Chapter Seventeen.
Before the “Beak.”
At the sight of the policeman I gave myself up for lost. The sins and errors of my youth all rose in a hideous procession before me. I recalled vividly the occasion when, years ago, I had borrowed Dicky Brown’s “nicker” without acknowledgment, and lost it. I recalled a dismal series of assaults and libels in my guardian’s office. I recollected with horror once travelling on a half-ticket two days after my twelfth birthday. Above all, the vision of that ill-favoured effigy under the grating rose gibbering and mocking me to my face, and claiming me for penal servitude, if not for the gallows itself.
How well I remember every detail of that scene as I entered the doctor’s study! The bust of Minerva looking askance at me from above the book-case; the quill in the doctor’s hand with its fringe all on end; Tempest’s necktie crooked and showing the collar stud above; Mr Jarman’s eye coldly fixed on me; and the policeman, helmet in hand, standing with his large boots on the hearthrug, the picture of content and prosperity.
“Jones,” said the doctor, “we have sent for you to tell us what you did at the gymnasium last night. You were there, I understand, after dark?”
I looked first at the doctor, then at Tempest. I would have given worlds to be able to have two minutes’ conversation with him, and ascertain what he wished me to say, if indeed he wished me to say anything at all. The memory of a similar dilemma at Dangerfield only served to confuse me more, and make it impossible to decide how I should act now; while the presence of the policeman drove from my head any ideas that were ever there. Would Tempest like me to say that I went there at his bidding, and if not, how could I explain the matter? I wished I only knew what had been said already, so that at least I might put my evidence on the right side.
“Yes, sir,” said I, “I saw Mr Jarman there.”
“What were you doing there, eh, young master?” said the policeman.
This was an unexpected attack from the flank of the battle for which I was wholly unprepared. I could have told the doctor, or even Mr Jarman. But to be questioned thus by a representative of the law was too much for my delicate nerves.
“Really, it wasn’t me,” said I. “I didn’t do it, and don’t know who did. I only went to get a blazer, and left it there directly Mr Jarman told me to do so.”
“A blazer?” said the policeman, with the air of a man who has made a discovery. “What sort of a thing is that? A blazer? Was it alight?”
Here Tempest laughed irreverently, much to the displeasure of the policeman. I was, however, thankful for the cue.
“What,” said I, “don’t you know what a blazer is? Anybody knows that. It’s what you have in the fields.”
“Come, young gentleman,” said the officer, whom Tempest’s laugh had put on his dignity, “no prevaricating. What were you doing with that there blazer?”
“What was I doing with it? Fetching it.”
The policeman was evidently puzzled. He wished he knew what a blazer was, but in the present distinguished company did not like to show his ignorance.
“That blazer must be produced,” said he; “it’ll be evidence.”
I looked at Tempest, as the person best able to deal with the matter, and said,—
“I left it in the gym. Mr Jarman made me.”
“How long was that before the explosion? Was it alight when you left it?”
“The blazer? Oh no.”
“A blazer,” explained the head master blandly, “is a flannel jacket. I don’t see what use it can be as evidence.”
“I suppose,” said Tempest jauntily, who was evidently recovering his presence of mind, “he thought it was a lucifer match.”
“You’ll laugh on the wrong side of your face, young gentleman,” said the policeman wrathfully; “this here matter will have to be gone into. There’s been a party injured, and it’ll be a matter for the magistrate. You’ll have to come along with me.”
“I tell you,” said Tempest, becoming grave once more, “I’ve had no more to do with it than you have.”
“And yet,” said Mr Jarman, speaking for the first time, “the explosion took place immediately after you were there, and when it was impossible for any one else to be there.”
“I say I know nothing at all about it,” said Tempest shortly, “and I don’t care what you think.”
“Come, Tempest,” said Dr England, “no good will be gained by losing temper. It is very necessary to get to the bottom of this business, especially as some one has been injured. It seems almost impossible the explosion could have happened by accident; at the same time, knowing what I do of you, I do not myself believe that you are the boy who would commit an outrage of this sort. As the policeman intends to report the affair to the magistrate, you had better go with him and let him investigate the matter. Don’t do yourself injustice by losing your temper. Mr Jarman, your attendance will probably be necessary; and Jones had better go too, although so far he has not thrown very much light on the matter. Constable, if you will take my compliments to Captain Rymer and ask him when he can see us—”
“Beg pardon, sir,” said the constable, evidently sore about the blazer, “the young gent must come along with me now. That’s my duty, and I can’t take no instructions contrary.”
