AN UNEXPECTED BLOW
“WELL, Dick, another case of thieving,—or losing. You can’t tell
anything about a careless fellow like Hayes.”
“What is it this time,” asked Dick, “money?”
“Yes,” replied Varrell, “a purse out of his clothes in the gymnasium
locker. He dressed early for ball practice, and tucked his key under the
locker door. When he came back, the money was gone.”
“It’s strange we can’t stop this thing!” exclaimed Melvin.
“There were a dozen fellows in the locker rooms during the afternoon.
Bosworth was one, of course, and he was there early, but no one suspects
him. Hayes thinks it was one of the bowling-alley boys, and Farnum, who
told me about it, charges it to the painter. I know who did it, I’ll
bet; but I have no more proof than in the case of the safe.”
“Given that up at last, haven’t you?” said Melvin, with a broad smile of
amusement on his face. “You’re great on theories and suspicions, and can
read a man’s lips fifty feet away, but all the same, when it comes to
facts, you’re not there.”
“That may be so, and may not be,” said Varrell, with an air of
superiority. “I don’t pretend to be a detective, but I haven’t given up
hope, and shall not give it up till I board the train after the college
exams in June. The fellow is getting reckless, and will sooner or later
expose himself. All we can do is to watch and wait.”
“Watch and wait!” sniffed Melvin. “That’s what we’ve been doing, isn’t
it? and see, what has the result been? Durand has lost money, and Hayes
has lost money, and we’re no nearer getting our hands on the thief than
we were before.”
“Oh, yes, we are,” said Varrell. “To begin with, Eddy has become
intimate again with Bosworth. I have seen him two or three times lately
in Bosworth’s room. Yesterday they had a hot discussion about something,
and some of it was carried on near the window while I was at work behind
my blinds. With the help of my Zeiss opera-glass I caught several
expressions that gave me a clew to the conversation.”
“What did they say?” asked Dick, eagerly.
“Well, Bosworth was the first one who appeared. He came to the window,
wearing that sneering look of his, and looked down to see if there was
any one outside. Before he turned around he looked across to my window,
and as he did so, he said: ‘You can’t help yourself. You’re in it as
deep as I am. You gave me the information and shared the profits. If I
get into trouble, I take you with me.’ Then both remained away for some
minutes. Eddy was the next to show himself, with tears running down his
cheeks, and his chin jerking with sobs, so that it was hard to follow
the motion of his lips. Apparently he said nothing for a minute, but
just leaned his forehead against the frame of the lower sash, which was
raised high. Suddenly he clenched his fist and brought it down on the
window seat, and cried out, ‘I won’t keep the dirty money! I’ll pay you
back the first of next month, and then you will see, you miserable—’ He
turned his head away so that I couldn’t see the next words. Bosworth
appeared immediately and pulled him away from the window.”
“Poor little fool!” said Melvin, sadly. “What a pity we can’t do
something to save him from that rascal! Bosworth has apparently got some
grip on him and is scaring the life out of him.”
“He’s probably lent Eddy money, and by pretending it’s a part of what
was in the safe, has tied the boy’s tongue. It is clear that Eddy holds
the key to the situation. If some one could only induce him to tell what
he knows, it would give us the evidence we need to banish Bosworth, and
might help us to save Eddy. Does Phil know him well?”
“I don’t think they are intimate,” replied Dick, “but they know each
other fairly well.”
“Why can’t Phil draw the little chap out?” said Varrell. “It’s for the
boy’s own good.”
Phil yielded with bad grace to the older boys’ request. To a character
transparently frank and wholly detesting underhand methods, the task
savored of dishonesty. Only when he was assured that Eddy was in the
power of a dangerous person whose grip on the boy it was important to
break at the earliest possible moment, did he consent to make the
attempt.
