Page 63 of Revenge

“No,” cried Mr. Carbuncle from within the lodge. “This isn’t what it looks like!”

Everybody, including me, rushed into the hut. The janitor’s dungarees hung at his hips, the fabric fisted around his groin. He held out his other hand as though trying to stop traffic. A pair of pink panties lay on the table and beneath it, a red-haired upper-sixth year girl scrambled to pull on her skirt.

I clapped my hand over my mouth. This was turning out even better than I had hoped.

“Never mind the girl,” snarled the headmaster. “I want to know who leaked information to the Saturday Correspondent.”

The janitor spluttered. “Not me!”

I glanced around the room and found a filing cabinet in the corner. One of the drawers was marked PERSONAL. In seconds, I flung it open and rifled through sections containing snacks and letters. There was even a space for used panties at the back.

“What are you doing?” Edward hissed from behind.

I glared over my shoulder. The sobbing girl pushed past the dumbstruck officers and rushed out of the lodge. I turned back to the filing cabinet rifling through its sections with trembling hands. If I didn’t find something while everyone who mattered was distracted by Mr. Carbuncle’s indiscretion, suspicion would fall back to me.

“You can’t just search through a man’s things,” added Mr. Jenkins.

Anger seared through my veins, turning the edges of my vision black. I whirled on my housemaster, hands trembling with the need to punch him hard in the face. “You’ve just caught Carbuncle half-naked with a student, and you’re worried about his privacy?”

I stepped away from the filing cabinet and advanced on the paling housemaster. Whether he was an idiot or completely corrupt, I no longer cared. If I could get him into trouble, I would.

“It looks like you already knew what he did,” I spat. “Why are you trying to protect him? Did he give you access to vulnerable girls?”

Mr. Jenkins cheeks turned red. “He most certainly did not, and I would never condone such activities between staff and students.”

“I’ve found something,” said Edward from the filing cabinet.

“No,” shouted Mr. Carbuncle. “That wasn’t me!”

I folded my arms across my chest and stepped back. Edward pulled out a fistful of checks from the Saturday Correspondent.

“I didn’t cash any of them!”

“Why did they send you money?” I kept the glee out of my voice. The more confused I acted, the more people would believe in my innocence.

Mr. Carbuncle’s glistening mustache quivered, and tears gathered in his eyes. “I-I don’t know.”

I ignored the pang of guilt piercing through my insides, even though I was about to condemn an innocent man for an act I had committed. The janitor had brought me through the main hallway of Elder House, and had organized that gauntlet with Charlotte. He had also smirked when he discovered the boys had framed me for Henry’s kidnapping. But the most heinous of all was his disgusting, abusive arrangement with schoolgirls. With a bit of luck, more of them would come forward and make sure he rotted in prison.

The policemen circled around him, but Mr. Carbuncle dodged. Apparently, all this sexual activity made a man quick on his feet. He feinted left. Right. Ducked. Wove, all the while keeping up a complicated sequence of footwork I had only seen on a boxer during a heavyweight championship fight. I curled my lip. They should be hitting a pervert like him with clubs, not floating like butterflies around him.

Mr. Carbuncle ducked low, darted out of the room, knocked the headmaster to the ground as he sprinted for freedom. The policemen gave chase, and I turned to Edward, who pulled out a few bank statements from the filing cabinet.

“What did you find?” The headmaster pulled himself up and stalked across the lodge, eyeing the panties the girl had left on the table.

“There’s a transaction here from the Saturday Correspondent.” Edward handed the headmaster the evidence.

Mr. Chaloner looked at the uncashed checks and scanned the bank statements, scowl deepening with each passing moment. I held my breath, hoping this would be enough to convince him of Mr. Carbuncle’s guilt and my innocence.

Without a word or a backward glance, the headmaster walked out of the caretaker’s lodge and toward the main teaching block.

Edward shook his head. “That proves Carbuncle was behind some of the leaks, but I’m still convinced you were the cause of at least one.”

“I’m disappointed in you.” I stepped out of the lodge and into the fresh spring morning, heart soaring with victory. “If you can believe I was the culprit after seeing so much overwhelming evidence that proves my innocence, then I guess what we had together meant nothing.”

He wrapped an arm around my wrist. “If you don’t come with me now, I’ll call back the headmaster and give him an alternative and more convincing theory of who really orchestrated those leaks.”

Chapter 21