“Very well,” said the doctor stiffly; “we will go to Captain Rymer at once.”
“Hadn’t you better handcuff me?” said Tempest, who appeared to be seized with a wild desire to exasperate the man of the law.
The policeman glared as if he was disposed to take him at his word.
“None of your imperence, I can tell you, my beauty!” said he. “I ain’t a-going to stand it—straight. Come, stir yourself.”
“It is not necessary,” said the head master, “for you to come with us. I give my word that we shall be at the police court immediately. But I wish to avoid the public scandal of one of my boys going through the streets in charge.”
“I ain’t a-going to let him out of my sight,” said the ruffled constable. “I know his style.”
Tempest smiled provokingly.
“I’d sooner walk, sir,” said he. “If the policeman holds me on one side and Mr Jarman on the other—”
“Silence, sir,” said the doctor sternly, while Mr Jarman raised his brows deprecatingly.
“Am I to come too?” said I.
“Yes.”
“I should like Pridgin and some of the fellows to be there too, sir,” said Tempest. “They saw me just before and just after the explosion.”
“It does not seem necessary to have more boys,” said Mr Jarman.
“Not to you!” said Tempest hotly; “the fewer you have the better. But if you choose to accuse me, I sha’n’t ask you whom to have to speak for me.”
“Tempest,” said the head master, “you are only doing yourself harm by this. Jones, go and fetch Pridgin, and any of the others he speaks of, to the police court; and kindly do not say a word of what has passed here. Now, constable, are you ready?”
The school was fortunately all within doors at the time, so that, except to the few who chanced to be gazing from the windows, the little procession, headed by the doctor and Mr Jarman, with the policeman and Tempest bringing up the rear, passed unobserved.
I was full of apprehensions. Whatever the result, I knew Tempest well enough to be sure that the effect on him would be bad, and would call out in him all that spirit of insubordination and defiance which had before now threatened to wreck his career. A strong sense of responsibility was all that had hitherto held it in check. If that were now shattered—and how could it help being upset by this charge?—it would break out badly and dangerously. I was not long in speeding over to Sharpe’s, where I found Pridgin just going over to class.
He heard the doctor’s message with a groan of weariness.
“What’s the use of my going?—I can’t tell them anything,” said he.
“You can tell them Tempest never did it,” said I.
“If they don’t believe him, they won’t me. Anyhow, I am coming.” Thereupon I was inspired to tell him the secret history of the effigy of Mr Jarman, and my theory as to the cause of the explosion; namely, that Tempest might have dropped a match through the grating, not knowing on what it would fall, and that in the natural perversity of things it had lit on the projecting tongue of the guy.
“You’d better make a clean breast of that guy,” said Pridgin, “if you want to get Tempest out of this mess. You’ll probably get expelled or flogged, but Low Heath can spare you better than it can Tempest. It strikes me you’d better fetch down one or two of your lot to corroborate you. It sounds too neat a story as it is.”
Whereupon I sought out Langrish and Trimble, and had the satisfaction of making their hair stand on end for once. At first they flatly refused to come, and reminded me that, as President of the Conversation Club, the entire responsibility for the guy rested on me.
“All serene,” said I, “only come and let them know how Jarman brought it all on. The more we go for him, the better for our man.”
They failed to see the force of my logic, but curiosity and love of adventure induced them to venture into the lion’s den. On our way, moreover, we captured Dicky Brown, who, to do him credit, was only too eager to come with us and stand by his old Dux.
Contrary to our expectations, when we arrived, instead of finding a crowded court, we were ushered into the magistrate’s parlour, where, to judge by appearances, a comfortable little party was going on.
The captain, a cheery old boy, familiar to all Low Heathens for his presence on speech day, sat at a table with his clerk beside him. The doctor and Mr Jarman were also sitting down, and Tempest was standing restlessly near the window. The lodge-keeper’s son, with his head bound up (for he was the victim of the explosion, and I suppose, the prosecutor), was standing beside the policeman, cap in hand, on the mat.
