CHAPTER LVIII
THE ARTIST CLAIMS HIS WORK
The line of action which Psmith had called Stout Denial is anexcellent line to adopt, especially if you really are innocent, but itdoes not lead to anything in the shape of a bright and snappy dialoguebetween accuser and accused. Both Mike and the headmaster wereoppressed by a feeling that the situation was difficult. Theatmosphere was heavy, and conversation showed a tendency to flag. Theheadmaster had opened brightly enough, with a summary of the evidencewhich Mr. Downing had laid before him, but after that a massivesilence had been the order of the day. There is nothing in this worldquite so stolid and uncommunicative as a boy who has made up his mindto be stolid and uncommunicative; and the headmaster, as he sat andlooked at Mike, who sat and looked past him at the bookshelves, feltawkward. It was a scene which needed either a dramatic interruption ora neat exit speech. As it happened, what it got was the dramaticinterruption.
The headmaster was just saying, "I do not think you fully realise,Jackson, the extent to which appearances--" --which was practicallygoing back to the beginning and starting again--when there was a knockat the door. A voice without said, "Mr. Downing to see you, sir," andthe chief witness for the prosecution burst in.
"I would not have interrupted you," said Mr. Downing, "but----"
"Not at all, Mr. Downing. Is there anything I can----?"
"I have discovered--I have been informed--In short, it was notJackson, who committed the--who painted my dog."
Mike and the headmaster both looked at the speaker. Mike with afeeling of relief--for Stout Denial, unsupported by any weightyevidence, is a wearing game to play--the headmaster with astonishment.
"Not Jackson?" said the headmaster.
"No. It was a boy in the same house. Smith."
Psmith! Mike was more than surprised. He could not believe it. Thereis nothing which affords so clear an index to a boy's character as thetype of rag which he considers humorous. Between what is a rag andwhat is merely a rotten trick there is a very definite line drawn.Masters, as a rule, do not realise this, but boys nearly always do.Mike could not imagine Psmith doing a rotten thing like covering ahousemaster's dog with red paint, any more than he could imagine doingit himself. They had both been amused at the sight of Sammy after theoperation, but anybody, except possibly the owner of the dog, wouldhave thought it funny at first. After the first surprise, theirfeeling had been that it was a scuggish thing to have done and beastlyrough luck on the poor brute. It was a kid's trick. As for Psmithhaving done it, Mike simply did not believe it.
"Smith!" said the headmaster. "What makes you think that?"
"Simply this," said Mr. Downing, with calm triumph, "that the boyhimself came to me a few moments ago and confessed."
Mike was conscious of a feeling of acute depression. It did not makehim in the least degree jubilant, or even thankful, to know that hehimself was cleared of the charge. All he could think of was thatPsmith was done for. This was bound to mean the sack. If Psmith hadpainted Sammy, it meant that Psmith had broken out of his house atnight: and it was not likely that the rules about nocturnal wanderingwere less strict at Sedleigh than at any other school in the kingdom.Mike felt, if possible, worse than he had felt when Wyatt had beencaught on a similar occasion. It seemed as if Fate had a specialgrudge against his best friends. He did not make friends very quicklyor easily, though he had always had scores of acquaintances--and withWyatt and Psmith he had found himself at home from the first moment hehad met them.
He sat there, with a curious feeling of having swallowed a heavyweight, hardly listening to what Mr. Downing was saying. Mr. Downingwas talking rapidly to the headmaster, who was nodding from time totime.
Mike took advantage of a pause to get up. "May I go, sir?" he said.
"Certainly, Jackson, certainly," said the Head. "Oh, and er--, if youare going back to your house, tell Smith that I should like to seehim."
"Yes, sir."
He had reached the door, when again there was a knock.
"Come in," said the headmaster.
It was Adair.
"Yes, Adair?"
Adair was breathing rather heavily, as if he had been running.
"It was about Sammy--Sampson, sir," he said, looking at Mr. Downing.
"Ah, we know--. Well, Adair, what did you wish to say."
"It wasn't Jackson who did it, sir."
"No, no, Adair. So Mr. Downing----"
"It was Dunster, sir."
Terrific sensation! The headmaster gave a sort of strangled yelp ofastonishment. Mr. Downing leaped in his chair. Mike's eyes opened totheir fullest extent.
"Adair!"
