  Produced by Al Haines. [image] HE CANED ME FOR INSOLENCE, COMBINED WITH IRREVERENCE. THE HUMAN BOY AGAIN BY EDEN PHILLPOTTS AUTHOR OF "THE HUMAN BOY" "There are those who scoff at the school-boy, calling "Man is more childish than woman. In the true LONDON CHAPMAN AND HALL, LTD. 1908 RICHARD CLAY & SONS, LIMITED, TO MY DEAR FRIEND, CONTENTS
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS PETERS, DETECTIVE No. I PETERS, DETECTIVE I Being from the first the chum and friend of Peters, I can tell about his curious ways better than anybody. In fact we shared our pocket-money, which is always a great sign of friendship; and it was understood that if ever I got into trouble when I grew up, and was accused of murder or forgery, or anything like that, which does often happen to the most innocent people, Peters would give up anything he might be doing at the time, and devote his entire life to proving me not guilty. I remember well the day he came. I was in the big school-room at the fire, roasting chestnuts and talking to Gideon; and Shortland and Fowle were also there. The Doctor came in with a new boy and said— "Ah! There are some of the fellows by the fire, Peters." Then he called out to Shortland and me and said— "Shortland and Maydew, this is Peters. Make him welcome, and if there are chestnuts going, as I suspect, share them with him." Then the Doctor went off to have some final jaw with the mother of Peters; and Peters came down the room and said "Good-evening" in a very civil and quiet tone of voice. He was thin and dark, and when he warmed his hands at the fire it was easy to see the light through them. He also had a pin in his tie in the shape of a human skull, about as big as a filbert nut, with imitation ruby eyes. We asked him who he was, and he said he came from Surrey, and that his father had been a soldier, but was unfortunately dead. His name was Vincent Peters. Then Shortland, who is a silly beast and a bully, and only in the lower fifth, though quite old—and, in fact, his voice has broken down—asked Peters the footling question he always asks every new boy. He said, "Would you rather be a greater fool than you look, or look a greater fool than you are?" Of course, whatever you answer, you must be scored off. But young Peters seemed to know it. Anyway, instead of answering the question he asked another. He said— "Would you rather be uglier than you look, or look uglier than you are?" [image] "WOULD YOU RATHER BE A GREATER FOOL THAN YOU LOOK, OR LOOK A GREATER FOOL THAN YOU ARE?" Gideon was interested at this, because it showed at once Peters must be a cool hand. "What are you going to be?" Gideon asked; and then came out the startling fact that Peters hoped to be a detective of crime. "If you go detecting anything here you'll get your head punched," said Shortland. "I may or I may not," answered Peters. "But it's rather useful sometimes to have a chap in a school who has made a study of detecting things." "You can begin to-night, if you like," I said; "because Johnson major's bat was found to have seven tin tacks hammered into it last week, when he took it out of the case to give it a drop more oil; and if you find out who did that, I've no doubt that Johnson major will be a good friend to you—him being in the sixth and captain of the first at cricket." "I don't know enough about things yet," answered Peters. "Besides, you have to be sure of your ground. In detecting you may make friends, or you may not; but you will make enemies to a dead certainty. In fact, that's the drawback to detecting. Look at Sherlock Holmes." "That's only a yarn," said Gideon. But Peters wouldn't allow this. He evidently felt very deeply about Sherlock Holmes. "He is founded on fact—in fact, founded on thousands of solemn facts," said Peters. "The things he does are all founded on real crimes, and if anybody is going to be a detective, he can't do better than try to be like Sherlock Holmes in every possible way." The tea-bell rang about this time, and Peters sat next to me and told me a good deal more. He said he was very thankful that he was thin, like Holmes, and wiry, and had a beak-like nose. He asked me if he had piercing eyes; and I could honestly say that they were pretty piercing. Then he brought out a picture of Sherlock Holmes, which he always carried, and showed me that, with luck, when he grew up, he ought really to be very much indeed like the great Holmes. He was learning to play the violin also—not because he liked it, but because of the importance of doing it in moments of terrible difficulty. He said that it soothes the brain and helps it to do its work—but not so much while you're learning. He said that after he had thoroughly mastered a favourite piece of Holmes's he should be satisfied, as there would never be any occasion for him to play more than one piece. Chaps