“… nine … ten.”
The timekeeper closed his watch.
“Graham wins,” said the referee, “look after that man there.”
II
Thieves Break in and Steal
It was always the custom for such Austinians as went up to represent the School at the annual competition to stop the night in the town. It was not, therefore, till just before breakfast on the following day that Tony arrived back at his House. The boarding houses at St. Austin’s formed a fringe to the School grounds. The two largest were the School House and Merevale’s. Tony was at Merevale’s. He was walking up from the station with Welch, another member of Merevale’s, who had been up to Aldershot as a fencer, when, at the entrance to the School grounds, he fell in with Robinson, his fag. Robinson was supposed by many (including himself) to be a very warm man for the Junior Quarter, which was a handicap race, especially as an injudicious Sports Committee had given him ten yards’ start on Simpson, whom he would have backed himself to beat, even if the positions had been reversed. Being a wise youth, however, and knowing that the best of runners may fail through under-training, he had for the last week or so been going in for a steady course of over-training, getting up in the small hours and going for before breakfast spins round the track on a glass of milk and a piece of bread. Master R. Robinson was nothing if not thorough in matters of this kind.
But today things of greater moment than the Sports occupied his mind. He had news. He had great news. He was bursting with news, and he hailed the approach of Tony and Welch with pleasure. With any other leading light of the School he might have felt less at ease, but with Tony it was different. When you have underdone a fellow’s eggs and overdone his toast and eaten the remainder for a term or two, you begin to feel that mere social distinctions and differences of age no longer form a barrier.
Besides, he had news which was absolutely fresh, news to which no one could say pityingly: “What! Have you only just heard that!”
“Hullo, Graham,” he said. “Have you come back?” Tony admitted that he had. “Jolly good for getting the Middles.” (A telegram had, of course, preceded Tony.) “I say, Graham, do you know what’s happened? There’ll be an awful row about it. Someone’s been and broken into the Pav.”
“Rot! How do you know?”
“There’s a pane taken clean out. I booked it in a second as I was going past to the track.”
“Which room?”
“First Fifteen. The window facing away from the Houses.”
“That’s rum,” said Welch. “Wonder what a burglar wanted in the first room. Isn’t even a hairbrush there generally.”
Robinson’s eyes dilated with honest pride. This was good. This was better than he had looked for. Not only were they unaware of the burglary, but they had not even an idea as to the recent event which had made the first room so fit a hunting ground for the burgling industry. There are few pleasures keener than the pleasure of telling somebody something he didn’t know before.
“Great Scott,” he remarked, “haven’t you heard? No, of course you went up to Aldershot before they did it. By Jove.”
“Did what?”
“Why, they shunted all the Sports prizes from the board room to the Pav. and shot ’em into the first room. I don’t suppose there’s one left now. I should like to see the Old Man’s face when he hears about it. Good mind to go and tell him now, only he’d have a fit. Jolly exciting, though, isn’t it?”
“Well,” said Tony, “of all the absolutely idiotic things to do! Fancy putting—there must have been at least fifty pounds’ worth of silver and things. Fancy going and leaving all that overnight in the Pav.!”
“Rotten!” agreed Welch. “Wonder whose idea it was.”
“Look here, Robinson,” said Tony, “you’d better buck up and change, or you’ll be late for brekker. Come on, Welch, we’ll go and inspect the scene of battle.”
Robinson trotted off, and Welch and Tony made their way to the Pavilion. There, sure enough, was the window, or rather the absence of window. A pane had been neatly removed, evidently in the orthodox way by means of a diamond.
“May as well climb up and see if there’s anything to be seen,” said Welch.
“All right,” said Tony, “give us a leg up. Right ho. By Jove, I’m stiff.”
“See anything?”
“No. There’s a cloth sort of thing covering what I suppose are the prizes. I see how the chap, whoever he was, got in. You’ve only got to break the window, draw a couple of bolts, and there you are. Shall I go in and investigate?”
“Better not. It’s rather the thing, I fancy, in these sorts of cases, to leave everything just as it is.”
“Rum business,” said Tony, as he rejoined Welch on terra firma. “Wonder if they’ll catch the chap. We’d better be getting back to the House now. It struck the quarter years ago.”
When Tony, some twenty minutes later, shook off the admiring crowd who wanted a full description of yesterday’s proceedings, and reached his study, he found there James Thomson, brother to Allen Thomson, as the playbills say. Jim was looking worried. Tony had noticed it during breakfast, and had