The next morning he offered to join Eddy in his room for the working out
of the algebra problems. Eddy accepted the offer with alacrity, both
because he welcomed assistance and because he was pleased to have a boy
like Poole in his room. When the lesson was at an end, Phil asked him
flatly what he found attractive in Bosworth. Eddy became red and white
by turns, and said he didn’t know. Then Phil pressed his question, and
Eddy “didn’t know” and “couldn’t tell” until a great storm of tears and
sobs melted the heart of the unwilling inquisitor, and brought the
examination to an abrupt close. Phil had just resolution enough left
before he fled the painful scene, to urge the unfortunate boy to let
Bosworth wholly alone, and if he had anything bad on his conscience to
confide it to Grim or some one else who could help him.
“That settles it for the present,” said Varrell, when he heard the
report. “The scoundrel has the little fool tied hand and foot. We must
play the waiting game a while longer.”
“If Grim knew what we know, he would worm the facts out of Eddy in ten
minutes,” said Phil.
“I’m not so sure of it,” replied Varrell. “That’s the last card, anyway;
I’m not willing to play that yet.”
The season was drawing toward its interesting end. On the following
Saturday was to be held the school track meet, a week later the contest
with Hillbury, and after another week the great baseball game with the
same rivals. Before and after the athletic contests, and sprinkled in
among them, came the Morgan Prize Speaking, the Morgan Composition
Reading, the contests for the English and Mathematical prizes, class
dinners, society elections, preparation for class-day,—opportunities and
pleasures of every variety to goad the conscientious and inspire the
indifferent. Varrell restricted his ambition to his studies and pole
vaulting, and so had strength in reserve for the still hunt after
“Beelzebub,”—a name which after three months of Milton gradually and
naturally replaced “Bosworth” in the private conversations of the two
friends.
Melvin’s occupations were more varied. Besides his regular school work,
which he was anxious to do well to the very end, there were the
troublesome duties of track manager to be performed, the regular jumping
practice to be kept up, and a class-day part to prepare. The “still
hunt” he left to Varrell, who undertook to do the watching while Dick
attended to the waiting.
The cares of management proved considerably greater than Melvin had
anticipated. In addition to the worry of collecting subscriptions, and
the necessity of bothering with the large number of men and numerous
details involved in a dozen events, he found himself bearing burdens
that really belonged to another. Dickinson, the captain, possessed a
very peculiar character. He could run like a deer. In the two-twenty and
the quarter ordinary handicaps seemed of no use against him. This year
he had been experimenting with the hundred yards as well, and in two
trials out of three, he could give Tommy Travers, who had been for two
years the best hundred-yard man in school, three or four yards and beat
him with ease. Yet with this marvelous natural ability, which had lifted
him suddenly the year before from a position of unimportance to one of
great popularity, he had only a slight interest in his sport. He ran
because the school wanted him to run, not because he either loved the
sport or hankered after the glory of winning. Left to himself, he would
sooner or later have abandoned the track altogether and settled back
into solitary moping with his books. As it was, he often appeared moody
and apathetic, and neglected many of the duties which a captain likes
especially to perform. Inspiration and push had to come from the
manager.
The jumping took a course discouragingly uncertain. Almost every day
Dick began his practice with the feeling that he had reached his limit.
Sometimes, as he dropped an inch or two below previous records, he was
convinced of it. Then, on the next day, perhaps, or the day after, when
he had concluded that there was no great jump in him, and that he must
be satisfied with a moderate achievement, he would surprise himself by
going a half inch higher than he had ever attained before. And there
were times, when he had enjoyed a particularly long and restful sleep,
or his physical condition was exactly right, at which he really felt
like jumping. Then his ambition went wild, and he told himself,
exultantly, that the limit was still far away. Such days came rarely.
Should he have one on the twenty-third, or more important still, on the
thirtieth?
On Tuesday evening Dick and Varrell and Phil went together to the chapel
to hear the Prize Speaking. Curtis joined them at the door, and all four
took seats near the front. It was a long performance, but the boys
listened with interest, and amused themselves by guessing on the merits
of the contestants, as speech followed speech in close succession.
