At his command Dick and Roger hurried off to awaken the Head and the other masters, some of whom speedily discovered that they, too, had been robbed in a greater or lesser degree. But all their troubles paled before the Old Man's loss. He had thought his treasure-cabinet burglar-proof, and his usually stern face now seemed almost boyishly distressed. He was writing a book about his unique collection, and the recovery of the treasure was essential to the manuscript's completion.
"I'm sorry for everybody who has been robbed," he said, "and devoutly hope we may recover the stolen goods. You boys have lost nothing, I hope?"
Roger was beginning to explain that they had, indeed, lost a very great deal, but the prompt arrival of a police-inspector silenced him.
"Our men are already out scouring the district," the inspector briskly reported. "The burglars may not have escaped. Awfully sorry this has occurred, sir; must have slipped in between the beats. Can I see the rifled rooms, please?"
His tour was so thorough that Mr. Rooke and the boys lost patience, and begged the Head to let them join in the search for the thieves.
"Yes, go," the Old Man agreed, "but be wary. Burglars are usually armed. Don't jeopardize your skins by indiscreet valour."
It proved altogether an unprofitable adventure. The wind on the heath stung their faces with icy points of hail, and over that wide expanse of moorland a regiment of hidden men could have escaped detection. But it was quite unlikely that the burglars had remained in the district. They had the choice of several roads leading inland, and were probably miles away by now.
Fagged out and wet to the skin, the trio gave it up towards lunch-time, hoping that the police had had better luck. But they hadn't, nor had any of the hardier schoolboys who had taken up the quest.
It looked like a cleverly pre-arranged piece of cracksmanship, and few of those despoiled entertained much hope of seeing their property again. The local police were up against a big thing, which oppressed and baffled them.
The inspector took away a few photographs, together with an index of the Head's stolen valuables. Dick and Roger could give him no workable details of their loss.