Gerald Eversley's Friendship: A Study in Real Life

by J. E. C. Welldon

It seemed clear, then, to Mr. Brandiston that some one must have come into his study during his absence and taken a paper out of the drawer. If so, it was presumably some one who was interested in learning the contents of the paper.

That being his conclusion, his thoughts turned, naturally, to the two boys in his house who were members of the form to which the paper would be set. One of them was Gerald Eversley, the other a very good boy named Pomfret.

Mr. Brandiston tried to recollect what had happened since the sealed packet of papers came into his hands. He remembered opening it and putting it into the drawer. He remembered, or he believed he remembered, that as he was putting the packet into the drawer, just before dinner, he was called away by a message from Mrs. Brandiston, who wanted to speak to him about the invitations to be sent out for a proposed party. He remembered, too, that between nine and ten o’clock on the Wednesday evening—the evening before this—he had gone out of his study for a few minutes, leaving the key of his writing-table in one of the drawers—not, indeed, in the drawer which contained the examination papers, but in another drawer on the opposite side of the table.

Then he began to ask himself whether any one could have been in the study while he was not there. His study was a sanctum. It was not a place to which people went freely. A maidservant cleaned it out in the morning; but the cleaning was in some sense superficial, for it was as much as her life was worth to disturb Mr. Brandiston’s papers or letters. The same maidservant came in the evening during dinner to look at the fire and sweep up the grate. Except for these purposes no servant would naturally enter the study, unless it were the butler, and he only for the sake of seeing if Mr. Brandiston was there when a master or somebody else wanted him; for it was Mr. Brandiston’s rule that nobody was to be shown into the study, if he himself was not there. The study was the place where Mr. Brandiston interviewed the boys of his house; but it was understood that they must come and see him at fixed times—at nine in the morning, or after prayers at night—unless there were some exceptionally pressing reason for seeing him. Still it was always possible that a boy would enter the study during the day. Mrs. Brandiston no doubt might come there, though she did not in fact come often; but he did not associate his wife with the thought of the stolen paper.

As Mr. Brandiston cast his mind over the time that had elapsed since the Tuesday evening when he received the papers, he could recall various interviews with masters and boys, but he did not think that they had entered the study while he was out of it. Any one making his way to the study from the boys’ part of the house must pass by the butler’s pantry. Accordingly Mr. Brandiston rang the bell, and asked the butler if he remembered seeing any boy go into his study or come out of it between nine and ten o’clock on the evening before.

The butler, a rather sententious person, said he remembered hearing two boys—there might have been more, but he was certain of two—knock at the study door during that part of the evening—he would not like to swear, but he felt sure it was between nine and ten—and he saw them go by the pantry, though he did not take particular notice of them. Being asked who the boys were, the butler hesitated a good deal—he was a man who did not like committing himself—but finally expressed his belief that they were ‘Mr. Venables’ (who was now the head of the house) ‘and that Mr. Eversley’ (the ‘that’ meant only that the butler, like the house in general, looked upon Gerald as a rather curious, distinct, inexplicable creature).

That was the first step in Mr. Brandiston’s investigation. It did not lead him far, but he went to bed in some disquietude. He did not tell the butler the reason of his inquiry.

The next thing, as Mr. Brandiston considered, was to see whether the work of the examinees themselves would shed any light upon the mystery. The examination was held in the morning. As soon as Mr. Brandiston had collected the papers, he glanced with eager interest at Gerald Eversley’s. It was a brilliant performance. If it had been done by him honestly, it was a proof of remarkable knowledge. One particular expression in it struck Mr. Brandiston especially. In a passage of Cicero which he had set, occurred the words quodcunque in solum venit. Not a boy, as it proved, except Eversley, had translated them rightly. But he gave the exact modern equivalent for them—‘whatever is on the tapis.’

Still, Mr. Brandiston was only puzzled; circumstances, he could not help feeling, were suspicious, but Gerald Eversley, although undoubtedly eccentric, had the reputation of being an unusually conscientious, as well as an unusually clever, boy.

Mr. Brandiston, however, could not help reflecting that he had lately threatened him with the consequences of failing in his examination, and especially in his own paper. He resolved, therefore, to ascertain, if possible, whether Gerald Eversley had actually been in his study on the critical Wednesday evening. To avoid exciting suspicion, he sent first for the other boy whose name had been mentioned by the butler. Venables admitted at once that he had come to the study, but said he had come to bring Mr. Brandiston the list of the ‘placings’ of all the boys in the house. The ‘placings’ were the positions which all the boys occupied in their forms according to weekly order; and it was the regular duty of the head of the house to bring the list of them to Mr. Brandiston, though in this week they had been brought on an earlier day than usual, owing to the beginning of the examination. Venables added that, as he had not found Mr. Brandiston in the study, he had taken the list away; he offered to fetch it at once.