For almost a minute the three chums stared in hypnotized fashion at the bent head of Fane, as the bully-killer sat dispiritedly in his chair.
"You mean you—" gurgled Billy at length.
"I'm awfully sorry, old pal, but there it is," said Fane, with the stolid calmness of despair. "I'd give anything to be able to say I'm mistaken, but it's no go. I see my mistake now. The coat's just the dead ringer of one I've got myself, and like an ass, I mistook them. Only just now, when you mentioned Billy's coat being missing, I remembered that my own coat hasn't been unpacked."
The four boys were silent for several seconds. The sharp, sudden blow, the renewed assurance from Fane that the coat had actually gone, left the three pals dumbfounded.
"Well," said Jack gloomily, "it's gone, right enough. We've lost it."
"Billy, Billy!" cried Fane, "it was my fault absolutely. I don't know what made me so terribly careless. I'm no end cut up about it—isn't there anything I can do?"
"Nothing suggests itself at the moment," said Patch, with a recovery of his calm manner. "The thing would be, of course, to get hold of the hawker and buy the coat back. But—" He shook his head, with pursed lips. Then, all at once, he smacked Jack heavily upon the back—so heavily that Jack indignantly jumped a foot in the air.
"Great Caesar!" he gasped, "What did you do that for, you giddy lunatic? You've dislocated my neck!"
"Bother your neck!" cried Septimus. "I've got the plan to get back the spiffing old Star—we're in luck! It's brother Egbert!"
"Brother Egbert?" echoed Jack, staring at the inventor open-mouthed. "Has he gone off his rocker?" he inquired anxiously of the other two. "Poor fellow—brains all addled. Or perhaps poached. I knew he would do it. My advice is, Patchie, wear an ice-pack on your fevered brow."
"It's all right, comrade," Septimus assured him. "Here's another occasion to thank your uncle Patch! Brother Egbert, I may explain, is my brother, and he'll be down here to-night. He's making a trip down the coast on his motor-bike, and he intended to call in at the school on the 14th, which is to-day."
"Well, what about it?"
"My good baboon," said Patch pityingly, "don't you see? Egbert will be only too pleased to take Billy, or myself, in pursuit of the jacket and—the Black Star. I think I should go, because it was really my fault that the coat went. Edgar A. Poe didn't mention anything about stray accidents that might happen in any good, well-regulated family, or their bearing on his no-concealment wheeze. I confess I begin to lose my respect for Edgar. The next hiding-place for the Star will be a most abstruse one, when we get the thing back—"
"If we do," supplemented Billy. "Look here, Patch, that was a very defective plan of yours, I agree, but I think I'll make the trip with brother Egbert, all the same."
There came a rapping at the door, and Jack invited the rapper to come in. A singular-looking young man entered, took a comprehensive glance over its occupants, and then spoke in a drawling, bored voice.
"Permit me to introduce myself," he said. "I am Egbert, fifth Baron Patch. Sounds good, doesn't it, that phrase, 'barren patch'? Rumour hath it that one Septimus, a juvenile relative of mine, is to be found in the precincts of this study. Ah, I see I am right—how are you, brother?"
"Bursting with robust health and goodwill," declared Septimus modestly. "See here, though, you've just arrived at the right moment. A rather interesting business has been going on here, and—can I tell him everything, Billy?"
Billy Faraday nodded, and Septimus explained the whole matter of the Star and its disappearance to his attentive brother, who resembled a collection of walking-sticks as he half-lay, half-sat in one of the chairs, his big head resting in his open palm.
"Quite a decent little mystery," he commented, when his brother's account had finished. "I twig what you want me to do—give chase, and all that sort of rot, what? Well, if any of you would care for a rough, bumpy, perilous journey on the back of a big 7-9, then I shall be happy to oblige. As I said to the Duke last week, when he asked me for a fiver, 'Dee-lighted, old bean!'"
"That's that, then," said Septimus. "The only question is, who's going? Billy wants to go, and I'm not anxious to stand in his way, see? But though we can arrange that Billy shall not be missed to-night, it might prove dashed awkward to-morrow, when he does not show up in class."
