The headmaster was over at the school, instructing the Sixth Form in Greek Composition: and he was obliged to wait, chafing, until twelve-thirty, when the bell rang for the halfway halt in the day’s work. He stood at the study window, watching with ill-controlled impatience, and presently the headmaster appeared, walking heavily like one on whose mind there is a weight.
“Well?” cried the bishop, as he entered the study.
The headmaster doffed his cap and gown, and sank limply into a chair.
“I cannot conceive,” he groaned, “what madness had me in its grip last night.”
The bishop was shaken, but he could not countenance such an attitude as this.
“I do not understand you, Headmaster,” he said stiffly. “It was our simple duty, as a protest against the undue exaltation of one whom we both know to have been a most unpleasant schoolmate, to paint that statue.”
“And I suppose it was your duty to leave your hat on its head?”
“Now there,” said the bishop, “I may possibly have gone a little too far.” He coughed. “Has that perhaps somewhat ill-considered action led to the harbouring of suspicions by those in authority?”
“They don’t know what to think.”
“What is the view of the Board of Governors?”
“They insist on my finding the culprit. Should I fail to do so, they hint at the gravest consequences.”
“You mean they will deprive you of your headmastership?”
“That is what they imply. I shall be asked to hand in my resignation. And, if that happens, bim goes my chance of ever being a bishop.”
“Well, it’s not all jam being a bishop. You wouldn’t enjoy it, Catsmeat.”
“All very well for you to talk, Boko. You got me into this, you silly ass.”
“I like that! You were just as keen on it as I was.”
“You suggested it.”
“Well, you jumped at the suggestion.”
The two men had faced each other heatedly, and for a moment it seemed as if there was to be a serious falling-out. Then the bishop recovered himself.
“Catsmeat,” he said, with that wonderful smile of his, taking the other’s hand, “this is unworthy of us. We must not quarrel. We must put our heads together and see if there is not some avenue of escape from the unfortunate position in which, however creditable our motives, we appear to have placed ourselves. How would it be—?”
“I thought of that,” said the headmaster. “It wouldn’t do a bit of good. Of course, we might—”
“No, that’s no use, either,” said the bishop.
They sat for a while in meditative silence. And, as they sat, the door opened.
“General Bloodenough,” announced the butler.
“Oh, that I had wings like a dove. Psalm 45:6,” muttered the bishop.
His desire to be wafted from that spot with all available speed could hardly be considered unreasonable. General Sir Hector Bloodenough, V.C., K.C.I.E., M.V.O., on retiring from the army, had been for many years, until his final return to England, in charge of the Secret Service in Western Africa, where his unerring acumen had won for him from the natives the soubriquet of Wah-nah-B’gosh-B’jingo—which, freely translated, means Big Chief Who Can See Through The Hole In A Doughnut.
A man impossible to deceive. The last man the bishop would have wished to be conducting the present investigations.
The general stalked into the room. He had keen blue eyes, topped by bushy white eyebrows: and the bishop found his gaze far too piercing to be agreeable.
“Bad business, this,” he said. “Bad business. Bad business.”
“It is, indeed,” faltered the bishop.
“Shocking bad business. Shocking. Shocking. Do you know what we found on the head of that statue, eh? that statue, that statue? Your hat, bishop. Your hat. Your hat.”
The bishop made an attempt to rally. His mind was in a whirl, for the general’s habit of repeating everything three times had the effect on him of making his last night’s escapade seem three times as bad. He now saw himself on the verge of standing convicted of having painted three statues with three pots of pink paint, and of having placed on the head of each one of a trio of shovel-hats. But he was a strong man, and he did his best.
“You say my hat?” he retorted with spirit. “How do you know it was my hat? There may have been hundreds of bishops dodging about the school grounds last night.”
“Got your name in it. Your name. Your name.”
The bishop clutched at the arm of the chair in which he sat. The general’s eyes were piercing him through and through, and every moment he felt more like a sheep that has had the misfortune to encounter a potted meat manufacturer. He was on the point of protesting that the writing in the hat was probably a forgery, when there was a tap at the door.
“Come in,” cried the headmaster, who had been cowering in his seat.
There entered a small boy in an Eton suit, whose face seemed to the bishop vaguely familiar. It was a face that closely resembled a ripe tomato with a nose stuck on it, but that was not what had struck the bishop. It was of something other than tomatoes that this lad reminded him.
“Sir, please, sir,” said the boy.
“Yes, yes, yes,” said General Bloodenough testily. “Run away, my boy, run away, run away. Can’t you see we’re busy?”
“But, sir, please, sir, it’s about the statue.”
“What about the statue? What about it? What about it?”
“Sir, please, sir, it was me.”
“What! What! What! What! What!”
The bishop, the general, and the headmaster had spoken simultaneously: and the “Whats’ had been distributed as follows:
| The Bishop | 1 |
| The General | 3 |
| The Headmaster | 1 |
making five in all. Having uttered these ejaculations, they sat staring at the boy, who turned a brighter vermilion.
“What are you saying?” cried the headmaster. “You painted
