Mike by Pelham Grenville Wodehouse (most popular novels .TXT) 📕

had scores of acquaintances—and with

Wyatt and Psmith he had found himself at home from the first moment he

had met them.

 

He sat there, with a curious feeling of having swallowed a heavy

weight, hardly listening to what Mr. Downing was saying. Mr. Downing

was talking rapidly to the headmaster, who was nodding from time to

time.

 

Mike took advantage of a pause to get up. “May I go, sir?” he said.

 

“Certainly, Jackson, certainly,” said the Head. “Oh, and er—, if you

are going back to your house, tell Smith that I should like to see

him.”

 

“Yes, sir.”

 

He had reached the door, when again there was a knock.

 

“Come in,” said the headmaster.

 

It was Adair.

 

“Yes, Adair?”

 

Adair was breathing rather heavily, as if he had been running.

 

“It was about Sammy—Sampson, sir,” he said, looking at Mr. Downing.

 

“Ah, we know—. Well, Adair, what did you wish to say.”

 

“It wasn’t Jackson who did it, sir.”

 

“No, no, Adair. So Mr. Downing–-”

 

“It was Dunster, sir.”

 

Terrific sensation! The headmaster gave a sort of strangled yelp of

astonishment. Mr. Downing leaped in his chair. Mike’s eyes opened to

their fullest extent.

 

“Adair!”

 

There was almost a wail in the headmaster’s voice. The situation had

suddenly become too much for him. His brain was swimming. That Mike,

despite the evidence against him, should be innocent, was curious,

perhaps, but not particularly startling. But that Adair should inform

him, two minutes after Mr. Downing’s announcement of Psmith’s

confession, that Psmith, too, was guiltless, and that the real

criminal was Dunster—it was this that made him feel that somebody, in

the words of an American author, had played a mean trick on him, and

substituted for his brain a side-order of cauliflower. Why Dunster, of

all people? Dunster, who, he remembered dizzily, had left the school

at Christmas. And why, if Dunster had really painted the dog, had

Psmith asserted that he himself was the culprit? Why—why anything? He

concentrated his mind on Adair as the only person who could save him

from impending brain-fever.

 

“Adair!”

 

“Yes, sir?”

 

“What—what do you mean?”

 

“It was Dunster, sir. I got a letter from him only five minutes

ago, in which he said that he had painted Sammy—Sampson, the dog,

sir, for a rag—for a joke, and that, as he didn’t want any one here

to get into a row—be punished for it, I’d better tell Mr. Downing at

once. I tried to find Mr. Downing, but he wasn’t in the house. Then I

met Smith outside the house, and he told me that Mr. Downing had gone

over to see you, sir.”

 

“Smith told you?” said Mr. Downing.

 

“Yes, sir.”

 

“Did you say anything to him about your having received this letter

from Dunster?”

 

“I gave him the letter to read, sir.”

 

“And what was his attitude when he had read it?”

 

“He laughed, sir.”

 

“Laughed!” Mr. Downing’s voice was thunderous.

 

“Yes, sir. He rolled about.”

 

Mr. Downing snorted.

 

“But Adair,” said the headmaster, “I do not understand how this thing

could have been done by Dunster. He has left the school.”

 

“He was down here for the Old Sedleighans’ match, sir. He stopped the

night in the village.”

 

“And that was the night the—it happened?”

 

“Yes, sir.”

 

“I see. Well, I am glad to find that the blame cannot be attached to

any boy in the school. I am sorry that it is even an Old Boy. It was a

foolish, discreditable thing to have done, but it is not as bad as if

any boy still at the school had broken out of his house at night to do

it.”

 

“The sergeant,” said Mr. Downing, “told me that the boy he saw was

attempting to enter Mr. Outwood’s house.”

 

“Another freak of Dunster’s, I suppose,” said the headmaster. “I shall

write to him.”

 

“If it was really Dunster who painted my dog,” said Mr. Downing, “I

cannot understand the part played by Smith in this affair. If he did

not do it, what possible motive could he have had for coming to me of

his own accord and deliberately confessing?”

 

“To be sure,” said the headmaster, pressing a bell. “It is certainly a

thing that calls for explanation. Barlow,” he said, as the butler

appeared, “kindly go across to Mr. Outwood’s house and inform Smith

that I should like to see him.”

 

“If you please, sir, Mr. Smith is waiting in the hall.”

 

“In the hall!”

 

“Yes, sir. He arrived soon after Mr. Adair, sir, saying that he would

wait, as you would probably wish to see him shortly.”

 

“H’m. Ask him to step up, Barlow.”

 

“Yes, sir.”

 

There followed one of the tensest “stage waits” of Mike’s experience.

It was not long, but, while it lasted, the silence was quite solid.

Nobody seemed to have anything to say, and there was not even a clock

in the room to break the stillness with its ticking. A very faint

drip-drip of rain could be heard outside the window.

 

Presently there was a sound of footsteps on the stairs. The door was

opened.

 

“Mr. Smith, sir.”

 

The old Etonian entered as would the guest of the evening who is a few

moments late for dinner. He was cheerful, but slightly deprecating. He

gave the impression of one who, though sure of his welcome, feels that

some slight apology is expected from him. He advanced into the room

with a gentle half-smile which suggested good-will to all men.

 

“It is still raining,” he observed. “You wished to see me, sir?”

 

“Sit down, Smith.”

