"No," said James, "I don't want to fight. I didn't mean anything of the sort."
"I may be able to get you a guinea-pig like mine next holidays," said Peters; "and if I can, I will."
"I don't want it," said James. "I don't care about these guinea-pigs that look like penwipers gone mad. I'd rather have mine."
This, of course, was mean and paltry jealousy, and we rotted James till we rather got his wool off.
A week afterwards the champion pig was found dead on its back, with its paws in the air and its eyes open, but dim. They had a look of fright in them; and it was very interesting indeed, this happening to Peters, because it would be sure to show if his detective powers were really worth talking about.
Of course everybody said it must be James; and James said, and also swore, that it was not.
Peters told me privately that he was trying to keep a perfectly open mind. He said there were many difficulties in his way, because in the event of a human being dying and being found stark you always have a post-mortem, followed by an inquest; whereas with a mere guinea-pig, belonging to a boy in a school, there is not enough publicity. He said that up to a certain point publicity is good, and beyond that point it is bad. Sherlock Holmes always set his face against publicity until he'd found out the secret. Then he liked everybody to know it, though often not until the last paragraph of the story. That showed his frightful cleverness.
I said, "I suppose you will ask yourself, 'What would Holmes do if one evening, while he was sitting improving Watson, there suddenly appeared before him a boy with a dead guinea-pig?'"
And Peters said, "No. Because a guinea-pig in itself would not be enough to set the great brain of Holmes working. If there were several mysterious murders about, or if there had been some dark and deadly thing occur, and Holmes, on taking the pig into his hand and looking at it through his magnifying-glass, suddenly discovered on the pig some astounding clue to another fearful crime, then he would bring his great brain to work upon the pig; but merely as a guinea-pig suddenly found dead, it would not interest him. In my case it's different. The pig was a good deal to me; and this death will get round to the man who gave me the creature, and he'll be sure to think I've starved it, and very likely turn from me; and being my godfather, that would be jolly serious. In fact, there are several reasons why I ought to find out who has done this, if I can."
I said, "It may be Fate. It may have died naturally."