adventure began. Compared with what was to follow, his evening had
been up to the present dull and monotonous.
As he opened the door there was a sudden stir and crash at the other
end of the room. Fenn had upset one chair and the noise had nearly
deafened him. Now chairs seemed to be falling in dozens. Bang! Bang!
Crash!! (two that time). And then somebody shot through the window
like a harlequin and dashed away across the lawn. Fenn could hear his
footsteps thudding on the soft turf. And at the same moment other
footsteps made themselves heard.
Somebody was coming downstairs.
"Who is that? Is anybody there?"
It was Mr Kay's voice, unmistakably nervous. Fenn darted from the door
and across the passage. At the other side was a boot-cupboard. It was
his only refuge in that direction. What he ought to have done was to
leave the dining-room by the opposite door, which led _via_ a
corridor to the junior dayroom. But he lost his head, and instead of
bolting away from the enemy, went towards him.
The stairs down which Mr Kay was approaching were at the end of the
passage. To reach the dining-room one turned to the right. Beyond the
stairs on the left the passage ended in a wall, so that Mr Kay was
bound to take the right direction in the search. Fenn wondered if he
had a pistol. Not that he cared very much. If the house-master was
going to find him, it would be very little extra discomfort to be shot
at. And Mr Kay's talents as a marksman were in all probability limited
to picking off sitting haystacks. The important point was that he had
a candle. A faint yellow glow preceded him down the stairs. Playing
hide-and-seek with him in the dark, Fenn might have slipped past in
safety; but the candle made that impossible.
He found the boot-room door and slipped through just as Mr Kay turned
the corner. With a thrill of pleasure he found that there was a key
inside. He turned it as quietly as he could, but nevertheless it
grated. Having done this, and seeing nothing else that he could do
except await developments, he sat down on the floor among the boots.
It was not a dignified position for a man who had played for his
county while still at school, but just then he would not have
exchanged it for a throne--if the throne had been placed in the
passage or the dining-room.
The only question was--had he been seen or heard? He thought not; but
his heart began to beat furiously as the footsteps stopped outside the
cupboard door and unseen fingers rattled the handle.
Twice Mr Kay tried the handle, but, finding the cupboard locked,
passed on into the dining-room. The light of the candle ceased to
shine under the door, and Fenn was once more in inky darkness.
He listened intently. A minute later he had made his second mistake.
Instead of waiting, as he should have done, until Mr Kay had retired
for good, he unlocked the door directly he had passed, and when a
muffled crash told him that the house-master was in the dining-room
among the chairs, out he came and fled softly upstairs towards his
bedroom. He thought that Mr Kay might possibly take it into his head
to go round the dormitories to make certain that all the members of
his house were in. In which case all would be discovered.
When he reached his room he began to fling off his clothes with
feverish haste. Once in bed all would be well.
He had got out of his boots, his coat, and his waistcoat, and was
beginning to feel that electric sensation of triumph which only conies
to the man who _just_ pulls through, when he heard Mr Kay coming
down the corridor towards his room. The burglar-hunter, returning from
the dining-room in the full belief that the miscreant had escaped
through the open window, had had all his ardour for the chase
redoubled by the sight of the cupboard door, which Fenn in his hurry
had not remembered to close. Mr Kay had made certain by two separate
trials that that door had been locked. And now it was wide open. Ergo,
the apostle of the jemmy and the skeleton key must still be in the
house. Mr Kay, secure in the recollection that burglars never show
fight if they can possibly help it, determined to search the house.
Fenn made up his mind swiftly. There was no time to finish dressing.
Mr Kay, peering round, might note the absence of the rest of his
clothes from their accustomed pegs if he got into bed as he was. There
was only one thing to be done. He threw back the bed-clothes, ruffled
the sheets till the bed looked as if it had been slept in, and opened
the door just as Mr Kay reached the threshold.
"Anything the matter, sir?" asked Fenn, promptly. "I heard a noise
downstairs. Can I help you?"
Mr Kay looked carefully at the ex-head of his house. Fenn was a
finely-developed youth. He stood six feet, and all of him that was not
bone was muscle. A useful colleague to have by one in a hunt for a
possibly ferocious burglar.
So thought Mr Kay.
