He admitted this. He said, "That's where a _post-mortem_ would come in,
if it was a human being. Of course, Holmes never did _post-mortems_
himself, that not being his work; but I've got to make one now. It may
or may not help me."
He made it, and it didn't help him. My own opinion is that he didn't
much like it and hurried it a good deal. He said there was no actual
sign of violence on the surface of the guinea-pig, and the organs all
seemed perfectly healthy. But when I asked him what they would have
looked like if they hadn't been healthy, he avoided answering, and went
on that the pig's inside ought to have been sent up to Somerset House,
for examination by Government officials, in a hermetically sealed
bottle. Peters declared that the public has a right to demand this
service for the stomachs of their old friends and relations if foul play
is suspected; but not in the case of a domestic beast like a guinea-pig.
So the pig was buried, and not until then did Peters really seem to set
to work. The actual horror of the death gradually wore off, and he told
me that he should now seriously tackle the case.
There was a most unusual lack of clues, he said; and he pointed out that
even Sherlock Holmes could do nothing much until clues began to turn up.
Peters warned me against always taking it for granted that James had
done it. In fact, he said it was very unlikely to have been James, just
because it looked so likely.
I said, "That may be the way Sherlock Holmes talks; but it seems to me
to be rather footle."
And he said, "No, Maydew; it isn't footle; it is based on a study of the
law of probabilities. If you read accounts of crime, you will see that,
as a rule, the person who is suspected is innocent; and the more he is
suspected, the more innocent he is."
I said, "Anyway, James has changed. He's gone down four places in his
class and lost his place in the second 'footer' eleven also. There's
something on his mind."
"Yes," said Peters, "that's true. Everybody believes that he killed a
valuable guinea-pig, and treats him accordingly. That is quite enough
to send him down four places in the class; but if he had killed the
guinea-pig he would have brazened it out and have been prepared for
this, and taken very good care not to show what he felt."
"In fact, you don't think he killed the pig," I said.
And Peters said he didn't think James had; but he was keeping an open
mind.
Then came the most extraordinary clue of the ten-shilling piece.
Happening to go to his desk one day--between schools--for toffee, Peters
found in it a bit of paper lightly screwed up. He opened it and
discovered in it no less than a gold ten-shilling piece; and on the
paper, printed in lead pencil, were these words--
"FOR ANUTHER GINNEA-PIG."
He said nothing to anybody but me; but he seemed to think that I was a
sort of a Dr. Watson in my way; besides, it simplified the workings of
his mind to talk out loud; so he showed me the clue and then asked me
what I thought. I had rather picked up his dodge of talking like
Sherlock Holmes, so I said--
"The first question is, of course, to see what is the date on the
half-quid."
I thought this pretty good; but Peters said that this was not the first
question, and didn't matter in the least.
He said, "My dear Maydew, the money is nothing; the paper in which it is
wrapped up is everything."
So I turned to the paper.
"What does it tell you?" he asked.
"It tells me that some utter kid did it," I said, "for he can't spell
'another' and he can't spell 'guinea-pig.'"
But Peters smiled and put the points of his fingers together like
Sherlock Holmes.
"My dear Maydew," he said, "might not that have been done on purpose?"
Then I scored off him.
"It is just because it might have been done on purpose," I said, "that I
think it was done accidentally."
He nodded.
"Of course, it may be the work of a kid," he admitted. "But, on the
other hand, it may be a subterfuge. Besides, no kid would have killed
my guinea-pig. Where's the motive?"
"The great thing is that you've got half-a-sovereign and we share
pocket-money," I said.
But he attached little importance to this, except to say that the
half-sov. wasn't pocket-money, though I might have half.
"Now, examine the paper," he went on.
I did so. It was a sheet of one of our ordinary, lined copybooks, used
for dictation, composition, exercises, and such like.
"Evidently torn out of one of the copybooks," I said.
"Exactly; but which one?"
"Ask me another," I said. "You'll never find that out."
