viciously into a ball.
He went on writing the names for the Ripton match. The last name on the
list was Barry's.
Then he sat back in his chair, and began to wrestle with this new
development. Barry must play. That was certain. All the bluff in the
world was not going to keep him from playing the best man at his disposal
in the Ripton match. He himself did not count. It was the school he had
to think of. This being so, what was likely to happen? Though nothing
was said on the point, he felt certain that if he persisted in ignoring
the League, that bat would find its way somehow--by devious routes,
possibly--to the headmaster or some one else in authority. And then
there would be questions--awkward questions--and things would begin
to come out. Then a fresh point struck him, which was, that whatever
might happen would affect, not himself, but O'Hara. This made it rather
more of a problem how to act. Personally, he was one of those dogged
characters who can put up with almost anything themselves. If this had
been his affair, he would have gone on his way without hesitating.
Evidently the writer of the letter was under the impression that he
had been the hero (or villain) of the statue escapade.
If everything came out it did not require any great effort of prophecy
to predict what the result would be. O'Hara would go. Promptly. He
would receive his marching orders within ten minutes of the discovery
of what he had done. He would be expelled twice over, so to speak, once
for breaking out at night--one of the most heinous offences in the
school code--and once for tarring the statue. Anything that gave the
school a bad name in the town was a crime in the eyes of the powers,
and this was such a particularly flagrant case. Yes, there was no doubt
of that. O'Hara would take the first train home without waiting to pack
up. Trevor knew his people well, and he could imagine their feelings
when the prodigal strolled into their midst--an old Wrykinian _malgre
lui_. As the philosopher said of falling off a ladder, it is not the
falling that matters: it is the sudden stopping at the other end. It is
not the being expelled that is so peculiarly objectionable: it is the
sudden homecoming. With this gloomy vision before him, Trevor almost
wavered. But the thought that the selection of the team had nothing
whatever to do with his personal feelings strengthened him. He was
simply a machine, devised to select the fifteen best men in the school
to meet Ripton. In his official capacity of football captain he was not
supposed to have any feelings. However, he yielded in so far that he
went to Clowes to ask his opinion.
Clowes, having heard everything and seen the letter, unhesitatingly
voted for the right course. If fifty mad Irishmen were to be expelled,
Barry must play against Ripton. He was the best man, and in he must go.
"That's what I thought," said Trevor. "It's bad for O'Hara, though."
Clowes remarked somewhat tritely that business was business.
"Besides," he went on, "you're assuming that the thing this letter
hints at will really come off. I don't think it will. A man would have
to be such an awful blackguard to go as low as that. The least grain of
decency in him would stop him. I can imagine a man threatening to do it
as a piece of bluff--by the way, the letter doesn't actually say
anything of the sort, though I suppose it hints at it--but I can't
imagine anybody out of a melodrama doing it."
"You can never tell," said Trevor. He felt that this was but an outside
chance. The forbearance of one's antagonist is but a poor thing to
trust to at the best of times.
"Are you going to tell O'Hara?" asked Clowes.
"I don't see the good. Would you?"
"No. He can't do anything, and it would only give him a bad time. There
are pleasanter things, I should think, than going on from day to day not
knowing whether you're going to be sacked or not within the next twelve
hours. Don't tell him."
"I won't. And Barry plays against Ripton."
"Certainly. He's the best man."
"I'm going over to Seymour's now," said Trevor, after a pause, "to see
Milton. We've drawn Seymour's in the next round of the house-matches. I
suppose you knew. I want to get it over before the Ripton match, for
several reasons. About half the fifteen are playing on one side or the
other, and it'll give them a good chance of getting fit. Running and
passing is all right, but a good, hard game's the thing for putting you
into form. And then I was thinking that, as the side that loses,
whichever it is--"
"Seymour's, of course."
"Hope so. Well, they're bound to be a bit sick at losing, so they'll
play up all the harder on Saturday to console themselves for losing the
cup."
"My word, what strategy!" said Clowes. "You think of everything. When
do you think of playing it, then?"
"Wednesday struck me as a good day. Don't you think so?"
"It would do splendidly. It'll be a good match. For all practical
purposes, of course, it's the final. If we beat Seymour's, I don't
think the others will trouble us much."
There was just time to see Milton before lock-up. Trevor ran across to
Seymour's, and went up to his study.
"Come in," said Milton, in answer to his knock.
