Chums No. 785, Vol. XVI — page 2: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

122 CHUMS TO THE END. In Another's Shoes at Se§ool. By TOM H. FOWLER, Author of ‘The Troubles of Tutt, Bunny, and Quipp,” “* Another of the Name,” etc, CHAPTER XIill Lorrimer Duck's Warm Corner. OME! Pull yourself together, old chap. How did it hap- pen?’”’ Oliver Spurr put the ques- tion. _ Lorrimer Duck did not immediately reply. He was scant of breath and tho- roughly scared. He still be- lieved that he had just es- caped from the clutches of a maniac, His collar was burst, his many pockets turned inside out, and for the first time in the memory of Willowfield, Lorrimer Duck could not have : produced a scrap of paper the size of a postage stamp. “How did it happen?” he panted. “Oh, sudden—very! I'd barely begun to write when up went the window. 1 was grabbed by the hair and the coat-collar, hauled into the study, and tossed into a corner with as little ceremony as if I'd been a—a sack of potatoes! a “Didn't he explain at all?” demanded Oliver. “Madmen don’t explain, Spurr, and Cadleigh was insane. I saw it in his wildly-rolling eye! Of course I recognised it as an emergency, and, knowing the proper thing to do, I made up my mind to humour the maniac. “Seeing that my half-made note, which he had snatched almost before he snatched me, was regarded by the fellow as a precious thing —he was as pleased with it as he would have been with a ticket for the circus!—I told him how gratified I was to find that he was suffi- ciently interested in my work to invite me to his study, though I’d rather have gone round by the door. “TY asked him if he would like to see other specimens besides the one he had—er—borrowed —with quite unnecessary rudeness. The idea leased him, Spurr—pleased him so much that was sorry I threw out the suggestion. “He wanted to see all my gems at once, and in his eagerness to assist me he tore out one of my pockets altogether, and badly strained another couple. “At last he had all my papers, every scrap, on the floor before him. en, Spurr, he had a sort of a—a placid interval. He played with those bits of paper as children play at shops. I took advantage of this—er—placid interval to try the door. But it was locked, and Cad- leigh had the key in his pocket. ‘ “Tt doesn’t take much to please a disordered mind, Spurr. In playing with those papers Cadleigh discovered that the torn edge of one iece fitted in with the torn edge of another, and he chuckled in such a manner that I almost decided to try the window without troubling raise the sash! 4 Then the placid interval passed, and Cad- leigh’ had a—a—what’s the word?—oh, yes, paroxysm! He had a paroxysm! I gathered from his ravings that he wanted a third piece of paper to fit in with the other two. “When 1 told him that I had no more he looked so dangerous that—still humoaring him, y’know—I told him the missing piece, perhaps, was in Randall's possession ! : , Oliver Spurr wheeled round and gripped his ¢ arm. chron tala him that?” he demanded, fiercely. “Of course!” returned Rorsimer. “Oh, you—you—you ass. “Why ere densanied Lorrimer Duck. “No oue with an ounce of brains would have id that!” o Oh, well,” returned Lorrimer, “ you ought to kaow, for you said it to me,” . wae ae ae ae ee eae CHUMS, “You're right, Lorrimer,” said Oliver, after a pause. “There's a pair of us, and a nice mess we've made of things between us! But goon. When you told him that Randall had the missing piece, what did Cadleigh say?” «,, Nothing!” returned Lorrimer, grimly. Cadleigh had done with saying, and wanted to do/ He had, oh, such an awful—what was it?—paroxysm! He chased me round and round the table. I was a trifle the quicker at diving under it, but he must have caught me in the end if I hadn’t done the right thing at the right moment. “Grabbing his chair I swung it round my head. Cadleigh saw at a glance what I meant to do, That chair was going through the window, and I was going to follow it at the earliest opportunity. He might stop me carry- ing out the second half of the programme, but I reckoned that the first half would make more noise and attract more attention than Cadleigh would like. _ “And I was right, Spurr. Cadleigh indulged in a second placid interval. e dropped violence, and took to cunning and downright deception. He actually tried to persuade me that he was not mad at all, and talked a lot of tommy-rot about ‘amateur theatricals’ and “rehearsing his part,’ and that sort of thing. “He took the key from his pocket, and opened the door, and I didn’t stay to thank him. He pointed to my papers on the floor, but there’s one thing an author thinks more about than of his work, Spurr, and that is the opportunity to go on living. I left ’em! Cadleigh might have had another paroxysm, and—well, an author may be_famous when he’s anes but that’s no proof he wohldn’t be happier alive.” “And Cadleigh let you off so easily?” asked Oliver. “Well,” returned Lorrimer. “he certainly made one condition before he opened the door. He made me give my word that I would not breathe a word of what had happened to Ran- dall. I promised faithfully that I would say nothing—to Randall. You, of course, may do as you like, Oliver.” “Thanks!” murmured Oliver Spurr. “I will! I’m off!” And he hurried away to find Randall, and report what he regarded as his “ dismal failure.” “Please myself!” he muttered. “Won't I just! Cadleigh’s a fellow who will stop at nothing, and Randall shall at least be warned. Each has something the other wants, and there’s going to be trouble. If it comes to a fair, stand-up fight—Great Horatio !