THE WORM TURNS.
When Steve Carter told Dick Merriwell that Parker had been surprised by
his own anger into revealing the charge against Jim Phillips to his
assembled classmates, he was quite right. But Parker, though he let his
temper run away with him at times, was shrewd as well as unscrupulous,
and he was not long in seeing that, by a slight change in the plan of
his campaign, he could make the general knowledge of the case work to
his own advantage, or, at least, to the advancement of his plan. That
the discrediting of Jim Phillips, and, consequently, of Dick Merriwell,
would certainly advance his own interests, he never doubted at all.
Already he was laying his plans for the coming football season, which,
if he had his way, was likely to be more for the benefit of Parker than
of Yale.
He went to Shesgren’s room after he had finally torn himself away from
the curious crowd that wanted to know all he could tell it about the
registered letter and the Harvard protest, and there found Carpenter as
well as the owner of the room. The news had spread all over the campus
by that time, and they, remembering how strictly Parker had ordered them
to maintain secrecy about the whole affair, were afraid that he would
think that they had told. He soon reassured them, however, when they
began, as soon as he entered, to protest their innocence and say that
they had no idea of how the story had got out.
“I have,” said he curtly. “I changed my mind, and told it myself. It’s
best the way it is, too. We can settle the whole thing now and make sure
that there’s no way for Phillips to squirm out of this thing and prove
that he is innocent. He _is_ innocent, you know, and that’s why we’ve
got to be careful. I read once that if a man hadn’t done a thing he was
accused of, there always was some way, no matter how long it took for
him to find it, to prove the truth, or to prove, at least, that he
couldn’t have had a hand in it. Here’s where we fool the man that wrote
that. Still got that letter, Carpenter?”
Carpenter nodded.
“Yes,” he said. “You told me to keep it. I wanted to burn it. It isn’t
safe to have around. It might turn up some way, and then where would we
be?”
“I’ll do all the worrying that’s needed around here,” said Parker
harshly. “Just you leave that to me. You do as I tell you and there’ll
be no trouble. I want you to go to see Phillips right away, and tell him
you don’t believe all this story. Say you were with him that morning,
and that you certainly didn’t see any registered letter. See?”
“Yes—but I don’t understand,” said Carpenter feebly.
“Never mind about understanding,” snarled Parker. “Have the letter with
you, in your pocket. Then, when he isn’t looking, slip it into some
place where it will stay hidden until they make a more thorough search.
You can bet they’ve hunted through that place pretty carefully already——”
Suddenly Shesgren, his blue eyes flashing behind his heavy spectacles,
cried out.
“What are you talking about?” he cried. “What letter do you mean? Do you
mean to tell me that Phillips never really got that letter that they’re
making all the fuss about? Why, he signed the receipt!”
“Yes, he signed the receipt,” said Parker mockingly, “but your friend
Carpenter here got the letter.”
“But that—that’s stealing,” cried Shesgren, horrified. “There was money
in that letter.”
“There still is,” said Parker, with a sneering grin. “And we’ll see that
Phillips gets his letter in due time, with the money still in it.
Stealing that is not what we’re after.”
Shesgren, confused, and slow, even when he was at his best, to
understand complicated things, took some time to grasp the idea.
“Then Phillips isn’t crooked at all!” he exclaimed. “This was just a
plan of yours to put the blame on him and make it look as if he’d taken
money to play in that game when you knew all the time that he hadn’t.”
“What of it?” asked Parker, sneering again. “You knew what we were going
to do—what the whole plan was.”
“I knew you were going to give him a chance to take the money,” said
Shesgren, trembling. “I didn’t know that you were going to fake evidence
against him. I won’t stand for that. I thought you had proved that
Phillips was a hypocrite and a sneak—not that you had set a trap for
him.”
Parker glared furiously at Carpenter.
“I thought you were cowardly enough,” he said, with contempt. “I didn’t
suppose that you were training with such a white-livered chap as this,
though.”
“I’ll tell the whole story,” cried Shesgren angrily. “I’m going to
Merriwell right now.”
He sprang for the door, but Parker was after him in the twinkling of an
eye, and, being immensely stronger, had no trouble in dragging the angry
sophomore back.
“Get me a trunk strap,” he cried to Carpenter, and Carpenter, who was
completely under the influence of the junior, obeyed. In a moment
Shesgren, struggling pluckily, though there was no hope that he could
cope with Parker, was trussed up in a chair.
