“Simms.”
“A dangerous man. Sinister to the core.”
“And Green, Berkeley, Hanson, and Daubeny.”
“Every one of them well known to the police. Why, the place is a perfect Thieves’ Kitchen. Look here, we must act swiftly, young Pillingshot. This is a black business. We’ll take them in alphabetical order. Run and fetch Berkeley.”
Berkeley, interrupted in a game of Halma, came unwillingly.
“Now then, Pillingshot, put your questions,” said Scott. “This is a black business, Berkeley. Young Evans has lost a sovereign–-“
“If you think I’ve taken his beastly quid–-!” said Berkeley warmly.
“Make a note that, on being questioned, the man Berkeley exhibited suspicious emotion. Go on. Jam it down.”
Pillingshot reluctantly entered the statement under Berkeley’s indignant gaze.
“Now then, carry on.”
“You know, it’s all rot,” protested Pillingshot. “I never said Berkeley had anything to do with it.”
“Never mind. Ask him what his movements were on the night of the—what was yesterday?—on the night of the sixteenth of July.”
Pillingshot put the question nervously.
“I was in bed, of course, you silly ass.”
“Were you asleep?” inquired Scott.
“Of course I was.”
“Then how do you know what you were doing? Pillingshot, make a note of the fact that the man Berkeley’s statement was confused and contradictory. It’s a clue. Work on it. Who’s next? Daubeny. Berkeley, send Daubeny up here.”
“All right, Pillingshot, you wait,” was Berkeley’s exit speech.
Daubeny, when examined, exhibited the same suspicious emotion that Berkeley had shown; and Hanson, Simms, and Green behaved in a precisely similar manner.
“This,” said Scott, “somewhat complicates the case. We must have further clues. You’d better pop off now, Pillingshot. I’ve got a Latin Prose to do. Bring me reports of your progress daily, and don’t overlook the importance of trifles. Why, in ‘Silver Blaze’ it was a burnt match that first put Holmes on the scent.”
Entering the junior day-room with some apprehension, the sleuth-hound found an excited gathering of suspects waiting to interview him.
One sentiment animated the meeting. Each of the five wanted to know what Pillingshot meant by it.
“What’s the row?” queried interested spectators, rallying round.
“That cad Pillingshot’s been accusing us of bagging Evans’ quid.”
“What’s Scott got to do with it?” inquired one of the spectators.
Pillingshot explained his position.
“All the same,” said Daubeny, “you needn’t have dragged us into it.”
“I couldn’t help it. He made me.”
“Awful ass, Scott,” admitted Green.
Pillingshot welcomed this sign that the focus of popular indignation was being shifted.
“Shoving himself into other people’s business,” grumbled Pillingshot.
“Trying to be funny,” Berkeley summed up.
“Rotten at cricket, too.”
“Can’t play a yorker for nuts.”
“See him drop that sitter on Saturday?”
So that was all right. As far as the junior day-room was concerned, Pillingshot felt himself vindicated.
But his employer was less easily satisfied. Pillingshot had hoped that by the next day he would have forgotten the subject. But, when he went into the study to get tea ready, up it came again.
“Any clues yet, Pillingshot?”
Pillingshot had to admit that there were none.
“Hullo, this won’t do. You must bustle about. You must get your nose to the trail. Have you cross-examined Trent yet? No? Well, there you are, then. Nip off and do it now.”
“But, I say, Scott! He’s a prefect!”
“In the dictionary of crime,” said Scott sententiously, “there is no such word as prefect. All are alike. Go and take down Trent’s statement.”
To tax a prefect with having stolen a sovereign was a task at which Pillingshot’s imagination boggled. He went