Curtis voted for Planter, Melvin for Durand, Varrell for Todd, and Phil
for a boy who delivered an extract from a speech by Henry Clay. When the
judges returned the award of first prize to Planter, second to Von
Gersdorf, and honorable mention for Todd and Durand, each flattered
himself on his critical judgment.
Varrell said good night at the steps of Carter, and went on to his own
dormitory. Curtis, who was in a talkative mood, proposed to “go up for a
minute.” When he had settled himself in an arm-chair, Phil, who
distrusted such “minutes,” gathered up his Greek books and retreated to
a classmate’s room across the hall.
“Do you know, Dick, Planter is the kind of fellow I admire. He ranks
well,—almost as well as you do,—and he’s an editor of the Seatonian and
on the Lit., and is always to the fore on an occasion like this.
Fletcher is a better scholar, I suppose, but he’s nothing else; Planter
can write and speak as well as get marks; he has good manners too, and
is always a gentleman.”
“I didn’t know you admired gentle qualities,” said Dick, amused, “and as
for marks, why, it’s only this year that you’ve been on friendly terms
with any kind of school-books.”
“Better late than never. I’ve had a lot of new ideas this year.”
“Are you going back on athletics?” asked Dick.
“They are all right in their place. I wouldn’t exchange my football
experiences for anything this crank factory ever gave to Daniel Webster
or any other great genius who got his first ‘call down’ on our benches.
But I don’t want to be always John Curtis the football player. I want
something better than that.”
“John Curtis the Harvard freshman?” suggested Dick.
Curtis smiled grimly. “That’s what I’m going to be, if it’s possible for
the possessor of my brains. I’m making headway, too. If I’d only begun
last year, I might have been somewhere now.”
“You can do it yet,” said Dick, encouragingly.
“I’ll make a bluff at it, anyway,” replied the football captain; “but
it’s like trying to rush the ball seventy yards in the last ten minutes
of the game.”
Phil came in, looked significantly at the clock, and took off his coat.
“Yes, I know it’s time for me to go,” said Curtis, struggling to his
feet. “We’re all in training, and ought to be in bed by this time. That
was a good game you put up last Saturday.”
Phil looked at him suspiciously.
“Oh, I mean it,” added Curtis. “And you’ll have the crowd with you, too,
if you can keep it up. Don’t mind what you hear from Marks and that
gang.”
On Thursday Dick came home promptly after supper for a long evening’s
pull at his class-day part. Phil was already there.
“Did you see that letter from Cambridge, Dick?” he asked. “I put it on
the mantelpiece.”
Melvin took it up carelessly. “From Martin,” he said, glancing at the
address. “I wonder what he wants.”
He opened it while Phil stood quietly by, waiting for news of their old
school friend. As Melvin read, a tense, serious look came over his face,
and he lifted his head instinctively, as if to meet an adversary. After
he had finished, he still held the letter in his hand, and sat staring
stupidly at the window.
“What is it?” cried Phil. “Has anything happened to Martin?”
“No, but something has happened to us. Read it and see.”
And Phil read this:—
“DEAR OLD DICK: Just a word to tell you of some kind of a scheme on
foot to protest Dickinson. I got it from a junior who rooms in my
entry, who got it from an old Hillbury man. They say that Dickinson
ran in a race in Indiana last Fourth of July for a money prize, and
they have posters to show that he was advertised to take part in the
race. Is it so? If it is, he has buried himself for school and
college athletics as deep as China. If it isn’t, you’ll have to
disprove the charge fair and square, beyond the point where a doubt
can be imagined, or they’ll shut him out. Bestir yourself!
“Yours and Seaton’s forever,
“L. M. M.”
“What are you going to do?” asked Phil, as Dick put on his hat.
“I’m going to have it out with Dickinson first,” replied the senior,
bitterly. “Then we’ll see what’s to be done.”
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