liked Peters very fairly well. He was a good 'footer' player, and very good at outside right. He was fast, and told me that speed often made all the difference to the success of a criminal case. Pure sprinting had many a time made all the difference to Holmes. Peters didn't know much in the way of learning, but he dearly liked to get hold of a newspaper and read the crimes. He didn't find out about Johnson major's bat, however; but he said it wasn't a fair test, because he never heard clearly all that went before the crime. A few small detections he made with great ease, and found the half-crown that Mathers had lost in the playground. This he did by cross-questioning Mathers, and making him bring back to his mind the smallest details; and then Mathers remembered turning head over heels while only touching the ground with one hand, to show how it could be done. And on the exact spot, in some long grass at the top of the playground where he had performed this feat, there was the half-crown. Mathers offered Peters sixpence on the spot, but Peters said it was nothing, and wouldn't take any reward. He generally knew by the mud on your boots which of the walks you had been, and he always could tell which of the masters was taking 'prep' before he went into the room, by the sounds or silence. He also had a very curious way of prophesying by certain signs if the Doctor was in a good temper or a bad one. He always knew this long before anybody else, and it was a very useful thing to know, naturally. But Peters did not really do much till his own guinea-pig was found dead in its lair about half-way through his second term at Merivale. He did not care for animals in a general way, excepting as helping to throw light on crime; which, it seems, they are very much in the habit of doing, though not intentionally. But this particular guinea-pig was far from a common creature, being a prize Angora pig, and having been given to Peters during the Christmas holidays by a friend of his dead father. It had long hair, and looked far more like one of those whacking chrysanthemums you see than a guinea-pig. It was brown and yellow, and had a round nose like a rabbit, and seemed so trusting and friendly that everybody liked it. One other boy—namely, James—had a guinea-pig also, because these were the days before we took to keeping lizards and other things in our desks—which was discovered by a dormouse of mine coming up through the inkpot hole in my desk under the Doctor's nose, and so giving itself away. And though the pig of James was a good white pig, with a black patch on his right side and one little dab of yellow fur where his tail would have been if he had had one, yet, compared to the guinea-pig of Peters, he was nothing. James, however, didn't mind the loss of admiration for his pig, and he offered Peters to let the pigs live together, which would be better for both of them, because a guinea-pig is the most sociable thing in Nature, and are known well to pine, and even die, if kept in single captivity. But Peters had a secret fear that the pig of James was not sound in its health. He told me that he had made a most searching examination of James's pig, and discovered a spot of pink skin on its chest. He said it might be nothing, but, on the other hand, it might be some infectious disease. Also James's pig was inclined to go bald; so he thanked James very much, and said he thought that if the pigs saw each other through the bars from time to time it would be all they wanted to brace them up and cheer them. But he thought, upon the whole, they had better not meet. James didn't like this. He was rather a rum chap in many ways, but very good at English grammar and chemistry; and he had invented a way of cribbing, while a master was actually in the room, that many copied afterwards. James got rather rude about the guinea-pig of Peters, and seemed to think in some way that it was the pig, and not Peters, that had decided not to live with his pig. He said one day, when looking at the champion pig, "I suppose the little beast thinks it's too big a swell to live with my honest, short-haired pig. All the same, if they had a fight, I know which would jolly well win." "So do I," said Peters. "If a race-horse had a fight with a cart-horse, the cart-horse would win. This is not a prize-fighting pig." West was there and said the same. He, of course, understood all about prize-fighting, owing to his brother being winner of the 'middle-weights' at the championship of the army; and he said that if these pigs fought, the superior weight of James's pig behind the shoulder would soon settle it. Besides, of course, the other one's hair streamed all over it like a skye terrier's. You could see at a glance that it was never born to be a fighter. "However, if you want a fight," said Peters, who was always cool and polite, owing