He smiled and arranged his hands again like Holmes.
"I have," he said.
"Then you know?"
"On the contrary, I know nothing."
"It wasn't James's book?"
"It wasn't. The first thing was to find a book with a sheet torn out.
I tried twenty-five books, and seven had pages torn out. But James's
book had not. Then judge of my surprise, Maydew, when, coming to my
desk for the form of the thing, and looking at my own exercise-book, I
found a sheet was torn out; and this is it, for the tear fits!"
"What frightful cheek!" I cried out.
"I don't so much mind that," said Peters; "but the point is that,
splendid though this clue seems to be on the surface, I can't get any
forwarder by it. In fact, it may be the act of a friend, and not a
foe."
"What would Sherlock Holmes do?" I asked; and Peters gave a sort of
mournful sound and scratched his head.
"I wish I knew," he said.
*II*
Gideon was helpful in a way, but nobody could make much of it. Gideon
said that it was conscience money, and was often known to happen,
especially with the Income Tax; because people, driven to desperation by
it, often pay too little, and then, when things brighten up with them
afterwards, it begins to weigh on their minds, if they are fairly decent
at heart, and they remember that they have swindled the King and been
dishonest; and so they send the money secretly, but, of course, feel too
ashamed to say who they are.
I asked James if he had sent the money, and he swore he hadn't; but he
did it in such an excitable sort of way that I was positive he had.
Peters wouldn't believe or disbelieve. He went quietly on, keeping an
open mind and detecting the crime; and when the truth came to light,
Peters was still detecting.
But in the meantime happened the mystery of the pencil-sharpener, and
the two great mysteries were cleared up simultaneously, which Peters
says is a common thing. You couldn't say that one cleared up the other,
but still, it did so happen that both came out in the same minute.
There was a boy whose name was Pratt, and his father was on the Stock
Exchange of London. This father used to go out to his lunch, and at
these times he saw many curious things sold by wandering London men who
are too poor to keep shops, but yet have the wish to sell things. These
men stand by the pavement and display most queer and uncommon
curiosities, such as walking spiders and such like; and once from one of
these men Pratt's father bought quite a new sort of pencil-sharpener of
the rarest kind. It was shaped like a stirrup, and cut pencils well
without breaking off the lead.
After a good week of this pencil-sharpener, Pratt found it had been
stolen out of his desk, and he told Peters about it, and Peters took up
the case. I asked him if he was hopeful, and he said that there was
always hope; but he also said, rather bitterly, that it was curious what
a frightful lot of hard cases he had had since coming to Merivale. He
said it was enough to tax anybody's reputation, and that each case
seemed more difficult than the last.
I reminded him of one or two rather goodish things he had done in a
small way, but he said that as yet he had not really brought off a
brilliant stroke.
A week went by, and then Peters came to me in a state of frightful
excitement.
"The pencil-sharpener!" he said.
"Have you got a clue?" I asked. But he could hardly speak for
excitement, and forgot to put his hands like Holmes, or to try and
arrange a 'far-away' look on his face, or anything.
"Not only a clue," he said, "I know who took it!"
"This will be a great score for you when it comes out," I said.
"You swear you won't breathe a word?" he asked.
And I swore. Then he whispered the fearful news into my ear.
"The Doctor's taken it!" he said.
"He never would," I answered. "Pratt is positive that he left it in his
desk."
"It is a case of purloining," said Peters; "and wish it had happened to
anybody else but the Doctor. It's rather terrible in its way; because
if once gets this habit and yields to temptation, his unlimited power,
who is safe?"
"It's much more a thing Browne would have done," I said, meaning a
particularly hateful roaster who wore pink ties and elastic-sided boots.
Then Peters explained that when alone in the Doctor's study, waiting to
give a message to Dr. Dunstan from Mr. Briggs, he chanced to look about,
and saw on the mantelpiece Pratt's pencil-sharpener and a pencil in
course of being sharpened. The Doctor had evidently put them down there
and been called away and forgotten them.
