Arthur thereupon proceeded to narrate the history of the finding of the match-box, sack, and wedge of paper, with which the reader is already familiar, and considerably astonished his worthy listener by the business-like way in which he appeared to have put two and two together, and to have laid the crime at his, Railsford’s, door.
Nothing would satisfy the boy now but to go up and fetch down the incriminating articles and display them in the presence of the late criminal.
To his wrath and amazement, when he went to the cupboard he found—what it had been the lot of a certain classical personage to find before him—that the “cupboard was bare.” The articles were nowhere to be seen. Dig, on being charged with their abstraction, protested that he had never set eyes on them, and when Arthur told him the purpose for which they were wanted, he was scarcely less concerned at the mysterious disappearance than his friend.
Arthur finally had to return to Railsford without the promised evidence.
“I can’t make it out,” said he; “they’re gone.”
“Did anyone know about this except yourself?”
“Dig knew,” said Arthur, “and he must have collared them.”
“Who? Oakshott?”
“Oh no; but I happened to say something last term, just after that trial we had, you know; I was talking about it, on the strict quiet, of course, to Felgate.”
“Felgate!” exclaimed the master; and the whole truth flashed upon him at once.