Trevor went in, and stood surprised at the difference in the look of
the place since the last time he had visited it. The walls, once
covered with photographs, were bare. Milton, seated before the fire,
was ruefully contemplating what looked like a heap of waste cardboard.
Trevor recognised the symptoms. He had had experience.
"You don't mean to say they've been at you, too!" he cried.
Milton's normally cheerful face was thunderous and gloomy.
"Yes. I was thinking what I'd like to do to the man who ragged it."
"It's the League again, I suppose?"
Milton looked surprised.
"_Again?_" he said, "where did _you_ hear of the League?
This is the first time I've heard of its existence, whatever it is.
What is the confounded thing, and why on earth have they played the
fool here? What's the meaning of this bally rot?"
He exhibited one of the variety of cards of which Trevor had already
seen two specimens. Trevor explained briefly the style and nature of
the League, and mentioned that his study also had been wrecked.
"Your study? Why, what have they got against you?"
"I don't know," said Trevor. Nothing was to be gained by speaking of
the letters he had received.
"Did they cut up your photographs?"
"Every one."
"I tell you what it is, Trevor, old chap," said Milton, with great
solemnity, "there's a lunatic in the school. That's what I make of it.
A lunatic whose form of madness is wrecking studies."
"But the same chap couldn't have done yours and mine. It must have been
a Donaldson's fellow who did mine, and one of your chaps who did yours
and Mill's."
"Mill's? By Jove, of course. I never thought of that. That was the
League, too, I suppose?"
"Yes. One of those cards was tied to a chair, but Clowes took it away
before anybody saw it."
Milton returned to the details of the disaster.
"Was there any ink spilt in your room?"
"Pints," said Trevor, shortly. The subject was painful.
"So there was here," said Milton, mournfully. "Gallons."
There was silence for a while, each pondering over his wrongs.
"Gallons," said Milton again. "I was ass enough to keep a large pot
full of it here, and they used it all, every drop. You never saw such a
sight."
Trevor said he had seen one similar spectacle.
"And my photographs! You remember those photographs I showed you? All
ruined. Slit across with a knife. Some torn in half. I wish I knew who
did that."
Trevor said he wished so, too.
"There was one of Mrs Patrick Campbell," Milton continued in
heartrending tones, "which was torn into sixteen pieces. I counted
them. There they are on the mantelpiece. And there was one of Little
Tich" (here he almost broke down), "which was so covered with ink that
for half an hour I couldn't recognise it. Fact."
Trevor nodded sympathetically.
"Yes," said Milton. "Soaked."
There was another silence. Trevor felt it would be almost an outrage to
discuss so prosaic a topic as the date of a house-match with one so
broken up. Yet time was flying, and lock-up was drawing near.
"Are you willing to play--" he began.
"I feel as if I could never play again," interrupted Milton. "You'd
hardly believe the amount of blotting-paper I've used today. It must
have been a lunatic, Dick, old man."
When Milton called Trevor "Dick", it was a sign that he was moved. When
he called him "Dick, old man", it gave evidence of an internal upheaval
without parallel.
"Why, who else but a lunatic would get up in the night to wreck another
chap's study? All this was done between eleven last night and seven
this morning. I turned in at eleven, and when I came down here again at
seven the place was a wreck. It must have been a lunatic."
"How do you account for the printed card from the League?"
Milton murmured something about madmen's cunning and diverting
suspicion, and relapsed into silence. Trevor seized the opportunity to
make the proposal he had come to make, that Donaldson's _v._
Seymour's should be played on the following Wednesday.
Milton agreed listlessly.
"Just where you're standing," he said, "I found a photograph of Sir
Henry Irving so slashed about that I thought at first it was Huntley
Wright in _San Toy_."
"Start at two-thirty sharp," said Trevor.
"I had seventeen of Edna May," continued the stricken Seymourite,
monotonously. "In various attitudes. All destroyed."
"On the first fifteen ground, of course," said Trevor. "I'll get
Aldridge to referee. That'll suit you, I suppose?"
"All right. Anything you like. Just by the fireplace I found the
remains of Arthur Roberts in _H.M.S. Irresponsible_. And part of
Seymour Hicks. Under the table--"
Trevor departed.
XIV
THE WHITE FIGURE
"Suppose," said Shoeblossom to Barry, as they were walking over to
school on the morning following the day on which Milton's study had
passed through the hands of the League, "suppose you thought somebody
had done something, but you weren't quite certain who, but you knew it
was some one, what would you do?"