There was almost a wail in the headmaster's voice. The situation hadsuddenly become too much for him. His brain was swimming. That Mike,despite the evidence against him, should be innocent, was curious,perhaps, but not particularly startling. But that Adair should informhim, two minutes after Mr. Downing's announcement of Psmith'sconfession, that Psmith, too, was guiltless, and that the realcriminal was Dunster--it was this that made him feel that somebody, inthe words of an American author, had played a mean trick on him, andsubstituted for his brain a side-order of cauliflower. Why Dunster, ofall people? Dunster, who, he remembered dizzily, had left the schoolat Christmas. And why, if Dunster had really painted the dog, hadPsmith asserted that he himself was the culprit? Why--why anything? Heconcentrated his mind on Adair as the only person who could save himfrom impending brain-fever.
"Adair!"
"Yes, sir?"
"What--_what_ do you mean?"
"It _was_ Dunster, sir. I got a letter from him only five minutesago, in which he said that he had painted Sammy--Sampson, the dog,sir, for a rag--for a joke, and that, as he didn't want any one hereto get into a row--be punished for it, I'd better tell Mr. Downing atonce. I tried to find Mr. Downing, but he wasn't in the house. Then Imet Smith outside the house, and he told me that Mr. Downing had goneover to see you, sir."
"Smith told you?" said Mr. Downing.
"Yes, sir."
"Did you say anything to him about your having received this letterfrom Dunster?"
"I gave him the letter to read, sir."
"And what was his attitude when he had read it?"
"He laughed, sir."
"_Laughed!_" Mr. Downing's voice was thunderous.
"Yes, sir. He rolled about."
Mr. Downing snorted.
"But Adair," said the headmaster, "I do not understand how this thingcould have been done by Dunster. He has left the school."
"He was down here for the Old Sedleighans' match, sir. He stopped thenight in the village."
"And that was the night the--it happened?"
"Yes, sir."
"I see. Well, I am glad to find that the blame cannot be attached toany boy in the school. I am sorry that it is even an Old Boy. It was afoolish, discreditable thing to have done, but it is not as bad as ifany boy still at the school had broken out of his house at night to doit."
"The sergeant," said Mr. Downing, "told me that the boy he saw wasattempting to enter Mr. Outwood's house."
"Another freak of Dunster's, I suppose," said the headmaster. "I shallwrite to him."
"If it was really Dunster who painted my dog," said Mr. Downing, "Icannot understand the part played by Smith in this affair. If he didnot do it, what possible motive could he have had for coming to me ofhis own accord and deliberately confessing?"
"To be sure," said the headmaster, pressing a bell. "It is certainly athing that calls for explanation. Barlow," he said, as the butlerappeared, "kindly go across to Mr. Outwood's house and inform Smiththat I should like to see him."
"If you please, sir, Mr. Smith is waiting in the hall."
"In the hall!"
"Yes, sir. He arrived soon after Mr. Adair, sir, saying that he wouldwait, as you would probably wish to see him shortly."
"H'm. Ask him to step up, Barlow."
"Yes, sir."
There followed one of the tens
est "stage waits" of Mike's experience.It was not long, but, while it lasted, the silence was quite solid.Nobody seemed to have anything to say, and there was not even a clockin the room to break the stillness with its ticking. A very faintdrip-drip of rain could be heard outside the window.
Presently there was a sound of footsteps on the stairs. The door wasopened.
"Mr. Smith, sir."
The old Etonian entered as would the guest of the evening who is a fewmoments late for dinner. He was cheerful, but slightly deprecating. Hegave the impression of one who, though sure of his welcome, feels thatsome slight apology is expected from him. He advanced into the roomwith a gentle half-smile which suggested good-will to all men.
"It is still raining," he observed. "You wished to see me, sir?"
"Sit down, Smith."
"Thank you, sir."
He dropped into a deep arm-chair (which both Adair and Mike hadavoided in favour of less luxurious seats) with the confidentialcosiness of a fashionable physician calling on a patient, between whomand himself time has broken down the barriers of restraint andformality.
Mr. Downing burst out, like a reservoir that has broken its banks.
"Smith."
Psmith turned his gaze politely in the housemaster's direction.
"Smith, you came to me a quarter of an hour ago and told me that itwas you who had painted my dog Sampson."
"Yes, sir."
"It was absolutely untrue?"
"I am afraid so, sir."
"But, Smith--" began the headmaster.
Psmith bent forward encouragingly.