to copying Sherlock Holmes, "if you want a fight, James, I can oblige you." They were both fourteen-and-a-half, and James was a lot fatter, but not so tall as Peters. "No," said James, "I don't want to fight. I didn't mean anything of the sort." "I may be able to get you a guinea-pig like mine next holidays," said Peters; "and if I can, I will." "I don't want it," said James. "I don't care about these guinea-pigs that look like penwipers gone mad. I'd rather have mine." This, of course, was mean and paltry jealousy, and we rotted James till we rather got his wool off. A week afterwards the champion pig was found dead on its back, with its paws in the air and its eyes open, but dim. They had a look of fright in them; and it was very interesting indeed, this happening to Peters, because it would be sure to show if his detective powers were really worth talking about. Of course everybody said it must be James; and James said, and also swore, that it was not. Peters told me privately that he was trying to keep a perfectly open mind. He said there were many difficulties in his way, because in the event of a human being dying and being found stark you always have a post-mortem, followed by an inquest; whereas with a mere guinea-pig, belonging to a boy in a school, there is not enough publicity. He said that up to a certain point publicity is good, and beyond that point it is bad. Sherlock Holmes always set his face against publicity until he'd found out the secret. Then he liked everybody to know it, though often not until the last paragraph of the story. That showed his frightful cleverness. I said, "I suppose you will ask yourself, 'What would Holmes do if one evening, while he was sitting improving Watson, there suddenly appeared before him a boy with a dead guinea-pig?'" And Peters said, "No. Because a guinea-pig in itself would not be enough to set the great brain of Holmes working. If there were several mysterious murders about, or if there had been some dark and deadly thing occur, and Holmes, on taking the pig into his hand and looking at it through his magnifying-glass, suddenly discovered on the pig some astounding clue to another fearful crime, then he would bring his great brain to work upon the pig; but merely as a guinea-pig suddenly found dead, it would not interest him. In my case it's different. The pig was a good deal to me; and this death will get round to the man who gave me the creature, and he'll be sure to think I've starved it, and very likely turn from me; and being my godfather, that would be jolly serious. In fact, there are several reasons why I ought to find out who has done this, if I can." I said, "It may be Fate. It may have died naturally." He admitted this. He said, "That's where a post-mortem would come in, if it was a human being. Of course, Holmes never did post-mortems himself, that not being his work; but I've got to make one now. It may or may not help me." He made it, and it didn't help him. My own opinion is that he didn't much like it and hurried it a good deal. He said there was no actual sign of violence on the surface of the guinea-pig, and the organs all seemed perfectly healthy. But when I asked him what they would have looked like if they hadn't been healthy, he avoided answering, and went on that the pig's inside ought to have been sent up to Somerset House, for examination by Government officials, in a hermetically sealed bottle. Peters declared that the public has a right to demand this service for the stomachs of their old friends and relations if foul play is suspected; but not in the case of a domestic beast like a guinea-pig. So the pig was buried, and not until then did Peters really seem to set to work. The actual horror of the death gradually wore off, and he told me that he should now seriously tackle the case. There was a most unusual lack of clues, he said; and he pointed out that even Sherlock Holmes could do nothing much until clues began to turn up. Peters warned me against always taking it for granted that James had done it. In fact, he said it was very unlikely to have been James, just because it looked so likely. I said, "That may be the way Sherlock Holmes talks; but it seems to me to be rather footle." And he said, "No, Maydew; it isn't footle; it is based on a study of the law of probabilities. If you read accounts of crime, you will see that, as a rule, the person who is suspected is innocent; and the more he is suspected, the more innocent he is." I said, "Anyway, James has changed. He's gone down four places in his class and lost his place in the second 'footer' eleven also. There's something on his mind." "Yes," said Peters, "that's true. Everybody believes that he killed a valuable guinea-pig, and treats him accordingly. That is quite enough to send him down four places in the class; but if he had killed