At the sight of the three juniors the doctor frowned a little, and Mr Jarman scowled.
“What are these boys doing here?” said the former.
“Please, sir, we thought you wanted to hear how it went off,” said Langrish.
“So we do,” said the magistrate; “sit down, my lads. We'll hear what you have to say in time.”
“Please, sir,” said Tempest, “may I speak to Pridgin?”
“Certainly, my lad,” said the captain again.
So the two friends hastily conferred together in the window, while we stared round with an awestruck, and apparently disconcerting, gaze at the gentlemen on the doormat, who severally represented the majesty of the law and injured innocence.
“Now, then,” said the magistrate presently, “let us hear what this is all about. One of your boys, doctor, I see, is charged with attempting to blow up part of the school gymnasium last night, and injuring this poor fellow here. Who makes the charge, by the way? Do you?”
“No,” said the doctor, “I understand Mr Jarman does.”
“Which is Mr Jarman?” said the captain, looking blandly round. “Ah, you. Well, sir, this is a serious charge to make; let us hear what you have to say. This is not a sworn examination, but what you say will be taken down, and the boy you accuse will have a right to ask any question. Now, sir.”
Mr Jarman, thereupon, with very bad grace, for he felt that the magistrate’s tone was not cordial, related how he was walking in the court at such and such an hour, when he saw a boy attempting to enter the gymnasium. That he stopped him and demanded his name. That the boy pushed past him and entered the gymnasium. Upon which Mr Jarman turned the key on the outside in order to detain him there, by way of punishment. That the boy began to kick at the door, and after half an hour broke it open and made his escape. That the boy was Tempest, and that scarcely two minutes after he had left, and just after Mr Jarman, having stayed to examine the damage to the door, had turned to go away, the explosion occurred; that he heard a cry from young Sugden, the lodge-keeper’s son, who was passing at the time, and was thrown violently forward against the railings, cutting his head badly.
“How do you know the boy was Tempest?” asked the magistrate.
“I recognised him in the dark,” said Mr Jarman. “In fact, I expected him.”
“Expected him?”
“Yes, he had sent his fag for a jacket just previously, and I had sent the fag back.”
“Why?”
“Boys are not allowed to enter the gymnasium after dark.”
“Is that a rule of the school?”
“It is my rule.”
“Does it apply to senior boys as well as juniors?” asked Tempest.
“I am responsible for the gymnasium, and—”
“That is not the question,” said the magistrate. “Have you ever allowed senior boys in the gymnasium after dark?”
“I may have; but I forbade Tempest to enter last night.”
“What harm was there in his fetching his coat, if it was not against rules?”
“It was against rules to go in when I told him not.”
“Well, well,” said Captain Rymer, “that is a matter that need not detain us. Have you any more questions, Mr Tempest?”
“Yes, please, sir. You said you were expecting me, Mr Jarman. What made you do that?”
“I expected, from my knowledge of your conduct, that you would come and try and get the blazer.”
“When have I disobeyed you before?”
“You know as well as I do, Tempest.”
“Yes, but I don’t,” said the magistrate. “Answer the question.”
Mr Jarman thereupon gave his version of the affair at Camp Hill Bottom.
“The offence being,” said the magistrate, “that the boys, Tempest among them, were out, on the afternoon of a holiday, half an hour from the school, with only a one quarter of an hour to get back. You punished the boys, I understand.”
“Yes.”
“And Tempest took his punishment with the rest.”
“Yes.”
“I suppose it is a special indignity to a senior boy, captain of his house, to be paraded for extra drill with a lot of small boys, eh, Dr England?”
“I should consider it so,” said the doctor.
“I did not feel myself called upon to make any difference,” said Mr Jarman.
“Apparently not. And on account of this affair, you say you expected Tempest would attempt to defy you last night?”
Mr Jarman bit his lips and did not reply.
Tempest resumed his questions with a coolness that surprised us.
“You were smoking, I think, Mr Jarman?”
“What if I was?”
“Nothing, only I wanted the magistrate to know it. And you locked me into the gymnasium for half an hour till I kicked myself out. I say you had no right to do that. What did you do while I was inside?”
“I walked up and down.”
“Did you try to stop me when I got out?”
“No.”
