Gerald Eversley's Friendship: A Study in Real Life

by J. E. C. Welldon

Mr. Brandiston knew boys; but did he know this boy? That was the question. Rules of behaviour, like rules of law, have their exceptions. Had he been familiar with Mr. Darwin’s scientific observations on the expression of human emotions, he would have understood that people do not always blush on the same occasions or for the same reasons. It is an error to assume that a blush is invariably a sign of guilt; it may be a sign of conscious rectitude or wounded honour. There are those who are pained as much by the suspicion of guilt as by detection in guilt. There are natures that feel a doubt as a stab, and resent insinuation as a stain. Was it so here?

Two things only were settled in Mr. Brandiston’s mind. One was that he would probe the mystery of the stolen paper to the bottom. The other was that, if possible, he would probe it himself alone. He felt that it would be unjust to Gerald Eversley—may it not be added, unjust to Mr. Brandiston’s house?—to let anybody else know his suspicion of foul play. It was pretty obvious that the only chance of throwing light upon the mystery lay through Gerald Eversley himself. If he were guilty, he might be induced to make a confession, or there might be found in his room some evidence of his guilt. Mr. Brandiston resolved therefore—I do not know whether his resolution would be justified in the circumstances by schoolboy public opinion or not—to make an examination of his room late at night. It was past midnight when he entered the room. Gerald was fast asleep. Mr. Brandiston surveyed the room. He looked at a blotting-case that was lying on the table, and some papers, one of them the very examination paper done the day before; took down one or two books, a Cicero or a part of Cicero among them, from the shelves; picked up some fragments of paper that had fallen to the floor, and read them carefully. There was nothing. Mr. Brandiston, not wishing to awake Gerald, felt he must retire baffled, yet somewhat relieved. Gerald Eversley was not a favourite of Mr. Brandiston; but he was after all a member of Mr. Brandiston’s house, and the good name of the house was involved in the proof of his innocence. It was with this feeling that Mr. Brandiston was closing the door of the room when his eye lighted upon some pieces of paper, more or less charred, that were lying, as if by accident, under the grate. One of them seemed to contain some printed matter. He stooped down and picked them up. They were all fragments of letters or exercises—all except that one. What was Mr. Brandiston’s horror when he perceived that the little bit of paper which he held in his hand was the corner of the same examination paper as the one that was lying on the table! It seemed to be the irresistible conclusion that somebody had intended to destroy the paper, and with that object had put it on the fire, but that this one fragment of it had fallen out of the grate before being consumed in the flames. And that somebody—who could it be but Gerald Eversley?

Mr. Brandiston shut the door with a heavy heart. He returned to his study and sat down in his armchair. What was he to do next?

Suddenly it occurred to him that the burnt paper might be Pomfret’s. He and Eversley might have been comparing notes (though this was unlikely as they were not intimate friends); he might have left his paper in Eversley’s room, and Eversley might have thrown it into the fire.

Mr. Brandiston lighted his candle again and went as rapidly as he could to Pomfret’s room. The school clock struck one o’clock as he entered it. Pomfret, too, was asleep. Sleep looks awful when it is associated with the suspicion of guilt. Mr. Brandiston glanced at the table; there, half hidden by a lexicon, was Pomfret’s paper with his name, G. Pomfret, written upon it, and his ink-marks against the questions which he had been unable to answer.

Mr. Brandiston retired to bed, but he hardly slept that night.

Mr. Brandiston’s mind was made up. Unless Eversley could offer some explanation of the finding of the fragment of paper in the fireplace of his room—and what explanation could be satisfactory?—there could be no doubt that he had been guilty of fraud.

Mr. Brandiston, as he lay wakeful in his bed, felt that his proper course of action was unmistakable. It was to send for Gerald Eversley next morning, lay before him the evidence which appeared to justify the most serious suspicion against him, and, in the event of his being unable to meet it, to report him formally to the head master. Mr. Brandiston would be just—that was certain; but justice demanded the exposure and punishment of the guilty boy.

The interview with Gerald Eversley next morning was not calculated to set Mr. Brandiston’s suspicion at rest. It is true that Gerald Eversley throughout asserted his innocence. But his manner was confused; it was not, Mr. Brandiston thought, the manner of an innocent boy. He admitted at once that the paper found in his fireplace had not been borrowed from Pomfret or any other boy. He professed himself totally unable to explain how it came to be in his fireplace. Mr. Brandiston thought it best not to tell him who had found it there; but he assured him that there was no doubt as to its having been found. He concluded by saying that the facts which he had collected and weighed with scrupulous care, pointed, in his opinion, irresistibly to one conclusion—that the paper must have been stolen from a drawer in his study; that only two boys in the house, of whom Gerald was one, could have been interested in stealing it; that Gerald had been seen to enter his study at a time when it might have been stolen; that a charred fragment of the paper had been found in his room, and that he could give no account of its being found there.

In the circumstances, Mr. Brandiston, after consideration, felt that he could not do otherwise than report Gerald Eversley to the head master for dishonesty.