XII
NEWS OF THE GOLD BAT
Shoeblossom sat disconsolately on the table in the senior day-room. Hewas not happy in exile. Brewing in the senior day-room was a merevulgar brawl, lacking all the refining influences of the study. You hadto fight for a place at the fire, and when you had got it 'twas notalways easy to keep it, and there was no privacy, and the fellows werealways bear-fighting, so that it was impossible to read a book quietlyfor ten consecutive minutes without some ass heaving a cushion at youor turning out the gas. Altogether Shoeblossom yearned for the peace ofhis study, and wished earnestly that Mr Seymour would withdraw theorder of banishment. It was the not being able to read that he objectedto chiefly. In place of brewing, the ex-proprietors of studies five,six, and seven now made a practice of going to the school shop. It wasmore expensive and not nearly so comfortable--there is a romance abouta study brew which you can never get anywhere else--but it served, andit was not on this score that he grumbled most. What he hated washaving to live in a bear-garden. For Shoeblossom was a man of moods.Give him two or three congenial spirits to back him up, and he wouldlead the revels with the _abandon_ of a Mr Bultitude (after hisreturn to his original form). But he liked to choose his accomplices,and the gay sparks of the senior day-room did not appeal to him. Theywere not intellectual enough. In his lucid intervals, he was accustomedto be almost abnormally solemn and respectable. When not promoting someunholy rag, Shoeblossom resembled an elderly gentleman of studioushabits. He liked to sit in a comfortable chair and read a book. It wasthe impossibility of doing this in the senior day-room that led him totry and think of some other haven where he might rest. Had it beensummer, he would have taken some literature out on to the cricket-fieldor the downs, and put in a little steady reading there, with the aid ofa bag of cherries. But with the thermometer low, that was impossible.
He felt very lonely and dismal. He was not a man with many friends. Infact, Barry and the other three were almost the only members of thehouse with whom he was on speaking-terms. And of these four he saw verylittle. Drummond and Barry were always out of doors or over at thegymnasium, and as for M'Todd and De Bertini, it was not worth whiletalking to the one, and impossible to talk to the other. No wonderShoeblossom felt dull. Once Barry and Drummond had taken him over tothe gymnasium with them, but this had bored him worse than ever. Theyhad been hard at it all the time--for, unlike a good many of theschool, they went to the gymnasium for business, not to lounge--and hehad had to sit about watching them. And watching gymnastics was one ofthe things he most loathed. Since then he had refused to go.
That night matters came to a head. Just as he had settled down to read,somebody, in flinging a cushion across the room, brought down the gasapparatus with a run, and before light was once more restored it wastea-time. After that there was preparation, which lasted for two hours,and by the time he had to go to bed he had not been able to read asingle page of the enthralling work with which he was at presentoccupied.
He had just got into bed when he was struck with a brilliant idea. Whywaste the precious hours in sleep? What was that saying of somebody's,"Five hours for a wise man, six for somebody else--he forgot whom--eightfor a fool, nine for an idiot," or words to that effect? Five hourssleep would mean that he need not go to bed till half past two. In themeanwhile he could be finding out exactly what the hero _did_ do whenhe found out (to his horror) that it was his cousin Jasper who hadreally killed the old gentleman in the wood. The only question was--howwas he to do his reading? Prefects were allowed to work on after lightsout in their dormitories by the aid of a candle, but to the ordinarymortal this was forbidden.
Then he was struck with another brilliant idea. It is a curious thingabout ideas. You do not get one for over a month, and then there comesa rush of them, all brilliant. Why, he thought, should he not go andread in his study with a dark lantern? He had a dark lantern. It wasone of the things he had found lying about at home on the last day ofthe holidays, and had brought with him to school. It was his custom togo about the house just before the holidays ended, snapping upunconsidered trifles, which might or might not come in useful. Thisterm he had brought back a curious metal vase (which looked Indian, butwhich had probably been made in Birmingham the year before last), twoold coins (of no mortal use to anybody in the world, includinghimself), and the dark lantern. It was reposing now in the cupboard inhis study nearest the window.
He had brought his book up with him on coming to bed, on the chancethat he might have time to read a page or two if he woke up early. (Hehad always been doubtful about that man Jasper. For one thing, he hadbeen seen pawning the old gentleman's watch on the afternoon of themurder, which was a suspicious circumstance, and then he was not a nicecharacter at all, and just the sort of man who would be likely to murderold gentlemen in woods.) He waited till Mr Seymour had paid his nightlyvisit--he went the round of the dormitories at about eleven--and then hechuckled gently. If Mill, the dormitory prefect, was awake, the chucklewould make him speak, for Mill was of a suspicious nature, and believedthat it was only his unintermitted vigilance which prevented thedormitory ragging all night.
