THE MISSING WATCH.
“What?” cried Bart, more than ever astonished; “you don’t think
you’ll――――Oh, come, Merriwell, what’s the matter?”
Frank flung himself on a chair.
“I told you before that I do not fancy this business of spying on a
fellow. I haven’t changed my mind.”
“But you agreed to go along. You wished to convince me that Hooker was
on the square.”
“I don’t know that I wish to convince anybody.”
“Why――why――――”
“Hooker was here a short time ago, and I had a talk with him.”
“I don’t suppose you gave him a hint――――”
Bart had started up, but Frank motioned for him to sit down.
“Of course not!” he exclaimed. “Do you think I’d let him know that
anybody could induce me to spy upon him?”
“I didn’t know but you might let something slip,” muttered
Bart――“something to put him on his guard.”
“Not a word. I found him here in my room waiting for me. Why do you
suppose he came?”
“I don’t know.”
“It was to tell me that he had learned I was to be cut out by the best
men in college for associating with him. Now, how do you suppose he
found that out?”
“Give it up.”
“Some unfeeling dog must have flung it at him!”
“Well, is this why you have decided not to follow him to-night?”
“Hodge, that man came to me all broken up. He sat where you are
sitting now, and he told me how happy it had made him to know there
was one man at Yale who had shown friendship for him.”
Bart moved uneasily.
“How do you think that made me feel?” asked Frank.
Hodge cleared his throat.
“Oh, I suppose it made you feel slushy!” he blurted. “I can’t stand
that sort of thing myself. Why didn’t you run away?”
“If ever a fellow seemed sincere, he did.”
“Don’t doubt it.”
“He confessed that he had been tempted more than once, when all the
world was against him, but in the future he should have greater
strength to resist temptation, knowing there was one who believed in
him.”
“That’s all right,” muttered Bart, feeling that he must say something.
“Is it all right? How would it look if I were to play the spy on him
to-night? Would it seem to him, if he knew it, that I believed in
him?”
“Well, as――er――as Dismal Jones says, ‘By their works ye shall know
them.’ In these modern times, faith without proof is regarded as
folly. If you were to convince yourself that Hooker did not visit the
slums from any evil reason, then you would have all the more
confidence in him. A man’s actions prove what he is.”
“You make a good argument, Hodge, but I don’t believe I’ll go, just
the same. I should feel guilty all the time I was doing it.”
“Well,” said Bart desperately, “I’m not going to coax you!”
“Don’t.”
“But you may be doing Hooker harm by not going.”
“Harm, Hodge?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“Well, I’ve told Browning and Diamond what we meant to do.”
“You have?”
“Sure.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Now, if you do not go, do you know what they’ll think?”
“What?”
“They’ll think you actually feared you might discover something that
would cause you to change your mind about Hooker. They’ll think that,
having picked the fellow up, you are not willing to learn the truth
about him, but are going to stick to him, anyway.”
Frank got up and walked across the room. Bart watched him with some
anxiety.
“If I could be sure Hooker would not know it,” muttered Merry.
“Why should he know it?” cried Bart instantly.
“I might go along with you for the satisfaction of teaching you a
lesson. I believe I will!”
“Good!”
“If such stories are afloat about Hooker, it’s time somebody
investigated. If the stories can be proved lies, it may have something
to do with giving the fellow better standing.”
“Exactly.”
“That being the case, it may be my work to take hold of it and show
his defamers that he is all right.”
“Come on!” Bart sprang up.
“All right,” said Frank, “I am going. I shall go, because I wish to be
able when a man tells a slander about Hooker to say that I know it is
not true. I have an interest in the unfortunate fellow, and I shall
take chances in helping him; but we must be very careful not to let
him catch on that he is being followed.”
“Hurry,” urged Bart. “The evening is beginning to creep along, and we
don’t want him to get away from us.”
Frank hustled around and got ready to go. Bart waited impatiently
while Merry searched for something.
“What are you looking for?” asked Hodge.
“My watch,” was the reply.
“Can’t you find it?”
“No.”
“Where did you have it last?”
“In another suit, but it’s not there.”
“Haven’t you left it lying around?”
“Sometimes I do.”
Bart joined in the search.
“It’s mighty queer,” declared Frank.
“It is rather odd,” admitted Bart, in a singular manner.
“It should be right here.”
