A PUZZLING CASE
Professor Raymond picked the package up and examined it carefully. There
was no sign of tampering with the seals. It was in precisely the same
condition as when he had received it.
"Well," he said, as he looked coldly and accusingly at Fred, "what have
you got to say?"
Fred was looking at the package with wide open and horrified eyes. He
groped for words in his bewilderment, but his tongue seemed unable to
utter them. The silence grew painful.
"Why," he managed to stammer, at last, "I don't know what to say. I
hadn't any idea that there was anything in the locker, except my
clothes."
"How could it have got there unless you put it there?" pursued the
professor.
"I don't know," replied Fred, his head still whirling, "unless some one
else put it there by mistake, thinking it was his own locker. I
certainly never saw the package before. That is," as he looked at it
more closely, "I think I did see it once."
"Oh, you did, eh?" said Professor Raymond quickly. "And when was that?"
"Two or three days ago," answered Fred. "I was gathering up my books in
your office, and I saw you put in your desk a package that looked just
like this one."
The professor's heart grew sick within him, as every new item seemed to
connect Fred more closely with the theft.
"You knew then that it was in my desk?" he went on. "Did you have any
idea of what the package contained?"
"Not then," answered Fred. "But, a little while afterward I was talking
with some of the fellows in the gymnasium, and they said it probably
held the examination slips for the algebra test."
"Do you remember anything else you said at that time?" asked the
cross-examiner.
"No-o," began Fred slowly. "Oh, yes, I remember saying what fun it would
be if one were a mind reader and could know just what you were going to
ask.
"But, Professor," he broke out, as the significance of all these
questions dawned upon him, "you don't think for the minute, do you, that
I stole this package from your desk?"
"I hardly know what to think," replied the professor sadly, "but I want
you to come right over with me to Doctor Rally's office."
Utterly stunned and overwhelmed by the blow that had fallen upon him,
Fred followed the professor. His limbs dragged, as though he were
walking in a nightmare. They crossed the campus, and went straight to
the room where Doctor Rally awaited them.
He motioned them to chairs, and sat there, stern and implacable as Fate,
his eyes seeming to bore Fred through and through, while the professor
told of the finding of the papers in Fred's locker, and the explanation,
or rather the lack of explanation, that Fred had offered.
"Well, young man," the doctor said, and, although his eyes were flaming,
his words were as cold as ice, "you seem to have put the rope around
your own neck by your admissions. Have you anything else to say?"
"What can I say?" burst out Fred desperately. "If telling the truth has
put the rope around my neck, I can't help it. I didn't take the papers,
and don't know a single thing about them. Every single word I've said is
true."
"But the papers were found in your locker," returned the inquisitor
coldly, "and they couldn't have got there of their own accord. Some one
put them there. If you didn't, who did?"
"I don't know," said Fred miserably.
"Have you any enemy in the school, who might have done it?" asked
Professor Raymond.
"Not that I know of," answered Fred. "That is----" the thought of Andy
flashed across his mind, but he was too generous to give it utterance.
"No," he went on, "I don't think of anybody who could be mean enough to
put the thing off on me."
"Is there anything that might have any connection with this matter that
you haven't yet told us?" continued his questioner.
"Only one thing," replied Fred, to whom at that moment came the
recollection of what he had seen in the moonlight. "I did see a fellow
going away from the Hall the other night after twelve o'clock."
"Ah," came from both men, bending forward, and then they questioned him
carefully about the size and general appearance of the midnight skulker.
"Why didn't you tell some of us about that at the time?" asked Doctor
Rally severely.
"I suppose I ought to have done so," was the answer, "but I was cold and
sleepy, and the next day I forgot all about it."
There was a long silence, while Doctor Rally pondered. He broke it at
last by saying:
"I want to be entirely just to you, Rushton. I am not ready to condemn
you on this evidence, though I will not deny that things look dark for
you. I shall look into the matter further, and when I have reached a
decision I will let you know. That is all for the present."
He nodded a dismissal, and Fred, picking up his hat, stumbled blindly
from the room.
The two men who held his fate in their hands, stared at each other for a
long minute without speaking.
"It looks bad," said Doctor Rally, at last, "and I am more sorry than I
can tell, that he should be mixed up in such a wretched mess. His
parents are the finest kind of people, and his uncle is a particular
friend of mine."
"Do you think that he is guilty, then?" asked the professor.
"What else can I think?" said the doctor gloomily. "Everything seems to
indicate it. The facts are like so many spokes of a wheel, all leading
to the hub, and that hub is Rushton.
"Who knew that the examination papers were in your desk? Rushton. Who
had been wishing he were a mind reader, so that he might know what
questions you were going to ask? Rushton. Who saw, or says he saw a
mysterious marauder coming from the building at midnight, and yet said
nothing to any one about it? Rushton. And, above all, who actually had
the missing package in his locker? Rushton.
"Of course, all this is circumstantial evidence. But sometimes that is
the strongest kind. Naturally, he would take the greatest care not to
have any witnesses to the theft. The proof seems strong and many a man
has been hung on less."
"That is true," admitted the other thoughtfully, "but there are many
things, too, to be said on the other side.
"In the first place, there is the boy's character up to this time. He
ought to have the full advantage of that, and certainly he has seemed to
be one of the most upright and straightforward boys in the entire
school. I haven't had a black mark against him, and neither has any of
the other teachers.
"Then, too, what motive did he have for taking them? He's very bright,
especially in mathematics, for which he has a natural gift. He's always
up in the nineties somewhere in his marks. He hadn't the slightest
reason to fear the examinations.
"And I can't understand his manner, if he is guilty. When I first spoke
to him, instead of being the least bit flustered, he wasn't at all slow
in taking me straight to the locker. And when we caught sight of the
papers, he was just as much dumfounded as I was myself, more so if
anything, because I had had a hint that they were there.
"Why did he tell us about the talk in the gymnasium? He didn't need to
say a word about it. Yet he blurted it out without any hesitation.
Either the boy is innocent, or he's one of the finest actors I ever
saw."
"What is your theory, then?" asked the doctor. "Do you think that
somebody, in his haste to conceal the papers, mistook Rushton's locker
for his own?"
"Hardly that," replied Professor Raymond. "The matter was too important
for such carelessness. The papers were put there deliberately."
"By whom?"
"By the person who wrote this letter," and the professor took from his
pocket the scrap of paper he had received that afternoon.