"True, Dave: he's no blabmouth. Best of the bunch, by far. Shan't ask him who threw the apple—we'll find it out ourselves."
"Take a bit of doing," Little John observed.
"Chance for the amateur detectives amongst you," Robin answered. "What are the Squirms doing all day long? Stuffing themselves. Even gorging under cover of their desk-lids. Watch 'em. See what they eat. If any one more than another grinds up russet apples, he's our man."
The plan seemed delightfully simple. Anybody might be a Scotland Yard 'tec with such a straight-forward clue to work on. Every Merry Man became a sleuth from that moment. After meals, when it was the custom of the school to throng into the common room for fifteen minutes or so before restarting work, they watched the Squirms out of the corners of their eyes, noting with what kind of apple each of them supplemented his diet. The cores of several varieties of both eating and cooking apples, and even those of sour crab apples, were picked clean and cast into the fire, but never once was a Squirm detected in the act of eating a russet.
"No good," declared Robin; "it's 'nix', as the Yankees say. The chap who flung the russet is too 'fly' to go on eating that kind. We must try another way. Let us fare forth, Little John, old son, to ye olde village tuck-shop. I would have speech with the stout dame that selleth prog therein."
The proprietress of the little village tuck-shop was waxing fat on the proceeds of what she sold to the hungry Foxes. She received Robin and Little John with an expansive smile, her hand going mechanically to the tin containing Robin's favourite biscuits. Robin chatted pleasantly as she weighed out his customary purchase.
Politely offering her a biscuit before passing the bag to Little John, Robin said:
"Mother, I heard our matron talking about you the other day. She said she'd give her ears, or something like that, for a complexion as nice as yours."
"Did she now? Not really? Ah, well, I expect she does feel it, poor dear, with her so pale and thin—almost green as you might say—and my cheeks like—like——"
"Apples," Robin promptly put in. "Perhaps you eat a lot of apples, Mrs. Roe, to keep your cheeks rosy."