“This is fine business,” exclaimed Parker angrily, then. “I thought I
could count on you two to help me do Jim Phillips up to get him out of
your way, while I was disposing of Dick Merriwell at the same time. And
now you go back on me just when the thing seems likely to be a success.”
Furiously angry, he sat in sullen silence for a few minutes, trying to
work out some way in which he could rescue his plan from the destruction
with which Shesgren’s sudden attack of conscience seemed to threaten it.
If he released Shesgren, the sophomore would betray the whole conspiracy
at once. If he kept him tied up, he could only postpone discovery a
short time. The only thing to do was to find some means of stopping
Shesgren’s contemplated betrayal—to find some way to seal his lips. He
must get him in his power in some fashion.
“I’ve got it,” he cried suddenly. “You’ll be sorry you ever turned on me
before I’m done with you, Shesgren. Give me that letter, Carpenter.”
Skillfully, he slit open the edges of the envelope with a sharp knife,
and, extracting the two fifty-dollar bills the letter contained, put
them in Shesgren’s wallet, which he was able, without difficulty, to
take from his captive’s pocket.
“Those bills are marked,” he said. “Chetwind took their numbers from the
bills when he mailed them, as an extra precaution, in case of any
trouble. Now, my fine fellow, if you start to tell anything, you’ll have
difficulty explaining those bills. I’ll see that you have no chance to
get rid of them, and if you try to do me any harm, you’ll simply find
yourself involved in the case with Phillips without doing me any harm or
him any good. You can’t prove anything that you say—and the evidence of
those bills in your possession will be taken as worth much more than
anything you say. And you want to remember, too, that if it comes to a
test, Carpenter and I will stick together and tell the same story, and
our word is better than yours. I won’t give you a chance to promise not
to split—I wouldn’t take your word now, no matter what sort of an oath
you swore.”
“You won’t get the chance,” cried Shesgren. He seemed like a great
coward, but like many other weaklings, Shesgren had a certain courage,
and, when he made up his mind to do anything, it took more than threats
to dissuade him. “I’m going to tell the truth no matter what you do, and
you’ll find that the truth can be proved, even if it is difficult. Just
as soon as you let me go, I’ll take the whole story to Merriwell, and
he’ll believe me, whether any one else does or not. Then, when he knows
the truth, he’ll find some way to prove it. You can make your mind up to
that, you crook! You’re pretty clever, but there are some people who
know just as much as you do, and you’ll find that out and wish you’d
kept straight.”
“Quite a bantam cock, isn’t he?” said Parker contemptuously, to
Carpenter. “I didn’t think our little friend had so much nerve. I really
admire him, honestly I do.”
The junior was much relieved by the plan he had worked out. And he had
one or two trump cards, too, of which Shesgren knew nothing, for he had
not been fool enough to confide fully in his two rascally and
treacherous helpers.
They left him there, Parker walking freely, singing as he went;
Carpenter terrified, white and trembling. He wasn’t much of a rogue,
really, and it was only Parker’s complete domination of his weak
character that had made it possible for him to do as much as he had so
far. With them went the registered letter, slit now, and empty, except
for a folded sheet of paper. Parker carried it, and seemed afraid to
trust it to Carpenter.
“What do you want me to do?” asked Carpenter shakily. “The letter isn’t
any good now, is it, with the money gone out of it?”
“Certainly it is,” said Parker, laughing. “You’re a silly sort of a
fool, Carpenter. The letter—without the money—turns up in Phillips’
room. At the right time, the money is found in the possession of
Shesgren. You explain, very sorrowfully, that you’re afraid Shesgren and
Phillips went together on the thing. And then see what Chetwind will
say. You needn’t worry. I’ve got everything they can do worked out, and
we’ll fool them on every side. You go on up and see Phillips now. And be
sure to drop the letter in his wastebasket, or some place like that.”
Carpenter felt that he could only obey. He would have given all he
possessed, and all his hopes of graduating at the head of his class, to
be well out of the mess, and free from the fear of Parker. But he was
afraid to make a move. He had seen the fate of Shesgren, still a
prisoner in his own room, and, as Carpenter well knew, likely to find
himself, because he had turned honest and had tried to undo the wrong
that had been done, involved as deeply as Jim Phillips himself in the
toils, with no way at all of clearing himself of the charge.
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