The Gold Bat Part 8

"Hullo," said Clowes, "been tidying up?"

Trevor made a few hasty comments on the situation. Clowes listened approvingly.

"Don't you think," he went on, eyeing the study with a critical air, "that you've got too many things on the floor, and too few anywhere else? And I should move some of those books on to the shelf, if I were you."

Trevor breathed very hard.

"I should like to find the chap who did this," he said softly.

Clowes advanced into the room and proceeded to pick up various misplaced articles of furniture in a helpful way.

"I thought so," he said presently, "come and look here."

Tied to a chair, exactly as it had been in the case of Mill, was a neat white card, and on it were the words, _"With the Compliments of the League"._

"What are you going to do about this?" asked Clowes. "Come into my room and talk it over."

"I'll tidy this place up first," said Trevor. He felt that the work would be a relief. "I don't want people to see this. It mustn't get about. I'm not going to have my study turned into a sort of side-show, like Mill's. You go and change. I shan't be long."

"I will never desert Mr Micawber," said Clowes. "Friend, my place is by your side. Shut the door and let's get to work."

Ten minutes later the room had resumed a more or less--though princ.i.p.ally less--normal appearance. The books and chairs were back in their places. The ink was sopped up. The broken photographs were stacked in a neat pile in one corner, with a rug over them. The mantelpiece was still empty, but, as Clowes pointed out, it now merely looked as if Trevor had been p.a.w.ning some of his household G.o.ds. There was no sign that a devastating secret society had raged through the study.

Then they adjourned to Clowes' study, where Trevor sank into Clowes'

second-best chair--Clowes, by an adroit movement, having appropriated the best one--with a sigh of enjoyment. Running and pa.s.sing, followed by the toil of furniture-s.h.i.+fting, had made him feel quite tired.

"It doesn't look so bad now," he said, thinking of the room they had left. "By the way, what did you do with that card?"

"Here it is. Want it?"

"You can keep it. I don't want it."

"Thanks. If this sort of things goes on, I shall get quite a nice collection of these cards. Start an alb.u.m some day."

"You know," said Trevor, "this is getting serious."

"It always does get serious when anything bad happens to one's self. It always strikes one as rather funny when things happen to other people.

When Mill's study was wrecked, I bet you regarded it as an amusing and original 'turn'. What do you think of the present effort?"

"Who on earth can have done it?"

"The Pres--"

"Oh, dry up. Of course it was. But who the blazes is he?"

"Nay, children, you have me there," quoted Clowes. "I'll tell you one thing, though. You remember what I said about it's probably being Rand-Brown. He can't have done this, that's certain, because he was out in the fields the whole time. Though I don't see who else could have anything to gain by Barry not getting his colours."

"There's no reason to suspect him at all, as far as I can see. I don't know much about him, bar the fact that he can't play footer for nuts, but I've never heard anything against him. Have you?"

"I scarcely know him myself. He isn't liked in Seymour's, I believe."

"Well, anyhow, this can't be his work."

"That's what I said."

"For all we know, the League may have got their knife into Barry for some reason. You said they used to get their knife into fellows in that way. Anyhow, I mean to find out who ragged my room."

"It wouldn't be a bad idea," said Clowes.

O'Hara came round to Donaldson's before morning school next day to tell Trevor that he had not yet succeeded in finding the lost bat. He found Trevor and Clowes in the former's den, trying to put a few finis.h.i.+ng touches to the same.

"Hullo, an' what's up with your study?" he inquired. He was quick at noticing things. Trevor looked annoyed. Clowes asked the visitor if he did not think the study presented a neat and gentlemanly appearance.

"Where are all your photographs, Trevor?" persisted the descendant of Irish kings.

"It's no good trying to conceal anything from the bhoy," said Clowes.

"Sit down, O'Hara--mind that chair; it's rather wobbly--and I will tell ye the story."

"Can you keep a thing dark?" inquired Trevor.

O'Hara protested that tombs were not in it.

"Well, then, do you remember what happened to Mill's study? That's what's been going on here."

O'Hara nearly fell off his chair with surprise. That some philanthropist should rag Mill's study was only to be expected. Mill was one of the worst. A worm without a saving grace. But Trevor!

Captain of football! In the first eleven! The thing was unthinkable.

"But who--?" he began.

"That's just what I want to know," said Trevor, shortly. He did not enjoy discussing the affair.

"How long have you been at Wrykyn, O'Hara?" said Clowes.

O'Hara made a rapid calculation. His fingers twiddled in the air as he worked out the problem.

"Six years," he said at last, leaning back exhausted with brain work.

"Then you must remember the League?"

"Remember the League? Rather."

"Well, it's been revived."

O'Hara whistled.

"This'll liven the old place up," he said. "I've often thought of reviving it meself. An' so has Moriarty. If it's anything like the Old League, there's going to be a sort of Donnybrook before it's done with.