The Pothunters

by P. G. Wodehouse

  [9]

  ENTER THE SLEUTH-HOUND

  'I'm awfully sorry,' he said, disentangling himself carefully from theheap. 'I hope you're not hurt.'

  The man did not reply for a moment. He appeared to be laying thequestion before himself as an impartial judge, as who should say: 'Nowtell me candidly, _are_ you hurt? Speak freely and without bias.'

  'No,' he said at last, feeling his left leg as if he were notabsolutely easy in his mind about that, 'no, not hurt, thank you. Notmuch, that is,' he added with the air of one who thinks it best toqualify too positive a statement. 'Left leg. Shin. Slight bruise.Nothing to signify.'

  'It was a rotten thing to do, jumping over into the road like that,'said Barrett. 'Didn't remember there'd be such a big drop.'

  'My fault in a way,' said the man. 'Riding wrong side of road. Out fora run?'

  'More or less.'

  'Excellent thing.'

  'Yes.'

  It occurred to Barrett that it was only due to the man on whom he hadbeen rolling to tell him the true facts of the case. Besides, it mightdo something towards removing the impression which must, he felt, beforming in the stranger's mind that he was mad.

  'You see,' he said, in a burst of confidence, 'it was rather a closething. There were some keepers after me.'

  'Ah!' said the man. 'Thought so. Trespassing?'

  'Yes.'

  'Ah. Keepers don't like trespassers. Curious thing--don't know if itever occurred to you--if there were no trespassers, there would be noneed for keepers. To their interest, then, to encourage trespassers.But do they?'

  Barrett admitted that they did not very conspicuously.

  'No. Same with all professions. Not poaching, I suppose?'

  'Rather not. I was after eggs. By Jove, that reminds me.' He felt inhis pocket for the pill-boxes. Could they have survived the stormytimes through which they had been passing? He heaved a sigh of reliefas he saw that the eggs were uninjured. He was so intent on examiningthem that he missed the stranger's next remark.

  'Sorry. What? I didn't hear.'

  'Asked if I was going right for St Austin's School.'

  'College!' said Barrett with a convulsive shudder. The most deadlyerror mortal man can make, with the exception of calling a school acollege, is to call a college a school.

  'College!' said the man. 'Is this the road?'

  'Yes. You can't miss it. I'm going there myself. It's only about amile.'

  'Ah,' said the man, with a touch of satisfaction in his voice. 'Goingthere yourself, are you? Perhaps you're one of the scholars?'

  'Not much,' said Barrett, 'ask our form-beak if I'm a scholar. Oh. Isee. Yes, I'm there all right.'

  Barrett was a little puzzled as to how to class his companion. No oldpublic school man would talk of scholars. And yet he was emphaticallynot a bargee. Barrett set him down as a sort of superior tourist, aHenry as opposed to an 'Arry.

  'Been bit of a disturbance there, hasn't there? Cricket pavilion.Cups.'

  'Rather. But how on earth--'

  'How on earth did I get to hear of it, you were going to say. Well, noneed to conceal anything. Fact is, down here to look into the matter.Detective. Name, Roberts, Scotland Yard. Now we know each other, and ifyou can tell me one or two things about this burglary, it would be agreat help to me, and I should be very much obliged.'

  Barrett had heard that a detective was coming down to look into theaffair of the cups. His position was rather a difficult one. In a senseit was simple enough. He had found the cups. He could (keeperspermitting) go and fetch them now, and there would--No. There would_not_ be an end of the matter. It would be very pleasant,exceedingly pleasant, to go to the Headmaster and the detective, andpresent the cups to them with a 'Bless you, my children' air. TheHeadmaster would say, 'Barrett, you're a marvel. How can I thank yousufficiently?' while the detective would observe that he had been inthe profession over twenty years, but never had he seen so remarkablean exhibition of sagacity and acumen as this. That, at least, was whatought to take place. But Barrett's experience of life, short as it was,had taught him the difference between the ideal and the real. The real,he suspected, would in this case be painful. Certain facts would cometo light. When had he found the cups? About four in the afternoon? Oh.Roll-call took place at four in the afternoon. How came it that he wasnot at roll-call? Furthermore, how came it that he was marked on thelist as having answered his name at that ceremony? Where had he foundthe cups? In a hollow tree? Just so. Where was the hollow tree? In SirAlfred Venner's woods. Did he know that Sir Alfred Venner's woods wereout of bounds? Did he know that, in consequence of complaints from SirAlfred Venner, Sir Alfred Venner's woods were more out of bounds thanany other out of bounds woods in the entire county that did _not_belong to Sir Alfred Venner? He did? Ah! No, the word for his guidancein this emergency, he felt instinctively, was 'mum'. Time might providehim with a solution. He might, for instance, abstract the cups secretlyfrom their resting-place, place them in the middle of the footballfield, and find them there dramatically after morning school. Or hemight reveal his secret from the carriage window as his train moved outof the station on the first day of the holidays. There was certain tobe some way out of the difficulty. But for the present, silence.

  He answered his companion's questions freely, however. Of the actualburglary he knew no more than any other member of the School,considerably less, indeed, than Jim Thomson, of Merevale's, at presentstaggering under the weight of a secret even more gigantic thanBarrett's own. In return for his information he extracted sundryreminiscences. The scar on the detective's cheekbone, barely visiblenow, was the mark of a bullet, which a certain burglar, named,singularly enough, Roberts, had fired at him from a distance of fiveyards. The gentleman in question, who, the detective hastened to informBarrett, was no relation of his, though owning the same name, happenedto be a poor marksman and only scored a bad outer, assuming thedetective's face to have been the bull. He also turned up his cuff toshow a larger scar. This was another testimonial from the burglarworld. A Kensington practitioner had had the bad taste to bite off apiece of that part of the detective. In short, Barrett enlarged hisknowledge of the seamy side of things considerably in the mile of roadwhich had to be traversed before St Austin's appeared in sight. The twoparted at the big gates, Barrett going in the direction of Philpott's,the detective wheeling his machine towards the porter's lodge.

