Terrific sensation! The headmaster gave a sort of strangled yelp of astonishment. Mr. Downing leaped in his chair. Mike’s eyes opened to their fullest extent.
“Adair!”
There was almost a wail in the headmaster’s voice. The situation had suddenly become too much for him. His brain was swimming. That Mike, despite the evidence against him, should be innocent, was curious, perhaps, but not particularly startling. But that Adair should inform him, two minutes after Mr. Downing’s announcement of Psmith’s confession, that Psmith, too, was guiltless, and that the real criminal was Dunster—it was this that made him feel that somebody, in the words of an American author, had played a mean trick on him, and substituted for his brain a side-order of cauliflower. Why Dunster, of all people? Dunster, who, he remembered dizzily, had left the school at Christmas. And why, if Dunster had really painted the dog, had Psmith asserted that he himself was the culprit? Why—why anything? He concentrated his mind on Adair as the only person who could save him from impending brain-fever.
“Adair!”
“Yes, sir?”
“What—_what_ do you mean?”
“It
“Smith told you?” said Mr. Downing.
“Yes, sir.”
“Did you say anything to him about your having received this letter from Dunster?”
“I gave him the letter to read, sir.”
“And what was his attitude when he had read it?”
“He laughed, sir.”
“
“Yes, sir. He rolled about.”
Mr. Downing snorted.
“But Adair,” said the headmaster, “I do not understand how this thing could have been done by Dunster. He has left the school.”
“He was down here for the Old Sedleighans’ match, sir. He stopped the night in the village.”
“And that was the night the—it happened?”
“Yes, sir.”
“I see. Well, I am glad to find that the blame cannot be attached to any boy in the school. I am sorry that it is even an Old Boy. It was a foolish, discreditable thing to have done, but it is not as bad as if any boy still at the school had broken out of his house at night to do it.”
“The sergeant,” said Mr. Downing, “told me that the boy he saw was attempting to enter Mr. Outwood’s house.”
“Another freak of Dunster’s, I suppose,” said the headmaster. “I shall write to him.”
“If it was really Dunster who painted my dog,” said Mr. Downing, “I cannot understand the part played by Smith in this affair. If he did not do it, what possible motive could he have had for coming to me of his own accord and deliberately confessing?”
“To be sure,” said the headmaster, pressing a bell. “It is certainly a thing that calls for explanation. Barlow,” he said, as the butler appeared, “kindly go across to Mr. Outwood’s house and inform Smith that I should like to see him.”
“If you please, sir, Mr. Smith is waiting in the hall.”
“In the hall!”
“Yes, sir. He arrived soon after Mr. Adair, sir, saying that he would wait, as you would probably wish to see him shortly.”
“H’m. Ask him to step up, Barlow.”
“Yes, sir.”
There followed one of the tensest “stage waits” of Mike’s experience. It was not long, but, while it lasted, the silence was quite solid. Nobody seemed to have anything to say, and there was not even a clock in the room to break the stillness with its ticking. A very faint drip-drip of rain could be heard outside the window.
Presently there was a sound of footsteps on the stairs. The door was opened.
“Mr. Smith, sir.”
The old Etonian entered as would the guest of the evening who is a few moments late for dinner. He was cheerful, but slightly deprecating. He gave the impression of one who, though sure of his welcome, feels that some slight apology is expected from him. He advanced into the room with a gentle half-smile which suggested good-will to all men.
“It is still raining,” he observed. “You wished to see me, sir?”
“Sit down, Smith.”
