The Gold Bat Page 8

  VII

  "WITH THE COMPLIMENTS OF THE LEAGUE"

  Trevor went and looked.

  It was rather an interesting sight. An earthquake or a cyclone mighthave made it a little more picturesque, but not much more. The generaleffect was not unlike that of an American saloon, after a visit fromMrs Carrie Nation (with hatchet). As in the case of Mill's study, theonly thing that did not seem to have suffered any great damage was thetable. Everything else looked rather off colour. The mantelpiece hadbeen swept as bare as a bone, and its contents littered the floor.Trevor dived among the debris and retrieved the latest addition to hisart gallery, the photograph of this year's first fifteen. It was awreck. The glass was broken and the photograph itself slashed with aknife till most of the faces were unrecognisable. He picked up anothertreasure, last year's first eleven. Smashed glass again. Faces cutabout with knife as before. His collection of snapshots was torn into athousand fragments, though, as Mr Jerome said of the papier-machetrout, there may only have been nine hundred. He did not countthem. His bookshelf was empty. The books had gone to swell thecontents of the floor. There was a Shakespeare with its cover off.Pages twenty-two to thirty-one of _Vice Versa_ had parted from theparent establishment, and were lying by themselves near the door. _TheRogues' March_ lay just beyond them, and the look of the coversuggested that somebody had either been biting it or jumping on it withheavy boots.

  There was other damage. Over the mantelpiece in happier days had hung adozen sea gulls' eggs, threaded on a string. The string was stillthere, as good as new, but of the eggs nothing was to be seen, save afine parti-coloured powder--on the floor, like everything else in thestudy. And a good deal of ink had been upset in one place and another.

  Trevor had been staring at the ruins for some time, when he looked upto see Clowes standing in the doorway.

  "Hullo," said Clowes, "been tidying up?"

  Trevor made a few hasty comments on the situation. Clowes listenedapprovingly.

  "Don't you think," he went on, eyeing the study with a critical air,"that you've got too many things on the floor, and too few anywhereelse? And I should move some of those books on to the shelf, if I wereyou."

  Trevor breathed very hard.

  "I should like to find the chap who did this," he said softly.

  Clowes advanced into the room and proceeded to pick up variousmisplaced articles of furniture in a helpful way.

  "I thought so," he said presently, "come and look here."

  Tied to a chair, exactly as it had been in the case of Mill, was a neatwhite card, and on it were the words, _"With the Compliments of theLeague"._

  "What are you going to do about this?" asked Clowes. "Come into my roomand talk it over."

  "I'll tidy this place up first," said Trevor. He felt that the workwould be a relief. "I don't want people to see this. It mustn't getabout. I'm not going to have my study turned into a sort of side-show,like Mill's. You go and change. I shan't be long."

  "I will never desert Mr Micawber," said Clowes. "Friend, my place is byyour side. Shut the door and let's get to work."

  Ten minutes later the room had resumed a more or less--thoughprincipally less--normal appearance. The books and chairs were back intheir places. The ink was sopped up. The broken photographs werestacked in a neat pile in one corner, with a rug over them. Themantelpiece was still empty, but, as Clowes pointed out, it now merelylooked as if Trevor had been pawning some of his household gods. Therewas no sign that a devastating secret society had raged through thestudy.

  Then they adjourned to Clowes' study, where Trevor sank into Clowes'second-best chair--Clowes, by an adroit movement, having appropriatedthe best one--with a sigh of enjoyment. Running and passing, followedby the toil of furniture-shifting, had made him feel quite tired.

  "It doesn't look so bad now," he said, thinking of the room they hadleft. "By the way, what did you do with that card?"

  "Here it is. Want it?"

  "You can keep it. I don't want it."

  "Thanks. If this sort of things goes on, I shall get quite a nicecollection of these cards. Start an album some day."

  "You know," said Trevor, "this is getting serious."

  "It always does get serious when anything bad happens to one's self. Italways strikes one as rather funny when things happen to other people.When Mill's study was wrecked, I bet you regarded it as an amusing andoriginal 'turn'. What do you think of the present effort?"

  "Who on earth can have done it?"

  "The Pres--"

  "Oh, dry up. Of course it was. But who the blazes is he?"

  "Nay, children, you have me there," quoted Clowes. "I'll tell you onething, though. You remember what I said about it's probably beingRand-Brown. He can't have done this, that's certain, because he wasout in the fields the whole time. Though I don't see who else couldhave anything to gain by Barry not getting his colours."

  "There's no reason to suspect him at all, as far as I can see. I don'tknow much about him, bar the fact that he can't play footer for nuts,but I've never heard anything against him. Have you?"

