Mike by Pelham Grenville Wodehouse (dar e dil novel online reading .TXT) 📖
- Author: Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
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Book online «Mike by Pelham Grenville Wodehouse (dar e dil novel online reading .TXT) 📖». Author Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
be his.
Note one: Interview the ground-man on this point.
In the second place Adair might have upset the tin and trodden in its
contents when he went to get his bicycle in order to fetch the doctor
for the suffering MacPhee. This was the more probable of the two
contingencies, for it would have been dark in the shed when Adair went
into it.
Note two Interview Adair as to whether he found, on returning to
the house, that there was paint on his boots.
Things were moving.
*
He resolved to take Adair first. He could get the ground-man’s address
from him.
Passing by the trees under whose shade Mike and Psmith and Dunster had
watched the match on the previous day, he came upon the Head of his
house in a deck-chair reading a book. A summer Sunday afternoon is the
time for reading in deck-chairs.
“Oh, Adair,” he said. “No, don’t get up. I merely wished to ask you if
you found any paint on your boots when you returned to the house last
night?”
“Paint, sir?” Adair was plainly puzzled. His book had been
interesting, and had driven the Sammy incident out of his head.
“I see somebody has spilt some paint on the floor of the bicycle shed.
You did not do that, I suppose, when you went to fetch your bicycle?”
“No, sir.”
“It is spilt all over the floor. I wondered whether you had happened
to tread in it. But you say you found no paint on your boots this
morning?”
“No, sir, my bicycle is always quite near the door of the shed. I
didn’t go into the shed at all.”
“I see. Quite so. Thank you, Adair. Oh, by the way, Adair, where does
Markby live?”
“I forget the name of his cottage, sir, but I could show you in a
second. It’s one of those cottages just past the school gates, on the
right as you turn out into the road. There are three in a row. His is
the first you come to. There’s a barn just before you get to them.”
“Thank you. I shall be able to find them. I should like to speak to
Markby for a moment on a small matter.”
A sharp walk took him to the cottages Adair had mentioned. He
rapped at the door of the first, and the ground-man came out in
his shirt-sleeves, blinking as if he had just woke up, as was
indeed the case.
“Oh, Markby!”
“Sir?”
“You remember that you were painting the scoring-box in the pavilion
last night after the match?”
“Yes, sir. It wanted a lick of paint bad. The young gentlemen will
scramble about and get through the window. Makes it look shabby, sir.
So I thought I’d better give it a coating so as to look ship-shape
when the Marylebone come down.”
“Just so. An excellent idea. Tell me, Markby, what did you do with the
pot of paint when you had finished?”
“Put it in the bicycle shed, sir.”
“On the floor?”
“On the floor, sir? No. On the shelf at the far end, with the can of
whitening what I use for marking out the wickets, sir.”
“Of course, yes. Quite so. Just as I thought.”
“Do you want it, sir?”
“No, thank you, Markby, no, thank you. The fact is, somebody who had
no business to do so has moved the pot of paint from the shelf to the
floor, with the result that it has been kicked over, and spilt. You
had better get some more to-morrow. Thank you, Markby. That is all I
wished to know.”
Mr. Downing walked back to the school thoroughly excited. He was hot
on the scent now. The only other possible theories had been tested and
successfully exploded. The thing had become simple to a degree. All he
had to do was to go to Mr. Outwood’s house—the idea of searching a
fellow-master’s house did not appear to him at all a delicate task;
somehow one grew unconsciously to feel that Mr. Outwood did not really
exist as a man capable of resenting liberties—find the paint-splashed
boot, ascertain its owner, and denounce him to the headmaster.
Picture, Blue Fire and “God Save the King” by the full strength of the
company. There could be no doubt that a paint-splashed boot must be in
Mr. Outwood’s house somewhere. A boy cannot tread in a pool of paint
without showing some signs of having done so. It was Sunday, too, so
that the boot would not yet have been cleaned. Yoicks! Also Tally-ho!
This really was beginning to be something like business.
Regardless of the heat, the sleuth-hound hurried across to Outwood’s
as fast as he could walk.
A CHECK
The only two members of the house not out in the grounds when he
arrived were Mike and Psmith. They were standing on the gravel drive
in front of the boys’ entrance. Mike had a deck-chair in one hand and
a book in the other. Psmith—for even the greatest minds will
sometimes unbend—was playing diabolo. That is to say, he was trying
without success to raise the spool from the ground.
“There’s a kid in France,” said Mike disparagingly, as the bobbin
rolled off the string for the fourth time, “who can do it three
thousand seven hundred and something times.”
Psmith smoothed a crease out of his waistcoat and tried again. He had
just succeeded in getting the thing to spin when Mr. Downing arrived.
The sound of his footsteps disturbed Psmith and brought the effort to
nothing.
“Enough of this spoolery,” said he, flinging the sticks through the
open window of the senior day-room. “I was an ass ever to try it. The
philosophical mind needs complete repose in its hours of leisure.
Hullo!”
He stared after the sleuth-hound, who had just entered the house.
“What the dickens,” said Mike, “does he mean by barging in as if he’d
bought the place?”
