THE BLOW FALLS
The next day, after school hours, Professor Raymond opened his desk to
get a paper that he wanted. He was about to close it again, when
something in the tumbled condition of its contents, attracted his
attention. He reached sharply over to the lower right-hand corner, and
felt for a package that he knew had been there the day before.
A startled look came into his face, and he felt again more carefully.
Then he hastily took out everything that the desk contained.
He sat down in his chair with a jolt, and a grim expression came into
his eyes. Then he made a painstaking examination of the lock.
It had not been broken, nor was there any other evidence that violence
had been used.
He took out his penknife and scraped the lock. A tiny shaving of
something soft was brought out by the blade, and close examination
showed that it was wax.
He rang the bell for the janitor, and when Big Sluper came in, he
motioned him to a chair.
"Sluper," he said abruptly, "my desk was robbed last night."
"What!" cried Sluper, starting up. "How could that be? Are you sure,
sir?"
"Perfectly sure," replied the professor. "I only wish I were not. But I
had a valuable package in here yesterday, and now it's gone."
"Why, nothing of that kind has ever happened before," said Sluper, much
agitated. "Did the thief take anything else?"
"No," replied Professor Raymond. "And it was no outsider that took the
package. There was a little money in the desk, and any ordinary thief
would have taken that. Besides, the papers that were taken would have
been of no value to any one outside the school. They were the
examination slips for the next algebra test. Sluper, we've a thief right
here in Rally Hall."
"I'd be sorry to think that, sir," said the dismayed janitor. "I can't
think of any of the boys who might do such a thing."
"But some one of them did, just the same," replied the professor. "See
here," and he showed the janitor the shaving of wax.
"That proves that it was all planned beforehand," he said. "An outside
thief would have had a skeleton key, or simply pried it open with a
jimmy. But somebody has taken a wax impression of the lock and had a key
made to fit.
"Keep this thing perfectly quiet for a time," the teacher cautioned. "Be
on the watch for anything suspicious you may see or hear among the boys.
And I want you to go down town to Kelly's, the locksmith. Get into a
talk with him, and bring the conversation round to the subject of
duplicate keys, and how they're made. If he's done anything of that kind
lately, he may drop a hint of it. He'd have no reason to keep quiet, for
he's an honest man and wouldn't do a crooked thing. If he's made such a
key, the thief has given him some plausible reason for getting it made.
Find out anything you can, and let me know at once. But, above all
things, don't let the matter get out."
The janitor, badly confused, went away on his mission, while Professor
Raymond sought out Dr. Rally to lay the matter before him. If it had
been an ordinary case, he would have acted on his own discretion. But
this was altogether too serious, involving as it did the good name of
one of the scholars, and, to a certain extent, the reputation of the
school itself.
He found the doctor in his office, and laid the matter before him,
giving him all the details that he knew himself and telling of his
instructions to the janitor.
Dr. Rally was white hot with amazement and indignation.
"The rascal shall suffer for it if we catch him!" he announced, with a
grimness that would have delighted Aaron Rushton and confirmed him in
his admiration for the doctor's sternness. "I'll dismiss him. I'll
disgrace him. I'll make such an example of him that nothing of the kind
will ever happen in this school again."
His eyes flashed under his shaggy brows, and the fist he brought down on
the desk clenched till the knuckles showed white.
"But what could have been the motive?" he asked, as he grew more
composed. "Of course, we can understand why some one might want to know
the questions that were going to be asked. But why did they take the
whole package? One slip would have done as well as fifty. Then, too,
they might know that if the whole package were taken, you would simply
call the examination off, as soon as you had missed them, and make out a
new set of questions. Then they'd have had all their trouble and risk
for nothing."
"It is curious," answered Raymond. "If the idea was simply to get
advance information to help some boy through with the test, the only way
to do it was to take one copy and leave the rest of the slips there,
trusting me not to notice that the package had been tampered with.
"My theory is that he meant to do this, but perhaps was frightened away
by some sound, and didn't have time to do it. In that case, he may take
out one of the slips and try to put the package back to-night. The
examination doesn't take place till day after to-morrow, and he may
figure that I haven't missed them. As a matter of fact, it was only by
the merest chance that I did miss them to-day."
"Well, let us hope that he will try it," said Doctor Rally. "We'll have
Sluper stay in your office all night and nab him if he comes."
Sluper came back from his trip to town and reported that Kelly knew
nothing of the matter. Nor had he heard of anything among the boys that
might throw light on the mystery.
He kept a careful watch that night in Professor Raymond's office, but
without result.
The next day there was something in the atmosphere of Rally Hall that
made every one feel that a storm was brewing. The air was electric with
signs of trouble. Nothing had been allowed to leak out, but any one
could see that something was the matter, though without the slightest
idea of what it was.
Doctor Rally was more snappy and gruff than they had ever seen him, and
Professor Raymond went about his work in a brooding and absent-minded
way, that, with him, was most unusual.
"What's come over Raymond to-day?" asked Fred. "He looks as though he
were going to the electric chair."
"He certainly does have plenty of the gloom stuff," agreed Billy.
"Off his feed, perhaps," suggested Slim, to whom nothing seemed more
tragic than a loss of appetite.
"Into each life some rain must fall,
Some days be dark and dreary,"
quoted Tom.
Fred laughed and made a pass at him, little thinking how soon the lines
would apply to himself.
In his mail that afternoon, the professor received a letter. There was
nothing about it to identify the writer. In fact, there was no writing,
as both the address and the letter itself were printed in rough,
sprawling letters. It read this way:
"Look in Fred Rushton's locker."
The professor was thunderstruck. For several minutes, he sat staring at
the printed words without moving a muscle.
The first shock of amazement gave place to a sharp, gripping pain.
It could not be a coincidence. In the present condition of affairs, this
mysterious note could refer only to one thing--the missing slips of the
algebra test.
Fred Rushton! He, of all boys! Why, he would almost have been ready to
stake his life on the lad's honesty. He was so frank, so square, so
"white." The professor had grown to have the warmest kind of a liking
for him. In study and in sport, he had stood in the first rank, and so
far there had not been the slightest stain on his record.
No, it could not be possible that he had done this dastardly thing. He
was almost tempted to tear the letter up.
And yet--and yet----
He _must_ make sure.
He went to the office of Doctor Rally. From there, after a short
conference, he went in search of Fred.
"Would you mind letting me take a look at your locker, Rushton?" he
asked carelessly.
"Why, certainly not," answered Fred promptly, but wonderingly.
They went to the dormitory which at that hour was deserted.
"Here you are, Professor," he said, opening the locker.
There were some clothes lying there, neatly folded. The professor picked
them up.
There, with the seals still unbroken, lay the missing package!