"----This is a most extraordinary affair. Have you no explanation tooffer? What induced you to do such a thing?"
Psmith sighed softly.
"The craze for notoriety, sir," he replied sadly. "The curse of thepresent age."
"What!" cried the headmaster.
"It is remarkable," proceeded Psmith placidly, with the impersonaltouch of one lecturing on generalities, "how frequently, when a murderhas been committed, one finds men confessing that they have done itwhen it is out of the question that they should have committed it. Itis one of the most interesting problems with which anthropologists areconfronted. Human nature----"
The headmaster interrupted.
"Smith," he said, "I should like to see you alone for a moment. Mr.Downing might I trouble--? Adair, Jackson."
He made a motion towards the door.
When he and Psmith were alone, there was silence. Psmith leaned backcomfortably in his chair. The headmaster tapped nervously with hisfoot on the floor.
"Er--Smith."
"Sir?"
The headmaster seemed to have some difficulty in proceeding. He pausedagain. Then he went on.
"Er--Smith, I do not for a moment wish to pain you, but haveyou--er, do you remember ever having had, as a child, let us say,any--er--severe illness? Any--er--_mental_ illness?"
"No, sir."
"There is no--forgive me if I am touching on a sad subject--thereis no--none of your near relatives have ever suffered in the wayI--er--have described?"
"There isn't a lunatic on the list, sir," said Psmith cheerfully.
"Of course, Smith, of course," said the headmaster hurriedly, "I didnot mean to suggest--quite so, quite so.... You think, then, that youconfessed to an act which you had not committed purely from somesudden impulse which you cannot explain?"
"Strictly between ourselves, sir----"
Privately, the headmaster found Psmith's man-to-man attitude somewhatdisconcerting, but he said nothing.
"Well, Smith?"
"I should not like it to go any further, sir."
"I will certainly respect any confidence----"
"I don't want anybody to know, sir. This is strictly betweenourselves."
"I think you are sometimes apt to forget, Smith, the proper relationsexisting between boy and--Well, never mind that for the present. Wecan return to it later. For the moment, let me hear what you wish tosay. I shall, of course, tell nobody, if you do not wish it."
"Well, it was like this, sir," said Psmith. "Jackson happened to tellme that you and Mr. Downing seemed to think he had painted Mr.Downing's dog, and there seemed some danger of his being expelled, soI thought it wouldn't be an unsound scheme if I were to go and say Ihad done it. That was the whole thing. Of course, Dunster writingcreated a certain amount of confusion."
There was a pause.
"It was a very wrong thing to do, Smith," said the headmaster, atlast, "but.... You are a curious boy, Smith. Good-night."
He held out his hand.
"Good-night, sir," said Psmith.
"Not a bad old sort," said Psmith meditatively to himself, as hewalked downstairs. "By no means a bad old sort. I must drop in fromtime to time and cultivate him."
* * * * *
Mike and Adair were waiting for him outside the front door.
"Well?" said Mike.
"You _are_ the limit," said Adair. "What's he done?"
"Nothing. We had a very pleasant chat, and then I tore myself away."
"Do you mean to say he's not going to do a thing?"
"Not a thing."
"Well, you're a marvel," said Adair.
Psmith thanked him courteously. They walked on towards the houses.
"By the way, Adair," said Mike, as the latter started to turn in atDowning's, "I'll write to Strachan to-night about that match."
"What's that?" asked Psmith.
"Jackson's going to try and get Wrykyn to give us a game," saidAdair. "They've got a vacant date. I hope the dickens they'll do it."
"Oh, I should think they're certain to," said Mike. "Good-night."
"And give Comrade Downing, when you see him," said Psmith, "my verybest love. It is men like him who make this Merrie England of ourswhat it is."
* * * * *
"I say, Psmith," said Mike suddenly, "what really made you tellDowning you'd done it?"
"The craving for----"
"Oh, chuck it. You aren't talking to the Old Man now. I believe it wassimply to get me out of a jolly tight corner."
Psmith's expression was one of pain.
"My dear Comrade Jackson," said he, "you wrong me. You make me writhe.I'm surprised at you. I never thought to hear those words from MichaelJackson."
"Well, I believe you did, all the same," said Mike obstinately. "Andit was jolly good of you, too."
Psmith moaned.
