As it was, not being able to "peep with security into futurity," he imagined that the worst was over.

He began to revise this opinion immediately on turning in at Kay's gate. He had hardly got half-way down the drive when the front door opened and two indistinct figures came down the steps. As they did so his foot slipped off the gra.s.s border on which he was running to deaden the noise of his steps, and grated sharply on the gravel.

"What's that?" said a voice. The speaker was Mr Kay.

"What's what?" replied a second voice which he recognised as Mr Mulholland's.

"Didn't you hear a noise?"

"'I heard the water lapping on the crag,'" replied Mr Mulholland, poetically.

"It was over there," persisted Mr Kay. "I am certain I heard something--positively certain, Mulholland. And after that burglary at the school house--"

He began to move towards the spot where Fenn lay crouching behind a bush. Mr Mulholland followed, mildly amused. They were a dozen yards away when Fenn, debating in his mind whether it would not be better--as it would certainly be more dignified--for him to rise and deliver himself up to justice instead of waiting to be discovered wallowing in the damp gra.s.s behind a laurel bush, was aware of something soft and furry pressing against his knuckles. A soft purring sound reached his ears.

He knew at once who it was--Thomas Edward, the matron's cat, ever a staunch friend of his. Many a time had they taken tea together in his study in happier days. The friendly animal had sought him out in his hiding-place, and was evidently trying to intimate that the best thing they could do now would be to make a regular night of it.

Fenn, as I have said, liked and respected Thomas. In ordinary circ.u.mstances he would not have spoken an unfriendly word to him. But things were desperate now, and needed remedies to match.

Very softly he pa.s.sed his hand down the delighted animal's back until he reached his tail. Then, stifling with an effort all the finer feelings which should have made such an act impossible, he administered so vigorous a tweak to that appendage that Thomas, with one frenzied yowl, sprang through the bush past the two masters and vanished at full speed into the opposite hedge.

"My goodness!" said Mr Kay, starting back.

It was a further shock to Fenn to find how close he was to the laurel.

"'Goodness me, Why, what was that?

Silent be, It was the cat,'"

chanted Mr Mulholland, who was in poetical vein after the theatre.

"It was a cat!" gasped Mr Kay.

"So I am disposed to imagine. What lungs! We shall be having the R.S.P.C.A. down on us if we aren't careful. They must have heard that noise at the headquarters of the Society, wherever they are. Well, if your zeal for big game hunting is satisfied, and you don't propose to follow the vocalist through that hedge, I think I will be off. Good night. Good piece, wasn't it?"

"Excellent. Good night, Mulholland."

"By the way, I wonder if the man who wrote it is a relation of our Fenn. It may be his brother--I believe he writes. You probably remember him when he was here. He was before my time. Talking of Fenn, how do you find the new arrangement answer? Is Kennedy an improvement?"

"Kennedy," said Mr Kay, "is a well-meaning boy, I think. Quite well-meaning. But he lacks ability, in my opinion. I have had to speak to him on several occasions on account of disturbances amongst the juniors. Once I found two boys actually fighting in the junior dayroom. I was very much annoyed about it."

"And where was Kennedy while this was going on? Was he holding the watch?"

"The watch?" said Mr Kay, in a puzzled tone of voice. "Kennedy was over at the gymnasium when it occurred."

"Then it was hardly his fault that the fight took place."

"My dear Mulholland, if the head of a house is efficient, fights should be impossible. Even when he is not present, his influence, his prestige, so to speak, should be sufficient to restrain the boys under him."

Mr Mulholland whistled softly.

"So that's your idea of what the head of your house should be like, is it? Well, I know of one fellow who would have been just your man.

Unfortunately, he is never likely to come to school at Eckleton."

"Indeed?" said Mr Kay, with interest. "Who is that? Where did you meet him? What school is he at?"

"I never said I had met him. I only go by what I have heard of him.

And as far as I know, he is not at any school. He was a gentleman of the name of Napoleon Bonaparte. He might just have been equal to the arduous duties which devolve upon the head of your house. Goodnight."

