"What! Positive! Surely there's a mistake," gasped Bert.
"None. Susanne will tell you. I'm going to show the proofs to everyone present, but only on a pledge of secrecy. You give it?"
"You can trust us to a man," said Masters.
"Then come. Ourselves and the village sergeant are the only people aware of the business."
"And, of course, the beggar who carried out the job," said Susanne bitterly.
Never before perhaps had a group of the school seniors looked so serious. Jones Quartus, happening to meet them as they issued from the Sixth and passed along the corridor, positively shrank away from them. The group of curious youngsters gathered near the site of the fire shuffled backwards.
"Here, cut!" commanded Masters abruptly, and at the word they bolted, as if only too eager to escape from the presence of their seniors. Then Clive led the way. When he and his friends returned to the Sixth some five minutes later, accompanied by the police sergeant, not the smallest doubt existed in their minds that some miscreant had successfully attempted arson, and that the fire had been started for some sinister reason.
"We've got to get to the bottom of the mystery," said Clive.
"Yes," agreed Susanne. "But how? That's the difficulty."
It was, in fact, an absolute necessity, for the two weeks which followed saw no fewer than three other outbreaks of fire on the school premises, all, however, happily extinguished after causing little damage. It was no wonder, then, that the prefects of Ranleigh set themselves seriously to work to discover the incendiary.
It was a saint's day, and Ranleigh made holiday once Chapel was ended. Outside in the playing-fields the shouts and laughter of the boys could be heard distinctly from the Sixth Form room. Occasionally there was a clatter in the tiled corridors over which the feet of so many Ranleighans had passed in the years gone by. Otherwise there was peace and quietness in the school and the time was propitious for discussion. And in the Upper Sixth Form room voices subdued and smooth exchanged the views of various of the prefects. Trendall was there, watching Clive and Susanne with a friendly smile of approval. How different from the glances which he had once cast at them! Bert, cool and dreaming as of yore, apt to indulge on every opportunity in satire, sat upon the corner of the table staring thoughtfully into the fire. Masters stood propped in one corner, nibbling the end of a pencil and glancing first at one of his friends and then at another. By common consent Clive had been voted to the chair.