the guinea-pig he would have brazened it out and have been prepared for this, and taken very good care not to show what he felt." "In fact, you don't think he killed the pig," I said. And Peters said he didn't think James had; but he was keeping an open mind. Then came the most extraordinary clue of the ten-shilling piece. Happening to go to his desk one day—between schools—for toffee, Peters found in it a bit of paper lightly screwed up. He opened it and discovered in it no less than a gold ten-shilling piece; and on the paper, printed in lead pencil, were these words— "FOR ANUTHER GINNEA-PIG." He said nothing to anybody but me; but he seemed to think that I was a sort of a Dr. Watson in my way; besides, it simplified the workings of his mind to talk out loud; so he showed me the clue and then asked me what I thought. I had rather picked up his dodge of talking like Sherlock Holmes, so I said— "The first question is, of course, to see what is the date on the half-quid." I thought this pretty good; but Peters said that this was not the first question, and didn't matter in the least. He said, "My dear Maydew, the money is nothing; the paper in which it is wrapped up is everything." So I turned to the paper. "What does it tell you?" he asked. "It tells me that some utter kid did it," I said, "for he can't spell 'another' and he can't spell 'guinea-pig.'" But Peters smiled and put the points of his fingers together like Sherlock Holmes. "My dear Maydew," he said, "might not that have been done on purpose?" Then I scored off him. "It is just because it might have been done on purpose," I said, "that I think it was done accidentally." He nodded. "Of course, it may be the work of a kid," he admitted. "But, on the other hand, it may be a subterfuge. Besides, no kid would have killed my guinea-pig. Where's the motive?" "The great thing is that you've got half-a-sovereign and we share pocket-money," I said. But he attached little importance to this, except to say that the half-sov. wasn't pocket-money, though I might have half. "Now, examine the paper," he went on. I did so. It was a sheet of one of our ordinary, lined copybooks, used for dictation, composition, exercises, and such like. "Evidently torn out of one of the copybooks," I said. "Exactly; but which one?" "Ask me another," I said. "You'll never find that out." He smiled and arranged his hands again like Holmes. "I have," he said. "Then you know?" "On the contrary, I know nothing." "It wasn't James's book?" "It wasn't. The first thing was to find a book with a sheet torn out. I tried twenty-five books, and seven had pages torn out. But James's book had not. Then judge of my surprise, Maydew, when, coming to my desk for the form of the thing, and looking at my own exercise-book, I found a sheet was torn out; and this is it, for the tear fits!" "What frightful cheek!" I cried out. "I don't so much mind that," said Peters; "but the point is that, splendid though this clue seems to be on the surface, I can't get any forwarder by it. In fact, it may be the act of a friend, and not a foe." "What would Sherlock Holmes do?" I asked; and Peters gave a sort of mournful sound and scratched his head. "I wish I knew," he said. II Gideon was helpful in a way, but nobody could make much of it. Gideon said that it was conscience money, and was often known to happen, especially with the Income Tax; because people, driven to desperation by it, often pay too little, and then, when things brighten up with them afterwards, it begins to weigh on their minds, if they are fairly decent at heart, and they remember that they have swindled the King and been dishonest; and so they send the money secretly, but, of course, feel too ashamed to say who they are. I asked James if he had sent the money, and he swore he hadn't; but he did it in such an excitable sort of way that I was positive he had. Peters wouldn't believe or disbelieve. He went quietly on, keeping an open mind and detecting the crime; and when the truth came to light, Peters was still detecting. But in the meantime happened the mystery of the pencil-sharpener, and the two great mysteries were cleared up simultaneously, which Peters says is a common thing. You couldn't say that one cleared up the other, but still, it did so happen that both came out in the same minute. There was a boy whose name was Pratt, and his father was on the Stock Exchange of London. This father used to go out to his lunch, and at these times he saw many curious things sold by wandering London men who are too poor to keep shops, but yet have the wish to sell things. These men stand by the pavement and display most queer and uncommon curiosities, such as walking spiders and such like; and once from one of these men Pratt's father bought quite a new sort of pencil-sharpener of the rarest kind. It was shaped like a stirrup, and