"Which Holmes? Oliver Wendell?" inquired Jack, with an air of acute interest.
"Sherlock Holmes, of course," returned Patch, with scorn. "I forgot that you are unfamiliar with the classics. Well, he laid it down as an axiom, once, that when you have disproved all but one of a number of solutions, that solution must be the correct one, no matter how absurd it seems."
"I get you. But how does it apply?"
"Why, if it wasn't one of the boys here, it must have been one of the masters that made the footprint."
"But what master would come at that game?" asked Billy incredulously. "Think it was old Salmon?"
"By the Great Moa!" exclaimed Jack in a loud tone, which called rebukes from his companions.
"Cut the shindy," advised Patch tersely, "or you'll have the whole House down on us. What's stung you?"
"Doctor Daw!" whispered Jack. "What about him?"
"Is he in his right mind?" asked Patch anxiously. "And who may Doctor Daw be? I've heard of his daughter, Marjory, but that was in my nursery-rhyme days. Expound."
In low tones, and as briefly as possible, Jack explained the strange connection which he suspected between Doctor Daw, the new master, and Tiger, the man who had run off with Billy's bag.