What could it mean?
At first he was disposed to smile at the performance as a harmless jest; but a moment's consideration convinced him that, jest or not, he held in his hand the long-sought clue to the Bickers mystery which had troubled the peace of Grandcourt for the last term.
Here, in the hand of the chief offender himself, was a pictorial record of that grievous outrage, and here, denounced, by himself in letters of Greek, were the names for which all the school had suffered.

The Master of the Shell seemed to be in a dream.

Branscombe and Clipstone, the head prefects of Bickers's own house I and Munger, the ill-conditioned toady of Railsford's! His first feelings of excitement and astonishment were succeeded by others of alarm and doubt.

The murder was out, but how?
He knew the great secret at last, but by what means?
His eyes turned to the restless sufferer on the bed, and a flush of crimson came to his face as he realised that he had no more right to that secret than he had to the purse which lay on the table.

He had opened the desk to look for an address, and nothing more.