“Why?” asked Tempest, with a sneer that made us all contrast his broad shoulders with the master’s slouch.
“I decided to deal with the matter to-day.”
“How did you see what I had done to the door in the dark?”
“I saw by the light of a match.”
“You say it was two minutes after I left that the explosion took place, and immediately after you left?”
“That’s what I said.”
“And you were striking matches during the interval?”
“Yes.”
“And yet you suggest that it was I who blew the place up?”
“I say it was suspicious, knowing your frame of mind and the passion you were in at the time.”
“How could I blow up the place without explosives?”
“There must have been some there already.”
“He didn’t know anything about that! That was our affair, wasn’t it, you chaps?” blurted out Trimble.
“Rather,” chimed in all of us.
The sensation in the court at this announcement may be better imagined than described.
The magistrate put on his glasses and stared at us. Mr Jarman looked startled. The doctor looked bewildered.
“You see, it was this way,” said Trimble, who had been working himself up to the point all through the previous cross-examination. “We had—”
“Wait a moment, my boy,” said the magistrate. But the witness was too eager to listen to the remark.
“It was this way. We had a guy belonging to the Ph.C.C, you know, and he was chock-full of fireworks. We were keeping him for Guy Fawkes’ Day, you know. You wouldn’t have known he was Jarman (Mr Jarman, I mean), to look at him, but he was, and Sarah, being president, offered to look after him. It was too big to stick under the bed, so—”
“So,” continued I, “I thought the safest place to stick him would be in the lumber room under the gym.; and I never thought any one would be dropping matches through the grating on his touch-paper tongue. Tempest didn’t know anything about it, and—”
“You see,” said Langrish, taking up the parable, “we meant to keep it dark, and only the Philosophers were in it; he had on Sarah’s hat and boots, and a top-coat we found somewhere about. He’d have never gone off of himself, and he wouldn’t have done any harm on the Fifth, when we should have hung and blown him up in the open. Tempest—”
“Tempest,” broke in Dicky Brown, putting in his oar, “isn’t the kind of chap to do a thing like that on purpose; and it must have been Mr Jarman blew him up by mistake, with one of his matches or the end of a cigar or something—”
“It was a mulish thing of Sarah to stick him there,” said Trimble, “but he knows no better, and thought it was all right. So did we, and Pridgin says it was quite an accident, sir, and—”
“And if any one’s to get in a row,” said I, “we’d better, because he was our guy, and the mistake we made was letting his touch-paper tongue hang out so far. He’d have never blown up if it hadn’t been for that.”
Here there was a general pause for breath, and the magistrate, who evidently had a sense of humour, said,—
“And pray who is Sarah, my man?”
“That’s what they call me when they’re fooling; it’s not my real name, really, sir. Jones iv. is my real name.”
“That’s right,” said Trimble; “he’s only called Sarah because he looks like it. He’s not more in it than the rest of us, because he only had to take care of the guy because he was president. We’re all sorry the tongue was made so long.”
The magistrate did his best to look grave as he turned to Mr Jarman.
“Does this explanation help to clear up the mystery?”
Mr Jarman bit his lips and said,—
“If it is as they say, it may account for the explosion. I certainly dropped several matches through the grating.”
“It is as we say, isn’t it, you chaps?” said Langrish. “We wouldn’t tell a cram about it.”
“Rather not!” chimed we.
“Very well. Then I don’t see that I can do much good,” said the magistrate. “Dr England will know better how to deal with the matter. An accident is an accident after all; and if I may give an opinion, these boys have done quite properly in coming here and telling all about it. Little boys should not be allowed to play with explosives. At the same time, you must allow me to say, Mr Jarman, that it is unfortunate for a master to put himself in the position of being made the subject of an effigy. As for Tempest, there is absolutely nothing against him, unless according to the rules of the school it is an offence for a boy who is locked up in a dark room at night to do his best to get out. It is a great pity the matter was brought to me at all; but as it has been, my advice is to let it rest where it is. Meanwhile, this poor fellow who has been injured has some claim, and I dare say this sovereign will help get him the necessary bandages and plaster for his forehead. Good morning, Dr England; good morning, Mr Jarman. Good day, my lads. Let this be a lesson against touch-paper tongues.” So ended the famous affair of Mr Jarman’s guy.