"What on _earth_ do you mean?" inquired Barry.
"I was trying to make an A.B. case of it," explained Shoeblossom.
"What's an A.B. case?"
"I don't know," admitted Shoeblossom, frankly. "But it comes in a book
of Stevenson's. I think it must mean a sort of case where you call
everyone A. and B. and don't tell their names."
"Well, go ahead."
"It's about Milton's study."
"What! what about it?"
"Well, you see, the night it was ragged I was sitting in my study with
a dark lantern--"
"What!"
Shoeblossom proceeded to relate the moving narrative of his
night-walking adventure. He dwelt movingly on his state of mind
when standing behind the door, waiting for Mr Seymour to come in
and find him. He related with appropriate force the hair-raising
episode of the weird white figure. And then he came to the conclusions
he had since drawn (in calmer moments) from that apparition's movements.
"You see," he said, "I saw it coming out of Milton's study, and that
must have been about the time the study was ragged. And it went into
Rigby's dorm. So it must have been a chap in that dorm, who did it."
Shoeblossom was quite clever at rare intervals. Even Barry, whose
belief in his sanity was of the smallest, was compelled to admit that
here, at any rate, he was talking sense.
"What would you do?" asked Shoeblossom.
"Tell Milton, of course," said Barry.
"But he'd give me beans for being out of the dorm, after lights-out."
This was a distinct point to be considered. The attitude of Barry
towards Milton was different from that of Shoeblossom. Barry regarded
him--through having played with him in important matches--as a good
sort of fellow who had always behaved decently to him. Leather-Twigg,
on the other hand, looked on him with undisguised apprehension, as one
in authority who would give him lines the first time he came into
contact with him, and cane him if he ever did it again. He had a
decided disinclination to see Milton on any pretext whatever.
"Suppose I tell him?" suggested Barry.
"You'll keep my name dark?" said Shoeblossom, alarmed.
Barry said he would make an A.B. case of it.
After school he went to Milton's study, and found him still brooding
over its departed glories.
"I say, Milton, can I speak to you for a second?"
"Hullo, Barry. Come in."
Barry came in.
"I had forty-three photographs," began Milton, without preamble. "All
destroyed. And I've no money to buy any more. I had seventeen of Edna
May."
Barry, feeling that he was expected to say something, said, "By Jove!
Really?"
"In various positions," continued Milton. "All ruined."
"Not really?" said Barry.
"There was one of Little Tich--"
But Barry felt unequal to playing the part of chorus any longer. It was
all very thrilling, but, if Milton was going to run through the entire
list of his destroyed photographs, life would be too short for
conversation on any other topic.
"I say, Milton," he said, "it was about that that I came. I'm sorry--"
Milton sat up.
"It wasn't you who did this, was it?"
"No, no," said Barry, hastily.
"Oh, I thought from your saying you were sorry--"
"I was going to say I thought I could put you on the track of the chap
who did do it--"
For the second time since the interview began Milton sat up.
"Go on," he said.
"--But I'm sorry I can't give you the name of the fellow who told me
about it."
"That doesn't matter," said Milton. "Tell me the name of the fellow who
did it. That'll satisfy me."
"I'm afraid I can't do that, either."
"Have you any idea what you _can_ do?" asked Milton, satirically.
"I can tell you something which may put you on the right track."
"That'll do for a start. Well?"
"Well, the chap who told me--I'll call him A.; I'm going to make an
A.B. case of it--was coming out of his study at about one o'clock in
the morning--"
"What the deuce was he doing that for?"
"Because he wanted to go back to bed," said Barry.
"About time, too. Well?"
"As he was going past your study, a white figure emerged--"
"I should strongly advise you, young Barry," said Milton, gravely, "not
to try and rot me in any way. You're a jolly good wing three-quarters,
but you shouldn't presume on it. I'd slay the Old Man himself if he
rotted me about this business."
Barry was quite pained at this sceptical attitude in one whom he was
going out of his way to assist.
"I'm not rotting," he protested. "This is all quite true."
"Well, go on. You were saying something about white figures emerging."
"Not white figures. A white figure," corrected Barry. "It came out of
your study--"
"--And vanished through the wall?"
"It went into Rigby's dorm.," said Barry, sulkily. It was maddening to
have an exclusive bit of news treated in this way.