"So _you_ heard the noise?" he said. "Well, perhaps you had
better come with me. There is no doubt that a burglar has entered the
house tonight, in spite of the fact that I locked all the windows
myself. Your study window was unlocked, Fenn. It was extremely
careless of you to leave it in such a condition, and I hope you will
be more careful in future. Why, somebody might have got in through
it."
Fenn thought it was not at all unlikely.
"Come along, then. I am sure the man is still in the house. He was
hiding in the cupboard by the dining-room. I know it. I am sure he is
still in the house."
But, in spite of the fact that Fenn was equally sure, half an hour's
search failed to discover any lurking evil-doer.
"You had better go to bed, Fenn," said Mr Kay, disgustedly, at the end
of that period. "He must have got back in some extraordinary manner."
"Yes, sir," agreed Fenn.
He himself had certainly got back in a very extraordinary manner.
However, he _had_ got back, which was the main point.
XVIII
A VAIN QUEST
After all he had gone through that night, it disturbed Fenn very
little to find on the following morning that the professional
cracksman had gone off with one of the cups in his study. Certainly,
it was not as bad as it might have been, for he had only abstracted
one out of the half dozen that decorated the room. Fenn was a fine
runner, and had won the "sprint" events at the sports for two years
now.
The news of the burglary at Kay's soon spread about the school. Mr Kay
mentioned it to Mr Mulholland, and Mr Mulholland discussed it at lunch
with the prefects of his house. The juniors of Kay's were among the
last to hear of it, but when they did, they made the most of it, to
the disgust of the School House fags, to whom the episode seemed in
the nature of an infringement of copyright. Several spirited
by-battles took place that day owing to this, and at the lower end of
the table of Kay's dining-room at tea that evening there could be seen
many swollen countenances. All, however, wore pleased smiles. They had
proved to the School House their right to have a burglary of their own
if they liked. It was the first occasion since Kennedy had become head
of the house that Kay's had united in a common and patriotic cause.
Directly afternoon school was over that day, Fenn started for the
town. The only thing that caused him any anxiety now was the fear lest
the cap which he had left in the house in the High Street might rise
up as evidence against him later on. Except for that, he was safe. The
headmaster had evidently not remembered his absence from the festive
board, or he would have spoken to him on the subject before now. If he
could but recover the lost cap, all would be right with the world.
Give him back that cap, and he would turn over a new leaf with a
rapidity and emphasis which would lower the world's record for that
performance. He would be a reformed character. He would even go to the
extent of calling a truce with Mr Kay, climbing down to Kennedy, and
offering him his services in his attempt to lick the house into shape.
As a matter of fact, he had had this idea before. Jimmy Silver, who
was in the position--common at school--of being very friendly with two
people who were not on speaking terms, had been at him on the topic.
"It's rot," James had said, with perfect truth, "to see two chaps like
you making idiots of themselves over a house like Kay's. And it's all
your fault, too," he had added frankly. "You know jolly well you
aren't playing the game. You ought to be backing Kennedy up all the
time. Instead of which, you go about trying to look like a Christian
martyr--"
"I don't," said Fenn, indignantly.
"Well, like a stuffed frog, then--it's all the same to me. It's
perfect rot. If I'm walking with Kennedy, you stalk past as if we'd
both got the plague or something. And if I'm with you, Kennedy
suddenly remembers an appointment, and dashes off at a gallop in the
opposite direction. If I had to award the bronze medal for drivelling
lunacy in this place, you would get it by a narrow margin, and Kennedy
would be _proxime_, and honourably mentioned. Silly idiots!"
"Don't stop, Jimmy. Keep it up," said Fenn, settling himself in his
chair. The dialogue was taking place in Silver's study.
"My dear chap, you didn't think I'd finished, surely! I was only
trying to find some description that would suit you. But it's no good.
I can't. Look here, take my advice--the advice," he added, in the
melodramatic voice he was in the habit of using whenever he wished to
conceal the fact that he was speaking seriously, "of an old man who
wishes ye both well. Go to Kennedy, fling yourself on his chest, and
say, 'We have done those things which we ought not to have done--' No.
As you were! Compn'y, 'shun! Say 'J. Silver says that I am a rotter. I
am a worm. I have made an ass of myself. But I will be good. Shake,
pard!' That's what you've got to do. Come in."
And in had come Kennedy. The attractions of Kay's were small, and he
usually looked in on Jimmy Silver in the afternoons.
