"You couldn't get stuff like that at Cook's," he said. "I suppose it is a bit different," said Dunstable. "Have any of you ... noticed something queer...?" Merrett stared at Ruthven. Ruthven stared at Merrett. "I...." said Merrett. "D'you know...." said Ruthven. Chadwick's face was a delicate green. "I believe," said Dunstable, "the stuff ... was ... poisoned. I...." * * * * * "Drink this," said the school doctor, briskly, bending over Dunstable's bed with a medicine-glass in his hand, "and be ashamed of yourself. The fact is you've over-eaten yourself. Nothing more and nothing less. Why can't you boys be content to feed moderately?" "I don't think I ate much, sir," protested Dunstable. "It must have been what I ate. I went to that new American place." "So _you_ went there, too? Why, I've just come from attending a bilious boy in Mr. Seymour's house. He said he had been at the American place, too." "Was that Merrett, sir? He was one of the party. We were all bad. We can't all have eaten too much." The doctor looked thoughtful. "H'm. Curious. Very curious. Do you remember what you had?" "I had some things the man called buckwheat cakes, with some stuff he said was maple syrup." "Bah. American trash." The doctor was a staunch Briton, conservative in his views both on politics and on food. "Why can't you boys eat good English food? I must tell the headmaster of this. I haven't time to look after the school if all the boys are going to poison themselves. You lie still and try to go to sleep, and you'll be right enough in no time." But Dunstable did not go to sleep. He stayed awake to interview Linton, who came to pay him a visit. "Well," said Linton, looking down at the sufferer with an expression that was a delicate blend of pity and contempt, "you've made a nice sort of ass of yourself, haven't you! I don't know if it's any consolation to you, but Merrett's just as bad as you are. And I hear the others are, too. So now you see what comes of going to Ring's instead of Cook's." "And now," said Dunstable, "if you've quite finished, you can listen to me for a bit...." "So now you know," he concluded. Linton's face beamed with astonishment and admiration. "Well, I'm hanged," he said. "You're a marvel. But how did you know it wouldn't poison you?" "I relied on you. You said it wasn't poison when I asked you in the lab. My faith in you is touching." "But why did you take any yourself?" "Sort of idea of diverting suspicion. But the thing isn't finished yet. Listen." Linton left the dormitory five minutes later with a look of a young disciple engaged on some holy mission. PART 3 "You think the food is unwholesome, then?" said the headmaster after dinner that night. "Unwholesome!" said the school doctor. "It must be deadly. It must be positively lethal. Here we have six ordinary, strong, healthy boys struck down at one fell swoop as if there were a pestilence raging. Why----"