"A kettle! Certainly not! Such articles are kept in the proper department. But I follow your reasoning, sergeant, we ought to have investigated this matter."
"And so you would, sir, if you hadn't been led off the path in the wrong direction. The detection of crime ain't only a matter of reasoning. It's a question of facts often enough, and this here kettle's a fact. Now, it don't belong to your people. I've asked the maids and the boy. They don't own to it. Then I searched elsewhere. It was about that time that I ran against Mr. Feofé and his friends. They'd been down to the station making enquiries."
The Head looked intensely surprised. Such an act was a direct breach of school rules and discipline. It amounted almost to a breaking out of the school, and was a crime he would, as a rule, punish severely. But, as a matter of fact, he had not even missed these boys from the collection of Ranleighans. He had no suspicion that they were not present, and the fact can be understood considering the nature of the business which had brought him to meet the assembled school. Nor was this the moment in which to discuss their breach of Ranleigh rules. He motioned to the sergeant to continue.
"They'd learned he was along at my cottage, fixed up in the station, and insisted I should fetch him so as to follow the clue I've put before you. Well, gentlemen, there wasn't a doubt as to the owner. We know him. He knows that we know him. He's here present. He's the guilty party."
No one stirred. If the Head expected that now one of the boys would stand forward he was much mistaken. Not one attempted to move. More than that, though he searched the lines of faces, there was not a boy present who looked conscious or guilty. Was the sergeant mistaken? Was it he who had gone astray from the path, and got upon a wrong line of reasoning and evidence? Mr. Axim started. He wanted to prove Clive innocent just as much as anyone else. He was honest enough not to care even if his own deduction proved childish. But, if clues were to be followed, they must be followed with intelligence.
"One moment, sergeant," he said. "This kettle."
"Yes, sir."
"You know the owner?"
"Without a shadow of doubt, sir."
"But do you know that it was the owner who made use of it last evening? Can you prove that fact? Can you show that Clive Darrell did not himself borrow it for this unfortunate business?"