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"You've got no enterprise," said Scott sadly. "What are those? Muffins? Well, well, I suppose I had better try and peck a bit." He ate four in rapid succession, and resumed his scrutiny of Pillingshot's countenance. "The great thing," he said, "is to find out your special line. Till then we are working in the dark. Perhaps it's music? Singing? Sing me a bar or two."
This was when Scott remarked in a dreamy voice, "You know, I'm told the old man has been spending a good lot of money lately...." To which the burden of Pillingshot's reply was that he would do anything in reason, but he was blowed if he was going to cross-examine the head-master. "It seems to me," said Scott sadly, "that you don't want to find that sovereign. Don't you like Evans, or what is it?"
There was no doubt about Trent being in. Inspection revealed the fact that the prefect was working and evidently ill-attuned to conversation. He wore a haggard look and his eye, as it caught that of the collector of statements, was dangerous. "Well?" said Trent, scowling murderously. Pillingshot's legs felt perfectly boneless. "Well?" said Trent. Pillingshot yammered. "Well?"
The roar shook the window, and Pillingshot's presence of mind deserted him altogether. "Have you bagged a sovereign?" he asked. There was an awful silence, during which the detective, his limbs suddenly becoming active again, banged the door, and shot off down the passage. He re-entered Scott's study at the double. "Well?" said Scott. "What did he say?" "Nothing."
Far from it. He showed a kindly interest in Pillingshot's welfare, and sometimes even did his Latin verses for him. But the noblest natures have flaws, and Scott's was no exception. He was by way of being a humorist, and Pillingshot, with his rather serious outlook on life, was puzzled and inconvenienced by this.
Pillingshot wriggled uncomfortably. "Left your music at home?" said Scott. "Never mind, then. Perhaps it's all for the best. What are those? Still muffins? Hand me another. After all, one must keep one's strength up. You can have one if you like." Pillingshot's face brightened. He became more affable. He chatted. "There's rather a row on downstairs," he said. "In the junior day-room."
"But, I say, Scott! He's a prefect!" "In the dictionary of crime," said Scott sententiously, "there is no such word as prefect. All are alike. Go and take down Trent's statement." To tax a prefect with having stolen a sovereign was a task at which Pillingshot's imagination boggled. He went to Trent's study in a sort of dream. A hoarse roar answered his feeble tap.
"That cad Pillingshot's been accusing us of bagging Evans' quid." "What's Scott got to do with it?" inquired one of the spectators. Pillingshot explained his position. "All the same," said Daubeny, "you needn't have dragged us into it." "I couldn't help it. He made me." "Awful ass, Scott," admitted Green. Pillingshot welcomed this sign that the focus of popular indignation was being shifted.
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