"Just so. An excellent idea. Tell me, Markby, what did you do with the pot of paint when you had finished?"
"Put it in the bicycle shed, sir."
"On the floor?"
"On the floor, sir? No. On the shelf at the far end, with the can of whitening what I use for marking out the wickets, sir."
"Of course, yes. Quite so. Just as I thought."
"Do you want it, sir?"
"No, thank you, Markby, no, thank you. The fact is, somebody who had no business to do so has moved the pot of paint from the shelf to the floor, with the result that it has been kicked over and spilled. You had better get some more tomorrow. Thank you, Markby. That is all I wished to know."
Mr. Downing walked back to the school thoroughly excited. He was hot on the scent now. The only other possible theories had been tested and successfully exploded. The thing had become simple to a degree. All he had to do was to go to Mr. Outwood's house—the idea of searching a fellow master's house did not appear to him at all a delicate task; somehow one grew unconsciously to feel that Mr. Outwood did not really exist as a man capable of resenting liberties—find the paint-splashed shoe, ascertain its owner, and denounce him to the headmaster. There could be no doubt that a paint-splashed shoe must be in Mr. Outwood's house somewhere. A boy cannot tread in a pool of paint without showing some signs of having done so. It was Sunday, too, so that the shoe would not yet have been cleaned. Yoicks! Also tally-ho! This really was beginning to be something like business.
Regardless of the heat, the sleuth-hound hurried across to Outwood's as fast as he could walk.