“But I am ignorant myself of what he did want,” mildly deprecated Jenkins. “He asked me a question or two about Mr. Arthur Channing, but why I don’t know.”
Leaving Mrs. Jenkins to ferret out the questions one by one—which, you may depend upon it, she would not fail to do, and to keep Jenkins a prisoner until it was over—and leaving Mr. Butterby to proceed to the house of the cathedral organist, whither he was now bent, to ascertain whether Mr. Williams did take the organ voluntarily, and (to Arthur) unexpectedly, the past Friday afternoon, we will go on to other matters. Mr. Butterby best knew what bearing this could have upon the case. Police officers sometimes give to their inquiries a strangely wide range.
CHAPTER XXII. — AN INTERRUPTED DINNER.
Have you ever observed a large lake on the approach of a sudden storm?—its unnatural stillness, death-like and ominous; its undercurrent of anger not yet apparent on the surface; and then the breaking forth of fury when the storm has come?
Not inaptly might the cloisters of Helstonleigh be compared to this, that day, when the college boys were let out of school at one o’clock. A strange rumour had been passed about amongst the desks—not reaching that at which sat the seniors—a rumour which shook the equanimity of the school to its centre; and, when one o’clock struck, the boys, instead of clattering out with all the noise of which their legs and lungs were capable, stole down the stairs quietly, and formed into groups of whisperers in the cloisters. It was the calm that precedes a storm.
So unusual a state of affairs was noticed by the senior boy.
“What’s up now?” he asked them, in the phraseology in vogue there and elsewhere. “Are you all going to a funeral? I hope it’s your sins that you are about to bury!”
A heavy silence answered him. Gaunt could not make it out. The other three seniors, attracted by the scene, came back, and waited with Gaunt. By that time the calm was being ruffled by low murmurings, and certain distinct words came from more than one of the groups.