ON THE THIRD FLOOR OF HALE
BY following Lincoln Street and the path through the Seminary yard, Dick
covered two sides of a triangle much more quickly than the pedestrian
could the third side, the direct road from campus to academy. He leaned
the bicycle against the gymnasium wall out of sight, and crept into the
shelter of the high steps of Carter, whence he could command a view of
the dormitories without being seen himself. Never had the old academy
yard worn such an air of silence and desertion. Old Robeson was raking
the driveway on the other side of the gymnasium; the Saturday cleaners
were buried in the depths of the recitation building. Except for the
indescribable roar of distant cheering, which came in bursts from the
direction of the campus, or the noise of an occasional wagon rattling
along the street, the green-turfed yard might have been some silent
meadow afar from the haunts of men.
“Every dormitory window open!” thought Dick, as he glanced around the
yard, “and half the doors too, I’ll bet. Those fellows really deserve to
lose some of their things. But what a cinch for a thief!”
Some minutes passed before Bosworth appeared on the street and turned
leisurely into the yard. When he reached the point where the path
divided, he hesitated an instant before turning away from his own
dormitory toward the middle entry of Hale. At the Hale steps he stopped
again, threw a hurried glance over the yard, and disappeared into the
dormitory entry. A moment later Dick was scuttling along the driveway
toward the corner of Hale.
Hardly had he gained the shelter of the dormitory wall and begun to
creep along beneath the windows toward the middle entry, when a sudden
apparition at the farther corner drew from his lips an exclamation of
wonder which would certainly have betrayed him if Bosworth had been near
enough to hear it. There was Varrell, quietly working his way along the
wall from the other direction, his face flushed red as if from a long
hard run, but showing not the slightest surprise at this meeting with
his confederate. They came together at the entrance, where Varrell,
checking with an unmistakable gesture Melvin’s obvious intention to ask
questions, crept stealthily in and crouched against the wall under the
stairs. His friend followed close after.
“Shoes off!” whispered Varrell, with lips close to Dick’s ear. The order
was obeyed without question. Varrell placed his straw hat beside his
shoes; Dick imitated him.
“Can you hear him?” came in a second whisper.
Dick listened: at first absolute silence; then the sound from the second
floor of a door being carefully shut, followed by the scrape of a sole
upon the marble staircase above; then the click of a door-knob, and
silence again.
“He’s just left a room in the second story and gone up to one in the
third,” whispered Dick.
“Now is our time,” announced Varrell, and led the way up. Their steps
were noiseless on the solid stone. The doors to both suites on the third
floor were closed.
“Which?” whispered Varrell. Never had he envied his classmate’s quick
hearing as at this very instant.
Dick applied his ear to the door on the right. He could dimly hear the
distant cheering, a formless, threatening sound drifting in through the
open windows of the room, like the far-away roar of an angry mob. Within
the room all was silent.
He shook his head and tiptoed to the other door. Here too his ear at
first detected no sound that did not come from without, but presently he
heard footsteps on the other side of the room, and a grating noise as
from the opening of a drawer.
“He’s here,” said Melvin’s lips. His nod and gesture would have told the
story to a fool. Varrell motioned him aside and gently turned the knob.
The door moved slightly on its hinges.
“Ready?” queried Varrell’s eyes. Dick nodded, and Varrell threw wide the
door. There stood the long pursued, before the open drawer of a dressing
table, with a pair of gold cuff-buttons in his hand.
Bosworth gave a start and wheeled round upon the intruders. He uttered
no sound, but his eyes took on a wild, frightened look, while his sallow
face faded to a paler shade and the red line of his lips became a
whitish blue, as he faced the fierce looks of his two pursuers.
“So we’ve caught the thief at last,” said Varrell, sternly, “this time
in the very act.”
Bosworth moistened his lips. “If you think I’m a thief, you’re greatly
mistaken,” he began, rolling his eyes from side to side like a person
searching for ideas under a great strain.
“We don’t think; we know,” answered Varrell. “There’s stolen property
right in your hand.”