  "I scarcely know him myself. He isn't liked in Seymour's, I believe."

  "Well, anyhow, this can't be his work."

  "That's what I said."

  "For all we know, the League may have got their knife into Barry forsome reason. You said they used to get their knife into fellows in thatway. Anyhow, I mean to find out who ragged my room."

  "It wouldn't be a bad idea," said Clowes.

  * * * * *

  O'Hara came round to Donaldson's before morning school next day to tellTrevor that he had not yet succeeded in finding the lost bat. He foundTrevor and Clowes in the former's den, trying to put a few finishingtouches to the same.

  "Hullo, an' what's up with your study?" he inquired. He was quick atnoticing things. Trevor looked annoyed. Clowes asked the visitor if hedid not think the study presented a neat and gentlemanly appearance.

  "Where are all your photographs, Trevor?" persisted the descendant ofIrish kings.

  "It's no good trying to conceal anything from the bhoy," said Clowes."Sit down, O'Hara--mind that chair; it's rather wobbly--and I will tellye the story."

  "Can you keep a thing dark?" inquired Trevor.

  O'Hara protested that tombs were not in it.

  "Well, then, do you remember what happened to Mill's study? That'swhat's been going on here."

  O'Hara nearly fell off his chair with surprise. That somephilanthropist should rag Mill's study was only to be expected. Millwas one of the worst. A worm without a saving grace. But Trevor!Captain of football! In the first eleven! The thing was unthinkable.

  "But who--?" he began.

  "That's just what I want to know," said Trevor, shortly. He did notenjoy discussing the affair.

  "How long have you been at Wrykyn, O'Hara?" said Clowes.

  O'Hara made a rapid calculation. His fingers twiddled in the air as heworked out the problem.

  "Six years," he said at last, leaning back exhausted with brain work.

  "Then you must remember the League?"

  "Remember the League? Rather."

  "Well, it's been revived."

  O'Hara whistled.

  "This'll liven the old place up," he said. "I've often thought ofreviving it meself. An' so has Moriarty. If it's anything like the OldLeague, there's going to be a sort of Donnybrook before it's done with.I wonder who's running it this time."

  "We should like to know that. If you find out, you might tell us."

  "I will."

  "And don't tell anybody else," said Trevor. "This business has got tobe kept quiet. Keep it dark about my study having been ragged."

  "I won't tell a soul."

  "Not even Moriarty."

  "Oh, hang it, man," put in Clowes, "you don't want to kill the poorbhoy, surely? You must let him tell one person."

  "All right," said Trevor, "you can tell Moriarty. But nobody else,mind."

  O'Hara promised that Moria
rty should receive the news exclusively.

  "But why did the League go for ye?"

  "They happen to be down on me. It doesn't matter why. They are."

  "I see," said O'Hara. "Oh," he added, "about that bat. The search isbeing 'vigorously prosecuted'--that's a newspaper quotation--"

  "Times?" inquired Clowes.

  "_Wrykyn Patriot_," said O'Hara, pulling out a bundle of letters.He inspected each envelope in turn, and from the fifth extracted anewspaper cutting.

  "Read that," he said.

  It was from the local paper, and ran as follows:--

  "_Hooligan Outrage_--A painful sensation has been caused in thetown by a deplorable ebullition of local Hooliganism, which hasresulted in the wanton disfigurement of the splendid statue of SirEustace Briggs which stands in the New Recreation Grounds. Our readerswill recollect that the statue was erected to commemorate the return ofSir Eustace as member for the borough of Wrykyn, by an overwhelmingmajority, at the last election. Last Tuesday some youths of the town,passing through the Recreation Grounds early in the morning, noticedthat the face and body of the statue were completely covered withleaves and some black substance, which on examination proved to be tar.They speedily lodged information at the police station. Everythingseems to point to party spite as the motive for the outrage. In view ofthe forth-coming election, such an act is highly significant, and willserve sufficiently to indicate the tactics employed by our opponents.The search for the perpetrator (or perpetrators) of the dastardly actis being vigorously prosecuted, and we learn with satisfaction that thepolice have already several clues."

  "Clues!" said Clowes, handing back the paper, "that means _thebat_. That gas about 'our opponents' is all a blind to put you offyour guard. You wait. There'll be more painful sensations before you'vefinished with this business."

  "They can't have found the bat, or why did they not say so?" observedO'Hara.

  "Guile," said Clowes, "pure guile. If I were you, I should escape whileI could. Try Callao. There's no extradition there.

  'On no petition Is extradition Allowed in Callao.'

  Either of you chaps coming over to school?"