“Comrade Downing looks pleased with himself. What brings him round in
this direction, I wonder! Still, no matter. The few articles which he
may sneak from our study are of inconsiderable value. He is welcome to
them. Do you feel inclined to wait awhile till I have fetched a chair
and book?”
“I’ll be going on. I shall be under the trees at the far end of the
ground.”
“‘Tis well. I will be with you in about two ticks.”
Mike walked on towards the field, and Psmith, strolling upstairs to
fetch his novel, found Mr. Downing standing in the passage with the
air of one who has lost his bearings.
“A warm afternoon, sir,” murmured Psmith courteously, as he passed.
“Er—Smith!”
“Sir?”
“I—er—wish to go round the dormitories.”
It was Psmith’s guiding rule in life never to be surprised at
anything, so he merely inclined his head gracefully, and said nothing.
“I should be glad if you would fetch the keys and show me where the
rooms are.”
“With acute pleasure, sir,” said Psmith. “Or shall I fetch Mr.
Outwood, sir?”
“Do as I tell you, Smith,” snapped Mr. Downing.
Psmith said no more, but went down to the matron’s room. The matron
being out, he abstracted the bunch of keys from her table and rejoined
the master.
“Shall I lead the way, sir?” he asked.
Mr. Downing nodded.
“Here, sir,” said Psmith, opening a door, “we have Barnes’ dormitory.
An airy room, constructed on the soundest hygienic principles. Each
boy, I understand, has quite a considerable number of cubic feet of
air all to himself. It is Mr. Outwood’s boast that no boy has ever
asked for a cubic foot of air in vain. He argues justly–-”
He broke off abruptly and began to watch the other’s manoeuvres in
silence. Mr. Downing was peering rapidly beneath each bed in turn.
“Are you looking for Barnes, sir?” inquired Psmith politely. “I think
he’s out in the field.”
Mr. Downing rose, having examined the last bed, crimson in the face
with the exercise.
“Show me the next dormitory, Smith,” he said, panting slightly.
“This,” said Psmith, opening the next door and sinking his voice to an
awed whisper, “is where I sleep!”
Mr. Downing glanced swiftly beneath the three beds. “Excuse me, sir,”
said Psmith, “but are we chasing anything?”
“Be good enough, Smith,” said Mr. Downing with asperity, “to keep your
remarks to yourself.”
“I was only wondering, sir. Shall I show you the next in order?”
“Certainly.”
They moved on up the passage.
Drawing blank at the last dormitory, Mr. Downing paused, baffled.
Psmith waited patiently by. An idea struck the master.
“The studies, Smith,” he cried.
“Aha!” said Psmith. “I beg your pardon, sir. The observation escaped
me unawares. The frenzy of the chase is beginning to enter into my
blood. Here we have–-”
Mr. Downing stopped short.
“Is this impertinence studied, Smith?”
“Ferguson’s study, sir? No, sir. That’s further down the passage. This
is Barnes’.”
Mr. Downing looked at him closely. Psmith’s face was wooden in its
gravity. The master snorted suspiciously, then moved on.
“Whose is this?” he asked, rapping a door.
“This, sir, is mine and Jackson’s.”
“What! Have you a study? You are low down in the school for it.”
“I think, sir, that Mr. Outwood gave it us rather as a testimonial to
our general worth than to our proficiency in school-work.”
Mr. Downing raked the room with a keen eye. The absence of bars from
the window attracted his attention.
“Have you no bars to your windows here, such as there are in my
house?”
“There appears to be no bar, sir,” said Psmith, putting up his
eyeglass.
Mr Downing was leaning out of the window.
“A lovely view, is it not, sir?” said Psmith. “The trees, the field,
the distant hills–-”
Mr. Downing suddenly started. His eye had been caught by the water-pipe
at the side of the window. The boy whom Sergeant Collard had seen
climbing the pipe must have been making for this study.
He spun round and met Psmith’s blandly inquiring gaze. He looked at
Psmith carefully for a moment. No. The boy he had chased last night
had not been Psmith. That exquisite’s figure and general appearance
were unmistakable, even in the dusk.
“Whom did you say you shared this study with, Smith?”
“Jackson, sir. The cricketer.”
“Never mind about his cricket, Smith,” said Mr. Downing with
irritation.
“No, sir.”
“He is the only other occupant of the room?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Nobody else comes into it?”
“If they do, they go out extremely quickly, sir.”
“Ah! Thank you, Smith.”
“Not at all, sir.”
Mr. Downing pondered. Jackson! The boy bore him a grudge. The boy was
precisely the sort of boy to revenge himself by painting the dog
Sammy. And, gadzooks! The boy whom he had pursued last night had been
just about Jackson’s size and build!
Mr. Downing was as firmly convinced at that moment that Mike’s had
been the hand to wield the paint-brush as he had ever been of anything
in his life.
“Smith!” he said excitedly.
“On the spot, sir,” said Psmith affably.
“Where are Jackson’s boots?”
There are moments when the giddy excitement of being right on the
trail causes the amateur (or Watsonian) detective
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