The next morning it was discovered that Mr. Blake had not returned from Fenley, and the five other members of the supper club were inclined to regard Diggory's vision of the midnight intruder as a sort of waking nightmare, resulting from an overdose of cake and pork-pie. Two days later Cross came into the schoolroom in a great state of excitement.
"Look here, you fellows," he exclaimed: "some one keeps taking away my things out of the shed, and not putting them back. Last week I missed a saw and two chisels, and now that brace and nearly all the bits are gone. It's a jolly shame!"
Carpentering was Cross's great hobby, and his collection of tools was an exceptionally good one, both as regards quantity and quality. Every one, however, denied having touched the things mentioned. A general search was made; but the missing articles could not be found, and at length the matter was reported to Mr. Welsby.
The latter was evidently greatly displeased on hearing the facts of the case. As soon as dinner was over he called the school together, and after standing for some moments in silence, frowning at the book he carried in his hand, said briefly,—
"With regard to these tools, there is a word which has never been used before in connection with any pupil at The Birches, and which I hope I may never have occasion to use again. I can hardly think it possible that we have a thief in the house. I am rather inclined to imagine that some one has removed the things and hidden them away in joke; if so, let me tell him that the joke has been allowed to go too far, and that, unless they are returned at once, a shadow of doubt will be cast upon the honour and integrity of all here present. It is impossible for such large articles as a saw and a brace to be mislaid or lost on such small premises as these, and I trust that before this evening you will report to me that the things have been found. I have purposely allowed the key of the shed to remain in your own possession, feeling certain that your behaviour as regards each other's property would be in accordance with the treatment which one gentleman expects to receive from another. You may go."
There was little in the nature of a scolding in this address, and yet something in it caused every one to leave the room in a state of great excitement. Acton and Jack Vance especially fairly boiled with wrath.
"What old Welsby says is quite right," remarked the latter; "and until those things are found, we may all be looked upon as thieves."
The search, however, proved fruitless; and, what was worse, in turning over the contents of the shed, Acton discovered that a bull's-eye lantern belonging to himself had disappeared from the shelf on which it usually stood; while Mugford declared that a box of compasses, which he had brought down a few days before to draw a pattern on a piece of board, was also missing.
Directly after tea Acton button-holed Diggory, and taking him aside said, "Look here, I'm in an awful rage about these thing's being prigged, because, of course, I've got the key of the shed; and didn't you hear what old Welsby said about it? It looks uncommonly as if I were the thief. You remember what you said the other night when we had that feed, about seeing that man? D'you think there is any one who comes here at night and steals things?"
"Well, I'm certain I saw some one in the playground when I told you. It was a man; but whether he comes regularly and goes into the shed I don't know, but I think we ought to be able to find out."