The prefects discussed the matter for the most part sorrowfully and a little shamefacedly. It was a terrible blow to them to find that amongst their number there was such a criminal.
"It's more than a bunking business," said Roper. "It's a case for the criminal courts. Darrell'll get years of imprisonment. Arson is a most serious offence. I wouldn't have thought it of him."
"I don't believe it. There's some mistake, I'm positive," declared Jenkins, one of Clive's particular friends. "Hear what the Old Firm have to say."
But that the Sixth were not likely to have an opportunity of hearing, for Bert and Hugh and the others were collected together at that moment in the Gym, whither they had departed so as to have peace, and so as to be able to discuss matters in private. Hugh, as if habit were too strong for him, sat across the horse. Bert, his face unusually stern, leaned against the same apparatus. Susanne stood close at hand, his broad shoulders stooping to a marked degree on this fatal morning. As for Trendall, there was grief written unmistakably on his decidedly pleasant features. Then Masters joined them. They were awaiting his coming, and gave vent to sighs of relief as he came through the Gym doorway and walked toward them. But it was a weary, despondent Masters. There was not the usual elasticity about his step. This fellow, apt to see fun in almost anything, and very seldom down-hearted, might have been at this instant preparing to attend his own funeral.
Susanne beckoned him forward.
"Now, tell us all," he said. "Everything, so that we may judge."
"Then I'll start at eleven last night, when we met in the corridor and commenced our patrolling."
Very rapidly he narrated the events of the night, unimportant in his own case till the latter part. Still, he missed nothing, giving them the closest details. Each one of the Firm stretched a trifle closer when he came to that portion of the narrative when Mr. Axim called him, and he discovered Clive face to face with the Head. He even told them what words had passed, how Mr. Axim had summed up the matter, how Clive had refused to give the name of the boy he more than strongly suspected.
"There's the whole case," he said at last. "I grant you it's black. Things somehow seemed to have worked round to incriminate Clive. It's an awful business. I hate that fellow Axim. He's a howling bounder."
They agreed with him at once.