He paused. Rouse was looking at him dubiously. Terence had moved from his chair and was leaning over the table.
“Why couldn’t you listen at the door, then?”
Henry looked at him scornfully. It seemed almost superfluous to explain that in the cinematograph world nobody listens at a door if they can climb up a pipe and listen at a window. He heaved a sigh.
“Something has happened,” he said. “Until now no single fellow in the school has let us down. If the Head’s been looking for a chance to put the screw on a bit, he’s been disappointed. No one’s been caught out after the hours he laid down. No one has broken bounds. No one’s played games. The chaps have hung together. But to-night I came across Bobbie Carr creeping out of school just before seven o’clock.”
“Well,” said Rouse, “what did you do?”
“I stopped him and asked him where he was going, and he wouldn’t say. I jawed him a bit and told him that no matter what he was going for he wasn’t playing the game. I said he was bound to be caught, and he’d be the first one who’d let us down.”
“Did he turn back?”
“No,” said Henry soberly. “He shook me off and went on.”
“And where do you think he’s gone?”
For a moment Henry hesitated. Then he spoke up boldly.