Mike

There was a light in one of the ground-floor windows.  He tapped on the window, and the sound of a chair being pushed back told him that he had been heard.  The blind shot up, and he had a view of a room littered with books and papers, in the middle of which stood Mr. Wain, like a sea-beast among rocks.

Mr. Wain recognised his visitor and opened the window.  Mr. Appleby could not help feeling how like Wain it was to work on a warm summer’s night in a hermetically sealed room.  There was always something queer and eccentric about Wyatt’s step-father.

“Can I have a word with you, Wain?” he said.

“Appleby!  Is there anything the matter?  I was startled when you tapped.  Exceedingly so.”

“Sorry,” said Mr. Appleby.  “Wouldn’t have disturbed you, only it’s something important.  I’ll climb in through here, shall I?  No need to unlock the door.”  And, greatly to Mr. Wain’s surprise and rather to his disapproval, Mr. Appleby vaulted on to the window-sill, and squeezed through into the room.

CHAPTER XXIV CAUGHT

“Got some rather bad news for you, I’m afraid,” began Mr. Appleby.  “I’ll smoke, if you don’t mind.  About Wyatt.”

“James!”

“I was sitting in my garden a few minutes ago, having a pipe before finishing the rest of my papers, and Wyatt dropped from the wall on to my herbaceous border.”

Mr. Appleby said this with a tinge of bitterness.  The thing still rankled.

“James!  In your garden!  Impossible.  Why, it is not a quarter of an hour since I left him in his dormitory.”

“He’s not there now.”

“You astound me, Appleby.  I am astonished.”

“So was I.”

“How is such a thing possible?  His window is heavily barred.”

“Bars can be removed.”

“You must have been mistaken.”

“Possibly,” said Mr. Appleby, a little nettled.  Gaping astonishment is always apt to be irritating.  “Let’s leave it at that, then.  Sorry to have disturbed you.”

“No, sit down, Appleby.  Dear me, this is most extraordinary.  Exceedingly so.  You are certain it was James?”

“Perfectly.  It’s like daylight out of doors.”

Mr. Wain drummed on the table with his fingers.

“What shall I do?”

Mr. Appleby offered no suggestion.

“I ought to report it to the headmaster.  That is certainly the course I should pursue.”

“I don’t see why.  It isn’t like an ordinary case.  You’re the parent.  You can deal with the thing directly.  If you come to think of it, a headmaster’s only a sort of middleman between boys and parents.  He plays substitute for the parent in his absence.  I don’t see why you should drag in the master at all here.”

“There is certainly something in what you say,” said Mr. Wain on reflection.

“A good deal.  Tackle the boy when he comes in, and have it out with him.  Remember that it must mean expulsion if you report him to the headmaster.  He would have no choice.  Everybody who has ever broken out of his house here and been caught has been expelled.  I should strongly advise you to deal with the thing yourself.”

“I will.  Yes.  You are quite right, Appleby.  That is a very good idea of yours.  You are not going?”

“Must.  Got a pile of examination papers to look over.  Good-night.”

“Good-night.”

Mr. Appleby made his way out of the window and through the gate into his own territory in a pensive frame of mind.  He was wondering what would happen.  He had taken the only possible course, and, if only Wain kept his head and did not let the matter get through officially to the headmaster, things might not be so bad for Wyatt after all.  He hoped they would not.  He liked Wyatt.  It would be a thousand pities, he felt, if he were to be expelled.  What would Wain do?  What would he do in a similar case?  It was difficult to say.  Probably talk violently for as long as he could keep it up, and then consider the episode closed.  He doubted whether Wain would have the common sense to do this.  Altogether it was very painful and disturbing, and he was taking a rather gloomy view of the assistant master’s lot as he sat down to finish off the rest of his examination papers.  It was not all roses, the life of an assistant master at a public school.  He had continually to be sinking his own individual sympathies in the claims of his duty.  Mr. Appleby was the last man who would willingly have reported a boy for enjoying a midnight ramble.  But he was the last man to shirk the duty of reporting him, merely because it was one decidedly not to his taste.

Mr. Wain sat on for some minutes after his companion had left, pondering over the news he had heard.  Even now he clung to the idea that Appleby had made some extraordinary mistake.  Gradually he began to convince himself of this.  He had seen Wyatt actually in bed a quarter of an hour before—­not asleep, it was true, but apparently on the verge of dropping off.  And the bars across the window had looked so solid....  Could Appleby have been dreaming?  Something of the kind might easily have happened.  He had been working hard, and the night was warm....