The Gold Bat · Chapter
Conclusion explained
The term concludes with Donaldson's winning the house-match, Aldershot sports where Drummond and O'Hara win silver medals, and Trevor's final clearance from suspicion regarding the gold bat during a supper with the headmaster and Sir Eustac
What happens
The term concludes with Donaldson's winning the house-match, Aldershot sports where Drummond and O'Hara win silver medals, and Trevor's final clearance from suspicion regarding the gold bat during a supper with the headmaster and Sir Eustace Briggs. Meanwhile, a newspaper report of a town fracas over the tarred statue diverts suspicion from the schoolboys.
Themes in this chapter
Secrecy and Detection
The gold bat's role as evidence is finally neutralized when Trevor's possession is publicly cleared, while O'Hara and Clowes secretly celebrate the town fight diverting suspicion.
Justice and Retribution
The accidental tarring of the statue by town rivals provides a form of poetic justice, absolving the schoolboys of blame without their having to confess.
Characters to notice
- Trevor
Attends supper with the headmaster and Sir Eustace Briggs; diplomatically confirms he never lost the gold bat, which had been kept in a drawer.
- O'Hara
Shows Clowes and Trevor the Wrykyn Patriot article; celebrates that the town fight diverts suspicion from their earlier tarring of the statue.
- Clowes
Attends supper with the headmaster; teases O'Hara about his conscience and the force of good example.
- Milton
Accompanies Trevor and Clowes to supper with the headmaster.
- Drummond
Wins a silver medal at the Aldershot sports.
- Cook
Day-boy who brings news of the town fight; passes a newspaper cutting about the fracas to Knight.
Key passages
“O’Hara intimated that he would try and put up with that. "But isn’t it a stroke of luck," he said, "that they should have gone and tarred Sir Eustace again so soon after Moriarty and I did it?"”
O'Hara cheerfully admits he can live with a guilty conscience, marveling at the coincidence that someone else tarred the statue so soon after he and Moriarty did.
O'Hara's relief that the town fight provides cover for their earlier prank.
“The headmaster interposed. He had evidently heard more than enough of the man Samuel Wapshott. "He must have been mistaken," he said briefly.”
The headmaster cuts off Sir Eustace's repeated mention of Samuel Wapshott, dismissing the man's story as an error.
The headmaster's authoritative dismissal helps clear Trevor of suspicion.
“Trevor agreed with him, with the mental reservation that it rather depended on whom the drawer belonged to.”
Trevor outwardly agrees with Sir Eustace that a drawer is a safe place for the bat, but inwardly notes that the drawer's owner matters.
Trevor's private irony about the bat having been in Ruthven's drawer.