"Now be off with you and play. This has got to be private."
He took himself off but only to the end of the hall, where they didn't notice that he lingered. He lingered because he knew that, whatever the mystery, it had something to do with him.
He caught, however, no more than words which he couldn't understand. Cyanide of potassium! Only his quick ear and retentive memory enabled him to lay hold of syllables so difficult. His mother had taken something or hadn't taken something, he couldn't make out which. All he saw was that both of his friends looked grave, Miss Honiton summing up their consultation,
"I'll let him enjoy the Christmas Tree before saying anything about it."
The policeman answered, regretfully: "Do you think you must?"
"I know I must. He ought to be told. He has a right to know. He might resent it later if we didn't tell him now."
"Very well, sister. I leave it to you."
The door having closed on this friend, Tom Whitelaw, so to call him henceforth, made his way into the room where the Christmas Tree was presently to be lighted up. But he had no heart for the spectacle. There was something new. In the grip of the forces which controlled his life he felt helpless, small. Even his companions in misfortune, as all these children were, could be relatively light-hearted. They could clap their hands when the Tree began to burn with magic fires, and take pleasure in the presents handed out to them. He could not. He was waiting for something to be told to him—something he had a right to know.
One by one, the presents were cut from the Tree; one by one the children went up to receive this addition to what Santa Claus had brought them in the morning. His own name was among the last. When it was called he went forward perfunctorily at first, and then with a sudden inspiration.