24: The Last Lap

AS he stood staring at what lay on Mr. Hawkswood's table it seemed to Scarf as if he must be in some nightmare. Though he had burnt the calendar with his own hand, here was the all-important slip which seemed to have escaped the fire by magic. For the moment he was dazed and speechless.

"You can't very well deny that this is your handwriting, as I see that you have put your signature down here at the end," said Mr. Hawkswood. "Come now, you admit that this is your doing?"

"Yes, sir," was the faint reply.

He still felt thunderstruck, like a person who has for some time felt confident that he is winning a race, and finds himself hopelessly beaten in the last lap.

"I'm not going to ask why you wrote it," continued the master. "The document itself is a sufficient explanation of your motive. You thought you were leaving at the end of last term, so I presume it was written then, the intention being that I should not have a chance of reading it till you were safely out of the way. The language is hardly what you would have used to my face. Apart from that, doesn't this strike you as a very mean and cowardly thing for anyone to do?"

"I know it is, sir," began Scarf in a broken voice. "I'm very sorry. I don't think I realised what I was doing. I've been wretched about it ever since---wished I'd never done such a thing. I'd have destroyed it if I could."

"I've no doubt you would," returned Mr. Hawkswood dryly. "And that was why you were so anxious to get the calendar from the pavilion."

Scarf made no reply, he wished that some trap-door in the floor would open and let him through. He would not have cared much where he landed---anywhere to be out of this room.

"It's no good telling any more lies," continued the master. "You asked Maple to get the calendar for you. Did you tell him why you wanted it?"

"No, sir. He thought I'd put it there in joke, and wished to get it back."

"I can understand that you were alarmed when you heard that a watch and several other things had been stolen from the pavilion, but what seems to me almost incredible is that you should refuse to exonerate another boy, and tell any number of falsehoods rather than admit the truth. You must, of course, be aware that this boy, Maple, is looked upon as a thief?"

Scarf opened his mouth as if to speak, but words failed him.

"I suppose you would be shocked if anyone suspected you of having picked a person's pocket, and yet you are ready enough to rob another boy of his character. That is a small matter as long as you yourself escape. What did you do with the calendar?"

Scarf glanced at the slip of paper, the appearance of which on the writing-table was still a mystery. He almost wondered, if he told the truth, if it would seem like another falsehood.

"I burnt it, sir, down in the furnace."

"Oh, you burnt it---or rather, you thought you did."

There was a moment's silence. Though Scarf had heard the last words, they conveyed no meaning to his mind. When he had closed the furnace door the calendar was already in flames, and there was no possibility of its having escaped total destruction.

"You don't understand?"

"No, sir."

"Then I may as well explain. The calendar of which this paper is a part belongs to Mr. Rosvale. For a certain reason he lent it me towards the end of last term, which is why you found it hanging in this room. When we came back after the holidays I returned it; and, from that time onward, Mr. Rosvale has kept it in his bedroom. He neglected to tear off the dates for the last three days, and it was only this morning that he discovered the one we have here. The fact that you have made use of a nickname which we all know quite well is frequently applied to myself, made it clear for whom the message was intended. Mr. Rosvale thought it only right that I should read it. The calendar which you destroyed belonged to Jason, and it was he who hung it in the pavilion."

So this was the explanation of the mystery. Scarf felt completely crushed. He was overwhelmed with a sense of dismay at the complete and dismal failure of his plot to get the calendar from the pavilion. That he had burnt it seemed now to him a matter of no importance, but here he was destined to find himself mistaken.

"You and I are both leaving Rockfield in about three weeks' time," continued Mr. Hawkswood, "and I should have been disposed to treat this note with the contempt it deserves. I might have torn it up as one would an anonymous letter; but, since you have dragged another boy into trouble, it is no longer a personal affair between you and myself. I shall have to show this to Mr. Densham."

"I hope you won't do that, sir," whimpered Scarf. "I'm very sorry----"

"You are not sorry that you have caused another boy to he branded as a liar and a thief," interrupted the master sharply. "It is high time the whole thing was cleared up. To that end Mr. Densham must be informed what your real object was in using Maple as a cat's-paw, and then making out that you knew nothing about the calendar, or what had become of it after its disappearance from the pavilion. I will take you to him now."

Outside the Lower Fifth the majority of the school were too excited over the fact of the thief having been captured to give much thought to the question as to how the incident would affect Fred Maple. Up till the time the bell rang for morning school the boot-room was thronged with boys, eager to learn from Thorn's own lips a true and authentic account of exactly what had happened in the small hours of the morning.

"Look here, Thorn," shrieked Lanvey II., "why didn't you bash him. It's what I'd have done."

There was a shout of laughter, mingled with which rose a plaintive bleat of "Oh, shut up!" as certain young gentlemen, who objected to what they considered "swank" on the part of Lanvey II., promptly chastised him with slippers.

"What's the good of 'itting a chap who's got no fight in him?" demanded Thorn, working away with his brushes while he talked. "I asked him in as quiet a tone as what I'm speaking in now to put his 'ands up, and he was that scared he turned a back somersault down the steps. Nice thing for me if he'd broke his neck; I'd have been sat upon by a coroner's jury."

"I wouldn't have cared about that," squeaked the irrepressible Lanvey. "I'd have broken his----"

"O---oh, shut UP!"

While Thorn was being lionised in the basement, Jason was holding an informal levee in his study, so many members of the Sixth crowding into the tiny den that someone suggested that a placard, with "House Full" written upon it, should be affixed to the outside of the door.

