Talbot Reed - The Willoughby Captains

“Why, however could you?” exclaimed the boy, in strange bewilderment.

Riddell quietly told him the whole story. Of the mysterious letter, of his visit to Tom the boat-boy, of the knife, of the recollection of Wyndham’s movements on the night in question, and then of his supposed admission of his guilt.

Wyndham listened to it all with breathless attention and wonder, and when it was all done sighed as he replied, “Why, Riddell, it’s like a story, isn’t it?”

“It is,” said the captain, “and rather a pitiful story as far as I am concerned.”

“Not a bit,” replied the boy, as sympathetically as if Riddell was the person to be pitied and he was the person who had wronged him. “It was all a misunderstanding. How on earth could you have helped suspecting me? Any one would have done the same.

“But,” added he, after a pause, “what ought I to do about Beamish’s? Of course that was no end of a scrape, and the mischief is, I promised those two cads never to say a word about it. By the way, you saw me with Silk on this bench yesterday afternoon?”

“Yes,” said Riddell; “you didn’t seem to be enjoying yourself.”

“I should think I wasn’t. I’d been trying to get him to let me off that promise, and he had offered to do it for seven pounds, under condition. I might have closed with him if you hadn’t come past just then. He held me down to rile you, and I got so wild I rounded on him and made him in a frightful rage, and it’s very likely now he may tell Paddy if you don’t.”

“Not he,” said Riddell. “You’re well out of his clutches, old man, and it strikes me the best way you can atone for that affair is by keeping out of it for the future, and having no more to do with fellows like that.”

“What on earth should I have done,” said the boy, “without you to look after me? I’d have gone to the dogs, to a dead certainty.”

“It seems I can look after you rather too much sometimes,” said the captain. “Ah, there’s Silk coming this way. We needn’t stop, here to give him a return match. Come on.”

And the two friends rose and strolled off happily arm-in-arm.

“Of course,” said Riddell, as he and Wyndham strolled down by the river that afternoon, “now that your mystery is all cleared up we are as far off as ever finding out who really cut the rudder-lines.”

“Yes. My knife is the only clue, and that proves nothing, for I was always leaving it about, or lending it, or losing it. I don’t suppose I kept it one entire week in my pocket all the time I had it. And, for the matter of that, it’s not at all impossible I may have dropped it in the boat-house myself some time. I often used to change my jacket there.”

Riddell had half expected Wyndham would be able to afford some clue as to who had borrowed or taken the knife at that particular time. He was rather relieved to find that he could not.

“Tom the boat-boy,” said he, “distinctly says that the fellow who was getting out of the window dropped the knife as he did so. Of course that may be his fancy. Anyhow, I don’t want the knife any more, so you may as well take it.”

So saying he produced the knife from his pocket, and handed it to his companion.

“I don’t want the beastly thing,” cried Wyndham, taking it and pitching it into the middle of the river. “Goodness knows it’s done mischief enough! But, I say, whoever wrote that note must have known something about it.”

“Of course,” said the captain, “but he evidently intends the thing to be found out without his help.”

“Never mind,” said Wyndham, cheerily, “give yourself a little rest, old man, and come down and see the second-eleven practise. I’ve been too much up a tree to turn up lately, but I mean to do so this evening. I say, won’t it be jolly if my brother can come down to umpire in the match.”

“It will ,” said Riddell, and the pair forthwith launched out into a discussion of the virtues of Wyndham senior, in which one was scarcely more enthusiastic than the other.

On their way back to the Big they met Parson and Telson, trotting down to the bathing sheds.

The faces of these two young gentlemen looked considerably perplexed as they saw the captain and his supposed victim walking arm-in-arm. However, with the delightful simplicity of youth they thought it must be all right somehow, and having important news of some sort to relate, they made no scruple about intruding on the interview.

“Oh, I say, Riddell,” began Telson, “we’ve just come from the Parliament. No end of a row. Last time was nothing to it!”

“What happened?” asked the captain.

“Why, you know,” said Parson, “it was Game and Ashley’s affair summoning this meeting. They sent round a private note or something telling the fellows there would be a special meeting, signed by Game, First Lord of the Admiralty, and Ashley, Home Secretary. A lot of the fellows were taken in by it and turned up, and of course they had taken good care not to summon anybody that was sweet on you. So it was a packed meeting. At least they thought so. But Telson and I showed up, and the whole lot of the Skyrockets, and gave them a lively time of it.”

“You see,” said Telson, eagerly taking up the narrative, “they didn’t guess we’d cut up rough, because we’ve been in rows of that sort once or twice before.”

Wyndham broke out laughing at this point.

“Have you, really?” he exclaimed.

“Well,” continued Telson, too full of his story to heed the interruption, “they stuck Game in the chair, and he made a frightfully rambling speech about you and that boat-race business. He said you knew who the chap was, and were sheltering him and all that, and that you were as bad every bit as if you’d done it yourself, and didn’t care a hang about the honour of the school, and a whole lot of bosh of that sort. We sung out ‘Oh, oh,’ and ‘Question,’ once or twice, but, you know, we were saving ourselves up. So Ashley got up and said he was awfully astonished to hear about it — howling cram, of course, for he knew about it as much as any one did — and he considered it a disgrace to the school, and the only thing to do was to kick you out, and he proposed it.”

“Then the shindy began,” said Parson. “We sent young Lawkins off to tell Crossfield what was going on, and directly Ashley sat down old Telson got up and moved an amendment. They tried to cry him down, but they couldn’t do it, could they?”

“Rather not,” said Telson, proudly. “I stuck there like a leech, and the fellows all yelled too, so that nobody could hear any one speak. We kept on singing out ‘Hole in the corner! Hole in the corner!’ for about twenty minutes, and there weren’t enough of them to turn us out. Then they tried to get round us by being civil, but we were up to that dodge. Parson went on after me, and then old Bosher, and then King, and then Wakefield, and when he’d done I started again.”

“You should have seen how jolly wild they got!” cried Parson. “A lot of the fellows laughed, and joined us too. Old Game and Ashley were regularly mad! They came round and bawled in our ears that they gave us a thousand lines each, and we’d be detained all the rest of the term. But we didn’t hear it; and when they tried to get at us we hit out with rulers, and they couldn’t do it. You never saw such a lark!”

“And presently Crossfield turned up,” said Telson. “My eye! you should have seen how yellow and green they looked when he dropped in and walked up to his usual place! We shut up for a bit as soon as he came — and, you know, I fancy they’d have sooner we kept it up. They were bound to say something when the row stopped. So Game tried to rush the thing through, and get the fellows to vote before Crossfield knew what was up. But he wasn’t to be done that way.”