Now the Benevolent Despot of this particular seat of learning was an astute pedagogue who could handle men as well as boys. He explained to Mr. Upton that the safe-keeping of the unit was the house-master’s concern, but agreed it was time that he himself was made acquainted with the present case. He took it as seriously, too, as Mr. Upton could have wished, but quite as frankly from his own point of view as his two visitors did from each of theirs. He had no doubt the boy would turn up, but when he did it would be necessary for him to give a satisfactory account of his proceedings before he could be received back into the school. “Bother the school!” cried Mr. Upton, diluting the anathema with difficulty. “Let me find my lad alive and well; then you can do what you like.” “But how do you propose to find him?” inquired the head master, with only a dry smile (which disappointed Spearman) by way of rejoinder. “First I shall have a word with these infernal people who, on their own showing, refused the boy a bed. I’ll give them a bit of my mind, I promise you! Then there’s the hotel they seem to have driven him to; it may be the one we always stay at, or one they’ve recommended. If I can’t hear anything of him there, I suppose there’ll be nothing for it but to call in the police.” “My dear sir,” exclaimed the head master, “you may as well call in the public at once! It will be in the papers before you know where you are; and that, I need hardly point out to you, is as undesirable from our point of view as I should have thought it would be from yours.” “It’s more so from mine!” cried Mr. Upton, in fresh alarm and indignation. “You think about your school. I think about my wife and boy; it might kill her to hear about this before he’s found. But if I don’t go to the police, who am I to go to?” The head master leant back in his chair, and joined his finger-tips judicially. “There was a man we had down here to investigate an extraordinary case of dishonesty, in which I was actually threatened with legal proceedings on behalf of a certain boy. But this man Thrush came down and solved the mystery within twenty-four hours, and saved the school a public scandal.” “He may save you another,” said Mr. Upton, “if he can find my boy. What did you say the name was?” “Thrush—Eugene Thrush—quite a remarkable man, and, I think, a gentleman,” said the head master impressively. Further particulars, including an address in Glasshouse Street, were readily supplied from an advertisement in that day’s _Times_, in which Mr. Thrush was described as an “inquiry agent,” capable alike of “delicate investigations” and “confidential negotiations.” That was the very man for Mr. Upton, as he himself agreed. And he departed both on speaking terms with Mr. Spearman, who said a final word for his own behaviour in the matter, and grimly at one with the head master on the importance of keeping it out of the papers. CHAPTER IX. MR. EUGENE THRUSH