"What did you do?" I inquired of Peters.
"Well, Maydew," he said, "I asked myself what Sherlock would have
done"--in confidential moments Peters sometimes spoke of the great
Holmes as 'Sherlock'--"and I remembered his wonderful presence of mind.
Me would have struck while the iron was hot, as the saying is, and taken
the pencil-sharpener there and then."
"By Jove! But you didn't?" I said.
For answer Peters brought the pencil-sharpener out of his waistcoat
pocket.
"Are you positive it's Pratt's?" I asked.
"Absolutely certain," he said. "It has the words 'Made in Bavaria' upon
it; and, of course, this is a frightfully delicate situation to be in
for me.
"Especially if the Doctor asks for it," I said.
"He won't dare," answered Peters; "but I've got a sort of strong feeling
against letting anybody know who has done this. On one or two
occasions, I believe, Holmes kept the doer of a dark deed a secret--to
give him a chance to repent. It seems to me this is a case when I ought
to do the same."
"If the Doctor cribs things, I don't see why you should keep it dark," I
said; and Peters treated me rather rudely--in fact, very much like
Holmes sometimes treats Watson.
"My dear Maydew," he said, "the things you don't see would fill a
museum."
"Anyway, you'll have to give Pratt back his pencil-sharpener," I said;
and he admitted that this was true. The only thing that puzzled him was
how to do it.
But, after all, Peters didn't puzzle long. He was thinking the next
morning how to return the pencil-sharpener to Pratt in a mysterious and
Sherlock Holmes-like way, when, just after prayers, the Doctor stopped
the school and spoke. He said--
"Boys, I have lost something, and though an article of little intrinsic
worth, I cannot suffer it to go without making an effort to regain it.
I say this for two reasons. The first and least is that the little
contrivance so mysteriously spirited from my study is of the greatest
service to me; while the second and important reason your own
perspicuity may perhaps suggest. Things do not go without hands.
Somebody has taken from my study what did not belong to him; and
somebody, therefore, at this moment moves among you with an aching heart
and a wounded conscience. Let that boy make his peace with God and with
me before he closes his eyes; and that no doubt or ambiguity may obscure
the details of this event, I will now descend to particulars.
"Not long ago, a kindly friend conveyed to me a new form of
pencil-sharpener which he had chanced to find exhibited in a stationer's
shop at Plymouth, our great naval port. Knowing that my eyesight is not
of the best, he judged this trifle would assist me in the endless task
of sharpening pencils, which is not the least among my minor mechanical
labours. And he judged correctly. The implement was distinguished by a
great simplicity of construction. It consisted, indeed, of one small
piece of metal somewhat resembling the first letter of the alphabet. I
last saw it upon the mantelpiece in the study. I was actually using it
when called away, and on my return forgot the circumstance. But upon
retiring last night, the incident reverted to memory while divesting
myself of my apparel, and so indispensable had the pencil-sharpener
become to me that I resumed my habiliments, lighted a candle, and went
downstairs to seek the sharpener. It had disappeared. Now, yesterday
several boys came and went, as usual, through the precincts of my
private apartments. Furthermore, the Greek Testament class will
recollect that we were engaged together in the evening from seven until
eight o'clock. I need say no more. The loss is discovered and the loss
is proclaimed. I accuse nobody. Many things may have happened to the
pencil-sharpener, and if any boy can throw light upon the circumstance
let him speak with me to-night after evening chapel. I hope it may be
possible to find an innocent solution of my loss; but if one of you has
fallen under sudden temptation, and, attracted by the portability and
obvious advantages of the instrument, has appropriated it to his own
uses, I must warn him that my duty will be to punish as well as pardon.
The hand of man, however, is light as compared with the anger of an
outraged Deity. If a sinner is cowering among you at this moment, with
my pencil-sharpener secreted about his person, let that sinner lose no
time, but strengthen his mind to confess his sin, that he may the sooner
turn over a new leaf and sin no more."