th's blandly inquiring gaze. He looked at
Psmith carefully for a moment. No. The boy he had chased last night had
not been Psmith. That exquisite's figure and general appearance were
unmistakable, even in the dusk.

"Whom did you say you shared this study with, Smith?"

"Jackson, sir. The cricketer."

"Never mind about his cricket, Smith," said Mr. Downing with irritation.

"No, sir."

"He is the only other occupant of the room?"

"Yes, sir."

"Nobody else comes into it?"

"If they do, they go out extremely quickly, sir."

"Ah! Thank you, Smith."

"Not at all, sir."

Mr. Downing pondered. Jackson! The boy bore him a grudge. The boy was
precisely the sort of boy to revenge himself by painting the dog Sammy.
And, gadzooks! The boy whom he had pursued last night had been just
about Jackson's size and build!

Mr. Downing was as firmly convinced at that moment that Mike's had been
the hand to wield the paintbrush as he had ever been of anything in
his life.

"Smith!" he said excitedly.

"On the spot, sir," said Psmith affably.

"Where are Jackson's shoes?"

There are moments when the giddy excitement of being right on the trail
causes the amateur (or Watsonian) detective to be incautious. Such a
moment came to Mr. Downing then. If he had been wise, he would have
achieved his object, the getting a glimpse of Mike's shoes, by a devious
and snaky route. As it was, he rushed straight on.

"His shoes, sir? He has them on. I noticed them as he went out just
now."

"Where is the pair he wore yesterday?"

"Where are the shoes of yesteryear?" murmured Psmith to himself. "I
should say at a venture, sir, that they would be in the basket,
downstairs. Edmund, our genial knife-and-boot boy, collects them, I
believe, at early dawn."

"Would they have been cleaned yet?"

"If I know Edmund, sir--no."

"Smith," said Mr. Downing, trembling with excitement, "go and bring that
basket to me here."

Psmith's brain was working rapidly as he went downstairs. What exactly
was at the back of the sleuth's mind, prompting these maneuvers, he did
not know. But that there was something, and that that something was
directed in a hostile manner against Mike, probably in connection with
last night's wild happenings, he was certain. Psmith had noticed, on
leaving his bed at the sound of the alarm bell, that he and Jellicoe
were alone in the room. That might mean that Mike had gone out through
the door when the bell sounded, or