CHAPTER LIX
SEDLEIGH _v_. WRYKYN
The Wrykyn match was three-parts over, and things were going badly forSedleigh. In a way one might have said that the game was over, andthat Sedleigh had lost; for it was a one day match, and Wrykyn, whohad led on the first innings, had only to play out time to make thegame theirs.
Sedleigh were paying the penalty for allowing themselves to beinfluenced by nerves in the early part of the day. Nerves lose moreschool matches than good play ever won. There is a certain type ofschool batsman who is a gift to any bowler when he once lets hisimagination run away with him. Sedleigh, with the exception of Adair,Psmith, and Mike, had entered upon this match in a state of the mostazure funk. Ever since Mike had received Strachan's answer and Adairhad announced on the notice-board that on Saturday, July thetwentieth, Sedleigh would play Wrykyn, the team had been all on thejump. It was useless for Adair to tell them, as he did repeatedly, onMike's authority, that Wrykyn were weak this season, and that on theirpresent form Sedleigh ought to win easily. The team listened, but werenot comforted. Wrykyn might be below their usual strength, but thenWrykyn cricket, as a rule, reached such a high standard that thisprobably meant little. However weak Wrykyn might be--for them--therewas a very firm impression among the members of the Sedleigh firsteleven that the other school was quite strong enough to knock thecover off _them_. Experience counts enormously in school matches.Sedleigh had never been proved. The teams they played were the sort ofsides which the Wrykyn second eleven would play. Wh
ereas Wrykyn, fromtime immemorial, had been beating Ripton teams and Free Forestersteams and M.C.C. teams packed with county men and sending men toOxford and Cambridge who got their blues as freshmen.
Sedleigh had gone on to the field that morning a depressed side.
It was unfortunate that Adair had won the toss. He had had no choicebut to take first innings. The weather had been bad for the last week,and the wicket was slow and treacherous. It was likely to get worseduring the day, so Adair had chosen to bat first.
Taking into consideration the state of nerves the team was in, this initself was a calamity. A school eleven are always at their worst andnerviest before lunch. Even on their own ground they find thesurroundings lonely and unfamiliar. The subtlety of the bowlersbecomes magnified. Unless the first pair make a really good start, acollapse almost invariably ensues.
To-day the start had been gruesome beyond words. Mike, the bulwark ofthe side, the man who had been brought up on Wrykyn bowling, and fromwhom, whatever might happen to the others, at least a fifty wasexpected--Mike, going in first with Barnes and taking first over, hadplayed inside one from Bruce, the Wrykyn slow bowler, and had beencaught at short slip off his second ball.
That put the finishing-touch on the panic. Stone, Robinson, and theothers, all quite decent punishing batsmen when their nerves allowedthem to play their own game, crawled to the wickets, declined to hitout at anything, and were clean bowled, several of them, playing backto half-volleys. Adair did not suffer from panic, but his batting wasnot equal to his bowling, and he had fallen after hitting one four.Seven wickets were down for thirty when Psmith went in.
Psmith had always disclaimed any pretensions to batting skill, but hewas undoubtedly the right man for a crisis like this. He had anenormous reach, and he used it. Three consecutive balls from Bruce heturned into full-tosses and swept to the leg-boundary, and, assistedby Barnes, who had been sitting on the splice in his usual manner, heraised the total to seventy-one before being yorked, with his score atthirty-five. Ten minutes later the innings was over, with Barnes notout sixteen, for seventy-nine.
Wrykyn had then gone in, lost Strachan for twenty before lunch, andfinally completed their innings at a quarter to four for a hundred andthirty-one.
This was better than Sedleigh had expected. At least eight of the teamhad looked forward dismally to an afternoon's leather-hunting. ButAdair and Psmith, helped by the wicket, had never been easy,especially Psmith, who had taken six wickets, his slows playing havocwith the tail.
It would be too much to say that Sedleigh had any hope of pulling thegame out of the fire; but it was a comfort, they felt, at any rate,having another knock. As is usual at this stage of a match, theirnervousness had vanished, and they felt capable of better things thanin the first innings.
It was on Mike's suggestion that Psmith and himself went in first.Mike knew the limitations of the Wrykyn bowling, and he was convincedthat, if they could knock Bruce off, it might be possible to rattle upa score sufficient to give them the game, always provided that Wrykyncollapsed in the second innings. And it seemed to Mike that the wicketwould be so bad then that they easily might.