And Fenn heard his footsteps crunch the gravel as he walked away. A minute later the front door shut, and there was a rattle. Mr Kay had put the chain up and retired for the night.

Fenn lay where he was for a short while longer. Then he rose, feeling very stiff and wet, and crept into one of the summer-houses which stood in Mr Kay's garden. Here he sat for an hour and a half, at the end of which time, thinking that Mr Kay must be asleep, he started out to climb into the house.

His study was on the first floor. A high garden-seat stood directly beneath the window and acted as a convenient ladder. It was easy to get from this on to the window-ledge. Once there he could open the window, and the rest would be plain sailing.

Unhappily, there was one flaw in his scheme. He had conceived that scheme in the expectation that the window would be as he had left it.

But it was not.

During his absence somebody had shot the bolt. And, try his hardest, he could not move the sash an inch.

XVII

FENN HUNTS FOR HIMSELF

n.o.body knows for certain the feelings of the camel when his proprietor placed that last straw on his back. The incident happened so long ago.

If it had occurred in modern times, he would probably have contributed a first-hand report to the _Daily Mail._ But it is very likely that he felt on that occasion exactly as Fenn felt when, after a night of unparalleled misadventure, he found that somebody had cut off his retreat by latching the window. After a gruelling race Fate had just beaten him on the tape.

There was no doubt about its being latched. The sash had not merely stuck. He put all he knew into the effort to raise it, but without a hint of success. After three attempts he climbed down again and, sitting on the garden-seat, began to review his position.

If one has an active mind and a fair degree of optimism, the effect of the "staggerers" administered by Fate pa.s.ses off after a while. Fenn had both. The consequence was that, after ten minutes of grey despair, he was relieved by a faint hope that there might be some other way into the house than through his study. Anyhow, it would be worth while to investigate.

His study was at the side of the house. At the back were the kitchen, the scullery, and the dining-room, and above these more studies and a couple of dormitories. As a last resort he might fling rocks and other solids at the windows until he woke somebody up. But he did not feel like trying this plan until every other had failed. He had no desire to let a garrulous dormitory into the secret of his wanderings. What he hoped was that he might find one of the lower windows open.

And so he did.

As he turned the corner of the house he saw what he had been looking for. The very first window was wide open. His spirits shot up, and for the first time since he had left the theatre he was conscious of taking a pleasure in his adventurous career. Fate was with him after all. He could not help smiling as he remembered how he had felt during that ten minutes on the garden-seat, when the future seemed blank and devoid of any comfort whatsoever. And all the time he could have got in without an effort, if he had only thought of walking half a dozen yards.

Now that the way was open to him, he wasted no time. He climbed through into the dark room. He was not certain which room it was, in spite of his lengthy residence at Kay's.

He let himself down softly till his foot touched the floor. After a moment's pause he moved forward a step. Then another. At the third step his knee struck the leg of a table. He must be in the dining-room. If so, he was all right. He could find his way up to his room with his eyes shut. It was easy to find out for certain. The walls of the dining-room at Kay's, as in the other houses, were covered with photographs. He walked gingerly in the direction in which he imagined the nearest wall to be, reached it, and pa.s.sed his hand along it. Yes, there were photographs. Then all he had to do was to find the table again, make his way along it, and when he got to the end the door would be a yard or so to his left. The programme seemed simple and attractive. But it was added to in a manner which he had not foreseen. Feeling his way back to the table, he upset a chair. If he had upset a cart-load of coal on to a sheet of tin it could not, so it seemed to him in the disordered state of his nerves, have made more noise. It went down with an appalling crash, striking the table on its way. "This," thought Fenn, savagely, as he waited, listening, "is where I get collared. What a fool I am to barge about like this."

He felt that the echoes of that crash must have penetrated to every corner of the house. But no one came. Perhaps, after all, the noise had not been so great. He proceeded on his journey down the table, feeling every inch of the way. The place seemed one bristling ma.s.s of chairs. But, by the exercise of consummate caution, he upset no more and won through at last in safety to the door.

It was at this point that the really lively and exciting part of his adventure began. Compared with what was to follow, his evening had been up to the present dull and monotonous.