“Poor boy!—for he is nothing but a boy—I am sorry for him, and no mistake. Well, ups and downs in life we see, and you can’t escape troubles, even if you’re a Prince o’ Wales.”
Jerry softly drew the curtain aside and peered through without a sound; and as he let the heavy drapery fall, he uttered an ejaculation, put the tray on the washstand, and swung the heavy curtains right along the brass pole, making the rings give quite a clash, as the morning sun shone through, showing that the bed had not been disturbed.
In an instant the man’s eyes were searching about the room, and he saw that a suit of clothes lay where they had been tossed upon a chair, while a wardrobe door was open.
He darted to that, made a hasty examination, and muttered—
“Brown velveteens! No, it ain’t. Here they are. It’s his dark tweeds, and—no—yes: dark stockings.”
He continued his examination in the bedroom, but could make out nothing else.
“Only gone for a walk before anyone’s up, poor chap! Hadn’t the heart to go to bed. More hadn’t I at the time. He ain’t taken nothing. He can’t have—he wouldn’t have—I don’t know though—I—oh, he couldn’t have—Let’s see—”
He hurried downstairs and went to the front door, then to the dining-room, drawing-room, and study, as well as the room set apart for the pupils; but the windows were closed, and he went slowly upstairs again to pause by the staircase window.
“A man might step out here on to the balcony and shut it down again, and easily drop. But no: he can’t have done that.”
With his mind bent upon getting some clue as to the young man’s actions, Jerry turned back to his room and once more looked round.