So he and Psmith had gone in at four o'clock to hit. And they had hit.The deficit had been wiped off, all but a dozen runs, when Psmith wasbowled, and by that time Mike was set and in his best vein. He treatedall the bowlers alike. And when Stone came in, restored to his properframe of mind, and lashed out stoutly, and after him Robinson and therest, it looked as if Sedleigh had a chance again. The score was ahundred and twenty when Mike, who had just reached his fifty, skiedone to Strachan at cover. The time was twenty-five past five.
As Mike reached the pavilion, Adair declared the innings closed.
Wrykyn started batting at twenty-five minutes to six, with sixty-nineto make if they wished to make them, and an hour and ten minutesduring which to keep up their wickets if they preferred to take thingseasy and go for a win on the first innings.
At first it looked as if they meant to knock off the runs, forStrachan forced the game from the first ball, which was Psmith's, andwhich he hit into the pavilion. But, at fifteen, Adair bowled him. Andwhen, two runs later, Psmith got the next man stumped, and finished uphis over with a c-and-b, Wrykyn decided that it was not good enough.Seventeen for three, with an hour all but five minutes to go, wasgetting too dangerous. So Drummond and Rigby, the next pair, proceededto play with caution, and the collapse ceased.
This was the state of the game at the point at which this chapteropened. Seventeen for three had become twenty-four for three, and thehands of the clock stood at ten minutes past six. Changes of bowlinghad been tried, but there seemed no chance of getting past thebatsmen's defence. They were playing all the good balls, and refusedto hit at the bad.
A quarter past six struck, and then Psmith made a suggestion whichaltered the game completely.
"Why don't you have a shot this end?" he said to Adair, as they werecrossing over. "There's a spot on the off which might help you a lot.You can break like blazes if only you land on it. It doesn't help myleg-breaks a bit, because they won't hit at them."
Barnes was on the point of beginning to bowl, when Adair took the ballfrom him. The captain of Outwood's retired to short leg with an airthat suggested that he was glad to be relieved of his prominent post.
The next moment Drummond's off-stump was lying at an angle offorty-five. Adair was absolutely accurate as a bowler, and he haddropped his first ball right on the worn patch.
Two minutes later Drummond's successor was retiring to the pavilion,while the wicket-keeper straightened the stumps again.
There is nothing like a couple of unexpected wickets for altering theatmosphere of a game. Five minutes before, Sedleigh had been lethargicand without hope. Now there was a stir and buzz all round the ground.There were twenty-five minutes to go, and five wickets were down.Sedleigh was on top again.
The next man seemed to take an age coming out. As a matter of fact, hewalked more rapidly than a batsman usually walks to the crease.
Adair's third ball dropped just short of the spot. The batsman,hitting out, was a shade too soon. The ball hummed through the air acouple of feet from the ground in the direction of mid-off, and Mike,diving to the right, got to it as he was falling, and chucked it up.
After that the thing was a walk-over. Psmith clean bowled a man in hisnext over; and the tail, demoralised by the sudden change in the game,collapsed uncompromisingly. Sedleigh won by thirty-five runs witheight minutes in hand.
* * * * *
Psmith and Mike sat in their study after lock-up, discussing things ingeneral and the game in particular.
"I feel like a beastly renegade, playing against Wrykyn," said Mike."Still, I'm glad we won. Adair's a jolly good sort, and it'll make himhappy for weeks."
"When I last saw Comrade Adair," said Psmith, "he was going about in asort of trance, beaming vaguely and wanting to stand people things atthe shop."
"He bowled awfully well."
"Yes," said Psmith. "I say, I don't wish to cast a gloom over thisjoyful occasion in any way, but you say Wrykyn are going to giveSedleigh a fixture again next year?"
"Well?"
"Well, have you thought of the massacre which will ensue? You willhave left, Adair will have left. Incidentally, I shall have left.Wrykyn will swamp them."
"I suppose they will. Still, the great thing, you see, is to get thething started. That's what Adair was so keen on. Now Sedleigh hasbeaten Wrykyn, he's satisfied. They can get on fixtures with decentclubs, and work up to playing the big schools. You've got to startsomehow. So it's all right, you see."
"And, besides," said Psmith, reflectively, "in an emergency they canalways get Comrade Downing to bowl for them, what? Let us now sallyout and see if we can't promote a rag of some sort in this abode ofwrath. Comrade Outwood has gone over to dinner at the School House,and it would be a pity to waste a somewhat golden opportunity. Shallwe stagger?"
They staggered
.
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