Fallen Into the Pit

“Yes, son, I know, I know! Your father’s been very good— very good!” He patted Dominic’s slight shoulder, and sighed. “Here comes Mrs. Pritchard with your pears now.”

Dominic accepted a bag almost as heavy as his school satchel, and distributed thanks between them, as both appeared to be involved in the gift. To tell the truth, he had little energy or attention left over from coping with the idea, which was occupying his body with the intensity of a stomachache, making him feel light and sick with excitement. When Mrs. Pritchard had gone away again into the house, and left them moving slowly toward the rickyard together, he struggled to grasp the moment and turn it to use, and for a minute or two was literally without words. Unexpectedly the old man helped him.

“You’ve been taking a real interest, so your father tells me, in this bad business that’s got hold of Comerford.” He sounded, in his preoccupied way, as indulgent about it as all the rest, as if it were something quite unreal and childish, a kind of morbid game. But he was old, and one had to make all kinds of allowances.

“Well, I don’t know!” Dominic said uncomfortably. “It was just an accident that it happened to be Pussy and me who found him. And you can’t just forget about a thing like that. But there hasn’t been anything we could do.”

“Very few leads of any kind, more’s the pity,” agreed the old man. “For you, or your father, eh?—see, now, what’s your name? Dominic, is it?”

Never particularly pleased with this admission, the owner of the name sighed that indeed it was.

“Still, you’re an intelligent boy. I hear you’ve been trying, anyhow—doing your best. That night you saw the last of my lad—” The hand on Dominic’s shoulder tightened, just perceptibly, but the pressure sent a quaking shock through him; needlessly, for the old man’s voice was level, spiritless and resigned, and Charles relinquished already, because there was no help for it. Only the old or the cold can resist trying to help what cannot be helped. “That was the occasion of some amateur sleuthing, wasn’t it? Eh, Dominic? And got you into some trouble on the rebound, too, didn’t it? No more late nights for a while, eh?”

To be teased with laughter so mournfully soft was dreadful. Dominic felt himself crimsoning to his hair, and vowed to reproach his mother bitterly for talking to outsiders about what should have remained a private matter between them. It wasn’t like her, either; but that had been a night of near-panic among the households of Comerford, and no doubt all the women had compared notes in the greengrocer’s and the butcher’s afterwards. Maybe she hadn’t really told very much, only that he was out late poking his nose into his father’s business—she wouldn’t have to tell them how angry she had been, that would be clearly visible without any words. Still, he would make his protest. It would be foolish to let one’s parents get out of hand.

“It wasn’t a great success,” he said rather glumly.

“No, there’s been no luck for the police from the beginning. No luck for the village, one could say.” They had reached the gate of the rickyard, and here the hand left his shoulder, and the heavy feet pacing beside him halted. “So you didn’t find anything of interest. Pity, after such a gallant try!” The old, indulgent, sad smile dwelt thoughtfully upon Dominic’s face. He felt the fluttering excitement inside him mounting to speech, possessing his lips. And just for a moment of panic he had not the least idea exactly what he was going to say. Frightened of his instincts, trying with a too belated effort to control them into thoughts, and shape what was already shaped, he heard himself saying in a tight, small voice:

“I have got something now, though. I didn’t give it to my father, because—well, it may be nothing at all to do with it, and they’ve had so many false starts, and—well, he doesn’t like me butting in. So I thought, if I could find out first whether it really means anything, then he’d be pleased—and if it’s no good, well, I shan’t have caused him any trouble, or—or—”

“Or got into any yourself,” said Blunden, the smile deepening almost affectionately in his blue, bright eyes. “Well, maybe you’re wise. They’ve certainly got more than enough irrelevant nonsense to sort out, without our adding to it. You do that, Dom, my boy! You make sure of your evidence first!”

Dominic closed the gate between them, and hoisted the bag of pears into the hollow of his left arm. “Yes, sir, I think I will. Only I shall need somebody’s help. You see, it’s something I can’t understand myself, it’s—” He hesitated, flushed and smiled, resettling his satchel on his shoulders. “I say, sir, I’m awfully sorry! I didn’t mean to start worrying you with my affairs—and I expect it’s all tripe, really. I’d better get on now. Thanks awfully for the pears!”

“That’s all right, my boy! If there’s anything I can do—”

“Oh, I didn’t mean—I say, I am ashamed, bothering you, when—” He made to say more, then resolutely turned himself to the drive. “Thanks, sir, all the same! Good-bye!”

“Oh, well, it’s your pidgin! Good-bye, Dominic!”

Dominic went ten yards down the drive, gnawing his knuckles in extreme indecision, and then turned, and called after him: “I say, sir!”

The old man was only a few yards from the gate, moving heavily, and at the call he turned at once and came back. The boy was coming back, too, dragging his feet a little, still uncertain. Big hazel eyes, dark with solemnity, stared over the bitten fingers. “I say, sir, do you really think I might— If you honestly don’t mind—”

“Come on, now, better share it!” said Blunden kindly. “What is it that’s on your mind?”

“I haven’t got it here, but I could bring it to you. You see— can you read German, sir?”

They stared at each other over the gate with wide, conspiratorial eyes, half-hypnotizing each other. Then the old man said, not without some degree of natural bewilderment: “As a matter of fact, laddie, I can. But what’s that got to do with it?”

Dominic drew a deep breath, and came back through the gate.

Three

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It was not a nice day for a boy with his mind anywhere but on his work. To begin with, he was late, which made a bad start; and a part of himself, the part with the brains, had been left behind somewhere on the way, to haggle out a worse problem than ever cropped up in algebra. It was a pity that the headmaster now took Fourth-Form maths. He wasn’t a bad sort, and he wasn’t even in a bad temper that day, but he was a man who liked a little application even where there was no natural aptitude, and above all he couldn’t forgive lack of application where the natural aptitude did exist. Dominic suffered from the reputation of having a fairly liberal share of brains; it was usually what went on out of the classroom, rather than what happened in it, that got him into hot water. But today he couldn’t do anything right. He was inattentive, absentminded, dreaming in a distant and rather harassed world where a and b, x and y indicated people, not abstract quantities. In the middle of theorems, Dominic floated. Challenged, he gave frantic answers at random, dragging himself back in a