He was conscious that he had exceeded the order by sixty words,
approximately, and he hesitated an instant. Then thrusting the numbered
sheets at the operator, he exclaimed: "Here, take it; I'll wait for
another order."
In half an hour it came. It was for a photograph of Catherwood.
How little Green procured that photograph even after Catherwood's threat
that he'd kill him if he used it, is a story in itself--a story for
another time. But in less than an hour after the receipt of the
telegraphic request it was in the post-office bearing on its plain
wrapper a special delivery stamp.
It has been suggested that little Green was wise beyond his years. He
was just wise enough not to tell _all_ his story to an afternoon paper
at so late an hour.
So, with a confidence born of a short but crowded experience, he sent
out by wire eight queries to as many morning papers in the middle- and
the further-west.
Meanwhile that occurred which little Green had been far-sighted enough
to expect would occur.
The tall, angular, boy-faced agent of the Associated Press in Detroit
wandered into the office of the _Journal_ shortly after one o'clock.
Passing the city desk he tickled the man sitting there, on his round,
shiny, bald spot, and as he looked up with a scowl, asked blandly:
"Anything doing?"
The city editor growled and resumed reading the typewritten page that
lay before him.
The agent wandered into the office of the state editor, where a man with
long hair sat, fidgeting in a swivel chair and mumbling to himself under
his breath.
"Anything?" asked the agent, tersely, at the same time reaching for the
proofs that dangled from a hook at the side of the desk.
The state editor looked up, scowling. He disliked being annoyed when
talking to himself.
"Pretty good one from Ann Arbor," he snapped. "Find it there."
The agent ran hastily through the proofs and retained one. The others he
hung back on the hook.
"Much obliged," he said, and strolled out of the office.
At six o'clock that night the story was "on the A. P. wire," and being
ticked off in every newspaper telegraph room from Portland to Portland,
for the night manager at Chicago had called it "bully good stuff."
And when it came clicking into those offices to which little Green had
wired shortly after noon, the desk men in charge recognized the
incompleteness of the "A. P. story," and forthwith telegraphed their
unknown correspondent for more. Regular correspondents were totally
disregarded. Little Green was supreme; and no one realized that
supremacy more keenly than little Green himself. He was the king of the
night with his story; and sheet after sheet he filled with his jagged,
irregular chirography, and the dreamy operator kept up with him.
But there came an end to his work at last, as there comes an end to all
things; and when the end came in this particular case, little Green
whistled, slipped his pencil into his pocket and sauntered out of the
telegraph box jauntily. He did not recall until he reached the office of
the _'Varsity News_ that he had not eaten since morning. He glanced at
his watch. He would write the "story" for his own paper now--and
then--Supper.
All of which may explain to the reader of this veracious tale why it was
that the president of the University, as he glanced over his _Providence
Journal_ in Providence the next morning, suddenly started in his chair,
and calling for a telegraph blank sent this message to the dean of the
Department of Literature, Science, and the Arts:
"Take no action in Catherwood case. Sift it. Leave for Ann Arbor at
once."
And likewise it may account for the sudden exclamation of the dean
himself, as at breakfast, earlier that same morning in Ann Arbor, his
eye chanced to fall upon a column-and-one-half story with a two column
display head, that blazed forth to all the world many details unknown to
him in the case of Frederick Edward Catherwood.
He had attended the faculty meeting the night before, when the case was
threshed out to the finest grain, and he had heard no such explanation
of the affair as stared at him now in cold black type from the front
page of his morning paper.
A _secret_ secret society in the University, the function of which was
to haze every one big or little who for one reason or another, might
fall under its bann! He had never heard of any such organization. And
yet--and yet----
Oh, little Green! Oh, little Green! Little did you dream to what ill end
your rare invention, your insane imaginings, would result!
For, after partaking that night of a luncheon and dinner rolled into one
big steak in "Tuts," little Green sought his room where he slept the
sleep of vigorous youth till a beam of the winter sun, shining through
his alcove window, fell athwart his eyes and wakened him.
As for Catherwood, he had not been commanded to appear before the
faculty. Indeed, of what transpired at that momentous meeting he never
knew; that is to say, definitely, but every one learned, in a general
way, something of the wordy resolutions that were passed and the learned
opinions that were there put forth, all of which tended to no purpose
save to obscure more thickly, rather than illumine more brilliantly, the
strange affair.
The dean presided--a large man with reddish hair and pleasant eyes and
a jerky, nervous manner.
Inasmuch as it was assistant professor Lowe who had found Catherwood,
gagged and tied, that _savant_ was asked to give his opinion, first.
With much natural evasion of the subject, and a cloud of "ahs" and
"aws," he explained as lucidly as his slow moving mind would permit how
he had rushed into the room to discover his pupil stowed away upon the
bed behind a barricade of chairs.
"And, professor," inquired the dean, "you can throw no light upon the
case; you have learned nothing--that is to say--oh--ah--nothing that
might serve as a clue to the apprehension of the offenders?"
The room became as still as the royal ante-chamber whilst the king dies
beyond the arras.
The assistant professor fumbled in his pockets and finally drew out the
crumpled note that Catherwood had given him, which he offered the dean,
meekly, as becomes a serf in the presence of his master.
The dean pursed his lips and looked down at the sheet.
