The Pothunters/Chapter 9

'I'm awfully sorry,' he said, disentangling himself carefully from the heap. 'I hope you're not hurt.'

The man did not reply for a moment. He appeared to be laying the question before himself as an impartial judge, as who should say: 'Now tell me candidly, are you hurt? Speak freely and without bias.'

'No,' he said at last, feeling his left leg as if he were not absolutely easy in his mind about that, 'no, not hurt, thank you. Not much, that is,' he added with the air of one who thinks it best to qualify too positive a statement. 'Left leg. Shin. Slight bruise. Nothing to signify.'

'It was a rotten thing to do, jumping over into the road like that,' said Barrett. 'Didn't remember there'd be such a big drop.'

'My fault in a way,' said the man. 'Riding wrong side of road. Out for a run?'

'More or less.'

'Excellent thing.'

'Yes.'

It occurred to Barrett that it was only due to the man on whom he had been rolling to tell him the true facts of the case. Besides, it might do something towards removing the impression which must, he felt, be forming in the stranger's mind that he was mad.

'You see,' he said, in a burst of confidence, 'it was rather a close thing. There were some keepers after me.'

'Ah!' said the man. 'Thought so. Trespassing?'

'Yes.'

'Ah. Keepers don't like trespassers. Curious thing—don't know if it ever occurred to you—if there were no trespassers, there would be no need for keepers. To their interest, then, to encourage trespassers. But do they?'

Barrett admitted that they did not very conspicuously.

'No. Same with all professions. Not poaching, I suppose?'

'Rather not. I was after eggs. By Jove, that reminds me.' He felt in his pocket for the pill-boxes. Could they have survived the stormy times through which they had been passing? He heaved a sigh of relief as he saw that the eggs were uninjured. He was so intent on examining them that he missed the stranger's next remark.

'Sorry. What? I didn't hear.'

'Asked if I was going right for St Austin's School.'

'College!' said Barrett with a convulsive shudder. The most deadly error mortal man can make, with the exception of calling a school a college, is to call a college a school.

'College!' said the man. 'Is this the road?'

'Yes. You can't miss it. I'm going there myself. It's only about a mile.'

'Ah,' said the man, with a touch of satisfaction in his voice. 'Going there yourself, are you? Perhaps you're one of the scholars?'

'Not much,' said Barrett, 'ask our form-beak if I'm a scholar. Oh. I see. Yes, I'm there all right.'

Barrett was a little puzzled as to how to class his companion. No old public school man would talk of scholars. And yet he was emphatically not a bargee. Barrett set him down as a sort of superior tourist, a Henry as opposed to an 'Arry.

'Been bit of a disturbance there, hasn't there? Cricket pavilion. Cups.'

'Rather. But how on earth—'

'How on earth did I get to hear of it, you were going to say. Well, no need to conceal anything. Fact is, down here to look into the matter. Detective. Name, Roberts, Scotland Yard. Now we know each other, and if you can tell me one or two things about this burglary, it would be a great help to me, and I should be very much obliged.'

Barrett had heard that a detective was coming down to look into the affair of the cups. His position was rather a difficult one. In a sense it was simple enough. He had found the cups. He could (keepers permitting) go and fetch them now, and there would— No. There would not be an end of the matter. It would be very pleasant, exceedingly pleasant, to go to the Headmaster and the detective, and present the cups to them with a 'Bless you, my children' air. The Headmaster would say, 'Barrett, you're a marvel. How can I thank you sufficiently?' while the detective would observe that he had been in the profession over twenty years, but never had he seen so remarkable an exhibition of sagacity and acumen as this. That, at least, was what ought to take place. But Barrett's experience of life, short as it was, had taught him the difference between the ideal and the real. The real, he suspected, would in this case be painful. Certain facts would come to light. When had he found the cups? About four in the afternoon? Oh. Roll-call took place at four in the afternoon. How came it that he was not at roll-call? Furthermore, how came it that he was marked on the list as having answered his name at that ceremony? Where had he found the cups? In a hollow tree? Just so. Where was the hollow tree? In Sir Alfred Venner's woods. Did he know that Sir Alfred Venner's woods were out of bounds? Did he know that, in consequence of complaints from Sir Alfred Venner, Sir Alfred Venner's woods were more out of bounds than any other out of bounds woods in the entire county that did not belong to Sir Alfred Venner? He did? Ah! No, the word for his guidance in this emergency, he felt instinctively, was 'mum'. Time might provide him with a solution. He might, for instance, abstract the cups secretly from their resting-place, place them in the middle of the football field, and find them there dramatically after morning school. Or he might reveal his secret from the carriage window as his train moved out of the station on the first day of the holidays. There was certain to be some way out of the difficulty. But for the present, silence.

He answered his companion's questions freely, however. Of the actual burglary he knew no more than any other member of the School, considerably less, indeed, than Jim Thomson, of Merevale's, at present staggering under the weight of a secret even more gigantic than Barrett's own. In return for his information he extracted sundry reminiscences. The scar on the detective's cheekbone, barely visible now, was the mark of a bullet, which a certain burglar, named, singularly enough, Roberts, had fired at him from a distance of five yards. The gentleman in question, who, the detective hastened to inform Barrett, was no relation of his, though owning the same name, happened to be a poor marksman and only scored a bad outer, assuming the detective's face to have been the bull. He also turned up his cuff to show a larger scar. This was another testimonial from the burglar world. A Kensington practitioner had had the bad taste to bite off a piece of that part of the detective. In short, Barrett enlarged his knowledge of the seamy side of things considerably in the mile of road which had to be traversed before St Austin's appeared in sight. The two parted at the big gates, Barrett going in the direction of Philpott's, the detective wheeling his machine towards the porter's lodge.

