The Willoughby Captains Part 54

"In course he did. Do you suppose I goes to bed like you kids at eight o'clock? No fear. Why, I don't get my supper at Joe Blades's till ten."

"Then you found some one in the boat-house when you went there, after supper, to go to bed?"

"There you are, all wrong agin. How do you suppose I'd find him when he got out of the window?"

"Then he came in and went out by the window?" asked Riddell.

"Why, you don't suppose he could come down the chimbley, do you?"

retorted Tom, scornfully, "and there's no way else."

"You had the key of the door all the time, of course," said Riddell.

"In course. Do you suppose we leaves the boat'us open for anybody as likes to come in without leave?"

"Then it was seeing the window open made you know some one had been in?"

continued the captain.

"Wrong agin! Why, you aren't been right once yet."

"Do you mean you really saw some one there?"

"How _could_ I see him when he was a-hoppin' out of the winder just as I comes in? I tell you I didn't see him. You couldn't have sor him either, not with all your learnin'."

"Then you've no idea who it was?"

"Ain't I? that's all you know."

"Why, you say you never saw him. Did you hear his voice?"

"No, I didn't."

"Has some one told you? Has he come and told you himself?"

"No, he ain't. Wrong agin."

"Did he leave anything behind that you would know him by, then?"

The boy looked up sharply at Riddell, who saw that he had made a point, and followed it up.

"What did he leave behind? His cap?" he asked.

"His cap! Do you suppose chaps cut strings with their caps? Why, you must be a flat."

"His knife, was it?" exclaimed Riddell, excitedly. "Was it his knife?"

"There you go; you're so clever. I as good as tell yer, and then you go on as if you guessed it yourself! You ain't got as much learnin' as you think, governor."

"But was it his knife he left behind?" inquired Riddell, too eager to attend to the sarcasms of his companion.

"What could it 'a been, unless it might be a razor. You don't cut ropes with your thumb-nails, do you? Of course it was his knife."

"And have you got it still, Tom?"

Here Tom began to get shy. As long as it was only information that the captain wanted to get at he didn't so much mind being cross-examined, but directly it looked as if his knife was in peril he bristled up.

"That'll do," said he gruffly; "my knife's nothink to do with you."

"I know it isn't, and I don't want to take it from you. I only want to look at it."

"Oh, yes; all very fine. And you mean to make out as it's yourn and you was the chap I saw hoppin' out of the winder, do yer? I know better.

He weren't your cut, so you needn't try to make that out."

"Of course it wasn't I," said Riddell, horrified even at the bare suspicion, still more at the idea of any one confessing to such a crime for the sake of getting a paltry knife.

Still Tom was obdurate and would not produce his treasure. In vain Riddell a.s.sured him that he made no claim to it, and, even if the knife were his own, would not dream of depriving the boy of it now. Tom listened to it all with an incredulous scowl, and Riddell was beginning to despair of ever setting eyes on the knife, when the boy solved the difficulty of his own accord.

"What do you want to look at it for?" he demanded. "Only to see if I knew whose it was once."

"Well, I ain't a-goin' to let yer see it unless you lay a half-a-crown down on that there seat. There! I ain't a-going to be done by you or any of your scholars."

Riddell gladly put down the money and had the satisfaction at last of seeing Tom fumble in his pockets for the precious weapon.

It was a long time coming to light, and meanwhile the boy kept a suspicious eye on the money, evidently not quite sure whether, after all, he was safe.

At length from the deepest depth of his trouser pocket his hand emerged, bringing with it the knife.

Had Tom not been so intent on the half-crown which lay on the seat he would have been amazed at the sudden pallor which overspread the captain's face and the half-suppressed gasp which he gave as his eyes fell on--_young Wyndham's knife_!

There was no mistaking it. Riddell knew it well. Wyndham when first he possessed it was never tired of flourishing it proudly before all his acquaintances, and finding some pretext for using it or lending it every five minutes of the day.

Riddell had often had it pressed upon him. Yes, and now, with a shock that was almost sickening, he recollected that he had had it in his hand that very night before the boat-race.

And with the thought there rushed in upon him the whole memory of that evening. How excited, how restless the boy had been, how impossible he had found it to work, how wildly he had talked about the coming race, and how he had set his mind on the schoolhouse boat winning. Riddell remembered every word of it now, and how Wyndham's excitement had baulked him of his desire for a serious talk that evening. And then he remembered how abruptly the boy had left him, returning hurriedly a moment after for his knife--this very knife which less than two hours afterwards had been dropped on the boat-house floor in the culprit's hurried retreat by the window!

Riddell felt literally sick as it all rushed through his mind at the sight of the knife in Tom's hand.

"Have you seen it enough?" demanded the youth, still eyeing the half- crown.

"Yes," murmured Riddell. And surely he never uttered a truer word.

Tom, startled by his voice, looked up.

"Hullo," said he, "what's up? One would think you'd never saw a knife afore!"

Riddell tried feebly to smile and recover himself.

"Tell you what," said Tom, struck with a brilliant idea--"tell you what, governor. You lay another two bob on the top of that there half-a-crown and it's your's. Come!"

Riddell mechanically took out his purse and produced the florin. It was almost the last coin that remained of his pocket-money for that term, but he was too miserable even to think of that.