"I guessed at once it was a bit of a rabbit snare," the cricket captain was saying. "It's lucky Newte picked it up, and that Farren conceived the wild idea of its being used for opening shutters with. I nearly kicked him out as soon as he began his yarn, then it suddenly struck me that a person who carried rabbit wires about with him wasn't the sort of individual we should care to have loafing round our pavilion. So I thought I'd go down and have a talk to Thorn, who might be able to throw some light on the matter. The rest you know already."

"Has this fellow, Mouser, as they call him, confessed?" asked Chase.

"Oh yes. The police found Hudson's watch and a sweater at his cottage. He seems to have begun to look upon the pavilion as a sort of happy hunting-ground, and probably thought it would be supposed that the things which disappeared had simply been lost."

"I'm glad I got that watch back," chuckled Hudson. "It can now be handed down to my children's children as the one I didn't wear at the Okechester match, when the famous Knott was laid low by young Maple."

"Hum, that reminds me," began Steel. "We know now who stole the watch, but that doesn't explain the disappearance of the calendar. I wonder if young Maple did take it after all?"

"Why should he say he did, if he didn't?" asked Chase.

The bystanders shook their heads. There was not one of them but would have been glad to hear that Maple was innocent; but, since the boy himself had pleaded guilty, it was difficult to see how he could ever be exonerated.

Chase's question was not answered till some hours later. As the school assembled at the end of the morning's work there was something in the headmaster's look, as he took his seat on the raised platform at the end of the big room, which made those who had grown weather wise fancy that there was tempest in the air. They wondered what was coming.

Mr. Densham rose, and, after giving out some minor announcements, paused for some moments as if to give greater emphasis to what was to follow.

"I do not propose," he began, "to dwell on a matter which I consider so disgraceful that I would rather not mention it at all. As you all know, a calendar disappeared from the pavilion. It was generally believed that a certain boy had stolen it. I am referring to Maple. I wish you now to understand that Maple was not in any way to blame, as he took the calendar believing that he was returning it to its rightful owner. The boy who posed as such afterwards flatly denied that he had ever asked Maple to do such a thing, or that he knew there was such a calendar in the pavilion. As it happened, he had his own private reasons---and very amazing ones they are---for wishing to obtain the calendar and destroy it. Scarf, stand up!"

Amid a deathlike silence the boy named rose to his feet.

"I wish you to own, in the hearing of the school, that what I have just said is correct."

Scarf certainly said something, but his reply was too low to be audible half-way down the room. What the Lower Fifth did hear was a whispered ejaculation from Dawson: "Well, I'm jiggered!" It was felt to be a comment which expressed the sentiments of all.

The order was given for dismissal, and the Big School began to empty, a hum of voices rising almost immediately outside on the gravel. Scarf managed to lag behind till several forms below his own had taken their departure. When at length he did reach the porch, he hesitated. The gathering in the quad looked unfriendly, and they seemed to be waiting for someone. Should he double back under pretence of having dropped a book, or should he attempt a quick dask for the basement entrance? Before he had time to weigh the question it was decided for him, for someone, coming up from behind, drove him forward and pushed him down the stone steps.

A moment later there was an ugly rush, accompanied with a chorus of catcalls and groans, school books were scattered wildly on the gravel, and Scarf, white-faced and terror-stricken, was the centre of a surging mass. Dawson and Richards, for once on the same side with all personal differences forgotten, had been the first to seize hold of him, and were now shaking him like two angry terriers.

It was a good thing that the scene was allowed to last only a few seconds. Waidman, who had lingered in the quad expecting that there might be trouble, now burst into the throng, pushing boys unceremoniously to right and left.

"Stop that!" he ordered. "Leave that fellow alone. You ought to know better than to handle him at all. I wouldn't touch him with the end of a barge pole. Now, clear off."

Scarf was the first to obey the order, and did so at a run, leaving his books where they had fallen, and where they were afterwards picked up by Thorn. He promptly hid himself, and for the next few hours went about in fear and trembling. But he had no cause to fear a repetition of the attack. As a resultof Waidman's action it came to be understood that the correct way to deal with Scarf was to have no dealings with him at all.

During his last three weeks at Rockfield he might have been some guilty ghost haunting the scene of a crime. No one spoke to him, no one appeared to be aware of his existence. Not a soul even troubled to find out what punishment he had received, though the fact that, for some days, little was seen of him out of school hours intimated that he was undergoing penal servitude of some kind.

Rusper narrowly escaped being mauled for his share in the scandal, though he defended himself by rounding on Scarf with a full confession of what the latter had done, and it was from Rusper that the school at large first heard the story of Mr. Hawkswood's calendar.

+++

"Now, try to look pleasant," urged Dawson.

He was holding the post-card camera, and his request seemed hardly necessary, since the four persons who formed the group about to be photographed all had broad grins on their faces.

Dawson peered for a moment into the view-finder, then raised his head.

"Reading from left to right," he began: "Number One, Mr. Maple, the supposed burglar; Two, Mr. Newte, who, with his six-horse power specs, discovered the piece of wire which led to the arrest of the real thief; Three, Mr. Farren, who saw in a flash how the whole thing had been done, and took the clue to Jason; Four, Mr. Platen, who---er----"

It was Fred Maple finished the sentence.

"Who is the burglar's best friend, and always has been!"

THE END