cut pencils well without breaking off the lead. After a good week of this pencil-sharpener, Pratt found it had been stolen out of his desk, and he told Peters about it, and Peters took up the case. I asked him if he was hopeful, and he said that there was always hope; but he also said, rather bitterly, that it was curious what a frightful lot of hard cases he had had since coming to Merivale. He said it was enough to tax anybody's reputation, and that each case seemed more difficult than the last. I reminded him of one or two rather goodish things he had done in a small way, but he said that as yet he had not really brought off a brilliant stroke. A week went by, and then Peters came to me in a state of frightful excitement. "The pencil-sharpener!" he said. "Have you got a clue?" I asked. But he could hardly speak for excitement, and forgot to put his hands like Holmes, or to try and arrange a 'far-away' look on his face, or anything. "Not only a clue," he said, "I know who took it!" "This will be a great score for you when it comes out," I said. "You swear you won't breathe a word?" he asked. And I swore. Then he whispered the fearful news into my ear. "The Doctor's taken it!" he said. "He never would," I answered. "Pratt is positive that he left it in his desk." "It is a case of purloining," said Peters; "and wish it had happened to anybody else but the Doctor. It's rather terrible in its way; because if once gets this habit and yields to temptation, his unlimited power, who is safe?" "It's much more a thing Browne would have done," I said, meaning a particularly hateful roaster who wore pink ties and elastic-sided boots. Then Peters explained that when alone in the Doctor's study, waiting to give a message to Dr. Dunstan from Mr. Briggs, he chanced to look about, and saw on the mantelpiece Pratt's pencil-sharpener and a pencil in course of being sharpened. The Doctor had evidently put them down there and been called away and forgotten them. "What did you do?" I inquired of Peters. "Well, Maydew," he said, "I asked myself what Sherlock would have done"—in confidential moments Peters sometimes spoke of the great Holmes as 'Sherlock'—"and I remembered his wonderful presence of mind. Me would have struck while the iron was hot, as the saying is, and taken the pencil-sharpener there and then." "By Jove! But you didn't?" I said. For answer Peters brought the pencil-sharpener out of his waistcoat pocket. "Are you positive it's Pratt's?" I asked. "Absolutely certain," he said. "It has the words 'Made in Bavaria' upon it; and, of course, this is a frightfully delicate situation to be in for me. "Especially if the Doctor asks for it," I said. "He won't dare," answered Peters; "but I've got a sort of strong feeling against letting anybody know who has done this. On one or two occasions, I believe, Holmes kept the doer of a dark deed a secret—to give him a chance to repent. It seems to me this is a case when I ought to do the same." "If the Doctor cribs things, I don't see why you should keep it dark," I said; and Peters treated me rather rudely—in fact, very much like Holmes sometimes treats Watson. "My dear Maydew," he said, "the things you don't see would fill a museum." "Anyway, you'll have to give Pratt back his pencil-sharpener," I said; and he admitted that this was true. The only thing that puzzled him was how to do it. But, after all, Peters didn't puzzle long. He was thinking the next morning how to return the pencil-sharpener to Pratt in a mysterious and Sherlock Holmes-like way, when, just after prayers, the Doctor stopped the school and spoke. He said— "Boys, I have lost something, and though an article of little intrinsic worth, I cannot suffer it to go without making an effort to regain it. I say this for two reasons. The first and least is that the little contrivance so mysteriously spirited from my study is of the greatest service to me; while the second and important reason your own perspicuity may perhaps suggest. Things do not go without hands. Somebody has taken from my study what did not belong to him; and somebody, therefore, at this moment moves among you with an aching heart and a wounded conscience. Let that boy make his peace with God and with me before he closes his eyes; and that no doubt or ambiguity may obscure the details of this event, I will now descend to particulars. "Not long ago, a kindly friend conveyed to me a new form of pencil-sharpener which he had chanced to find exhibited in a stationer's shop at Plymouth, our great naval port. Knowing that my eyesight is not of the best, he judged this trifle would assist me in the endless task of sharpening pencils, which is not the least among my minor mechanical labours. And he judged correctly. The implement was distinguished by a great simplicity of construction. It consisted, indeed, of one small piece