  Barrett's condition when he turned in at Philpott's door was critical.He was so inflated with news that any attempt to keep it in might haveserious results. Certainly he could not sleep that night in such abomb-like state.

  It was thus that he broke in upon Reade. Reade had passed an absurdlyuseless afternoon. He had not stirred from the study. For all that itwould have mattered to him, it might have been raining hard the wholeafternoon, instead of being, as it had been, the finest afternoon ofthe whole term. In a word, and not to put too fine a point on thematter, he had been frousting, and consequently was feeling dull andsleepy, and generally under-vitalized and futile. Barrett entered thestudy with a rush, and was carried away by excitement to such an extentthat he addressed Reade as if the deadly feud between them not only didnot exist, but never had existed.

  'I say, Reade. Heave that beastly book away. My aunt, I have had anafternoon of it.'

  'Oh?' said Reade, politely, 'where did you go?'

  'After eggs in the Dingle.'

  Reade was fairly startled out of his dignified reserve. For the firsttime since they had had their little difference, he addressed Barrettin a sensible manner.

  'You idiot!' he said.

  'Don't see it. The Dingle's just the place to spend a happy day. LikeRosherville. Jove, it's worth going there. You should see the birds.Place is black with 'em.'

  'How about keepers? See any?'

  'Did I not! Three of them chased me like good 'uns all over the place.'

  'You got away all right, though.'

  'Only just. I say, do you know what happened? You know that rotterPlunkett.
Used to be a day boy. Head of Ward's now. Wears specs.'

  'Yes?'

  'Well, just as I was almost out of the wood, I jumped a bush and landedright on top of him. The man was asleep or something. Fancy choosingthe Dingle of all places to sleep in, where you can't go a couple ofyards without running into a keeper! He hadn't even the sense to run. Iyelled to him to look out, and then I hooked it myself. And then thenearest keeper, who'd just come down a buster over a rabbit-hole,sailed in and had him. I couldn't do anything, of course.'

  'Jove, there'll be a fair-sized row about this. The Old Man's on totrespassing like tar. I say, think Plunkett'll say anything about youbeing there too?'

  'Shouldn't think so. For one thing I don't think he recognized me.Probably doesn't know me by sight, and he was fast asleep, too. No, Ifancy I'm all right.'

  'Well, it was a jolly narrow shave. Anything else happen?'

  'Anything else! Just a bit. That's to say, no, nothing much else. No.'

  'Now then,' said Reade, briskly. 'None of your beastly mysteries. Outwith it.'

  'Look here, swear you'll keep it dark?'

  'Of course I will.'

  'On your word of honour?'

  'If you think--' began Reade in an offended voice.

  'No, it's all right. Don't get shirty. The thing is, though, it's sofrightfully important to keep it dark.'

  'Well? Buck up.'

  'Well, you needn't believe me, of course, but I've found the pots.'

  Reade gasped.

  'What!' he cried. 'The pot for the quarter?'

  'And the one for the hundred yards. Both of them. It's a fact.'

  'But where? How? What have you done with them?'

  Barrett unfolded his tale concisely.

  'You see,' he concluded, 'what a hole I'm in. I can't tell the Old Mananything about it, or I get booked for cutting roll-call, and going outof bounds. And then, while I'm waiting and wondering what to do, andall that, the thief, whoever he is, will most likely go off with thepots. What do you think I ought to do?'

  Reade perpended.

  'Well,' he said, 'all you can do is to lie low and trust to luck, asfar as I can see. Besides, there's one consolation. This Plunkettbusiness'll make every keeper in the Dingle twice as keen aftertrespassers. So the pot man won't get a chance of getting the thingsaway.'

  'Yes, there's something in that,' admitted Barrett.

  'It's all you can do,' said Reade.

  'Yes. Unless I wrote an anonymous letter to the Old Man explainingthings. How would that do?'

  'Do for you, probably. Anonymous letters always get traced to theperson who wrote them. Or pretty nearly always. No, you simply lielow.'

  'Right,' said Barrett, 'I will.'

  The process of concealing one's superior knowledge is very irritating.So irritating, indeed, that very few people do it. Barrett, however,was obliged to by necessity. He had a good chance of displaying hisabilities in that direction when he met Grey the next morning.

  'Hullo,' said Grey, 'have a good time yesterday?'

  'Not bad. I've got an egg for you.'

  'Good man. What sort?'

  'Hanged if I know. I know you haven't got it, though.'

  'Thanks awfully. See anything of the million keepers?'

  'Heard them oftener than I saw them.'

  'They didn't book you?'

  'Rather fancy one of them saw me, but I got away all right.'

  'Find the place pretty lively?'

  'Pretty fair.'

  'Stay there long?'

  'Not very.'

  'No. Thought you wouldn't. What do you say to a small ice? There's timebefore school.'

  'Thanks. Are you flush?'

  'Flush isn't the word for it. I'm a plutocrat.'

  'Uncle came out fairly strong then?'

  'Rather. To the tune of one sovereign, cash. He's a jolly good sort, myuncle.'

  'So it seems,' said Barrett.

  The meeting then adjourned to the School shop, Barrett enjoying his iceall the more for the thought that his secret still was a secret. Athing which it would in all probability have ceased to be, had he beenrash enough to confide it to K. St H. Grey, who, whatever his othermerits, was very far from being the safest sort of confidant. His usualpractice was to speak first, and to think, if at all, afterwards.