Presently there was a sound of footsteps on the stairs. The door was opened.
“Mr. Smith, sir.”
The old Etonian entered as would the guest of the evening who is a few moments late for dinner. He was cheerful, but slightly deprecating. He gave the impression of one who, though sure of his welcome, feels that some slight apology is expected from him. He advanced into the room with a gentle half-smile which suggested good-will to all men.
“It is still raining,” he observed. “You wished to see me, sir?”
“Sit down, Smith.”
“Thank you, sir.”
He dropped into a deep arm-chair (which both Adair and Mike had avoided in favour of less luxurious seats) with the confidential cosiness of a fashionable physician calling on a patient, between whom and himself time has broken down the barriers of restraint and formality.
Mr. Downing burst out, like a reservoir that has broken its banks.
“Smith.”
Psmith turned his gaze politely in the housemaster’s direction.
“Smith, you came to me a quarter of an hour ago and told me that it was you who had painted my dog Sampson.”
“Yes, sir.”
“It was absolutely untrue?”
“I am afraid so, sir.”
“But, Smith—” began the headmaster.
Psmith bent forward encouragingly.
“——This is a most extraordinary affair. Have you no explanation to offer? What induced you to do such a thing?”
Psmith sighed softly.
“The craze for notoriety, sir,” he replied sadly. “The curse of the present age.”
“What!” cried the headmaster.
“It is remarkable,” proceeded Psmith placidly, with the impersonal touch of one lecturing on generalities, “how frequently, when a murder has been committed, one finds men confessing that they have done it when it is out of the question that they should have committed it. It is one of the most interesting problems with which anthropologists are confronted. Human nature——”
The headmaster interrupted.
“Smith,” he said, “I should like to see you alone for a moment. Mr. Downing might I trouble—? Adair, Jackson.”
He made a motion towards the door.
When he and Psmith were alone, there was silence. Psmith leaned back comfortably in his chair. The headmaster tapped nervously with his foot on the floor.
“Er—Smith.”
“Sir?”
The headmaster seemed to have some difficulty in proceeding. He paused again. Then he went on.
“Er—Smith, I do not for a moment wish to pain you, but have you—er, do you remember ever having had, as a child, let us say, any—er—severe illness? Any—er—mental illness?”
“No, sir.”
“There is no—forgive me if I am touching on a sad subject—there is no—none of your near relatives have ever suffered in the way I—er—have described?”
“There isn’t a lunatic on the list, sir,” said Psmith cheerfully.
“Of course, Smith, of course,” said the headmaster hurriedly, “I did not mean to suggest—quite so, quite so.... You think, then, that you confessed to an act which you had not committed purely from some sudden impulse which you cannot explain?”
“Strictly between ourselves, sir——”
Privately, the headmaster found Psmith’s man-to-man attitude somewhat disconcerting, but he said nothing.
“Well, Smith?”
“I should not like it to go any further, sir.”
“I will certainly respect any confidence——”
“I don’t want anybody to know, sir. This is strictly between ourselves.”
“I think you are sometimes apt to forget, Smith, the proper relations existing between boy and—Well, never mind that for the present. We can return to it later. For the moment, let me hear what you wish to say. I shall, of course, tell nobody, if you do not wish it.”
“Well, it was like this, sir,” said Psmith. “Jackson happened to tell me that you and Mr. Downing seemed to think he had painted Mr. Downing’s dog, and there seemed some danger of his being expelled, so I thought it wouldn’t be an unsound scheme if I were to go and say I had done it. That was the whole thing. Of course, Dunster writing created a certain amount of confusion.”
There was a pause.
“It was a very wrong thing to do, Smith,” said the headmaster, at last, “but.... You are a curious boy, Smith. Good-night.”
He held out his hand.
“Good-night, sir,” said Psmith.
“Not a bad old sort,” said Psmith meditatively to himself, as he walked downstairs. “By no means a bad old sort. I must drop in from time to time and cultivate him.”
Mike and Adair were waiting for him outside the front door.
“Well?” said Mike.
“You are the limit,” said Adair. “What’s he done?”
“Nothing. We had a very pleasant chat, and then I tore myself away.”
“Do you mean to say he’s not going to do a thing?”
“Not a thing.”
“Well, you’re a marvel,” said Adair.
Psmith thanked him courteously. They walked on towards the houses.
“By the way, Adair,” said Mike, as the latter started to turn in at Downing’s, “I’ll write to Strachan to-night about that match.”
“What’s that?” asked Psmith.
“Jackson’s going to try and get Wrykyn to give us a game,” said Adair. “They’ve got a vacant date. I hope the dickens they’ll do it.”
“Oh, I should think they’re certain to,” said Mike. “Good-night.”
“And give Comrade Downing, when you see him,” said Psmith, “my very best love. It is men like him who make this Merrie England of ours what it is.”
“I say, Psmith,” said Mike suddenly, “what really made you tell Downing you’d done it?”
“The craving for——”
“Oh, chuck it. You aren’t talking to the Old Man now. I believe it was simply to get me out of a jolly tight corner.”
Psmith’s expression was one of pain.
“My dear Comrade Jackson,” said he, “you wrong me. You make me writhe. I’m surprised at you. I never thought to hear those words from Michael Jackson.”
“Well, I believe you did, all the same,” said Mike obstinately. “And it was jolly good of you, too.”
Psmith moaned.
CHAPTER LIX
SEDLEIGH v. WRYKYN
The Wrykyn match was three-parts over, and things were going badly for Sedleigh. In a way one might have said that the game was over, and that Sedleigh had lost; for it was a one day match, and Wrykyn, who had led on the first innings, had only to play out time to make the game theirs.
Sedleigh were paying the penalty for allowing themselves to be influenced by nerves in the early part of the day. Nerves lose more school matches than good play ever won. There is a certain type of school batsman who is a gift to any bowler when he once lets his imagination run away with him. Sedleigh, with the exception of Adair, Psmith, and Mike, had entered upon this match in a state of the most azure funk. Ever since Mike had received Strachan’s answer and Adair had announced on the notice-board that on Saturday, July the twentieth, Sedleigh would play Wrykyn, the team had been all on the jump. It was useless for Adair to tell them, as he did repeatedly, on Mike’s authority, that Wrykyn were weak this season, and that on their present form Sedleigh ought to win easily. The team listened, but were not comforted. Wrykyn might be below their usual strength, but then Wrykyn cricket, as a rule, reached such a high standard that this probably meant little. However weak Wrykyn might be—for them—there was a very firm impression among the members of the Sedleigh first eleven that the other school was quite strong enough to knock the cover off them. Experience counts enormously in school matches. Sedleigh had never been proved. The teams they played were the sort of sides which the Wrykyn second eleven would play. Whereas Wrykyn, from time immemorial, had been beating Ripton teams and Free Foresters teams and M.C.C. teams packed with county men and sending men to Oxford and Cambridge who got their blues as freshmen.