's chance had come. Mr
Seymour had probably gone to get some matches to relight his candle. It
was far from likely that the episode was closed. He would be back again
presently. If Shoeblossom was going to escape, he must do it now, so he
waited till the footsteps had passed away, and then darted out in the
direction of his dormitory.
As he was passing Milton's study, a white figure glided out of it. All
that he had ever read or heard of spectres rushed into Shoeblossom's
petrified brain. He wished he was safely in bed. He wished he had never
come out of it. He wished he had led a better and nobler life. He
wished he had never been born.
The figure passed quite close to him as he stood glued against the
wall, and he saw it disappear into the dormitory opposite his own, of
which Rigby was prefect. He blushed hotly at the thought of the fright
he had been in. It was only somebody playing the same game as himself.
He jumped into bed and lay down, having first plunged the lantern
bodily into his jug to extinguish it. Its indignant hiss had scarcely
died away when Mr Seymour appeared at the door. It had occurred to Mr
Seymour that he had smelt something very much out of the ordinary in
Shoeblossom's study, a smell uncommonly like that of hot tin. And a
suspicion dawned on him that Shoeblossom had been in there with a dark
lantern. He had come to the dormitory to confirm his suspicions. But a
glance showed him how unjust they had been. There was Shoeblossom fast
asleep. Mr Seymour therefore followed the excellent example of my Lord
Tomnoddy on a celebrated occasion, and went off to bed.
* * * * *
It was the custom for the captain of football at Wrykyn to select and
publish the team for the Ripton match a week before the day on which it
was to be played. On the evening after the Nomads' match, Trevor was
sitting in his study writing out the names, when there came a knock at
the door, and his fag entered with a letter.
"This has just come, Trevor," he said.
"All right. Put it down."
The fag left the room. Trevor picked up the letter. The handwriting was
strange to him. The words had been printed. Then it flashed upon him
that he had received a letter once before addressed in the same
way--the letter from the League about Barry. Was this, too, from
that address? He opened it.
It was.
He read it, and gasped. The worst had happened. The gold bat was in the
hands of the enemy.
XIII
VICTIM NUMBER THREE
"With reference to our last communication," ran the letter--the writer
evidently believed in the commercial style--"it may interest you to
know that the bat you lost by the statue on the night of the 26th of
January has come into our possession. _We observe that Barry is still
playing for the first fifteen._"