His house had done better than anyone expected.

They had beaten all the records but three, and, without being specially conceited, Railsford took to himself the credit of having done a good deal to bring about this satisfactory result.
"Curious," said he to himself, "that in all probability, if that affair of Bickers's had not happened, we might never have risen as a house; indeed, it's almost a mercy the culprit has never been discovered, for we should have then been plunged back into the current, and the work of pulling ourselves together might never have been done.

It's odd that, as time goes on, there is not even a hint or a suspicion who did it.
There's only one boy in the house I'm not sure of, and he is too great a coward to be a ruffian.

Well, well, we have the cricket season and the exams, coming on.

If only we do as well in them as we've done in the sports, it will not be altogether against us if the mystery remains a mystery a little longer." Whereupon the door opened and Mr Bickers stepped in.