"This," said Psmith, opening the next door and sinking his voice to an
awed whisper, "is where _I_ sleep!"
Mr. Downing glanced swiftly beneath the three beds.
"Excuse me, sir," said Psmith, "but are we chasing anything?"
"Be good enough, Smith," said Mr. Downing with asperity, "to keep your
remarks to yourself."
"I was only wondering sir. Shall I show you the next in order?"
"Certainly."
They moved on up the passage.
Drawing blank at the last dormitory, Mr. Downing paused, baffled. Psmith
waited patiently by. An idea struck the master.
"The studies, Smith," he cried.
"Aha!" said Psmith. "I beg your pardon, sir. The observation escaped me
unawares. The frenzy of the chase is beginning to enter into my blood.
Here we have--"
Mr. Downing stopped short.
"Is this impertinence studied, Smith?"
"Ferguson's study, sir? No, sir. That's farther down the passage. This
is Barnes's."
Mr. Downing looked at him closely. Psmith's face was wooden in its
gravity. The master snorted suspiciously, then moved on.
"Whose is this?" he asked, rapping a door.
"This, sir, is mine and Jackson's."
"What! Have you a study? You are low down in the school for it."
"I think, sir, that Mr. Outwood gave it us rather as a testimonial to
our general worth than to our proficiency in schoolwork."
Mr. Downing raked the room with a keen eye. The absence of bars from the
window attracted his attention.
"Have you no bars to your windows here, such as there are in my house?"
"There appears to be no bar, sir," said Psmith, putting up his eyeglass.
Mr. Downing was leaning out of the window.
"A lovely view, is it not, sir?" said Psmith. "The trees, the field, the
distant hills ..."
Mr. Downing suddenly started. His eye had been caught by the water pipe
at the side of the window. The boy whom Sergeant Collard had seen
climbing the pipe must have been making for this study.
He spun around and met Psmith's blandly inquiring gaze. He looked at
Psmith carefully for a moment. No. The boy he had chased last night had
not been Psmith. That exquisite's figure and general appearance were
unmistakable, even in the dusk.
"Whom did you say you shared this study with, Smith?"
"Jackson, sir. The cricketer."
"Never mind about his cricket, Smith," said Mr. Downing with irritation.
"No, sir."
"He is the only other occupant of the room?"
"Yes, sir."
"Nobody else comes into it?"
"If they do, they go out extremely quickly, sir."
"Ah! Thank you, Smith."
"Not at all, sir."
Mr. Downing pondered. Jackson! The boy bore him a grudge. The boy was
precisely the sort of boy to revenge himself by painting the dog Sammy.
And, gadzooks! The boy whom he had pursued last night had been just
about Jackson's size and build!
Mr. Downing was as firmly convinced at that moment that Mike's had been
the hand to wield the paintbrush as he had ever been of anything in
his life.
"Smith!" he said excitedly.
"On the spot, sir," said Psmith affably.
"Where are Jackson's shoes?"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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