of metal somewhat resembling the first letter of the alphabet. I last saw it upon the mantelpiece in the study. I was actually using it when called away, and on my return forgot the circumstance. But upon retiring last night, the incident reverted to memory while divesting myself of my apparel, and so indispensable had the pencil-sharpener become to me that I resumed my habiliments, lighted a candle, and went downstairs to seek the sharpener. It had disappeared. Now, yesterday several boys came and went, as usual, through the precincts of my private apartments. Furthermore, the Greek Testament class will recollect that we were engaged together in the evening from seven until eight o'clock. I need say no more. The loss is discovered and the loss is proclaimed. I accuse nobody. Many things may have happened to the pencil-sharpener, and if any boy can throw light upon the circumstance let him speak with me to-night after evening chapel. I hope it may be possible to find an innocent solution of my loss; but if one of you has fallen under sudden temptation, and, attracted by the portability and obvious advantages of the instrument, has appropriated it to his own uses, I must warn him that my duty will be to punish as well as pardon. The hand of man, however, is light as compared with the anger of an outraged Deity. If a sinner is cowering among you at this moment, with my pencil-sharpener secreted about his person, let that sinner lose no time, but strengthen his mind to confess his sin, that he may the sooner turn over a new leaf and sin no more." Then he hooked it to breakfast, and I spoke to Peters. I said— "This is pretty blue for you." But he said, far from it. He said— "On the contrary, Maydew. It's blue for the Doctor; and it shows—what he's always saying to us himself, for that matter—that if you do a wrong thing, you've nearly always got to do another, or perhaps two, to bolster up the first. Sherlock Holmes often finds out one crime owing to the criminal doing another, and no doubt this has happened to the Doctor. He has told a deliberate, carefully planned lie, and a barefaced lie too; because he must know that he stole the thing out of Pratt's desk. Anyhow, my course is clear." I said I was glad to hear that, because it didn't look at all clear to me. Then Peters said— "I, personally, have got nothing to do with the Doctor's wickedness in the matter. In my opinion that is Pratt's affair." But I felt pretty sure Pratt wouldn't bother about it. "Anyway," said Peters, "I now return Pratt his pencil-sharpener, and there my duty as the detective of the case ceases. Sherlock Holmes often did a tremendous deed and only told the way he'd done it to Watson. And so it is here. It is not my work to bring the Doctor to justice, and I'm not going to try to do it." I said he was right, because, while he was bringing the Doctor to justice, he might get expelled, and that wouldn't be much of a catch for anybody. So the first thing after morning school we went to Pratt, and Peters put on his Holmes manner and said— "Well, Pratt, no news of the missing pencil-sharpener, I suppose?" And Pratt said, "Mine or the Doctor's?" And Peters said, "Yours." "Yes, there is," said Pratt; "I found it in my lexicon two days ago. I'd marked a word with it and clean forgotten. So that's all right." "Not so right as you might think," I said. But Peters kept his nerve jolly well, and, in fact, was more like Sherlock Holmes at that terrible moment than ever I saw him before or after. "I'm glad it's turned up," said Peters, "and I hope the Doctor's will." Then he and I went off, and I congratulated him. "You've got a nerve of iron," I said. "Yes," he said, "and I shall want it." Then he told me there was nothing like this in Sherlock Holmes, and that the whole piece of detective work was a failure, and rather a painful failure to him. "I don't mind the licking, and so on," he said, "but it's the inner disgrace." "It was a very natural mistake," I said, to cheer him up. "Yes," he said; "but detectives of the first class don't make natural mistakes—nor any other sort either. It's the disappointment of coming such a howler over a simple felony that is so hard. At least, of course, it's not a felony at all." "If it is, you did it," I said; "and now of course you'll chuck away the pencil-sharpener and sit tight about it?" But he shook his head. "No, Maydew. Of course I could evade the consequences with ease, if I liked. But I have decided to give this back to the Doctor and tell him the whole story," said Peters. "Sherlock Holmes would never have done that," I said. "No, he wouldn't," admitted Peters. "Because why? Because he'd never have been such a fool as to be deluded by a false clue. He knew a true clue from a false, as well as we know a nice smell from a nasty one." "Well," I said, "if you take my advice for