CHAPTER LVII
MR. DOWNING MOVES
The rain continued without a break all the morning. The two teams, after hanging about dismally, and whiling the time away with stump-cricket in the changing-rooms, lunched in the pavilion at one o'clock. After which the M.C.C. captain, approaching Adair, moved that this merry meeting be considered off and himself and his men permitted to catch the next train back to town. To which Adair, seeing that it was out of the question that there should be any cricket that afternoon, regretfully agreed, and the first Sedleigh v. M.C.C. match was accordingly scratched.
Mike and Psmith, wandering back to the house, were met by a damp junior from Downing's, with a message that Mr. Downing wished to see Mike as soon as he was changed.
"What's he want me for?" inquired Mike.
The messenger did not know. Mr. Downing, it seemed, had not confided in him. All he knew was that the housemaster was in the house, and would be glad if Mike would step across.
"A nuisance," said Psmith, "this incessant demand for you. That's the worst of being popular. If he wants you to stop to tea, edge away. A meal on rather a sumptuous scale will be prepared in the study against your return."
Mike changed quickly, and went off, leaving Psmith, who was fond of simple pleasures in his spare time, earnestly occupied with a puzzle which had been scattered through the land by a weekly paper. The prize for a solution was one thousand pounds, and Psmith had already informed Mike with some minuteness of his plans for the disposition of this sum. Meanwhile, he worked at it both in and out of school, generally with abusive comments on its inventor.
He was still fiddling away at it when Mike returned.
Mike, though Psmith was at first too absorbed to notice it, was agitated.
"I don't wish to be in any way harsh," said Psmith, without looking up, "but the man who invented this thing was a blighter of the worst type. You come and have a shot. For the moment I am baffled. The whisper flies round the clubs, 'Psmith is baffled.'"
"The man's an absolute drivelling ass," said Mike warmly.
"Me, do you mean?"
"What on earth would be the point of my doing it?"
"You'd gather in a thousand of the best. Give you a nice start in life."
"I'm not talking about your rotten puzzle."
"What are you talking about?"
"That ass Downing. I believe he's off his nut."
"Then your chat with Comrade Downing was not of the old - College - chums - meeting - unexpectedly - after years' - separation type? What has he been doing to you?"
"He's off his nut."
"I know. But what did he do? How did the brainstorm burst? Did he jump at you from behind a door and bite a piece out of your leg, or did he say he was a tea-pot?"
Mike sat down.
"You remember that painting Sammy business?"
"As if it were yesterday," said Psmith. "Which it was, pretty nearly."
"He thinks I did it."
"Why? Have you ever shown any talent in the painting line?"
"The silly ass wanted me to confess that I'd done it. He as good as asked me to. Jawed a lot of rot about my finding it to my advantage later on if I behaved sensibly."
"Then what are you worrying about? Don't you know that when a master wants you to do the confessing-act, it simply means that he hasn't enough evidence to start in on you with? You're all right. The thing's a stand-off."
"Evidence!" said Mike, "My dear man, he's got enough evidence to sink a ship. He's absolutely sweating evidence at every pore. As far as I can see, he's been crawling about, doing the Sherlock Holmes business for all he's worth ever since the thing happened, and now he's dead certain that I painted Sammy."
"Did you, by the way?" asked Psmith.
"No," said Mike shortly, "I didn't. But after listening to Downing I almost began to wonder if I hadn't. The man's got stacks of evidence to prove that I did."
"Such as what?"
"It's mostly about my boots. But, dash it, you know all about that. Why, you were with him when he came and looked for them."
"It is true," said Psmith, "that Comrade Downing and I spent a very pleasant half-hour together inspecting boots, but how does he drag you into it?"
"He swears one of the boots was splashed with paint."
"Yes. He babbled to some extent on that point when I was entertaining him. But what makes him think that the boot, if any, was yours?"
"He's certain that somebody in this house got one of his boots splashed, and is hiding it somewhere. And I'm the only chap in the house who hasn't got a pair of boots to show, so he thinks it's me. I don't know where the dickens my other boot has gone. Edmund swears he hasn't seen it, and it's nowhere about. Of course I've got two pairs, but one's being soled. So I had to go over to school yesterday in pumps. That's how he spotted me."
Psmith sighed.
"Comrade Jackson," he said mournfully, "all this very sad affair shows the folly of acting from the best motives. In my simple zeal, meaning to save you in pleasantness, I have landed you, with a dull, sickening thud, right in the cart. Are you particular about dirtying your hands? If you aren't, just reach up that chimney a bit?"
Mike stared.
"What the dickens are you talking about?"
"Go on. Get it over. Be a man, and reach up the chimney."
"I don't know what the game is," said Mike, kneeling beside the fender and groping, "but— Hullo!"
