I told him of the whispered conversation I had overheard on the landing, and he suggested that as I might be going home before night, we should attempt to make them believe that I had really been the culprit. We both of us agreed that a too nice adherence to the truth was not essential in the matter of a practical joke. “No, we will both of us lie like troopers,” he said as we took our seats at the table, and whether I succeeded or not, he certainly kept his promise to the full.
We arranged that we would both make out that we knew nothing about either the notice or the raided beds, but that my denials should be less assertive than his so that their suspicions would gradually turn in my direction. We had great difficulty, however, at least I had, not to give ourselves away by laughing when the others came into the room. They came in procession, marching solemnly round the table, Kenneth chanting, “Oyez! Oyez! a trial will be held.” Ethel led the van bearing the notice on a large tray held out at arm’s length. Then came Ralph carrying Kenneth’s pajamas and the golf bags and clubs, together with a collection of tennis and golf balls and other evidence. Kenneth followed, arrayed in an old cap and gown of Hanson’s, and Margaret brought up the rear as train bearer to Kenneth.
They drew up in a row in front of us and said in unison—there had evidently been a rehearsal, “There sits the culprit,” but we noticed with secret satisfaction that while Margaret and Kenneth pointed at The Tundish, Ethel and Ralph were pointing at me.
It seems that up to this point in telling my story I must be constantly detailing trivial matters which can have no possible interest taken by themselves, and yet which have a real bearing on the more important later events. Kenneth’s inquiry into the doings of the previous night was amusing at the time, and I don’t mean it unkindly, but I am sure he enjoyed showing Ethel how acute an inquirer he could be, but it is not a matter of sufficient apparent importance to set out at any length. And yet I think we were all of us to go over every word that was spoken at the breakfast table, time and again in our minds afterward, wondering what possible bearing they could have on the terrible tragedy that was so soon to befall us.
I was sitting at right angles to The Tundish, who was at one end of the table, and Kenneth handed him the notice and took his seat at the other side of the table opposite to me, saying, “Well, a confession won’t earn a free pardon, but it may certainly incline us to temper justice with mercy.”
The Tundish turned the paper round and round, pretending to examine it with surprise and care. “And what may this be?” he said at last. “I see that it has been written in my name, but apart from that it seems to be reasonable enough, and it expresses what I actually felt very aptly indeed.”
“You didn’t write it, then, and stick it up on the landing?”
“My dear boy, I am really far too old for that sort of childishness. Besides, I ask you, if I had been the author, should I have bothered to print my name at the bottom instead of signing it in the ordinary way? No, I think we shall find that the guilty party is seated immediately to my left, and if you haven’t foolishly smudged it all over, we shall probably find his fingerprints.” He was sprinkling the notice with salt and blowing it off again into Kenneth’s bacon as he spoke, while I protested loudly that I could not understand what they were all of them talking about.
Am I doing Kenneth an injustice, I wonder, and do I exaggerate his ill temper and puerile behavior? Then, I had not realized how jealous he was of the doctor, and could make no allowances for it, but oh! how easily he “rose” and how absurdly he showed his dislike! He resented the “My dear boy,” and he did not like the salt being blown into his bacon, but he endeavored to imitate the doctor’s bantering tones.
“My dear Tundish,” he said, “I happen to know that rough paper of that description does not show fingerprints.” It was a poor imitation—as well might a cow pretend to be a swan—and even then he could not maintain the role he tried to play, adding with some heat, “You may be a very good surgeon, but you’re a very good liar too. Do you mean to tell me that you didn’t upset all our beds last night?”