Barrett's condition when he turned in at Philpott's door was critical. He was so inflated with news that any attempt to keep it in might have serious results. Certainly he could not sleep that night in such a bomb-like state.

It was thus that he broke in upon Reade. Reade had passed an absurdly useless afternoon. He had not stirred from the study. For all that it would have mattered to him, it might have been raining hard the whole afternoon, instead of being, as it had been, the finest afternoon of the whole term. In a word, and not to put too fine a point on the matter, he had been frousting, and consequently was feeling dull and sleepy, and generally under-vitalized and futile. Barrett entered the study with a rush, and was carried away by excitement to such an extent that he addressed Reade as if the deadly feud between them not only did not exist, but never had existed.

'I say, Reade. Heave that beastly book away. My aunt, I have had an afternoon of it.'

'Oh?' said Reade, politely, 'where did you go?'

'After eggs in the Dingle.'

Reade was fairly startled out of his dignified reserve. For the first time since they had had their little difference, he addressed Barrett in a sensible manner.

'You idiot!' he said.

'Don't see it. The Dingle's just the place to spend a happy day. Like Rosherville. Jove, it's worth going there. You should see the birds. Place is black with 'em.'

'How about keepers? See any?'

'Did I not! Three of them chased me like good 'uns all over the place.'

'You got away all right, though.'

'Only just. I say, do you know what happened? You know that rotter Plunkett. Used to be a day boy. Head of Ward's now. Wears specs.'

'Yes?'

'Well, just as I was almost out of the wood, I jumped a bush and landed right on top of him. The man was asleep or something. Fancy choosing the Dingle of all places to sleep in, where you can't go a couple of yards without running into a keeper! He hadn't even the sense to run. I yelled to him to look out, and then I hooked it myself. And then the nearest keeper, who'd just come down a buster over a rabbit-hole, sailed in and had him. I couldn't do anything, of course.'

'Jove, there'll be a fair-sized row about this. The Old Man's on to trespassing like tar. I say, think Plunkett'll say anything about you being there too?'

'Shouldn't think so. For one thing I don't think he recognized me. Probably doesn't know me by sight, and he was fast asleep, too. No, I fancy I'm all right.'

'Well, it was a jolly narrow shave. Anything else happen?'

'Anything else! Just a bit. That's to say, no, nothing much else. No.'

'Now then,' said Reade, briskly. 'None of your beastly mysteries. Out with it.'

'Look here, swear you'll keep it dark?'

'Of course I will.'

'On your word of honour?'

'If you think—' began Reade in an offended voice.

'No, it's all right. Don't get shirty. The thing is, though, it's so frightfully important to keep it dark.'

'Well? Buck up.'

'Well, you needn't believe me, of course, but I've found the pots.'

Reade gasped.

'What!' he cried. 'The pot for the quarter?'

'And the one for the hundred yards. Both of them. It's a fact.'

'But where? How? What have you done with them?'

Barrett unfolded his tale concisely.

'You see,' he concluded, 'what a hole I'm in. I can't tell the Old Man anything about it, or I get booked for cutting roll-call, and going out of bounds. And then, while I'm waiting and wondering what to do, and all that, the thief, whoever he is, will most likely go off with the pots. What do you think I ought to do?'

Reade perpended.

'Well,' he said, 'all you can do is to lie low and trust to luck, as far as I can see. Besides, there's one consolation. This Plunkett business'll make every keeper in the Dingle twice as keen after trespassers. So the pot man won't get a chance of getting the things away.'

'Yes, there's something in that,' admitted Barrett.

'It's all you can do,' said Reade.

'Yes. Unless I wrote an anonymous letter to the Old Man explaining things. How would that do?'

'Do for you, probably. Anonymous letters always get traced to the person who wrote them. Or pretty nearly always. No, you simply lie low.'

'Right,' said Barrett, 'I will.'

The process of concealing one's superior knowledge is very irritating. So irritating, indeed, that very few people do it. Barrett, however, was obliged to by necessity. He had a good chance of displaying his abilities in that direction when he met Grey the next morning.

'Hullo,' said Grey, 'have a good time yesterday?'

'Not bad. I've got an egg for you.'

'Good man. What sort?'

'Hanged if I know. I know you haven't got it, though.'

'Thanks awfully. See anything of the million keepers?'

'Heard them oftener than I saw them.'

'They didn't book you?'

'Rather fancy one of them saw me, but I got away all right.'

'Find the place pretty lively?'

'Pretty fair.'

'Stay there long?'

'Not very.'

'No. Thought you wouldn't. What do you say to a small ice? There's time before school.'

'Thanks. Are you flush?'

'Flush isn't the word for it. I'm a plutocrat.'

'Uncle came out fairly strong then?'

'Rather. To the tune of one sovereign, cash. He's a jolly good sort, my uncle.'

'So it seems,' said Barrett.

The meeting then adjourned to the School shop, Barrett enjoying his ice all the more for the thought that his secret still was a secret. A thing which it would in all probability have ceased to be, had he been rash enough to confide it to K. St H. Grey, who, whatever his other merits, was very far from being the safest sort of confidant. His usual practice was to speak first, and to think, if at all, afterwards.