—won’t Cadleigh catch a Tartar!” There was some excuse for Lorrimer Duck's opinion as to the state of Cadleigh’s mind. If that youth was not exactly “mad” he was near it, He was still sitting where Lorrimer had left him, biting his nails and staring gloomily at the blank wall. “Hugh Randall has it!” he whispers hoarsely to himself. “Randall, the son of that ferret of a lawyer who has sworn to clear Proudlock, and will do it! He suspects its value! Maybe he knows its value!” i : For many minutes he sits eer at the wall. What rascality is in his mind? Suddealy he starts. Then slowly he rises, crosses to the desk, and takes pei heavy from one of the pigeon-holes. & When Cadleigh and Randall meet will it be “3 fair, stand-up fight?” CHAPTER XIV. An Unexpected Visitor. “Onze minute, Mr. Binnacle! Is this to be a fact, y'know, or merely a yarn? 5 Mr. Binnacle, surrounded by half-a-dozen jupiors, was leaning against the parapet of the old stone bridge over the Wend. Randall and Slim had paused for a moment to hear a little of the yarn demanded by the eager and expectant youngsters. — e old salt rubbed his poll reflectively before repl ing to Oliver Spurr’s question. Well, Master Spurr,” remarked Mr. Binnacle at length, “I'd thank ye not to be in such a mortal hurry. ’Ow’m I to classify the thing afore I knows ’ow it’s a-going to turn out? It may develop into a yarn, but at present it ain't nothin’ more’n a or’nary fact!” Oliver Spurr turned to the asse “Satisfactory, eh?’’ he jerked Apparently it was so, and Mr. Bi allowed to proceed. ; zB “Well, young gen’lemen,” he began, “y I was bosun o’ the Bouncing y we becalmed one day off the mouth of the I when up came a storm. They comes sharp an’ sudden in them there parts. “We knowed wot wos — b puff, which wos a fair sample. It to skipper’s ’air off his head——” i Tot yarn!” yelled two or three “Pact yet,” grinned Mr. Binnacle; a wig! Before you could say Davy Jo: full force o’ the wind struck the ship rolled over an’ over——” “Oh, here, I say!” protested Toby Tro “___the waves like a drunken man slide,” continued the ay. old fellow, quiet chuckle. “Our tow-rope creak strained—did I tell ye as two days afore baited the anchor with a pig, an’ hoo ninormous fish zs “Size?” demanded Digby. are “ Well,” protested Mr. Binnacle, “ if it’s to come to sizes it’s more’n likely it'll to a yarn, gen’lemen. Say a ’undred long——” “That won’t do,” said Trott. — % “Very well,” said Binnacle, ob ly; “s fifteen foot! Yes, fifteen foot long by five yare thick——” ; “Why the fish would be as broad as it long,” somebody pointed out. : “Just so, gen’lemen!” admitted Binn unblushingly; “it wos a round “un! Ao mous round fish, fitted with ninormous fins all the way round it, an’ it wos spi like the wheel of a motor-car as it towed up the Limpopo at a ninormous rate, the storm Gen’lemen!” he suddenly br off, gravely, “this is developing into a y Well, as I wos a saying, our funny finny was spinning along when——” S Mr. Binnacle stopped abruptly, and the ligh of battle gleamed in his eye as his audience ~ was increased by one, in the person of his old ~ enemy, Police-constable Cxsar Jubb. 3 For once in a way, Mr. Binnacle did not ~ open the attack. his was rashly done by ~ Mr. Jubb, who suffered accordingly. Fa. “Knocking ’oles in the truth again, Mr. 7 Binnacle?” he remarked, severely. “Well,” responded Mr. Binnacle, “I was a- © going to spin these young gen’lemen a yarn, but you needn’t get uneasy, Mr. Jubb. It was a yarn, an’ not—ha! ha! ha!—not a tale about a little brown bag wot changed into a couple of bricks at the touch of a wizard in blue! He! he! That story’s too good to spoil, Mr. Jubb, an’ I don’t tell ’em it above five times a week! I’ve got them bricks gilded, Mr. Jubb, if you'd like to ’ave a look at ‘em! An’, I say, have you caught any young Proudlocks lately?” Mr. Jubb’s effort to preserve his dignity was like Binnacle’s fish, “ ninormous!” “No, Mr. Binnacle,” he replied, freezing!y; “T ain't! But it may interest you to know as I’m still on his track.” “Tt do!” chuckled Mr. Binnacle. ~ “It also amooses me, Mr. Jubb.” “I repeat, Mr. Binnacle,” said Ceasar Jubb, “I’m on his track. Moreover, nevertheless, , an’ notwithstanding, so is Bodkin!” Ss “ An’ who is kin, Mr. Jubb?” asked Binnacle. ; “Detective-hinspector Bodkin, Noo Scotland — Yard. Come down on purpose, an’ he’s taking _ up a clue supplied by me—me, Casar Jubb.” ,_. Sort o” badly handicapped for a start, ain't e?” murmured Mr. Binnacle. “Did ye find that clue in the tool-house or the ereckit-bag, 7 Mr. Jubb?” : Mr. Jubb simply ignored the question. =~ “ Bodkin’s sharp! ‘Bodkin's clever!” he went — on. “’E can disguise hisself so clever that—that —that ’e don’t know hisself!” 4 “Seem to ’ave ’eard o’ that chap,” chu Binnacle. “ Disguised hisself as Captain W an’ so far forgot hisself as to swim the Chan didn’t ’e?” - “Couldn’t swear to that,” said Mr. 5 cautiously, “but it’s like ‘im! ’Owsome Bodkin’s on the job, an’ young Proudlock’ll caught within a week or Jubb’ll never be sergeant. We simply must ’ave the young now the old *un’s escaped!” s ae