"Oh, sorry," he said, as he saw Fenn. "I thought you were alone,
Jimmy."
"I was just going," said Fenn, politely.
"Oh, don't let me disturb you," protested Kennedy, with winning
courtesy.
"Not at all," said Fenn.
"Oh, if you really were--"
"Oh, yes, really."
"Get out, then," growled Jimmy, who had been listening in speechless
disgust to the beautifully polite conversation just recorded. "I'll
forward that bronze medal to you, Fenn."
And as the door closed he had turned to rend Kennedy as he had rent
Fenn; while Fenn walked back to Kay's feeling that there was a good
deal in what Jimmy had said.
So that when he went down town that afternoon in search of his cap, he
pondered as he walked over the advisability of making a fresh start.
It would not be a bad idea. But first he must concentrate his energies
on recovering what he had lost.
He found the house in the High Street without a great deal of
difficulty, for he had marked the spot carefully as far as that had
been possible in the fog.
The door was opened to him, not by the old man with whom he had
exchanged amenities on the previous night, but by a short, thick
fellow, who looked exactly like a picture of a loafer from the pages
of a comic journal. He eyed Fenn with what might have been meant for
an inquiring look. To Fenn it seemed merely menacing.
"Wodyer want?" he asked, abruptly.
Eckleton was not a great distance from London, and, as a consequence,
many of London's choicest blackguards migrated there from time to
time. During the hopping season, and while the local races were on,
one might meet with two Cockney twangs for every country accent.
"I want to see the old gentleman who lives here," said Fenn.
"Wot old gentleman?"
"I'm afraid I don't know his name. Is this a home for old gentlemen?
If you'll bring out all you've got, I'll find my one."
"Wodyer want see the old gentleman for?"
"To ask for my cap. I left it here last night."
"Oh, yer left it 'ere last night! Well, yer cawn't see 'im."
"Not from here, no," agreed Fenn. "Being only eyes, you see," he
quoted happily, "my wision's limited. But if you wouldn't mind moving
out of the way--"
"Yer cawn't see 'im. Blimey, 'ow much more of it, I should like to
know. Gerroutovit, cawn't yer! You and yer caps."
And he added a searching expletive by way of concluding the sentence
fittingly. After which he slipped back and slammed the door, leaving
Fenn waiting outside like the Peri at the gate of Paradise.
His resemblance to the Peri ceased after the first quarter of a
minute. That lady, we read, took her expulsion lying down. Fenn was
more vigorous. He seized the knocker, and banged lustily on the door.
He had given up all hope of getting back the cap. All he wanted was to
get the doorkeeper out into the open again, when he would proceed to
show him, to the best of his ability, what was what. It would not be
the first time he had taken on a gentleman of the same class and a
similar type of conversation.
But the man refused to be drawn. For all the reply Fenn's knocking
produced, the house might have been empty. At last, having tired his
wrist and collected a small crowd of Young Eckleton, who looked as if
they expected him to proceed to further efforts for their amusement,
he gave it up, and retired down the High Street with what dignity he
could command--which, as he was followed for the first fifty yards by
the silent but obviously expectant youths, was not a great deal.
They left him, disappointed, near the Town Hall, and Fenn continued on
his way alone. The window of the grocer's shop, with its tins of
preserved apricots and pots of jam, recalled to his mind what he had
forgotten, that the food at Kay's, though it might be wholesome (which
he doubted), was undeniably plain, and, secondly, that he had run out
of jam. Now that he was here he might as well supply that deficiency.
Now it chanced that Master Wren, of Kay's, was down town--without
leave, as was his habit--on an errand of a very similar nature. Walton
had found that he, like Fenn, lacked those luxuries of life which are
so much more necessary than necessities, and, being unable to go
himself, owing to the unfortunate accident of being kept in by his
form-master, had asked Wren to go for him. Wren's visit to the
grocer's was just ending when Fenn's began.
They met in the doorway.
Wren looked embarrassed, and nearly dropped a pot of honey, which he
secured low down after the manner of a catch in the slips. Fenn, on
the other hand, took no notice of his fellow-Kayite, but walked on
into the shop and began to inspect the tins of biscuits which were
stacked on the floor by the counter.