"Who's taking us in the morning?" thoughtfully asked Billy. "Old Salmon, isn't it? How on earth—"
"Don't worry, comrade!" interrupted Patch suddenly. "I've got the most ripping suggestion, and you'd better be off right now. Your absence will never be noticed—I'll fix that much for you. But try and be back by to-morrow night—I'll not guarantee to have the beaks hoodwinked much after that time. Now, Fane said that the hawker was going south—"
"That's right," said Fane eagerly, anxious to be of assistance to redeem something of his error. "He was just outside the gate, and lots of the fellows gave him old clothes, and I heard Big Martin ask him where he was bound for—he said Moruya. He only had a covered cart and a scraggy-looking old mare, and you ought to be able to catch up—"
"Just what the Marquis said, when I lost my hat out of his car, and ran back for it." It was Egbert Patch who had spoken. "We've got a lot to do, and I think we'll vamoose. Good-bye for the present, and sweet dreams!"
With these words, the eccentric-looking young fellow, suddenly animated, jumped to his feet and, grabbing Faraday by the arm, left the room. Inside a few minutes the chattering roar of his motor-bike was heard, and he had left the College, racing southward with Billy Faraday clinging perilously behind him.
"Doesn't believe in losing time," murmured Jack. "But, I say, aren't we going to have a bit of trouble in accounting for Billy's being away, to-morrow?"
"My dear old Angora," returned Patch, "aren't you aware that Salmon is as near blind and deaf as makes no difference? What's to prevent us from making a dummy of Billy, and putting him in Billy's seat? You know he sits right at the back of the class."
"Good grief!" said Jack. "Is that the bright and brainy idea? Patchie, old boy, the sooner you go to sea the better for you—and all of us. Who ever heard of a dummy—and in school at that? Why, Salmon's sure to smell a rat, and once he asks Billy a question, the game's bust."
"Not so, comrade! Among my other accomplishments, I am no mean hand at ventriloquism, and—"
"Well, you've got a pretty tall nerve, Patchie! I'll confess that I'd never have thought of such a dodge."
"Its boldness," averred Septimus, "is its strength. To-morrow I shall prove that. Meanwhile, there is a most irritating chunk of Sallust to be prepared for the morn. Leave me to it."
And, opening his books, the extraordinary fellow calmly set to work. After a moment or two of silence, Jack picked up the volume from which Patch had been taking swimming instruction, and began to turn its leaves idly....
On the following morning, Mr. Salmon entered the classroom with his usual salutation, and the whole form eyed him apprehensively. Would he surprise them in their deception? Was an awful row impending?
For, in the back row of the class, reclining gracefully on Billy Faraday's seat, was a dummy figure. Attired in an old suit of Billy's, it looked very lifelike, its arms supporting a book on the desk before it, and its head apparently none the less attentive for being stuffed with straw.
As the lesson proceeded, and as the master still failed to smell a rat, the class's fears subsided, and they began to enjoy the joke. Subdued chuckles sounded at intervals, the presence of the dummy schoolboy striking his companions as distinctly grotesque; but, as Patch had said, Mr. Salmon was almost deaf and very dim of sight, and unless anything out of the ordinary occurred, Billy's absence would pass unnoticed.
"Bathgate," said Mr. Salmon suddenly, "commence the translation. Line 25."
Bathgate, a big, sleepy youth at the back corner of the class, awoke suddenly from his dreams of better things, and began translating the Latin in a loud, clear, albeit, a trifle hesitant, voice.
"Speak up," commanded Mr. Salmon.
"Ought to yell in your ear," observed Bathgate, with a humorous glance at his mates.
"What did you say?" asked the master.
"I—thought—you—could—hear," said the shameless Bathgate. "Shall I proceed?"
"Proceed—yes! No, one moment. You've done pretty well. Go on, next boy."
There was a dead, stunned silence. The next boy was no boy at all, but the effigy of Bill Faraday, and the effigy simply sat still and stared at the master with the most guileless stare in the world.
"Faraday—you heard me?"
"Yes—sir," squeaked Patch, diving down under his desk, and attempting to throw his voice in the direction of the quiescent Billy. But the attempt met with poor success. The squeak did not come to the ears of the master at all, and he repeated his reminder, with a trace of irritation at the delay.
"Faraday—I believe you've gone to sleep."
The ingenious Patch was now brought up against a poser, but his resourcefulness met the obstacle. He got down on the floor and attempted to cross over to a position behind Billy's seat, which would enable him to deputize for the thick-headed effigy.
Unfortunately he was observed, and Mr. Salmon demanded at once to know what he was doing.
"Dropped my pen, sir," he explained loudly, and then frantically whispered to Jack, "Get behind Bill's chair and speak up."
