The Master of the Shell

by Talbot Baines Reed

Digby, perhaps, did not exactly put the idea into these poetical words, but the matter troubled him quite as much.

Now, it is my intention, at this place, generously to disclose to the reader what was hidden from Sir Digby Oakshott, Baronet, and from everyone else at Grandcourt—namely, that Arthur Herapath was fully persuaded in his own mind that he knew the name of the arch offender in the recent outrage, and was resolved through thick and thin to shield him from detection. He was perfectly aware that in so doing he made himself an accessory after the fact, but that was a risk he was prepared to run. Only it decided him to keep his knowledge to himself.

Arthur was not a particularly sharp boy. His qualities were chiefly of the bull-dog order. He did not take things in with the rapidity of some fellows, but when he did get his teeth into a fact he held on like grim death. So it was now. In the first excitement of the discovery he had been as much at sea and as wild in his conjectures as anybody. But after a little he stumbled upon a piece of evidence which gave him a serious turn, and had kept him serious ever since.

On the morning of the discovery, Arthur, being in the neighbourhood of the “boot-box,” thought he would have a look round. There was no fear of his mistaking the place; he had been there before, and seen Mr Bickers come out of the sack. Everything was pretty much as it had been left. The sack lay in the corner where it had been thrown, and the cord, all except the piece which the baronet had secured, was there too. On the dusty floor could clearly be perceived the place where Mr Bickers had rolled about in his uncomfortable shackles during the night, and on the ledge of the dim window which let light into the boot-box from the lobby still stood the tumbler which Arthur himself had officiously fetched an hour or two ago.

One or two things occurred to Arthur which had not previously struck him. One was that the door of the boot-box was a very narrow one, and, closing-to by a spring, it would either have had to be held open or propped open while Mr Bickers was being hauled in by his captors. He found that to hold it open wide he would have to get behind it and shut himself up between it and the stairs. Most likely, all hands being required for securing the victim, the captors would have taken the precaution to prop the door open by some means, so as to be ready for their deep-laid and carefully prepared scheme.

So Arthur groped about and discovered a twisted-up wedge of paper, which, by its battered look and peculiar shape, had evidently been stuck at some time under the door to keep it from closing-to. He quietly pocketed this prize, on the chance of its being useful, and after possessing himself of the sack and cord, and two wax vestas lying on the floor, one of which had been lit and the other had not, he prepared to quit the scene. As he was going up-stairs he caught sight of one other object—not, however, on the floor, but on the ledge of the cornice above the door. This was a match-box of the kind usually sold by street arabs for a halfpenny. Arthur tried to reach it, but could not get at it even by jumping.

“The fellow who put that there must have been over six feet,” said he to himself.

With some trouble he got a stick and tipped the box off the ledge, and as he did so it occurred to him that, whereas the dust lay a quarter of an inch thick on the ledge, and whereas the match-box had no similar coating of dust, but was almost clean, it must have been put up there recently. He opened the box and looked inside. It contained wax vestas, with curiously coloured purple heads, which on examination corresponded exactly with the matches he had picked up on the floor of the boot-box.

“Oh,” said Arthur to himself, very red in the face, “here’s a go!” and he bolted up to his room.

Dig, as it happened, was out, not altogether to his chum’s regret, who set himself, with somewhat curious agitation, to examine his booty.