once, you'll do this: You'll leave that thing on the Doctor's desk in a prominent place next time you're in there alone, and you'll bury the rest in your brain. Holmes buried scores of things in his brain. What's the sense of going out of your way to get a licking?" "If I told him the truth, I don't believe he would lick me," said Peters. But I jolly soon showed him that was rot. In fact, Watson never talked so straight to Holmes as I did to Peters then. "My dear chap," I said, "you go to the Doctor and say, 'Here's your pencil-sharpener, sir; I saw it on your mantelpiece and thought you'd stolen it from Pratt, who has one exactly like it. So I took it to give to Pratt, but his has turned up since.' Well, what would happen then? Any fool could tell you." All the same Peters went up next day at the appointed time, and, curiously enough, James was in the study waiting for the Doctor too. The muddle that followed was explained to me by Peters afterwards. Me and James began to talk; then James said to Peters, "I am here, Peters, about a very queer and sad thing, and it is evidently Providence that has sent you here now." And Peters said, "No, it isn't. I am here about a very queer thing too, and it may also turn out to be sad—for me." Then James, who was excited to a very great amount, said these strange words— "I had come to confess that it was me killed your guinea-pig! I couldn't hide it any more. It's haunting me—not the pig, but the killing of it. I hoped, and even prayed in my prayers, that you might detect me, but you didn't. Then I wrote home for ten shillings for a debt of honour, and put it in your desk, and disguised the spelling—but still I was haunted by it. And now, as you are here, I confess it openly to you that I killed your beautiful, kind-hearted pig, and I hope you'll forgive me for doing a beastly, blackguard thing. And if you can't forgive it, I'll tell the Doctor and get flogged rather than go on like this; because it's haunting me." Peters said, "How did you do it?" And James said, "With poison from the laboratory mixed in his bran." And Peters was so much rejoiced when he heard this, that he forgave the worm, James, on the spot. "That is where sending the stomach to Somerset House would have come in," said Peters; "but as I was not in a position to do this, I do not so much feel the slur of not having discovered you were the criminal." He forgave James freely. Then he said— "You may be amused to know that I am also here about a crime. I thought I'd found one out and, instead of that, I've jolly well committed a crime myself. In fact, it's about the queerest thing, really, that has ever happened in the annals of crime." Then he told the story of the pencil-sharpener to James, and showed James the pencil-sharpener to prove it. James actually had the pencil-sharpener in his hand, when who should come in—not the Doctor—but the matron, with the extraordinary news that the mother of Peters was just arrived and had to see him at once! This was so awfully surprising to Peters that he went straight away to the drawing-room and left the pencil-sharpener with James; and in the drawing-room were the Doctor and Peters's mother, who, after all, had merely come to tell him that his uncle was dead. But far more important things than that happened in the study, because when Peters arrived to see his mother, the Doctor, having said something about bearing the shocks of life with manly fortitude, went off to his study, and there, of course, was James waiting for him. And what James did we heard afterwards. First, on thinking it over, he began to doubt why he should confess about the guinea-pig to the Doctor, now that Peters had utterly forgiven him. And he speedily decided that there was no occasion to do so. But then, out of gratitude to Peters, he determined to carry through the delicate task of getting the pencil-sharpener back to the Doctor. And he did. He told the Doctor that he had taken the thing, because he thought it was Pratt's. He said he felt sure Pratt must have left it in the study by mistake. But he didn't say anything about thinking the Doctor had stolen it, and, in fact, was so jolly cunning altogether that he never got into a row at all. The Doctor ended up by remarking that Pratt's having one was a curious coincidence, and he said to James, "As for you, boy James, you stand acquitted of everything but too much zeal. Zeal, however——" and then he talked a lot of stuff about zeal, which James did not remember. I said privately to Peters afterwards— "How would Holmes have acted if this had happened to him?" And Peters said, "For once I can see as clear as mud what Sherlock would have done. He would have said, 'I think in this extraordinary case, Watson, we may safely let well alone.'" And that's what Peters did. |
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