THE MEETING IN THE GRANDSTAND
Three games had been insufficient to take the edge from the enthusiasm
of the fans, intoxicated with the wine of spring and bubbling with the
joy of looking down once more upon that diamond after their long winter
deprivation.
Moreover, in point of strength there was no comparison between the
Blue Stockings and the Terriers. To be sure, the latter had made a hot
start this year, but the former were old rivals of the Hornets, who,
year after year, had pushed them close in that desperate fight for the
pennant, and last season had beaten them out by a hair. Consequently
this first struggle between them drew almost as many spectators as the
game which had opened the season a week before.
The day was perfect. A sweep of blue sky, clear save for a few wispy
clouds, was overhead. A trifling little breeze lurked here and there at
sharp turns or corners, but it blew from the south, and held no chill
undercurrent which was not offset by the warm, grateful sunshine.
The fans rejoiced as they sped toward the grounds by every possible car
line and conveyance. Those of them who had witnessed the opening game
told one another how much better this one was likely to be.
Long before one o’clock great throngs had assembled at the gates,
and when those gates were finally opened there was a wild rush past
ticket-takers into the clattering emptiness of the vast stands. Down
over the tiers of seats they stumbled, struggling for the desirable
front rows. Hats were smashed here and there, and there were occasional
wordy altercations; but, as a rule, laughter and joshing and
good-natured horseplay prevailed.
By two o’clock, the bleachers were crowded, and the more expensive
seats were filling fast. Half an hour later it looked as if every
place, save in the reserved sections, was occupied; and still the crowd
streamed in like a swollen river.
Tramp, tramp, tramp! Regular, rhythmic, the sound of their marching was
like the thunder of a great army. Ogden Wilmerding, hurrying toward
a coveted place in the lower stand, felt the thrill which that sound
brings to the heart of every fan who has hibernated reluctantly for six
long months.
“Nothing like it,” he chuckled as he was swept along. “This looks a lot
like opening day,” he went on, peering over the top of the last row of
seats. “I’m not so sorry as I was over getting back too late for that.”
He soon saw that it would be impossible to get the seat he wanted. The
section directly behind the plate was filled in solid. For a moment
he stood there peering down at the reporters’ bench in a vain hope
that some one he knew――Jack Stillman, perhaps――might find room for him
there. He saw places enough; but neither Stillman nor any other of his
newspaper friends had yet appeared.
“Hang it all!” he muttered. “Why didn’t I start half an hour earlier,
or wire from Boston for a box?”
“Because you’re the same lazy old slob you were three years ago,”
chuckled a voice in his ear.
Wilmerding whirled, his eyes popping, stared for a second in speechless
amazement at the young man against whose shoulder he had been almost
leaning. Then he fell upon him with a roar of delight.
“Well, I’ll be hanged!” he gurgled. “Snow, you old cut-up, where in
time have you been? I thought you’d croaked years ago. Shove along and
give me a chance. You’re spread over two seats, easy.”
Snowden Pell obeyed laughingly. The man beside him, taking in the
situation with a good-natured grin, likewise moved, and Wilmerding was
accommodated with a seat.
“It takes a lot to put me out of business,” Pell chuckled when his
friend had settled beside him. “I’m very far from being a dead one, as
they’ll tell you out in Seattle.”
“But why didn’t you write and let somebody know how you were getting
on? Last I heard, your father failed, or something, and you slipped
out of Princeton right in the middle of the spring term without saying
a word to anybody. To this day I never knew how much of the tale was
truth and how much fiction.”
“It was pretty much all truth,” Pell returned quickly. “My governor’s
partner got playing the Wall Street game, and smashed the business to
bits. There wasn’t enough left even for me to keep on and finish the
term, and when I found out how bad things were I just faded quietly
away. I didn’t want any of the boys to be sorry for me, or to think
that I was an object of charity, the way――”
“Rot!” broke in the stout chap emphatically. “You make me sick! At
least, you might have said a word to your old friends. Look over in
the bleachers. They’re firing one of those sandwich-chewing-gum-cigar
baskets at each other. Next thing you know they’ll be tossing some kid
around.”
For a moment they watched the wicker basket rise and fall as the
bleacherites employed their time in playing a sort of handball with it.
Here and there in a distant part of the stand men were throwing paper
at one another, sporting with the inevitable straw hat which some one
always seems to bring along for the purpose, and otherwise enjoying
themselves.
Presently Wilmerding turned again to his friend.
