Mildred Arkell Volume Iii Part 7

"Send the boys away for a minute, will you?" cried the master to his brother clergyman.

The boys went away, exceedingly glad to be sent. "You can go on with your Greek in the other room," said their father. But to that suggestion they were conveniently deaf, preferring to take an evening gallop through some of the more obscure streets, where they knocked furiously at all the doors, and pulled out a few of the bell-wires.

"An unpleasant affair has happened, Prattleton," began the master. "The register at St. James's has been robbed."

"The register robbed!" echoed Mr. Prattleton. "Not the book taken?"

"Not the book itself. A leaf has been taken out of it."

"How?"

"We must endeavour to find out how. Hunt protests that n.o.body has had access to it but ourselves, save in his presence."

"I do not suppose they have," returned Mr. Prattleton. "How could they?

When was it taken?"

"Sometime since the beginning of November. And there'll be a tremendous stir over it, as sure as that we are sitting here: it was wanted for--for--some trial at the next a.s.sizes," concluded the master, recollecting that Mr. Fauntleroy had cautioned him still not to speak of it. "Fauntleroy's people went to-day to take a copy of it, and found it gone; so Fauntleroy came on to me."

"You are sure it is gone?" continued Mr. Prattleton. "An entry is so easily overlooked."

"I am sure it is not in the book now: and I read it there last November."

"Well, this is an awkward thing. Have you no suspicion?--no clue?"

"Not any. Hunt was telling a tale----By the way," added Mr. Wilberforce, turning to George Prattleton, who had moved himself to a polite distance, as if not caring to hear, "you were mixed up in that. He says, that last November you and Lewis had some secret between you, about the church. Lewis went down to his house one morning by moonlight, got the key by stratagem, and brought it back, saying it was the wrong one: and you then went to the church with him, and both of you were agitated.

What was it all about? What did he want in the church?"

"Oh--something had been left there, I think he said, when one of the college boys had gone in to practise. That was nothing, Mr. Wilberforce.

We did not go into the church, after all."

George Prattleton spoke with eagerness, and then hastened from the room, but not before Mr. Wilberforce had caught a glimpse of his countenance.

"What is the matter with George?" whispered he.

Mr. Prattleton turned, and looked at the door by which he had gone out.

"With George?" he repeated: "nothing that I know of. Why?"

"He turned as pale as my cravat: just as Hunt describes him to have been when he went into the church with Lewis. I shall begin to think there is a mystery in this."

"But not one that touches the register," said Mr. Prattleton. "I'll tell you what that mystery was, but you must not bring in me as your informant; and don't punish the boy, now it's over, Wilberforce; though it was a disgraceful and dangerous act. It seems that young Arkell--what a nice lad that is! but he comes of a good stock--went into St. James's one evening to practise, and Lewis, who owed him a grudge, stole after him and locked him in, and took back the key to Hunt's, where he broke some heirloom of the dame's, in the shape of a china saucer, Hunt and his wife taking it to be Arkell. Arkell was locked in the church all night."

"Locked in the church all night!" repeated the amazed Sir. Wilberforce.

"Why the fright might have turned him--turned him--stone blind!"

"It might have turned him stone dead," rejoined Mr. Prattleton. "Lewis, it appears, got terrified for the consequences, and as soon as your servants were up, he went to Hunt's to get the key and let Arkell out.

Hunt would not give it him, and Lewis appealed to George. That's what has sent George out of the room, pale, as you call it; he was afraid lest you should question him too closely, and he pa.s.sed his word to Lewis not to betray him."

"What a villanous rascal!" uttered the master. "I never liked Lewis, but I would not have given him credit for this. Did George tell you?"

"Not he; he is not aware I know it. Lewis, some days afterwards, imparted the exploit to my boy, Joe. Joe, in his turn, imparted it to his brother, under a formidable injunction of secrecy, and I happened to overhear them, and became as wise as they were."

"You ought to have told me this," remarked Mr. Wilberforce, his countenance bearing its most severe expression.

"Had one of my own boys been guilty of it, I would have brought him to you and had him punished in the face of the school; but as no harm had come of it, I did not care to inform against Lewis: though I don't excuse him; it was a dastardly action."

"Well, this explains what Lewis wanted in the church, but it brings us no nearer the affair of the register. I think I shall offer a reward for the discovery."

Mr. Wilberforce proceeded home, and into the study where his boarders were a.s.sembled, some half dozen of the head boys. One of them, a great tall fellow, stood on his head on a table, his feet touching the wall.

"Who's that?" uttered the master. "Is that the way you prepare your lessons, sir?"

Down clattered the head and the feet, and the gentleman stood upright on the floor. It was Lewis senior. Mr. Wilberforce took a seat, and the boys held their breath: they saw something was wrong.

"Vaughan."

"Yes, sir."

"Did you lock Henry Arkell up in St. James's Church, and compel him to pa.s.s a night there?"

Mr. Vaughan opened all the eyes he possessed.

"I, sir! I have not locked him up, sir. I don't think Arkell is locked up," added Vaughan, in the confusion of his ideas. "I saw him talking to you, sir, just now, in Wage-street."

Lewis p.r.i.c.ked up his ears, which had turned of a fiery red; then Arkell _had_ been locked in! Mr. Wilberforce sharply seized upon Vaughan's words.

"What brought you in Wage-street, pray?"

"If you please, sir," coughed Vaughan, feeling he had betrayed himself, "I only went out for an exercise book. I finished mine last night, sir, and forgot it till I went to do my Latin just now. I didn't stop anywhere a minute, sir; I ran there and back as quick as lightning.

Here's the book, sir."

Believing as much of this as he chose, Mr. Wilberforce did not pursue the subject. "Then which of you gentlemen was it who did shut up Arkell?" asked he, gazing round. "Lewis, senior, what is the matter with you, that you are skulking behind? Did _you_ do it?"

Lewis saw that all was up. "That canting hound has been peaching at last," quoth he to himself. "I laid a bet with Prattleton he'd do it."

"It is the most wicked and cowardly action that I believe ever disgraced the college school," continued Mr. Wilberforce, "and it depends upon how you meet it, Lewis, whether or not I shall expel you. Equivocate to me now, if you dare. Had it come to my knowledge at the time, you should have been flogged till you could not stand, and ignominiously expelled.

Flogged you will be, as it is. Do you know, sir, that he might have died through it?"

Lewis hung his head, wis.h.i.+ng Arkell had died; and then he could not have told the master.

"I think the best punishment will be, to lock you up in St. James's all the night, and see how you will like it," continued Mr. Wilberforce.

Lewis wondered whether he was serious; and the perspiration ran down him at the thought. "He was not locked in all night," he said, sullenly, by way of propitiating the master. "When we went to open the church, he was gone."

"Gone! What do you mean now?"

"He had got out somehow, sir, for Hunt said he had just seen him, and when I ran back to morning school, he was in the college hall. Mr.

George Prattleton advised me not to make a stir, to know how he had got out, but to let it drop."

As Lewis spoke, Mr. Wilberforce suddenly remembered that Hunt said Henry Arkell was in his kitchen, when Lewis came, frightened, and thumping for the key. It occurred to him now, for the first time, to wonder how that could have been.