XIX
THE GUILE OF WREN
Wren did not quite know what to make of this. Why had not Fenn said a
word to him? There were one or two prefects in the school whom he
might have met even at such close quarters and yet have cherished a
hope that they had not seen him. Once he had run right into Drew, of
the School House, and escaped unrecognised. But with Fenn it was
different. Compared to Fenn, lynxes were astigmatic. He must have
spotted him.
There was a vein of philosophy in Wren's composition. He felt that he
might just as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb. In other words,
having been caught down town without leave, he might as well stay
there and enjoy himself a little while longer before going back to be
executed. So he strolled off down the High Street, bought a few things
at a stationer's, and wound up with an excellent tea at the
confectioner's by the post-office.
It was as he was going to this meal that Kennedy caught sight of him.
Kennedy had come down town to visit the local photographer, to whom he
had entrusted a fortnight before the pleasant task of taking his
photograph. As he had heard nothing from him since, he was now coming
to investigate. He entered the High Street as Wren was turning into
the confectioner's, saw him, and made a note of it for future
reference.
When Wren returned to the house just before lock-up, he sought counsel
of Walton.
"I say," he said, as he handed over the honey he had saved so neatly
from destruction, "what would you do? Just as I was coming out of the
shop, I barged into Fenn. He must have twigged me."
"Didn't he say anything?"
"Not a word. I couldn't make it out, because he must have seen me. We
weren't a yard away from one another."
"It's dark in the shop," suggested Walton.
"Not at the door; which is where we met."
Before Walton could find anything to say in reply to this, their
conversation was interrupted by Spencer.
"Kennedy wants you, Wren," said Spencer. "You'd better buck up; he's
in an awful wax."
Next to Walton, the vindictive Spencer objected most to Wren, and he
did not attempt to conceal the pleasure he felt in being the bearer of
this ominous summons.
The group broke up. Wren went disconsolately upstairs to Kennedy's
study; Walton smacked Spencer's head--more as a matter of form than
because he had done anything special to annoy him--and retired to the
senior dayroom; while Spencer, muttering darkly to himself, avoided a
second smack and took cover in the junior room, where he consoled
himself by toasting a piece of india-rubber in the gas till it made
the atmosphere painful to breathe in, and recalling with pleasure the
condition Walton's face had been in for the day or two following his
encounter with Kennedy in the dormitory.
Kennedy was working when Wren knocked at his door.
He had not much time to spare on a bounds-breaking fag; and his manner
was curt.
"I saw you going into Rose's, in the High Street, this afternoon,
Wren," he said, looking up from his Greek prose. "I didn't give you
leave. Come up here after prayers tonight. Shut the door."
Wren went down to consult Walton again. His attitude with regard to a
licking from the head of the house was much like that of the other
fags. Custom had, to a certain extent, inured him to these painful
interviews, but still, if it was possible, he preferred to keep out of
them. Under Fenn's rule he had often found a tolerably thin excuse
serve his need. Fenn had so many other things to do that he was not
unwilling to forego an occasional licking, if the excuse was good
enough. And he never took the trouble to find out whether the
ingenious stories Wren was wont to serve up to him were true or not.
Kennedy, Wren reflected uncomfortably, had given signs that this
easy-going method would not do for him. Still, it might be possible to
hunt up some story that would meet the case. Walton had a gift in that
direction.
"He says I'm to go to his study after prayers," reported Wren. "Can't
you think of any excuse that would do?"
"Can't understand Fenn running you in," said Walton. "I thought he
never spoke to Kennedy."
Wren explained.
"It wasn't Fenn who ran me in. Kennedy was down town, too, and twigged
me going into Rose's. I went there and had tea after I got your things
at the grocer's."
"Oh, he spotted you himself, did he?" said Walton. "And he doesn't
know Fenn saw you?"
"I don't think so."
"Then I've got a ripping idea. When he has you up tonight, swear that
you got leave from Fenn to go down town."
"But he'll ask him."
"The odds are that he won't. He and Fenn had a row at the beginning of
term, and never speak to one another if they can help it. It's ten to
one that he will prefer taking your yarn to going and asking Fenn if
it's true or not. Then he's bound to let you off."
Wren admitted that the scheme was sound.
At the conclusion of prayers, therefore, he went up again to Kennedy's
study, with a more hopeful air than he had worn on his previous visit.