To cover Jack's move across the aisle between the desks, Patch stood up, and showed his pen to Mr. Salmon, as ocular evidence of the truth of his explanation.
"I've got it now, sir," he observed brightly. "It had rolled right under my seat."
"Yes, yes," said Mr. Salmon testily. "Sit down."
But Septimus was sparring for time until Jack was ready to take up Billy's translation. So he added, in his most foolish manner, "It's curious, sir, where these things get to, isn't it! Once I lost a pencil, and found it in the bottom of my trousers. Philosophers call it—"
"Sit down, sir!"
"—call it the perversity of inanimate—"
"Will you sit down?"
"—objects, like a collar-stud, or—"
"Patch!"
"Very well, sir," said Patch, sitting down with the aggrieved air of one who has been casting his pearls before swine. He glanced sharply towards Billy's chair, and sighed with relief.
"Perhaps we can get on with our work now," said Mr. Salmon sarcastically. "Faraday, are you properly awake?"
"Yes, sir!" yelled the supposed Faraday in such a loud voice that it came to Mr. Salmon's ears in the form of a smart answer. The master nodded. "Go on, then," he said.
Jack went on as fast as he was able, and for five minutes the class held its breath. At the end of that time the possibility that Billy's deception would be discovered seemed to have passed. The master went on through the class, and the boys were presently deep in their work; so deep, in fact, that Bathgate felt impelled to relieve the tedium by a little horse-play.
Propping his book up before him, he proceeded to annoy his neighbour in front, one MacAlister, in sundry well-thought-out ways that ended in Mac's turning round and firing a book at Bathgate's head.
Bathgate, who had, of course, been expecting retaliation, ducked smartly, and the book hit the wall with a bang. Mr. Salmon looked up, for the book happened to have been a dictionary, and the sound of its arrival rather loud.
"Bathgate," said the master, "don't tap."
The class chuckled afresh, and Bathgate inserted a pin in the toe of his boot, winking across at Jack Symonds in unmistakable "you-watch-me" manner. Then, sitting back innocently, he let the pin sink into MacAlister's calf.
"Ow!" gasped MacAlister, jumping up in a rage and aiming another book at his tormentor's grinning face. "Take that!"
Bathgate, however, had no intention of taking it, and he slid sidewise on his chair to avoid the missile. His move was too sudden for his equilibrium. The chair went over, and he went over with it, pitching head-first into the stomach of the bogus Billy Faraday. The effigy did not protest, but slid gracefully to the floor, where it lay in the attitude of a gentleman looking under the sofa for his collar-stud.
"Jimjams!" gasped Septimus Patch, "That's done it!"
Done it, it had. Mr. Salmon demanded to know why Bathgate and Faraday were crawling around on the floor, and Bathgate, looking sheepish, said something about falling off his chair.
"My chair overbalanced, sir," he said. "I knocked Faraday over."
The class was on tenterhooks. Would Mr. Salmon come up and investigate for himself? Faraday, at any rate, lay there absolutely still.
"Faraday," said the master, grimly, "evidently desires to emulate Doré, the artist, who drew his pictures while lying down on his stomach. Or is he just asleep?"
"I think he's hurt," said the indomitable Patch, getting up again. He meant to pull the fat out of the fire if it were humanly possible. He grabbed the effigy and savagely hauled it into place, keeping between it and the master all the time. He got back to his seat, but barely had he reached it when the dummy boy doubled up at the waist like a jack-knife, and banged its head on the floor. To Patch's horror, the head, which was loosely attached, came off and rolled a full yard down the passage.
Jumping up once more, Patch grabbed the head, and, amid the laughter of his companions, restored it to its position. The effigy of Faraday grinned impudently at the master, its head on one side, as Patch got back to his seat.
"There is too much disorder," said Mr. Salmon petulantly. "Far too much of it. Patch, and you too, Faraday, and Bathgate, take one hundred lines."
Just at that moment came the bell announcing the end of the period, and Mr. Salmon, gathering his gown about him, stalked out indignantly.
"Phew!" breathed Patch. "I don't want to have a strain like that again for a few years. Talk about nerves! You'd want nerves of phosphor-bronze, or something, with an obstreperous dummy like this on your hands."
He landed a kick into the effigy's waistcoat, and it fell on to the floor. The class simply roared.
"Anyhow," went on Patch, "you've got to do a hundred lines, you grinning idiot. Thank goodness I haven't got to look after you this afternoon."