Mill _was_ awake.
"Be quiet, there," he growled. "Shut up that noise."
Shoeblossom felt that the time was not yet ripe for his departure. Halfan hour later he tried again. There was no rebuke. To make certain heemitted a second chuckle, replete with sinister meaning. A slight snorecame from the direction of Mill's bed. Shoeblossom crept out of theroom, and hurried to his study. The door was not locked, for Mr Seymourhad relied on his commands being sufficient to keep the owner out ofit. He slipped in, found and lit the dark lantern, and settled down toread. He read with feverish excitement. The thing was, you see, thatthough Claud Trevelyan (that was the hero) knew jolly well that it wasJasper who had done the murder, the police didn't, and, as he (Claud)was too noble to tell them, he had himself been arrested on suspicion.Shoeblossom was skimming through the pages with starting eyes, whensuddenly his attention was taken from his book by a sound. It was afootstep. Somebody was coming down the passage, and under the doorfiltered a thin stream of light. To snap the dark slide over thelantern and dart to the door, so that if it opened he would be behindit, was with him, as Mr Claud Trevelyan might have remarked, the workof a moment. He heard the door of study number five flung open, andthen the footsteps passed on, and stopped opposite his own den. Thehandle turned, and the light of a candle flashed into the room, to beextinguished instantly as the draught of the moving door caught it.
Shoeblossom heard his visitor utter an exclamation of annoyance, andfumble in his pocket for matches. He recognised the voice. It was MrSeymour's. The fact was that Mr Seymour had had the same experience asGeneral Stanley in _The Pirates of Penzance_:
The man who finds his conscience ache, No peace at all enjoys; And, as I lay in bed awake, I thought I heard a noise.
Whether Mr Seymour's conscience ached or not, cannot, of course, bediscovered. But he had certainly thought he heard a noise, and he hadcome to investigate.
The search for matches had so far proved fruitless. Shoeblossom stoodand quaked behind the door. The reek of hot tin from the dark lanterngrew worse momentarily. Mr Seymour sniffed several times, untilShoeblossom thought that he must be discovered. Then, to his immenserelief, the master walked away. Shoeblossom's chance had come. MrSeymour had probably gone to get some matches to relight his candle. Itwas far from likely that the episode was closed. He would be back againpresently. If Shoeblossom was going to escape, he must do it now, so hewaited till the footsteps had passed away, and then darted out in thedirection of his dormitory.
As he was passing Milton's study, a white figure glided out of it. Allthat he had ever read or heard of spectres rushed into Shoeblossom'spetrified brain. He wished he was safely in bed. He wished he had nevercome out of it. He wished he had led a better and nobler life. Hewished he had never been born.
The figure passed quite close to him as he stood glued against the
wall, and he saw it disappear into the dormitory opposite his own, ofwhich Rigby was prefect. He blushed hotly at the thought of the frighthe had been in. It was only somebody playing the same game as himself.
He jumped into bed and lay down, having first plunged the lanternbodily into his jug to extinguish it. Its indignant hiss had scarcelydied away when Mr Seymour appeared at the door. It had occurred to MrSeymour that he had smelt something very much out of the ordinary inShoeblossom's study, a smell uncommonly like that of hot tin. And asuspicion dawned on him that Shoeblossom had been in there with a darklantern. He had come to the dormitory to confirm his suspicions. But aglance showed him how unjust they had been. There was Shoeblossom fastasleep. Mr Seymour therefore followed the excellent example of my LordTomnoddy on a celebrated occasion, and went off to bed.
* * * * *
It was the custom for the captain of football at Wrykyn to select andpublish the team for the Ripton match a week before the day on which itwas to be played. On the evening after the Nomads' match, Trevor wassitting in his study writing out the names, when there came a knock atthe door, and his fag entered with a letter.
"This has just come, Trevor," he said.
"All right. Put it down."
The fag left the room. Trevor picked up the letter. The handwriting wasstrange to him. The words had been printed. Then it flashed upon himthat he had received a letter once before addressed in the sameway--the letter from the League about Barry. Was this, too, fromthat address? He opened it.
It was.
He read it, and gasped. The worst had happened. The gold bat was in thehands of the enemy.