or him. His brain was swimming. That Mike,
despite the evidence against him, should be innocent, was curious,
perhaps, but not particularly startling. But that Adair should inform
him, two minutes after Mr. Downing's announcement of Psmith's
confession, that Psmith, too, was guiltless, and that the real criminal
was Dunster--it was this that made him feel that somebody, in the words
of an American author, had played a mean trick on him, and substituted
for his brain a side order of cauliflower. Why Dunster, of all people?
Dunster, who, he remembered dizzily, had left the school at Christmas.
And why, if Dunster had really painted the dog, had Psmith asserted that
he himself was the culprit? Why--why anything? He concentrated his mind
on Adair as the only person who could save him from impending
brain fever.

"Adair!"

"Yes, sir?"

"What--_what_ do you mean?"

"It _was_ Dunster, sir. I got a letter from him only five minutes ago,
in which he said that he had painted Sammy--Sampson, the dog, sir, for a
rag--for a joke, and that, as he didn't want anyone here to get into a
row--be punished for it, I'd better tell Mr. Downing at once. I tried to
find Mr. Downing, but he wasn't in the house. Then I met Smith outside
the house, and he told me that Mr. Downing had gone over to see
you, sir."

"Smith told you?" said Mr. Downing.

"Yes, sir."

"Did you say anything to him about your having received this letter from
Dunster?"

"I gave him the letter to read, sir."

"And what was his attitude when he had read it?"

"He laughed, sir."

"_Laughed_!" Mr. Downing's voice was thunderous.

"Yes, sir. He rolled about."

Mr. Downing snorted.

"But Adair," said the headmaster, "I do not understand how this thing
could have been done by Dunster. He has left the school."

"He was down here for the Old Sedleighans' match, sir. He stopped the
night in the village."

"And that was the night the--it happened?"

"Yes, sir."

"I see. Well, I am glad to find that the blame can not be attached to
any boy in the school. I am sorry that it is even an Old Boy. It was a
foolish, discreditable thing to have done, but it is not as bad as if
any boy still at the school had broken out of his house at night to
do it."

"The sergeant," said Mr. Downing, "told me that the boy he saw was
attempting to enter Mr. Outwood's house."

"Another freak of Dunster's, I suppose," said the headmaster. "I shall
write to him."

"If it was rea