_
CHAPTER XIX - THE MAYOR'S VISIT
School prefects at Wrykyn did weekly essays for the headmaster. Those
who had got their scholarships at the 'Varsity, or who were going up in
the following year, used to take their essays to him after school and
read them to him--an unpopular and nerve-destroying practice, akin to
suicide. Trevor had got his scholarship in the previous November. He
was due at the headmaster's private house at six o'clock on the present
Tuesday. He was looking forward to the ordeal not without apprehension.
The essay subject this week had been "One man's meat is another man's
poison", and Clowes, whose idea of English Essay was that it should be
a medium for intempestive frivolity, had insisted on his beginning
with, "While I cannot conscientiously go so far as to say that one
man's meat is another man's poison, yet I am certainly of opinion that
what is highly beneficial to one man may, on the other hand, to another
man, differently constituted, be extremely deleterious, and, indeed,
absolutely fatal."
Trevor was not at all sure how the headmaster would take it. But Clowes
had seemed so cut up at his suggestion that it had better be omitted,
that he had allowed it to stand.
He was putting the final polish on this gem of English literature at
half-past five, when Milton came in.
"Busy?" said Milton.
Trevor said he would be through in a minute.
Milton took a chair, and waited.
Trevor scratched out two words and substituted two others, made a
couple of picturesque blots, and, laying down his pen, announced that
he had finished.
"What's up?" he said.
"It's about the League," said Milton.
"Found out anything?"
"Not anything much. But I've been making inquiries. You remember I
asked you to let me look at those letters of yours?"
Trevor nodded. This had happened on the Sunday of that week.
"Well, I wanted to look at the post-marks."
"By Jove, I never thought of that."
Milton continued with the business-like air of the detective who
explains in the last chapter of the book how he did it.
"I found, as I thought, that both letters came from the same place."
Trevor pulled out the letters in question. "So they do," he said,
"Chesterton."
"Do you know Chesterton?" asked Milton.
"Only by name."
"It's a small hamlet about two miles from here across the downs.
There's only one shop in the place, which acts as post-office and
tobacconist and everything else. I thought that if I went there and
asked about those letters, they might remember who it was that sent
them, if I showed them a photograph."
"By Jove," said Trevor, "of course! Did you? What happened?"
"I went there yesterday afternoon. I took about half-a-dozen
photographs of various chaps, including Rand-Brown."
"But wait a bit. If Chesterton's two miles off, Rand-Brown couldn't
have sent the letters. He wouldn't have the time after school. He was
on the grounds both the afternoons before I got the letters."
"I know," said Milton; "I didn't think of that at the time."
"Well?"
"One of the points about the Chesterton post-office is that there's no
letter-box outside. You have to go into the shop and hand anything you
want to post across the counter. I thought this was a tremendous score
for me. I thought they would be bound to remember who handed in the
letters. There can't be many at a place like that."
"Did they remember?"
"They remembered the letters being given in distinctly, but as for
knowing anything beyond that, they were simply futile. There was an
old woman in the shop, aged about three hundred and ten, I should
think. I shouldn't say she had ever been very intelligent, but now
she simply gibbered. I started off by laying out a shilling on some
poisonous-looking sweets. I gave the lot to a village kid when I got
out. I hope they didn't kill him. Then, having scattered ground-bait
in that way, I lugged out the photographs, mentioned the letters and
the date they had been sent, and asked her to weigh in and identify
the sender."
"Did she?"
"My dear chap, she identified them all, one after the other. The first
was one of Clowes. She was prepared to swear on oath that that was the
chap who had sent the letters. Then I shot a photograph of you across
the counter, and doubts began to creep in. She said she was certain it
was one of those two 'la-ads', but couldn't quite say which. To keep
her amused I fired in photograph number three--Allardyce's. She
identified that, too. At the end of ten minutes she was pretty sure
that it was one of the six--the other three were Paget, Clephane, and
Rand-Brown--but she was not going to bind herself down to any
particular one. As I had come to the end of my stock of photographs,
and was getting a bit sick of the game, I got up to go, when in came
another ornament of Chesterton from a room at the back of the shop. He
was quite a kid, not more than a hundred and fifty at the outside, so,
as a last chance, I tackled him on the subject. He looked at the
photographs for about half an hour, mumbling something about it not
being 'thiccy 'un' or 'that 'un', or 'that 'ere tother 'un', until I
began to feel I'd had enough of it. Then it came out that the real chap
who had sent the letters was a 'la-ad' with light hair, not so big as
me--"
"That doesn't help us much," said Trevor.