“Well, where’d you go?” he asked. “What you been doing ever since?”
“I had a job offered me in Seattle, which I snapped up. It was a good
opening for me, and I’m certainly glad I got with that particular
concern, even if I had to borrow money to get out there. I had
the first letter from them the very day I left Princeton; and, by
Jove, Oggie!”――he threw back his head and laughed at the sudden
recollection――“you came mighty near being the goat.”
“What do you mean?” the stout fellow inquired tartly. “You didn’t
touch me, that I remember. Of course, I’d have turned you down”――his
tone was one of heavy sarcasm――“but at least I’d liked to have had the
chance.”
“You were the first person I thought of when I realized I’d have to
sting somebody,” Pell laughed. “Trouble was, I couldn’t locate you.
Went to your room, and stayed a deuce of a while in hopes you’d come
in. Then, when I couldn’t wait any longer, I hunted up Victor Wood, and
he did the business.”
He hesitated an instant, and then went on swiftly, a note of sudden
curiosity in his voice:
“That reminds me of something I’ve always wanted to ask you. What sort
of a game did you and Bert Elgin have together about that time?”
Wilmerding stared. “Game?” he repeated blankly. “Bert Elgin? I don’t
get you, Snow. Elucidate.”
“Well, I thought it was a joke of some kind,” Pell returned. “Only
it seemed funny that all of a sudden you should be as chummy as that
with Elgin. While I was waiting for you, I strolled into your bedroom
to brush my hair. I was standing before the bureau when I heard the
outside door open. Thought it was you, of course, until some one called
out your name. I didn’t feel in the mood for gassing with any one
else, so I said nothing and slipped back to one side of the door.
“To make a long story short, I heard the fellow moving around the
sitting room, and pretty soon I happened to catch sight of him in the
dressing-table mirror. It was Bert Elgin, and he was heading for the
bookshelves in the corner.”
Wilmerding gave a slight start, the color flaming into his face.
“Go on,” he urged, as his friend, glancing at him, paused in his
narration. “What――happened?”
“He took something out of his pocket and dropped it behind the books,”
Pell continued. “I didn’t see what it was; but as it fell there was a
clink that sounded like metal――a chain or―――― Great Scott! What is it,
Oggie? What’s the matter with you?”
The color had vanished from Wilmerding’s face, and he was staring at
his companion with a strained, incredulous expression in his eyes which
testified to the emotion he was undergoing.
“What――books――were they?” he gasped at length, in a hoarse voice.
“The books he put the stuff behind, you mean?” queried Pell. “I don’t
remember, but I think it was the second shelf from the top. I know
they were over on the extreme right-hand end of the case.”
Wilmerding drew his breath with a whistling sound. For an instant he
sat silent. Then he moved his hand unconsciously, and caught Pell’s arm
in a grip which made the man wince.
“What day was that, Snow?” he breathed.
“The twenty-sixth of May,” was the quick response. “I don’t think I’ll
ever forget that date. It was about three in the afternoon. But what in
thunder was it all about, Oggie? I never supposed it was anything but a
joke. Can’t you put a fellow wise?”
The big man at his side did not answer. He was staring out across the
diamond toward the bleachers, black with their crowds of restless fans.
He saw nothing, heard nothing. He could not speak for the joy which
filled his soul as a realization of the truth came to him at last.
He was not a thief!
For years he had been so absolutely convinced that it was he who
had――unconsciously, perhaps, but still none the less certainly――stolen
those things from Bob Ferris’ rooms, that Pell’s story struck him as
almost incredible.
There could be no mistake, however. The details fitted too perfectly to
admit of a coincidence. Lefty had been right, it was Elgin who was the
thief, not he. And Elgin it was who had done a thing which would have
been impossible in Wilmerding, waking or sleeping; he had deliberately
stolen, and as deliberately planned to throw the blame upon an innocent
man.
Sudden, furious anger flamed up within the Princeton man. He felt as if
he must search out that contemptible coward and give him a little of
what was coming to him. He half rose from the bench, his face livid;
and then he realized that all around him a wild uproar had arisen. Men
yelled and cheered themselves purple; they stamped and shouted and
waved their hats.
Pell’s hand caught Wilmerding by the arm and dragged him down, but not
before the angry man had caught a glimpse of the line of athletes in
their immaculate uniforms, leaving the shadow of the distant bleachers
and trotting briskly into the brilliant April sunshine on the field.