“Good old Barry,” said Drummond, delightedly. Barry thanked him in a dazed way.
Every one crowded in to shake his hand. Barry thanked then all in a dazed way.
And then the senior day-room, in spite of the fact that Milton had returned, gave itself up to celebrating the occasion with one of the most deafening uproars that had ever been heard even in that factory of noise. A babel of voices discussed the match of the afternoon, each trying to outshout the other. In one corner Linton was beating wildly on a biscuit-tin with part of a broken chair. Shoeblossom was busy in the opposite corner executing an intricate step-dance on somebody else’s box. M’Todd had got hold of the red-hot poker, and was burning his initials in huge letters on the seat of a chair. Every one, in short, was enjoying himself, and it was not until an advanced hour that comparative quiet was restored. It was a great evening for Barry, the best he had ever experienced.
Clowes did not learn the news till he saw it on the notice-board, on the following Monday. When he saw it he whistled softly.
“I see you’ve given Barry his first,” he said to Trevor, when they met. “Rather sensational.”
“Milton and Allardyce both thought he deserved it. If he’d been playing instead of Rand-Brown, they wouldn’t have scored at all probably, and we should have got one more try.”
“That’s all right,” said Clowes. “He deserves it right enough, and I’m jolly glad you’ve given it him. But things will begin to move now, don’t you think? The League ought to have a word to say about the business. It’ll be a facer for them.”
“Do you remember,” asked Trevor, “saying that you thought it must be Rand-Brown who wrote those letters?”
“Yes. Well?”
“Well, Milton had an idea that it was Rand-Brown who ragged his study.”
“What made him think that?”
Trevor related the Shoeblossom incident.
Clowes became quite excited.
“Then Rand-Brown must be the man,” he said. “Why don’t you go and tackle him? Probably he’s got the bat in his study.”
“It’s not in his study,” said Trevor, “because I looked everywhere for it, and got him to turn out his pockets, too. And yet I’ll swear he knows something about it. One thing struck me as a bit suspicious. I went straight into his study and showed him that last letter—about the bat, you know, and accused him of writing it. Now, if he hadn’t been in the business somehow, he wouldn’t have understood what was meant by their saying ‘the bat you lost’. It might have been an ordinary cricket-bat for all he knew. But he offered to let me search the study. It didn’t strike me as rum till afterwards. Then it seemed fishy. What do you think?”
Clowes thought so too, but admitted that he did not see of what use the suspicion was going to be. Whether Rand-Brown knew anything about the affair or not, it was quite certain that the bat was not with him.
O’Hara, meanwhile, had decided that the time had come for him to resume his detective duties. Moriarty agreed with him, and they resolved that that night they would patronise the vault instead of the gymnasium, and take a holiday as far as their boxing was concerned. There was plenty of time before the Aldershot competition.
Lock-up was still at six, so at a quarter to that hour they slipped down into the vault, and took up their position.
A quarter of an hour passed. The lock-up bell sounded faintly. Moriarty began to grow tired.
“Is it worth it?” he said, “an’ wouldn’t they have come before, if they meant to come?”
“We’ll give them another quarter of an hour,” said O’Hara. “After that—”
“Sh!” whispered Moriarty.
The door had opened. They could see a figure dimly outlined in the semi-darkness. Footsteps passed down into the vault, and there came a sound as if the unknown had cannoned into a chair, followed by a sharp intake of breath, expressive of pain. A scraping sound, and a flash of light, and part of the vault was lit by a candle. O’Hara caught a glimpse of the unknown’s face as he rose from lighting the candle, but it was not enough to enable him to recognise him. The candle was standing on a chair, and the light it gave was too feeble to reach the face of any one not on a level with it.