 

“Thank you, sir.”

 

He dropped into a deep arm-chair (which both Adair and Mike had

avoided in favour of less luxurious seats) with the confidential

cosiness of a fashionable physician calling on a patient, between whom

and himself time has broken down the barriers of restraint and

formality.

 

Mr. Downing burst out, like a reservoir that has broken its banks.

 

“Smith.”

 

Psmith turned his gaze politely in the housemaster’s direction.

 

“Smith, you came to me a quarter of an hour ago and told me that it

was you who had painted my dog Sampson.”

 

“Yes, sir.”

 

“It was absolutely untrue?”

 

“I am afraid so, sir.”

 

“But, Smith—” began the headmaster.

 

Psmith bent forward encouragingly.

 

“–-This is a most extraordinary affair. Have you no explanation to

offer? What induced you to do such a thing?”

 

Psmith sighed softly.

 

“The craze for notoriety, sir,” he replied sadly. “The curse of the

present age.”

 

“What!” cried the headmaster.

 

“It is remarkable,” proceeded Psmith placidly, with the impersonal

touch of one lecturing on generalities, “how frequently, when a murder

has been committed, one finds men confessing that they have done it

when it is out of the question that they should have committed it. It

is one of the most interesting problems with which anthropologists are

confronted. Human nature–-”

 

The headmaster interrupted.

 

“Smith,” he said, “I should like to see you alone for a moment. Mr.

Downing might I trouble—? Adair, Jackson.”

 

He made a motion towards the door.

 

When he and Psmith were alone, there was silence. Psmith leaned back

comfortably in his chair. The headmaster tapped nervously with his

foot on the floor.

 

“Er—Smith.”

 

“Sir?”

 

The headmaster seemed to have some difficulty in proceeding. He paused

again. Then he went on.

 

“Er—Smith, I do not for a moment wish to pain you, but have

you—er, do you remember ever having had, as a child, let us say,

any—er—severe illness? Any—er—_mental_ illness?”

 

“No, sir.”

 

“There is no—forgive me if I am touching on a sad subject—there

is no—none of your near relatives have ever suffered in the way

I—er—have described?”

 

“There isn’t a lunatic on the list, sir,” said Psmith cheerfully.

 

“Of course, Smith, of course,” said the headmaster hurriedly, “I did

not mean to suggest—quite so, quite so…. You think, then, that you

confessed to an act which you had not committed purely from some

sudden impulse which you cannot explain?”

 

“Strictly between ourselves, sir–-”

 

Privately, the headmaster found Psmith’s man-to-man attitude somewhat

disconcerting, but he said nothing.

 

“Well, Smith?”

 

“I should not like it to go any further, sir.”

 

“I will certainly respect any confidence–-”

 

“I don’t want anybody to know, sir. This is strictly between

ourselves.”

 

“I think you are sometimes apt to forget, Smith, the proper relations

existing between boy and—Well, never mind that for the present. We

can return to it later. For the moment, let me hear what you wish to

say. I shall, of course, tell nobody, if you do not wish it.”

 

“Well, it was like this, sir,” said Psmith. “Jackson happened to tell

me that you and Mr. Downing seemed to think he had painted Mr.

Downing’s dog, and there seemed some danger of his being expelled, so

I thought it wouldn’t be an unsound scheme if I were to go and say I

had done it. That was the whole thing. Of course, Dunster writing

created a certain amount of confusion.”

 

There was a pause.

 

“It was a very wrong thing to do, Smith,” said the headmaster, at

last, “but…. You are a curious boy, Smith. Good-night.”

 

He held out his hand.

 

“Good-night, sir,” said Psmith.

 

“Not a bad old sort,” said Psmith meditatively to himself, as he

walked downstairs. “By no means a bad old sort. I must drop in from

time to time and cultivate him.”

 

*

 

Mike and Adair were waiting for him outside the front door.

 

“Well?” said Mike.

 

“You are the limit,” said Adair. “What’s he done?”

 

“Nothing. We had a very pleasant chat, and then I tore myself away.”

 

“Do you mean to say he’s not going to do a thing?”

 

“Not a thing.”

 

“Well, you’re a marvel,” said Adair.

 

Psmith thanked him courteously. They walked on towards the houses.

 

“By the way, Adair,” said Mike, as the latter started to turn in at

Downing’s, “I’ll write to Strachan to-night about that match.”

 

“What’s that?” asked Psmith.

 

“Jackson’s going to try and get Wrykyn to give us a game,” said

Adair. “They’ve got a vacant date. I hope the dickens they’ll do it.”

 

“Oh, I should think they’re certain to,” said Mike. “Good-night.”

 

“And give Comrade Downing, when you see him,” said Psmith, “my very

best love. It is men like him who make this Merrie England of ours

what it is.”

 

*

 

“I say, Psmith,” said Mike suddenly, “what really made you tell

Downing you’d done it?”

 

“The craving for–-”

 

“Oh, chuck it. You aren’t talking to the Old Man now. I believe it was

simply to get me out of a jolly tight corner.”

 

Psmith’s expression was one of pain.

 

“My dear Comrade Jackson,” said he, “you wrong me. You make me writhe.

I’m surprised at you. I never thought to hear those words from Michael

Jackson.”

 

“Well, I believe you did, all the same,” said Mike obstinately. “And

it was jolly good of you, too.”

 

Psmith moaned.