To tax a prefect with having stolen a sovereign was a task at which Pillingshot's imagination boggled. He went to Trent's study in a sort of dream.
A hoarse roar answered his feeble tap. There was no doubt about Trent being in. Inspection revealed the fact that the prefect was working and evidently ill-attuned to conversation. He wore a haggard look and his eye, as it caught that of the collector of statements, was dangerous.
"Well?" said Trent, scowling murderously.
Pillingshot's legs felt perfectly boneless.
"Well?" said Trent.
Pillingshot yammered.
"Well?"
The roar shook the window, and Pillingshot's presence of mind deserted him altogether.
"Have you bagged a sovereign?" he asked.
There was an awful silence, during which the detective, his limbs suddenly becoming active again, banged the door, and shot off down the passage.
He re-entered Scott's study at the double.
"Well?" said Scott. "What did he say?"
"Nothing."
"Get out your note-book, and put down, under the heading 'Trent': 'Suspicious silence.' A very bad lot, Trent. Keep him under constant espionage. It's a clue. Work on it."
Pillingshot made a note of the silence, but later on, when he and the prefect met in the dormitory, felt inclined to erase it. For silence was the last epithet one would have applied to Trent on that occasion. As he crawled painfully into bed Pillingshot became more than ever convinced that the path of the amateur detective was a thorny one.
This conviction deepened next day.
Scott's help was possibly well meant, but it was certainly inconvenient. His theories were of the brilliant, dashing order, and Pillingshot could never be certain who and in what rank of life the next suspect would be. He spent that afternoon shadowing the Greaser (the combination of boot-boy and butler who did the odd jobs about the school house), and in the evening seemed likely to be about to move in the very highest circles. This was when Scott remarked in a dreamy voice, "You know, I'm told the old man has been spending a good lot of money lately…."
To which the burden of Pillingshot's reply was that he would do anything in reason, but he was blowed if he was going to cross-examine the head-master.
"It seems to me," said Scott sadly, "that you don't want to find that sovereign. Don't you like Evans, or what is it?"
It was on the following morning, after breakfast, that the close observer might have noticed a change in the detective's demeanour. He no longer looked as if he were weighed down by a secret sorrow. His manner was even jaunty.
Scott noticed it.
"What's up?" he inquired. "Got a clue?"
Pillingshot nodded.
"What is it? Let's have a look."
"Sh—h—h!" said Pillingshot mysteriously.
Scott's interest was aroused. When his fag was making tea in the afternoon, he questioned him again.
"Out with it," he said. "What's the point of all this silent mystery business?"
"Sherlock Holmes never gave anything away."
"Out with it."
"Walls have ears," said Pillingshot.
"So have you," replied Scott crisply, "and I'll smite them in half a second."
Pillingshot sighed resignedly, and produced an envelope. From this he poured some dried mud.
"Here, steady on with my table-cloth," said Scott. "What's this?"
"Mud."
"What about it?"
"Where do you think it came from?"
"How should I know? Road, I suppose."
Pillingshot smiled faintly.
"Eighteen different kinds of mud about here," he said patronisingly. "This is flower-bed mud from the house front-garden."
"Well? What about it?"
"Sh—h—h!" said Pillingshot, and glided out of the room.
"Well?" asked Scott next day. "Clues pouring in all right?"
"Rather."
"What? Got another?"
Pillingshot walked silently to the door and flung it open. He looked up and down the passage. Then he closed the door and returned to the table, where he took from his waistcoat-pocket a used match.
Scott turned it over inquiringly.
"What's the idea of this?"
"A clue," said Pillingshot. "See anything queer about it? See that rummy brown stain on it?"
"Yes."
"Blood!" snorted Pillingshot.
"What's the good of blood? There's been no murder."
Pillingshot looked serious.
"I never thought of that."
"You must think of everything. The worst mistake a detective can make is to get switched off on to another track while he's working on a case. This match is a clue to something else. You can't work on it."
"I suppose not," said Pillingshot.
"Don't be discouraged. You're doing fine."
"I know," said Pillingshot. "I shall find that quid all right."
"Nothing like sticking to it."
Pillingshot shuffled, then rose to a point of order.
"I've been reading those Sherlock Holmes stories," he said, "and Sherlock Holmes always got a fee if he brought a thing off. I think I ought to, too."
"Mercenary young brute."
"It has been a beastly sweat."
"Done you good. Supplied you with a serious interest in life. Well, I expect Evans will give you something—a jewelled snuff-box or something—if you pull the thing off."
"I don't."
"Well, he'll buy you a tea or something."
"He won't. He's not going to break the quid. He's saving up for a camera."
"Well, what are you going to do about it?"
Pillingshot kicked the leg of the table.
"You put me on to the case," he said casually.
"What! If you think I'm going to squander——"
"I think you ought to let me off fagging for the rest of the term."
Scott reflected.
"There's something in that. All right."
"Thanks."
"Don't mention it. You haven't found the quid yet."
"I know where it is."
"Where?"
"Ah!"
"Fool," said Scott.
After breakfast next day Scott was seated in his study when Pillingshot entered.
"Here you are," said Pillingshot.
He unclasped his right hand and exhibited a sovereign. Scott inspected it.
"Is this the one?" he said.
"Yes," said Pillingshot.
"How do you know?"
"It is. I've sifted all the evidence."
"Who had bagged it?"
"I don't want to mention names."
"Oh, all right. As he didn't spend any of it, it doesn't much matter. Not that it's much catch having a thief roaming at large about the house. Anyhow, what put you on to him? How did you get on the track? You're a jolly smart kid, young Pillingshot. How did you work it?"
"I have my methods," said Pillingshot with dignity.
"Buck up. I shall have to be going over to school in a second."
"I hardly like to tell you."
"Tell me! Dash it all, I put you on to the case. I'm your employer."
"You won't touch me up if I tell you?"
"I will if you don't."
"But not if I do?"
"No."
"And how about the fee?"
"That's all right. Go on."
"All right then. Well, I thought the whole thing over, and I couldn't make anything out of it at first, because it didn't seem likely that Trent or any of the other fellows in the dormitory had taken it; and then suddenly something Evans told me the day before yesterday made it all clear."
"What was that?"
"He said that the matron had just given him back his quid, which one of the housemaids had found on the floor by his bed. It had dropped out of his pocket that first night."