"Oh--ah," he muttered. And then added, passing it back to the assistant
professor, "I--oh--ah--make nothing out of this--nothing at all. It is
very simple. It shows that Mr.--oh--ah--Catherwood was assaulted by
two--two--persons. But, _that_, gentlemen, we already know. What we now
wish to learn is: _Who were they?_"
The assistant professor shook his head, wearily.
"Yes, yes," he muttered.
At this point an aged man at the rear of the room rose, and clearing his
throat asked in a dry, metallic cackle: "Am I to understand that the
young gentleman is a member of a fraternity?"
It was quite apparent that no one appreciated clearly the significance
of the old gentleman's question.
The dean stared inquiringly over his glasses at the assistant professor
of history.
"He is not----"
"He is not," echoed the dean.
"Oh," cackled the old gentleman and sat down. His prejudice against
fraternities was well known. Several of the younger men present, who
wore their pins on occasion, glanced at one another and smiled.
"It would--oh--ah--seem to me," began the dean, when he was interrupted
by that dry, metallic cackle a second time.
"Does he contemplate joining a fraternity?"
"No," Lowe shouted.
"Oh"--and the old gentleman sat down again.
In the second row there rose a round, boy-faced man with a pompadour,
who, after clearing his throat, began:
"It would seem to me, gentlemen, that we are on the wrong track; what?
It would seem to me that there is a way--a sure way--of apprehending the
villains who seem to have worsted our young friend, Mr. Catherwood;
what?"
Every man in the room leaned forward, and again the hush became awesome.
"And it is?" observed the dean, very soberly.
"_That we compare the handwriting of that note with all the students'
signatures in our possession; what?_"
There ensued a general exchange of puzzled looks and then the dean
exclaimed:
"A very good idea, my dear professor--oh--ah--a most ingenious idea;
but--oh--ah--would _you_ be willing to undertake to make the suggested
comparisons?"
"Well I thought the clerks in the registrar's office might----"
"Very good--_very_ good!" said the dean--"I believe there are about
thirty-five hundred such signatures--oh--ah--quite a week's work for the
entire office force--quite----"
Several of his colleagues openly congratulated the boy-faced genius who
seemed to them to be the only man with a plan worthy of adoption.
Amid the general exchange of felicitations before which the genius
blushed and stammered his confusion, assistant professor Lowe rose and
caught the eye of the dean.
"Order--oh--ah--order, gentlemen!" the latter called. "Professor Lowe
seems to have a word----"
"It's just a word," was the reply, "but, gentlemen, the plan suggested
can be of no avail and for a very simple reason----" He looked down at
the boy-faced junior professor in astronomy who had formulated the plan
referred to and who looked up at him, weakly, sufferingly.
"And what is the reason?" inquired the dean severely, loth to have a
theory declared impracticable which he had seemed to favor.
"It is that this note was written--ingeniously I am willing to admit--by
a right handed person, who, to disguise his writing, wrote with his left
hand in what we call the 'back-hand' style. All writings, under such
circumstances, are alike. My authority, gentlemen, is Dumas; of whom
some of you may have heard." And with this cuttingly sarcastic speech
the assistant professor of history sat down.
There was an instant's silence, broken by the old gentleman at the back
of the room who had fallen asleep some minutes before. Awakening, just
as assistant professor Lowe delivered his retort, he had heard but a
word, and that word was pleasant to his aged ear.
"What's that?" he called.
No one assumed the task of explaining to him and he dozed off again.
As it was, for three hours, upward of seventy-five full-blooded,
able-bodied men wrangled over an affair that little Green had assumed
the responsibility of making clear to the wider world outside. Theories,
opinions, solutions, were flung at the dean until he felt his head swim,
and saw double.
In the entire assemblage there was but one who had taken no active part
in the discussion, but, rather, had appeared to look on merely, an
interested, if at times annoyed, spectator--the professor of French.
He was observed occasionally to yawn.
During a lull he got upon his feet and straightway, without clearing his
throat--said:
"Gentlemen, it seems to me we are as far from a solution of this affair
as we were when we assembled. For one I am getting tired and am going
home,"--he was quite independent for there was a standing "call" for
him from an eastern institution.--"Now I have a suggestion to make. It
is this: Suppose we all go home, and await the return of the president.
Meanwhile let us keep our eyes and ears open, and our mouths shut;
perhaps we may see and hear things that will indicate the proper course
for us to take. In any event, it would seem wisest for us to await the
return of the president. Good-night, gentlemen."
And buttoning his overcoat about him, the professor of French left the
room.
It was not until then that the futility of their discussion dawned upon
his colleagues. Some one moved that the meeting adjourn. The motion was
carried. The old gentleman voted the single nay.
The dean walked home with assistant professor Lowe. Their conversation
was wholly upon the case in hand. And when the dean left the younger man
at the latter's door, he said: "I--oh--ah--I confess to being more
puzzled than ever. A very mysterious affair--oh--ah--a _most_ mysterious
affair."
And so it was that the puzzlement of the worthy dean deepened next
morning as he read little Green's sprightly, suggestive story.
But the frown vanished from his brow and the wonder from his eyes, when,
as he left the house, a messenger handed him the president's telegram.
And he hastened to the campus to make known to his colleagues the glad
tidings that had come to him in the depths of his perplexity.