For a moment Bosworth hesitated, looking down. When he lifted his eyes
again he was ready with an explanation. “I was just looking at them. I
came in here to get a trot I lent to Morton. I couldn’t stand the strain
of the game, so I decided to come back and work. I thought probably the
door would be unlocked, and I could get the book for myself. I opened
the drawer to see if the book was there,—it isn’t the kind of thing a
fellow would show on his study table,—the buttons caught my eye, and I
took them up out of curiosity.”
“Huh!” snorted Varrell, “and what about that scarf-pin on the table?”
“I know nothing about any scarf-pin,” replied Bosworth, with a show of
resentment. “If there’s a scarf-pin on the table, I suppose Morton left
it there. The fact that it’s there shows I’m not a thief; I should have
taken it if I had been.”
Dick’s conviction began to weaken. It all sounded very natural and
plausible. Had Wrenn’s infatuation put them both into a false position?
He turned to Bosworth. “If what you say is true, we have done you a
great injustice. You say you came here for the book. Did you come
directly here?”
“Certainly.”
“Without going to any other room?”
“Of course not,” replied Bosworth, impatiently. “Didn’t I say I wanted
the trot?”
A glance of intelligence flashed from Dick’s face to Varrell’s.
“He’s lying,” said Varrell, coolly. “We’ll have to wait till more
fellows come, when we’ll search him and search his room.”
A look of apprehension appeared on Bosworth’s face. “You have no right
to search me,” he cried. “I won’t stand it.”
“We’ll see!” was Varrell’s laconic answer.
A leisurely step now made itself heard on the stairs below, and soon the
surprised face of little Eddy appeared on the landing outside.
“How’s the game going?” cried Dick, suddenly bethinking himself that the
great contest was still on.
“I don’t know,” answered the boy, in sullen tones, peering curiously
into the room. “I haven’t been to the game. I’ve been up the river.”
“What are you doing here?”
“I’m going up to my room.”
“Well, go on then,” commanded Varrell. Eddy started on. “Eddy!” called
Bosworth.
With a hasty movement, quite unlike the indolent slouch with which he
had crawled upstairs, Eddy hurried back and stood in the doorway,
expectant, his big eyes full of fear, his whole expression that of a dog
cringing before a cruel master. The sight stirred Dick to the depths of
his heart. If ever he had felt a doubt as to Varrell’s course, or a
lurking suspicion, born of his sense of fair play, that Bosworth might
after all be a comparatively innocent victim of appearances, the doubt
and suspicion vanished in the presence of that abject figure, like
raindrops on the surface of the sea.
“I’d like to speak to him a moment,” said Bosworth, nervously.
“No, you don’t!” cried Dick. “You’ve had your last speech with him.”
“Oh, let them talk,” said Varrell, giving his friend a sharp look. “Only
nothing must pass between you,” he added, turning again to Bosworth. “If
you are willing to back up against the wall there and have the boy stand
at one side so that there’s a clear open space between you, and both
face this way, we’ll go out in the entry out of hearing, and watch you
through the door from a distance. Otherwise there had better be no
conversation until after the search is over.”
Bosworth agreed to the terms; Varrell stationed the two as he wanted
them,—Bosworth in the best light,—and with Dick withdrew to the entry,
where Varrell planted himself and fixed his eyes on the faces of the
whispering pair in a long intense stare. Dick understood well the game
his friend was playing, and his own eyes wandered helplessly from the
observer to the observed, trying to guess from Wrenn’s expression his
success in reading Bosworth’s lips, fearful of failure as the thief
gradually bent his head in Eddy’s direction.
“Face this way!” cried Varrell.
“We’re through now,” replied Bosworth.
“Eddy, go up and stand on the stairs in sight till we call you down,”
ordered Varrell. Then in a low tone to Dick he added: “Keep him there a
jiffy till I can put on my shoes and get ahead of him to Bosworth’s
room. Hang to Bosworth like grim death. Don’t let the fellow get away.”
“You can trust him to me,” answered Dick, eagerly. “What luck?”
“I can’t tell yet,” returned Wrenn.
