The other boys—Gunderson’s friends—had stood up in solidarity. Now they stared at the younger boy as if they couldn’t believe what he’d said.

“You’re dead,” said Gunderson, making a lunge for Allen-Jones.

Allen-Jones dodged, only to be caught by two of Gunderson’s friends. At this point, I made my entrance, just as Gunderson was about to administer the beating. The boys let go of Allen-Jones as if he were on fire.

“Exactly what is going on?”

Gunderson just stared at me. Allen-Jones made for the door as I moved in for the kill. I won’t bore you with the details of what I said to Gunderson, but it began in the percussive whisper I like to use when hypnotizing prey, and finished with a cannonade that resonated all the way down the Middle Corridor and brought boys’ heads to classroom doors like razor clams to the shoreline.

That should have been the end of it. At any other time, it would have been—but Harrington’s influence in the School is already becoming apparent. Whatever leads a boy to complain about some aspect of School life—be that a method of teaching Latin, a choice of books in English, or a Master’s way of enforcing discipline—the rot is already spreading.

Yes, there’s an atmosphere in School; something vaguely unsavory. Not at all like last year—when a Mole managed to infiltrate its way inside our not-so-hallowed gates and wreak the kind of havoc that such creatures of the dark may plan—but nevertheless, I can feel it.

It seems that Gunderson has complained—to his parents, and via them, to his form tutor—about yesterday’s intervention. The result—a summons from Dr. Burke—was delivered to room 59 at the end of School by a member of the Junior Choir, and I obeyed with some reluctance and a looming sense of foreboding.

I found the Chaplain in his office, lovingly misting his orchids. He has a surprising number of these, although I confess I don’t see the appeal. There’s something rather unwholesome about those fleshy, mottled heads; so like the pattern of freckles on the Chaplain’s own head, which has been bald since I’ve known him. The spider plants in my form room are more appropriate to St. Oswald’s; like our boys, they require virtually no attention, tolerate water but do not demand a complex delivery system, and respond more positively to neglect than to sensitive handling.

He turned toward me as I came in. “Ah. Straitley. Gunderson.”

The Chaplain is a man of few words. A fact generally appreciated by the boys in Chapel—and, in his day, on the rugby pitch—but which in this case gave his words a somewhat brusque delivery.

“What about him, Chaplain?” I said.