"Come in," said Kennedy, reaching for the swagger-stick which he was
accustomed to use at these ceremonies.
"Please, Kennedy," said Wren, glibly. "I did get leave to go down town
this afternoon."
"What!"
Wren repeated the assertion.
"Who gave you leave?"
"Fenn."
The thing did not seem to be working properly. When he said the word
"Fenn", Wren expected to see Kennedy retire baffled, conscious that
there was nothing more to be said or done. Instead of this, the remark
appeared to infuriate him.
"It's just like your beastly cheek," he said, glaring at the
red-headed delinquent, "to ask Fenn for leave instead of me. You know
perfectly well that only the head of the house can give leave to go
down town. I don't know how often you and the rest of the junior
dayroom have played this game, but it's going to stop now. You'd
better remember another time when you want to go to Rose's that I've
got to be consulted first."
With which he proceeded to ensure to the best of his ability that the
memory of Master Wren should not again prove treacherous in this
respect.
"How did it work?" asked Walton, when Wren returned.
"It didn't," said Wren, briefly.
Walton expressed an opinion that Kennedy was a cad; which, however
sound in itself, did little to improve the condition of Wren.
Having disposed of Wren, Kennedy sat down seriously to consider this
new development of a difficult situation. Hitherto he had imagined
Fenn to be merely a sort of passive resister who confined himself to
the Achilles-in-his-tent business, and was only a nuisance because he
refused to back him up. To find him actually aiding and abetting the
house in its opposition to its head was something of a shock. And yet,
if he had given Wren leave to go down town, he had probably done the
same kind office by others. It irritated Kennedy more than the most
overt act of enmity would have done. It was not good form. It was
hitting below the belt. There was, of course, the chance that Wren's
story had not been true. But he did not build much on that. He did not
yet know his Wren well, and believed that such an audacious lie would
be beyond the daring of a fag. But it would be worth while to make
inquiries. He went down the passage to Fenn's study. Fenn, however,
had gone to bed, so he resolved to approach him on the subject next
day. There was no hurry.
He went to his dormitory, feeling very bitter towards Fenn, and
rehearsing home truths with which to confound him on the morrow.
XX
JIMMY THE PEACEMAKER
In these hustling times it is not always easy to get ten minutes'
conversation with an acquaintance in private. There was drill in the
dinner hour next day for the corps, to which Kennedy had to go
directly after lunch. It did not end till afternoon school began. When
afternoon school was over, he had to turn out and practise scrummaging
with the first fifteen, in view of an important school match which was
coming off on the following Saturday. Kennedy had not yet received his
cap, but he was playing regularly for the first fifteen, and was
generally looked upon as a certainty for one of the last places in the
team. Fenn, being a three-quarter, had not to participate in this
practice. While the forwards were scrummaging on the second fifteen
ground, the outsides ran and passed on the first fifteen ground over
at the other end of the field. Fenn's training for the day finished
earlier than Kennedy's, the captain of the Eckleton fifteen, who led
the scrum, not being satisfied with the way in which the forwards
wheeled. He kept them for a quarter of an hour after the outsides had
done their day's work, and when Kennedy got back to the house and went
to Fenn's study, the latter was not there. He had evidently changed
and gone out again, for his football clothes were lying in a heap in a
corner of the room. Going back to his own study, he met Spencer.
"Have you seen Fenn?" he asked.
"No," said the fag. "He hasn't come in."
"He's come in all right, but he's gone out again. Go and ask Taylor if
he knows where he is."
Taylor was Fenn's fag.
Spencer went to the junior dayroom, and returned with the information
that Taylor did not know.
"Oh, all right, then--it doesn't matter," said Kennedy, and went into
his study to change.
He had completed this operation, and was thinking of putting his
kettle on for tea, when there was a knock at the door.
It was Baker, Jimmy Silver's fag.
"Oh, Kennedy," he said, "Silver says, if you aren't doing anything
special, will you go over to his study to tea?"
"Why, is there anything on?"
It struck him as curious that Jimmy should take the trouble to send
his fag over to Kay's with a formal invitation. As a rule the head of
Blackburn's kept open house. His friends were given to understand that
they could drop in whenever they liked. Kennedy looked in for tea
three times a week on an average.
"I don't think so," said Baker.
"Who else is going to be there?"