"--And a 'prarper little gennlemun'. So all we've got to do is to look
for some young duke of polished manners and exterior, with a thatch of
light hair."
"There are three hundred and sixty-seven fellows with light hair in the
school," said Trevor, calmly.
"Thought it was three hundred and sixty-eight myself," said Milton,
"but I may be wrong. Anyhow, there you have the results of my
investigations. If you can make anything out of them, you're welcome to
it. Good-bye."
"Half a second," said Trevor, as he got up; "had the fellow a cap of
any sort?"
"No. Bareheaded. You wouldn't expect him to give himself away by
wearing a house-cap?"
Trevor went over to the headmaster's revolving this discovery in his
mind. It was not much of a clue, but the smallest clue is better than
nothing. To find out that the sender of the League letters had fair hair
narrowed the search down a little. It cleared the more raven-locked
members of the school, at any rate. Besides, by combining his information
with Milton's, the search might be still further narrowed down. He knew
that the polite letter-writer must be either in Seymour's or in
Donaldson's. The number of fair-haired youths in the two houses was
not excessive. Indeed, at the moment he could not recall any; which
rather complicated matters.
He arrived at the headmaster's door, and knocked. He was shown into a
room at the side of the hall, near the door. The butler informed him
that the headmaster was engaged at present. Trevor, who knew the butler
slightly through having constantly been to see the headmaster on
business _via_ the front door, asked who was there.
"Sir Eustace Briggs," said the butler, and disappeared in the direction
of his lair beyond the green baize partition at the end of the hall.
Trevor went into the room, which was a sort of spare study, and sat
down, wondering what had brought the mayor of Wrykyn to see the
headmaster at this advanced hour.
A quarter of an hour later the sound of voices broke in upon his peace.
The headmaster was coming down the hall with the intention of showing
his visitor out. The door of Trevor's room was ajar, and he could hear
distinctly what was being said. He had no particular desire to play the
eavesdropper, but the part was forced upon him.
Sir Eustace seemed excited.
"It is far from being my habit," he was saying, "to make unnecessary
complaints respecting the conduct of the lads under your care." (Sir
Eustace Briggs had a distaste for the shorter and more colloquial forms
of speech. He would have perished sooner than have substituted
"complain of your boys" for the majestic formula he had used. He spoke
as if he enjoyed choosing his words. He seemed to pause and think
before each word. Unkind people--who were jealous of his distinguished
career--used to say that he did this because he was afraid of dropping
an aitch if he relaxed his vigilance.)
"But," continued he, "I am reluctantly forced to the unpleasant
conclusion that the dastardly outrage to which both I and the Press of
the town have called your attention is to be attributed to one of the
lads to whom I 'ave--_have_ (this with a jerk) referred."
"I will make a thorough inquiry, Sir Eustace," said the bass voice of
the headmaster.
"I thank you," said the mayor. "It would, under the circumstances, be
nothing more, I think, than what is distinctly advisable. The man
Samuel Wapshott, of whose narrative I have recently afforded you a
brief synopsis, stated in no uncertain terms that he found at the foot
of the statue on which the dastardly outrage was perpetrated a
diminutive ornament, in shape like the bats that are used in the game
of cricket. This ornament, he avers (with what truth I know not), was
handed by him to a youth of an age coeval with that of the lads in the
upper division of this school. The youth claimed it as his property, I
was given to understand."
"A thorough inquiry shall be made, Sir Eustace."
"I thank you."
And then the door shut, and the conversation ceased.
Content of CHAPTER XIX - THE MAYOR'S VISIT [P G Wodehouse's novel: The Gold Bat]
_