"Did it, by Jove!" said Milton, interested at last. "Are you sure the
chap who told you wasn't pulling your leg? Who was it told you?"
"I promised him not to say."
"Out with it, young Barry."
"I won't," said Barry.
"You aren't going to tell me?"
"No."
Milton gave up the point with much cheerfulness. He liked Barry, and he
realised that he had no right to try and make him break his promise.
"That's all right," he said. "Thanks very much, Barry. This may be
useful."
"I'd tell you his name if I hadn't promised, you know, Milton."
"It doesn't matter," said Milton. "It's not important."
"Oh, there was one thing I forgot. It was a biggish chap the fellow
saw."
"How big! My size?"
"Not quite so tall, I should think. He said he was about Seymour's
size."
"Thanks. That's worth knowing. Thanks very much, Barry."
When his visitor had gone, Milton proceeded to unearth one of the
printed lists of the house which were used for purposes of roll-call.
He meant to find out who were in Rigby's dormitory. He put a tick
against the names. There were eighteen of them. The next thing was to
find out which of them was about the same height as Mr Seymour. It was a
somewhat vague description, for the house-master stood about five feet
nine or eight, and a good many of the dormitory were that height, or near
it. At last, after much brain-work, he reduced the number of "possibles"
to seven. These seven were Rigby himself, Linton, Rand-Brown, Griffith,
Hunt, Kershaw, and Chapple. Rigby might be scratched off the list at
once. He was one of Milton's greatest friends. Exeunt also Griffith,
Hunt, and Kershaw. They were mild youths, quite incapable of any deed
of devilry. There remained, therefore, Chapple, Linton, and Rand-Brown.
Chapple was a boy who was invariably late for breakfast. The inference
was that he was not likely to forego his sleep for the purpose of
wrecking studies. Chapple might disappear from the list. Now there
were only Linton and Rand-Brown to be considered. His suspicions fell
on Rand-Brown. Linton was the last person, he thought, to do such a
low thing. He was a cheerful, rollicking individual, who was popular with
everyone and seemed to like everyone. He was not an orderly member of
the house, certainly, and on several occasions Milton had found it
necessary to drop on him heavily for creating disturbances. But he was
not the sort that bears malice. He took it all in the way of business,
and came up smiling after it was over. No, everything pointed to
Rand-Brown. He and Milton had never got on well together, and quite
recently they had quarrelled openly over the former's play in the Day's
match. Rand-Brown must be the man. But Milton was sensible enough to
feel that so far he had no real evidence whatever. He must wait.
On the following afternoon Seymour's turned out to play Donaldson's.
The game, like most house-matches, was played with the utmost keenness.
Both teams had good three-quarters, and they attacked in turn.
Seymour's had the best of it forward, where Milton was playing a great
game, but Trevor in the centre was the best outside on the field, and
pulled up rush after rush. By half-time neither side had scored.
After half-time Seymour's, playing downhill, came away with a rush to
the Donaldsonites' half, and Rand-Brown, with one of the few decent
runs he had made in good class football that term, ran in on the left.
Milton took the kick, but failed, and Seymour's led by three points.
For the next twenty minutes nothing more was scored. Then, when five
minutes more of play remained, Trevor gave Clowes an easy opening, and
Clowes sprinted between the posts. The kick was an easy one, and what
sporting reporters term "the major points" were easily added.
When there are five more minutes to play in an important house-match,
and one side has scored a goal and the other a try, play is apt to
become spirited. Both teams were doing all they knew. The ball came out
to Barry on the right. Barry's abilities as a three-quarter rested
chiefly on the fact that he could dodge well. This eel-like attribute
compensated for a certain lack of pace. He was past the Donaldson's
three-quarters in an instant, and running for the line, with only the
back to pass, and with Clowes in hot pursuit. Another wriggle took him
past the back, but it also gave Clowes time to catch him up. Clowes was
a far faster runner, and he got to him just as he reached the
twenty-five line. They came down together with a crash, Clowes on
top, and as they fell the whistle blew.
"No-side," said Mr. Aldridge, the master who was refereeing.
Clowes got up.
"All over," he said. "Jolly good game. Hullo, what's up?"
For Barry seemed to be in trouble.
"You might give us a hand up," said the latter. "I believe I've twisted
my beastly ankle or something."
XV
A SPRAIN AND A VACANT PLACE
"I say," said Clowes, helping him up, "I'm awfully sorry. Did I do it?
