Pelham Wodehouse - The Gold Bat

“We’ve got to have a look round,” said Clowes.

“Can’t you see everything there is?”

Ruthven hated Clowes as much as Clowes hated him.

Trevor cut into the conversation again.

“It’s like this, Ruthven,” he said. “I’m awfully sorry, but the Old Man’s just told me to search the studies in case any of the fellows have got baccy.”

Ruthven jumped up, pale with consternation.

“You can’t. I won’t have you disturbing my study.”

“This is rot,” said Trevor, shortly, “I’ve got to. It’s no good making it more unpleasant for me than it is.”

“But I’ve no tobacco. I swear I haven’t.”

“Then why mind us searching?” said Clowes affably.

“Come on, Ruthven,” said Trevor, “chuck us over the keys. You might as well.”

“I won’t.”

“Don’t be an ass, man.”

“We have here,” observed Clowes, in his sad, solemn way, “a stout and serviceable poker.” He stooped, as he spoke, to pick it up.

“Leave that poker alone,” cried Ruthven.

Clowes straightened himself.

“I’ll swop it for your keys,” he said.

“Don’t be a fool.”

“Very well, then. We will now crack our first crib.”

Ruthven sprang forward, but Clowes, handing him off in football fashion with his left hand, with his right dashed the poker against the lock of the drawer of the table by which he stood.

The lock broke with a sharp crack. It was not built with an eye to such onslaught.

“Neat for a first shot,” said Clowes, complacently. “Now for the Umustaphas and shag.”

But as he looked into the drawer he uttered a sudden cry of excitement. He drew something out, and tossed it over to Trevor.

“Catch, Trevor,” he said quietly. “Something that’ll interest you.”

Trevor caught it neatly in one hand, and stood staring at it as if he had never seen anything like it before. And yet he had—­often. For what he had caught was a little golden bat, about an inch long by an eighth of an inch wide.

“What do you think of that?” said Clowes.

Trevor said nothing. He could not quite grasp the situation. It was not only that he had got the idea so firmly into his head that it was Rand-Brown who had sent the letters and appropriated the bat. Even supposing he had not suspected Rand-Brown, he would never have dreamed of suspecting Ruthven. They had been friends. Not very close friends—­Trevor’s keenness for games and Ruthven’s dislike of them prevented that—­but a good deal more than acquaintances. He was so constituted that he could not grasp the frame of mind required for such an action as Ruthven’s. It was something absolutely abnormal.

Clowes was equally surprised, but for a different reason. It was not so much the enormity of Ruthven’s proceedings that took him aback. He believed him, with that cheerful intolerance which a certain type of mind affects, capable of anything. What surprised him was the fact that Ruthven had had the ingenuity and even the daring to conduct a campaign of this description. Cribbing in examinations he would have thought the limit of his crimes. Something backboneless and underhand of that kind would not have surprised him in the least. He would have said that it was just about what he had expected all along. But that Ruthven should blossom out suddenly as quite an ingenious and capable criminal in this way, was a complete surprise.

“Well, perhaps you ’ll make a remark?” he said, turning to Ruthven.

Ruthven, looking very much like a passenger on a Channel steamer who has just discovered that the motion of the vessel is affecting him unpleasantly, had fallen into a chair when Clowes handed him off. He sat there with a look on his pasty face which was not good to see, as silent as Trevor. It seemed that whatever conversation there was going to be would have to take the form of a soliloquy from Clowes.

Clowes took a seat on the corner of the table.

“It seems to me, Ruthven,” he said, “that you’d better say something . At present there’s a lot that wants explaining. As this bat has been found lying in your drawer, I suppose we may take it that you’re the impolite letter-writer?”

Ruthven found his voice at last.

“I’m not,” he cried; “I never wrote a line.”

“Now we’re getting at it,” said Clowes. “I thought you couldn’t have had it in you to carry this business through on your own. Apparently you’ve only been the sleeping partner in this show, though I suppose it was you who ragged Trevor’s study? Not much sleeping about that. You took over the acting branch of the concern for that day only, I expect. Was it you who ragged the study?”

Ruthven stared into the fire, but said nothing.

“Must be polite, you know, Ruthven, and answer when you’re spoken to. Was it you who ragged Trevor’s study?”

“Yes,” said Ruthven.

“Thought so.”

“Why, of course, I met you just outside,” said Trevor, speaking for the first time. “You were the chap who told me what had happened.”

Ruthven said nothing.

“The ragging of the study seems to have been all the active work he did,” remarked Clowes.

“No,” said Trevor, “he posted the letters, whether he wrote them or not. Milton was telling me—­you remember? I told you. No, I didn’t. Milton found out that the letters were posted by a small, light-haired fellow.”

“That’s him,” said Clowes, as regardless of grammar as the monks of Rheims, pointing with the poker at Ruthven’s immaculate locks. “Well, you ragged the study and posted the letters. That was all your share. Am I right in thinking Rand-Brown was the other partner?”

Silence from Ruthven.

“Am I?” persisted Clowes.

“You may think what you like. I don’t care.”

“Now we’re getting rude again,” complained Clowes. “ Was Rand-Brown in this?”

“Yes,” said Ruthven.

“Thought so. And who else?”

“No one.”

“Try again.”

“I tell you there was no one else. Can’t you believe a word a chap says?”

“A word here and there, perhaps,” said Clowes, as one making a concession, “but not many, and this isn’t one of them. Have another shot.”

Ruthven relapsed into silence.

“All right, then,” said Clowes, “we’ll accept that statement. There’s just a chance that it may be true. And that’s about all, I think. This isn’t my affair at all, really. It’s yours, Trevor. I’m only a spectator and camp-follower. It’s your business. You’ll find me in my study.” And putting the poker carefully in its place, Clowes left the room. He went into his study, and tried to begin some work. But the beauties of the second book of Thucydides failed to appeal to him. His mind was elsewhere. He felt too excited with what had just happened to translate Greek. He pulled up a chair in front of the fire, and gave himself up to speculating how Trevor was getting on in the neighbouring study. He was glad he had left him to finish the business. If he had been in Trevor’s place, there was nothing he would so greatly have disliked as to have some one—­however familiar a friend—­interfering in his wars and settling them for him. Left to himself, Clowes would probably have ended the interview by kicking Ruthven into the nearest approach to pulp compatible with the laws relating to manslaughter. He had an uneasy suspicion that Trevor would let him down far too easily.

The handle turned. Trevor came in, and pulled up another chair in silence. His face wore a look of disgust. But there were no signs of combat upon him. The toe of his boot was not worn and battered, as Clowes would have liked to have seen it. Evidently he had not chosen to adopt active and physical measures for the improvement of Ruthven’s moral well-being.