Two minutes later Eddy was allowed to go, and sauntered leisurely down
the first flight of stairs; the second he took more rapidly. At the
dormitory entrance he broke into a run, which he maintained up the
stairs to Bosworth’s threshold. The door was unlocked,—Bosworth had no
fear of thieves,—and inside sat Varrell!
“Shut the door, can’t you?” was the senior’s sharp greeting to the
amazed lad. “Now, what did you come here for? Out with it and don’t try
to lie, for I shall catch you if you do.”
Eddy gaped helplessly around.
“His—knife,” he stammered, between gasps.
“Don’t lie to me!” said Varrell, sternly. “What did he tell you to get
in the closet?”
“Nothing.”
Varrell jerked open the closet door, ran his hand over the clothing hung
on the hooks, gave the shoes on the floor a kick, and pulled down an
empty pasteboard box from the shelf. Then he turned to Eddy.
“Look here, boy,” he said in a gentler tone, “Bosworth is a thief and a
rascal, as you are perfectly well aware. You’d better tell what you
know, and save your own skin while you can.”
“I haven’t anything to tell.”
Eddy’s lips were trembling, and his eyes promised tears, but his face
still wore the expression of stubborn determination.
“The little fool!” groaned Varrell, turning away. “He’s too thoroughly
terrorized to let anything out. And to think that we are so near the
goal and can’t quite reach it! If only the villain had not moved his
head when he did! Yellow book! I could have sworn he said ‘yellow book
in the closet,’ but there’s no yellow book in the closet or anywhere
else!”
He opened the closet door once more, and stumbled over one of the shoes
he had contemptuously kicked a minute before. In a burst of irritation
he stooped to pick up the shoe and throw it where it would trouble him
no more. As he lifted it into plainer view, its color caught his eye and
his arm paused in mid-air. “What a blunderer!” he ejaculated. “It was
‘boot,’ not ‘book’; how could I have made such an error!”
Eddy stood mute, staring with anxious, fascinated face, as the senior
ran his hand into the shoe, turned it over, shook it, and threw it down.
He stooped for the other, inverted it, and tapped it upon the floor;
then rose and felt carefully inside, while he fixed his eyes on the
trembling boy.
“There seems to be paper here,” he said slowly, “or at any rate
something like it that is fitted close to the lining of the upper.” The
next moment he had dropped the shoe, and was unfolding a small, square
piece of paper. It was the check stolen from the office safe on the
night of March seventh!
Varrell’s first impulse was to let out a yell of triumph that would make
the whole dormitory entry ring; his second, to make sure that his
triumph was real. There was no question of the identity of the check; he
had heard too much about the details of the case to have any doubt on
that score. But would not a skilled liar like Bosworth be able to squirm
out of even a predicament like this?
The senior turned again to Eddy, who was now leaning upon the table, his
head buried in his arms, weeping in great despairing sobs. “I see how it
is,” said Varrell, sternly. “You learned the combination and induced
Bosworth to steal the money; he divided it with you, and when this was
spent you stole from the rooms.”
“It isn’t so!” sobbed the boy. “I never stole a cent in my life.
Bosworth did it all! I told him of the combination,—and that’s all I had
to do with it. I didn’t know he stole it till long after, when he told
me that the money he’d lent me had come from the safe, and I’d be
arrested too if he was caught. But I never stole a thing in my whole
life—and I’ve paid him almost up, too. Oh, I’m so unhappy! What will my
mother do, if I have to go to jail!”
Varrell laid his hand gently on the lad’s quivering shoulder. The
inquisitor’s heart was touched.
“You won’t go to jail at all if you brace up and make a clean breast of
the whole thing,” said the senior. “You haven’t done anything wrong,
except to cover up another’s villainy.”
He waited quietly for the sobs to slacken, with his hand still on Eddy’s
shoulder. And while he waited, there smote upon his ear from the
direction of the campus another roar, tumultuous and long drawn out,
that rose and subsided and rose again, like the howl of the northwest
wind on a winter night.
“Their game is over, too,” mused Varrell. “I wonder if they have had our
luck.”
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