CHAPTER VI
IN WHICH A TIGHT CORNER IS EVADED
For a moment the situation paralysed Mike. Then he began to be equalto it. In times of excitement one thinks rapidly and clearly. The mainpoint, the kernel of the whole thing, was that he must get into thegarden somehow, and warn Wyatt. And at the same time, he must keep Mr.Wain from coming to the dormitory. He jumped out of bed, and dasheddown the dark stairs.
He had taken care to close the dining-room door after him. It was opennow, and he could hear somebody moving inside the room. Evidently hisretreat had been made just in time.
He knocked at the door, and went in.
Mr. Wain was standing at the window, looking out. He spun round at theknock, and stared in astonishment at Mike's pyjama-clad figure. Mike,in spite of his anxiety, could barely check a laugh. Mr. Wain was atall, thin man, with a serious face partially obscured by a grizzledbeard. He wore spectacles, through which he peered owlishly at Mike.His body was wrapped in a brown dressing-gown. His hair was ruffled.He looked like some weird bird.
"Please, sir, I thought I heard a noise," said Mike.
Mr. Wain continued to stare.
"What are you doing here?" said he at last.
"Thought I heard a noise, please, sir."
"A noise?"
"Please, sir, a row."
"You thought you heard----!"
The thing seemed to be worrying Mr. Wain.
"So I came down, sir," said Mike.
The house-master's giant brain still appeared to be somewhat clouded.He looked about him, and, catching sight of the gramophone, drewinspiration from it.
"Did you turn on the gramophone?" he asked.
"_Me_, sir!" said Mike, with the air of a bishop accused ofcontributing to the _Police News_.
"Of course not, of course not," said Mr. Wain hurriedly. "Of coursenot. I don't know why I asked. All this is very unsettling. What areyou doing here?"
"Thought I heard a noise, please, sir."
"A noise?"
"A row, sir."
If it was Mr. Wain's wish that he should spend the night playing MassaTambo to his Massa Bones, it was not for him to baulk the house-master'sinnocent pleasure. He was prepared to continue the snappy dialogue tillbreakfast time.
"I think there must have been a burglar in here, Jackson."
"Looks like it, sir."
"I found the window open."
"He's probably in the garden, sir."
Mr. Wain looked out into the garden with an annoyed expression, as ifits behaviour in letting burglars be in it struck him as unworthy of arespectable garden.
"He might be still in the house," said Mr. Wain, ruminatively.
"Not likely, sir."
"You think not?"
"Wouldn't be such a fool, sir. I mean, such an ass, sir."
"Perhaps you are right, Jackson."
"I shouldn't wonder if he was hiding in the shrubbery, sir."
Mr. Wain looked at the shrubbery, as who should say, _"Et tu,Brute!"_
"By Jove! I think I see him," cried Mike. He ran to the window, andvaulted through it on to the lawn. An inarticulate protest from Mr.Wain, rendered speechless by this move just as he had been beginningto recover his faculties, and he was running across the lawn into theshrubbery. He felt that all was well. There might be a bit of a row onhis return, but he could always plead overwhelming excitement.
Wyatt was round at the back somewhere, and the problem was how to getback without being seen from the dining-room window. Fortunately abelt of evergreens ran along the path right up to the house. Mikeworked his way cautiously through these till he was out of sight, thentore for the regions at the back.
The moon had gone behind the clouds, and it was not easy to find a waythrough the bushes. Twice branches sprang out from nowhere, and hitMike smartly over the shins, eliciting sharp howls of pain.
On the second of these occasions a low voice spoke from somewhere onhis right.
"Who on earth's that?" it said.
Mike stopped.
"Is that you, Wyatt? I say----"
"Jackson!"
The moon came out again, and Mike saw Wyatt clearly. His knees werecovered with mould. He had evidently been crouching in the bushes onall fours.
"You young ass," said Wyatt. "You promised me that you wouldn't getout."
"Yes, I know, but----"
"I heard you crashing through the shrubbery like a hundred elephants.If you _must_ get out at night and chance being sacked, you mightat least have the sense to walk quietly."
"Yes, but you don't understand."
And Mike rapidly explained the situation.
"But how the dickens did he hear you, if you were in the dining-room?"asked Wyatt. "It's miles from his bedroom. You must tread like apoliceman."
"It wasn't that. The thing was, you see, it was rather a rotten thingto do, I suppose, but I turned on the gramophone."
"You--_what?_"
"The gramophone. It started playing 'The Quaint Old Bird.' Ripping itwas, till Wain came along."
Wyatt doubled up with noiseless laughter.
"You're a genius," he said. "I never saw such a man. Well, what's thegame now? What's the idea?"
"I think you'd better nip back along the wall and in through thewindow, and I'll go back to the dining-room. Then it'll be all rightif Wain comes and looks into the dorm. Or, if you like, you might comedown too, as if you'd just woke up and thought you'd heard a row."
"That's not a bad idea. All right. You dash along then. I'll getback."
Mr. Wain was still in the dining-room, drinking in the beauties of thesummer night through the open window. He gibbered slightly when Mikereappeared.
"Jackson! What do you mean by running about outside the house in thisway! I shall punish you very heavily. I shall certainly report thematter to the headmaster. I will not have boys rushing about thegarden in their pyjamas. You will catch an exceedingly bad cold. Youwill do me two hundred lines, Latin and English. Exceedingly so. Iwill not have it. Did you not hear me call to you?"
"Please, sir, so excited," said Mike, standing outside with his handson the sill.
"You have no business to be excited. I will not have it. It isexceedingly impertinent of you."
"Please, sir, may I come in?"
"Come in! Of course, come in. Have you no sense, boy? You are layingthe seeds of a bad cold. Come in at once."
Mike clambered through the window.
"I couldn't find him, sir. He must have got out of the garden."
"Undoubtedly," said Mr. Wain. "Undoubtedly so. It was very wrong ofyou to search for him. You have been seriously injured. Exceedinglyso"
He was about to say more on the subject when Wyatt strolled into theroom. Wyatt wore the rather dazed expression of one who has beenaroused from deep sleep. He yawned before he spoke.
"I thought I heard a noise, sir," he said.
He called Mr. Wain "father" in private, "sir" in public. The presenceof Mike made this a public occasion.
"Has there been a burglary?"
"Yes," said Mike, "only he has got away."
"Shall I go out into the garden, and have a look round, sir?" askedWyatt helpfully.
The question stung Mr. Wain into active eruption once more.
"Under no circumstances whatever," he said excitedly. "Stay where youare, James. I will not have boys running about my garden at night. Itis preposterous. Inordinately so. Both of you go to bed immediately. Ishall not speak to you again on this subject. I must be obeyedinstantly. You hear me, Jackson? James, you understand me? To bed atonce. And, if I find you outside your dormitory again to-night, youwill both be punished with extreme severity. I will not have this laxand reckless behaviour."
"But the burglar, sir?" said Wyatt.
"We might catch him, sir," said Mike.
Mr. Wain's manner changed to a slow and stately sarcasm, in much thesame way as a motor-car changes from the top speed to its first.
"I was under the imp
ression," he said, in the heavy way almostinvariably affected by weak masters in their dealings with theobstreperous, "I was distinctly under the impression that I hadordered you to retire immediately to your dormitory. It is possiblethat you mistook my meaning. In that case I shall be happy to repeatwhat I said. It is also in my mind that I threatened to punish youwith the utmost severity if you did not retire at once. In thesecircumstances, James--and you, Jackson--you will doubtless see thenecessity of complying with my wishes."
They made it so.