They looked almost everywhere, and at last, Frank stopped and stood
staring about in a perplexed manner.
“That watch hasn’t any legs,” said Bart.
“But it has a pair of hands,” twinkled Merry.
“It couldn’t walk off on its hands.”
“Not unless it’s suddenly developed into a circus acrobat.”
“Somebody must have helped it.”
“Oh, I don’t think that!” cried Frank. “I don’t believe anybody would
touch my watch.”
“Well, I’m glad you think so,” came in a significant manner from Bart.
There was a cloud on Frank’s brow as he looked sharply at Bart.
“What are you driving at?” he asked.
“Well, you have a new friend who was here a short time ago.”
“Hooker?”
“That’s the name.”
“Don’t, Hodge――don’t try to put the blame on that poor fellow!”
“All right. You may think what you like, and I’ll think――what I like.”
“By heavens! I believe you are glad of this opportunity to put
suspicion on him! You are like other human beings, ready to kick a man
who is down!”
“I have no sympathy with a sneak-thief!” said Bart harshly. “If Hooker
has taken your watch, he’s a dirty sneak! You are a man who has shown
friendship for him, and he steals from you! What do you think of
that?”
“I do not believe he did it!” declared Merry, clearly and
emphatically.
“But the circumstantial evidence.”
“Look here, Hodge, have you forgotten that, more than once, you have
nearly been convicted of crime by circumstantial evidence, and you
were perfectly innocent on every count? You should not forget that
everybody turned against you, while I alone stood by you. You should
not forget how near you were to giving up in despair because things
looked so black against you.”
Bart Hodge flushed crimson, for, of a sudden, he remembered that there
had been a time when his position was much like that of Jim Hooker. In
that time of trouble Frank had proved to be a firm and trusty friend.
“You’ve not known Hooker as you knew me,” he muttered.
Frank saw that Hodge was stirred by shame, and he instantly said,
dropping a hand on Bart’s shoulder:
“Forgive me, old man! I didn’t mean to speak of it, but I couldn’t
help it. Let us hope that Hooker is quite as innocent as you were when
wrongfully accused. Come, we will go.”
With considerable trouble, they were able to follow Hooker from the
campus to a Jew’s little store on a side street in a poor quarter of
the city. From a position outside the store they saw the suspected
student speak familiarly to the old Jew who kept the place, and pass
on into a little back room, disappearing from view.
“Well,” said Frank, “it looks to me as if this is the end of our great
shadowing expedition.”
“I wonder what he’s doing in there,” muttered Hodge, nonplused.
“I think we’ll have to guess at it.”
“He seemed perfectly at home.”
“Yes.”
“It’s plain he’s been here before.”
“True.”
Bart meditated, and then he said:
“Merriwell, I have an idea.”
“Do you wish to part with it?”
“I believe this old Jew keeps a fence.”
“You mean a place for receiving stolen goods?”
“Yes.”
“What makes you think that?”
“Well, this is a cheap quarter of the city, and――and――――Well, I think
so.”
“You think so because Hooker seemed quite at home there.”
“Perhaps that is the reason.”
“It’s a pretty slim reason.”
“You do not believe it?”
“Not because Hooker came here. You’ll have to show stronger evidence
than that.”
“I suppose we might turn detectives and find out.”
Frank shook his head.
“That is carrying the thing farther than I care to go, old man.”
“Well, are we going to give it up here?”
“All we can do is wait awhile and see if anything will turn up. Now
that I have entered into this thing, I have a curiosity to see how it
will turn out.”
So they waited, and, in less than twenty minutes, they were rewarded
by the reappearance of Hooker. They were watching through the front
window of the shop, which was none too clean, and saw the outcast come
from the back room, but both were surprised by his appearance, which
was greatly altered.
“Great Scott!” muttered Hodge. “What’s he been doing?”
“He’s changed his clothes,” said Frank instantly.
“Changed them! I should say he had! Why, I hardly knew him at first.”
“Nor I.”
“He looks like a tough now.”
“He looks pretty seedy,” confessed Frank. “What kind of a game is he
up to, I wonder?”
Hooker had paused a moment to speak to the old Jew.
“Then it is beginning to dawn on you,” said Bart triumphantly, “that
he may be up to some sort of a game?”
“He can’t be going to a masquerade in that rig.”