"Ah ha!" said Psmith moodily.
Mike dropped the soot-covered object in the fender, and glared at it.
"It's my boot!" he said at last.
"It is," said Psmith, "your boot. And what is that red stain across the toe? Is it blood? No, 'tis not blood. It is red paint."
Mike seemed unable to remove his eyes from the boot.
"How on earth did By Jove! I remember now. I kicked up against something in the dark when I was putting my bicycle back that night. It must have been the paint-pot."
"Then you were out that night?"
"Rather. That's what makes it so jolly awkward. It's too long to tell you now"
"Your stories are never too long for me," said Psmith. "Say on!"
"Well, it was like this." And Mike related the events which had led up to his midnight excursion. Psmith listened attentively.
"This," he said, when Mike had finished, "confirms my frequently stated opinion that Comrade Jellicoe is one of Nature's blitherers. So that's why he touched us for our hard-earned, was it?"
"Yes. Of course there was no need for him to have the money at all."
"And the result is that you are in something of a tight place. You're absolutely certain you didn't paint that dog? Didn't do it, by any chance, in a moment of absent-mindedness, and forgot all about it? No? No I suppose not. I wonder who did!"
"It s beastly awkward. You see, Downing chased me that night. That was why I rang the alarm bell. So, you see, he's certain to think that the chap he chased, which was me, and the chap who painted Sammy, are the same. I shall get landed both ways."
Psmith pondered.
"It is a tightish place," he admitted.
"I wonder if we could get this boot clean," said Mike, inspecting it with disfavour.
"Not for a pretty considerable time."
"I suppose not. I say, I am in the cart. If I can't produce this boot, they're bound to guess why."
"What exactly," asked Psmith, "was the position of affairs between you and Comrade Downing when you left him? Had you definitely parted brass-rags? Or did you simply sort of drift apart with mutual courtesies?"
"Oh, he said I was ill-advised to continue that attitude, or some rot, and I said I didn't care, I hadn't painted his bally dog, and he said very well, then, he must take steps, and—well, that was about all."
"Sufficient, too," said Psmith, "quite sufficient. I take it, then, that he is now on the war-path, collecting a gang, so to speak."
"I suppose he's gone to the Old Man about it."
"Probably. A very worrying time our headmaster is having, taking it all round, in connection with this painful affair. What do you think his move will be?"
"I suppose he'll send for me, and try to get something out of me."
"He'll want you to confess, too. Masters are all whales on confession. The worst of it is, you can't prove an alibi, because at about the time the foul act was perpetrated, you were playing Round-and-round-the mulberry-bush with Comrade Downing. This needs thought. You had better put the case in my hands, and go out and watch the dandelions growing. I will think over the matter."
"Well, I hope you'll be able to think of something. I can't."
"Possibly. You never know."
There was a tap at the door.
"See how we have trained them," said Psmith. "They now knock before entering. There was a time when they would have tried to smash in a panel. Come in."
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MIKE DROPPED THE SOOT-COVERED OBJECT IN-THE FENDER
"Oh, I say, Jackson," he said, "the headmaster sent me over to tell you he wants to see you."
"I told you so," said Mike to Psmith.
"Don't go," suggested Psmith. "Tell him to write."
Mike got up.
"All this is very trying," said Psmith. "I'm seeing nothing of you to-day." He turned to the small boy. "Tell Willie," he added, "that Mr. Jackson will be with him in a moment."
The emissary departed.
"You're all right," said Psmith encouragingly. "Just you keep on saying you're all right. Stout denial is the thing. Don't go in for any airy explanations. Simply stick to stout denial. You can't beat it."
With which expert advice, he allowed Mike to go on his way.
He had not been gone two minutes, when Psmith, who had leaned back in his chair, wrapped in thought, heaved himself up again. He stood for a moment straightening his tie at the looking-glass; then he picked up his hat and moved slowly out of the door and down the passage. Thence, at the same dignified rate of progress, out of the house and in at Downing's front gate.
The postman was at the door when he got there, apparently absorbed in conversation with the parlour-maid. Psmith stood by politely till the postman, who had just been told it was like his impudence, caught sight of him, and, having handed over the letters in an ultra-formal and professional manner, passed away.
"Is Mr. Downing at home?" inquired Psmith.
He was, it seemed. Psmith was shown into the dining-room on the left of the hall, and requested to wait. He was examining a portrait of Mr. Downing which hung on the wall, when the housemaster came in.
"An excellent likeness, sir," said Psmith, with a gesture of the hand towards the painting.
"Well, Smith," said Mr. Downing shortly, "what do you wish to see me about?"
"It was in connection with the regrettable painting of your dog, sir."
"Ha!" said Mr. Downing.
"I did it, sir," said Psmith, stopping and flicking a piece of fluff off his knee.