He addressed his lieutenant, who stood abjectly twirling a small moustache and trying to look tall. But what was the use of trying to look tall beside that Matterhorn, or to twirl an adolescent moustache when the Head’s hand clawed his beard? It was simply silly.
“Mr. Dutton,” said the Head, when the silence had begun to sing in the ears of the listeners. “By some strange mischance—I repeat, by some strange mischance,—I have found this disgusting and licentious book on your desk. How it got there, how it happened to be opened at—at page 56, I do not wish to inquire. It is more than enough for me to have found it there. I am willing to believe, and to tell you so publicly, Mr. Dutton, before the boys whom you are superintending on this Sunday afternoon, I am willing to believe that some obscene bird passed over the museum and dropped from its claws this stinking—yes, sir, stinking—carrion. Dropped it, sir, while your back was turned, on the very table where I see the Book of books, and also the book of Common Prayer. With your leave, with your leave, Mr. Dutton, I will do thus and thus to this unholy carrion.”
Then ensued a slight anticlimax, for the Head, though a very strong man in hand and arm, found it impossible to do as he had designed, and tear three hundred pages across and across. But the form generally, and Mr. Dutton in particular, were too stiff with horror to notice it. So, instead, the Head tore off section after section of the lightly sewn leaves, instead of tearing the pages, laid the dismembered carrion on the floor, and stamped on it, and then, with an indescribable ejaculation of disgust, threw the mutilated remains into the fireplace.
“You are excused, Mr. Dutton,” he said, “from the rest of this lesson, which I will take myself; but you will do me the honour to call on me immediately after evensong this afternoon.”
His fierce eye wandered from Mr. Dutton’s stricken face to David’s desk, where lay the inky dart.
“You are engaged now, I see, in some inquiry,” he said. “A paper dart, I perceive, on Blaize’s desk. I will conduct the inquiry myself, and wish you a good afternoon.”
He waited in tense silence till Mr. Dutton had taken his hat and left the room. Then he turned to David.
“Blaize, did you make that dart, or did you throw it?” he asked.
An expression of despairing determination had come into David’s face. He was conscious also of a large ink-stain on his lips.
“Neither, sir,” he said.