How did it happen?"
Barry was engaged in making various attempts at standing on the injured
leg. The process seemed to be painful.
"Shall I get a stretcher or anything? Can you walk?"
"If you'd help me over to the house, I could manage all right. What a
beastly nuisance! It wasn't your fault a bit. Only you tackled me when
I was just trying to swerve, and my ankle was all twisted."
Drummond came up, carrying Barry's blazer and sweater.
"Hullo, Barry," he said, "what's up? You aren't crocked?"
"Something gone wrong with my ankle. That my blazer? Thanks. Coming
over to the house? Clowes was just going to help me over."
Clowes asked a Donaldson's junior, who was lurking near at hand, to
fetch his blazer and carry it over to the house, and then made his way
with Drummond and the disabled Barry to Seymour's. Having arrived at
the senior day-room, they deposited the injured three-quarter in a
chair, and sent M'Todd, who came in at the moment, to fetch the doctor.
Dr Oakes was a big man with a breezy manner, the sort of doctor who
hits you with the force of a sledge-hammer in the small ribs, and asks
you if you felt anything _then_. It was on this principle that he
acted with regard to Barry's ankle. He seized it in both hands and gave
it a wrench.
"Did that hurt?" he inquired anxiously.
Barry turned white, and replied that it did.
Dr Oakes nodded wisely.
"Ah! H'm! Just so. 'Myes. Ah."
"Is it bad?" asked Drummond, awed by these mystic utterances.
"My dear boy," replied the doctor, breezily, "it is always bad when one
twists one's ankle."
"How long will it do me out of footer?" asked Barry.
"How long? How long? How long? Why, fortnight. Fortnight," said the
doctor.
"Then I shan't be able to play next Saturday?"
"Next Saturday? Next Saturday? My dear boy, if you can put your foot to
the ground by next Saturday, you may take it as evidence that the age
of miracles is not past. Next Saturday, indeed! Ha, ha."
It was not altogether his fault that he treated the matter with such
brutal levity. It was a long time since he had been at school, and he
could not quite realise what it meant to Barry not to be able to play
against Ripton. As for Barry, he felt that he had never loathed and
detested any one so thoroughly as he loathed and detested Dr Oakes at
that moment.
"I don't see where the joke comes in," said Clowes, when he had gone.
"I bar that man."
"He's a beast," said Drummond. "I can't understand why they let a tout
like that be the school doctor."
Barry said nothing. He was too sore for words.
What Dr Oakes said to his wife that evening was: "Over at the school,
my dear, this afternoon. This afternoon. Boy with a twisted ankle. Nice
young fellow. Very much put out when I told him he could not play
football for a fortnight. But I chaffed him, and cheered him up in no
time. I cheered him up in no time, my dear."
"I'm sure you did, dear," said Mrs Oakes. Which shows how differently
the same thing may strike different people. Barry certainly did not
look as if he had been cheered up when Clowes left the study and went
over to tell Trevor that he would have to find a substitute for his
right wing three-quarter against Ripton.
Trevor had left the field without noticing Barry's accident, and he was
tremendously pleased at the result of the game.
"Good man," he said, when Clowes came in, "you saved the match."
"And lost the Ripton match probably," said Clowes, gloomily.
"What do you mean?"
"That last time I brought down Barry I crocked him. He's in his study
now with a sprained ankle. I've just come from there. Oakes has seen
him, and says he mustn't play for a fortnight."
"Great Scott!" said Trevor, blankly. "What on earth shall we do?"
"Why not move Strachan up to the wing, and put somebody else back
instead of him? Strachan is a good wing."
Trevor shook his head.
"No. There's nobody good enough to play back for the first. We mustn't
risk it."
"Then I suppose it must be Rand-Brown?"
"I suppose so."
"He may do better than we think. He played quite a decent game today.
That try he got wasn't half a bad one."
"He'd be all right if he didn't funk. But perhaps he wouldn't funk
against Ripton. In a match like that anybody would play up. I'll ask
Milton and Allardyce about it."
"I shouldn't go to Milton today," said Clowes. "I fancy he'll want a
night's rest before he's fit to talk to. He must be a bit sick about
this match. I know he expected Seymour's to win."
He went out, but came back almost immediately.
"I say," he said, "there's one thing that's just occurred to me.
This'll please the League. I mean, this ankle business of Barry's."