“He might be going to a poverty ball, but Hooker isn’t the sort of
chap to take in balls of any kind.”
The shadowed student had changed his respectable clothing for a ragged
suit and a battered soft hat, which was slouched over his eyes. In
fact, his appearance had been altered by the change of clothing so
that he now seemed decidedly disreputable.
“No, he is not going to attend a ball,” said the dazed Merriwell. “By
Jove! this affair is becoming interesting, Hodge! It can’t be that
he’s been forced to sell his clothes in order to raise some money, can
it, Hodge?”
“Sell nothing!” exclaimed Bart. “Do you think he’d wear that sort of
rig back to college? Why, he’d be ridiculous!”
“But some of the men who have money to burn sometimes dress almost as
bad as that.”
“But not hardly. They do not look like toughs, and Mr. Hooker now
looks like an out-and-out tough.”
To himself Merriwell had reluctantly confessed that the change of
clothes had made a most remarkable alteration in the appearance of the
suspected student, for he now had a sinister, evil aspect that was
awakening strange doubts and forebodings in the mind of his only
champion and defender in the college. In his heart, Frank could not
deny that Hooker now seemed like a genuine sneak and crook. It was a
regular Jekyll-and-Hyde metamorphosis.
The old Jew seemed to be laughing in an evil fashion at the alteration
in the student, rubbing his hands, nodding his head and making
characteristic gestures.
“Perhaps,” said Bart, as if struck by a new idea, “perhaps Hooker is
an out-and-out ruffian. Have you read in the papers how a number of
persons have been held up and robbed by a mysterious footpad on the
outskirts of the city?”
Frank had read of it, and he was obliged to say so. More than that, a
thought of the robberies had entered his head at the very moment Bart
spoke of them.
“Merriwell,” came eagerly from Hodge, “we may be able to clear up the
mystery of those robberies to-night!”
“I hope not!” came huskily from Frank.
“I know it’s rather hard on you after you had such confidence in the
fellow,” said Hodge; “but if he is a thorough scoundrel you want to
know it, don’t you?”
“Of course.”
“Even though it may shatter all your faith in the natural honesty of
human nature?”
“It will not.”
“Won’t?”
“Not on your life! Even though I may find that I have been fooled in
this fellow, I shall not give up my firm belief that there is more
good than evil in human nature.”
“Well, I admire you for the way you stick to your pet theory, but your
belief must get shaken up sometimes. You have a way of looking on all
men as honest till they prove themselves otherwise; I have a way of
looking on all men as dishonest till they prove themselves otherwise,
and I watch them after that, for fear they may get tired of being
honest.”
“You’re a pessimist.”
“Call me what you like, I’ll not get fooled as many times as you do.
You must be satisfied by this time that there is something crooked in
Hooker.”
“I am not.”
“Well, you’re stubborn.”
“I’m hopeful.”
Hodge laughed shortly.
“But I can see that you are beginning to doubt. Your manner of
speaking shows that. What will you do, Merriwell, if we follow this
fellow and he attempts to hold up and rob some stranger?”
“If I can get near enough,” said Frank grimly, “I shall do my best to
give Jim Hooker the worst thrashing he ever received.”
“And afterward――will you turn him over to the police?”
“Most assuredly.”
“That being the case, I have a fancy that Mr. Hooker’s career in New
Haven is pretty near an end. We must not let him see us when he comes
out.”
“Wait. I want to watch him. I am trying to make out what the old Jew
is saying to him.”
“It looks to me as if he’s telling Hooker where to go in order to make
a strike,” said Hodge.
And, strangely enough, that thought had occurred to Frank. Still,
Merry was not willing to give up hope that Hooker might turn out
right, after all. To be sure, the fellow’s actions were against him,
but, as yet, he had done nothing actually bad. For all that he
regretted the evident probability that Hooker was not “on the level,”
still Merry was glad now that he had consented to come with Hodge and
watch the fellow.
“He’s coming out!” exclaimed Bart.
They hurriedly drew back into a dark doorway. The old Jew followed
Hooker to the door, where they paused a moment, and the shopkeeper was
distinctly heard to say:
“You vant to be careful, my young frient; you may ged indo drouple,
you know.”
Hooker said something in a low tone, and then started off, while the
Jew turned back into the shop.
“Come,” said Frank, “and we must be careful, too. I want to see this
thing through to the end.”
They followed Hooker.