A STRANGE CLEW.
The letter dropped so carefully by Carpenter—for he had done his work
well—was found by Jim Phillips himself on Friday morning. Jim was
nervous and upset. The team was to start that evening for Cambridge, and
he knew, despite Dick Merriwell’s optimistic way of speaking, that
things were still looking very bad, and that he was as far as ever from
being cleared of the charge against him. The feeling that he was
regarded by many of his friends and fellow students as one who had for
money deliberately violated his standing as an amateur and a Yale
athlete, and that Yale would suffer the next day because of his absence,
had had a bad effect on him, as was only natural.
Bill Brady was with him as he found the letter. Jim, bending over by his
desk, saw a little speck of white protruding from the edge of the
carpet. He pounced on it, and, with a cry of amazement, held up the
envelope.
Eagerly he and Brady examined it. Outwardly, it was exactly as Chetwind
had described it. The number stamped on it by the post-office was the
same that had appeared on the card receipt which Jim had signed, now in
Chetwind’s possession. But inside they found the real surprise. The
money was missing. There was only a single sheet of note paper, folded
three times, with no writing at all on it. That, too, confirmed
Chetwind, in a way. He had said that the two fifty-dollar bills he had
sent had been put inside a sheet of folded note paper.
“We must have overlooked this when we searched the room,” said Jim,
tremendously excited.
“Not a bit of it,” cried Brady. “I took up the whole carpet myself, and
went over the whole floor. I shook out the carpet, too, and I couldn’t
possibly have missed this. Look here, Jim! This envelope has been slit
open by a knife. Some one has opened it, and taken the money out. And it
isn’t here by accident, either. It’s been put here for you to find—or
for some one else. Probably they would rather have had some outsider
find it than you—but that’s a small matter. A criminal, or you, if you
were guilty, might destroy this. But I think it may work the thing out
yet. I’m no detective, but Merriwell is. If he doesn’t call this a
first-class clew, I’ll eat my hat.”
“Let’s take it to him right away,” cried Jim eagerly, seizing his hat.
“Hold on!” cried Brady, almost as excited as his friend, but because he
was less deeply concerned personally, finding it easier to keep his
head. “I want him to see this just as we found it, before there’s any
chance to have things changed around in the room.”
He went to the window, and looking out into York Street, soon saw a
freshmen walking past.
“Hello, there, freshie!” he called. “Beat it up to Mr. Merriwell’s
rooms, and ask him if he can’t come down here right away.”
The freshman obeyed—he would have been venturesome, indeed, had he
not—and Bill and Jim Phillips waited impatiently for the universal coach
to appear. He did not keep them waiting long, for he knew that such a
summons must mean an important discovery.
“Well,” he said, “this certainly does look as if we were getting warm.
But I must confess that the whole thing is too complicated for me. Why
should this thing be allowed to turn up just now? I should think they
would have done better to keep the letter altogether.”
Even as he spoke, Jim’s landlady appeared in the door and announced that
a man was asking for Phillips.
“He’s a post-office inspector, sir,” she said.
The three Yale men exchanged quick glances.
“Show him in,” said Jim quietly, and in a moment the inspector, a dark,
keen-looking man, appeared.
“I was in town on some other business,” said he, “and the postmaster
asked me to investigate the matter of a missing registered letter.”
“I don’t see how the post-office department is concerned,” said Dick.
“The receipt was duly signed, which shows that the letter carrier did
his duty. The responsibility of the department ceases with the safe
delivery of the package.”
“Y-e-es,” said the inspector, a little doubtfully. “But I understand
that Mr. Phillips says he did not actually receive the letter. The mail
carrier says he delivered it personally, and, therefore, the postmaster
has been rather annoyed by the implication that some misuse of the mails
has been made.”
“I don’t know who has implied that,” said Dick. “However, it makes no
difference. The letter has just been found. Good day.”
The inspector looked annoyed.
“It seems to me this whole affair is a tempest in a teapot,” he said,
rather hotly. “I’ve been chased up here on a fool’s errand. I’m sorry to
have intruded.”
“A strangely timely visit,” said Dick, laughing, when the inspector had
gone. “You would almost think that some one who knew that letter was
going to be found wanted to make sure that we shouldn’t conceal the
discovery, wouldn’t you? Now, Jim, I want to know who could have dropped
that envelope in this room? It must have been done while you were here,
for I have had the room watched in your absence, and no one has been
here. Tell me every one who has been here since dinner time last night.
It must have been done since then.”
Jim had no difficulty in supplying the list. He had just three visitors.
Harry Maxwell, Bill Brady, and Carpenter made up the list.
“Carpenter again,” said Brady, with a sarcastic laugh. “He’s very
careless. He was here when the letter disappeared—he is the only one,
eliminating Harry Maxwell and myself, who could have restored it—with
the money gone.”
“Exactly,” said Dick Merriwell. “There are a lot of things I should like
to have Carpenter explain. But being sure of a man’s guilt and proving
it afterward so that other people will be sure also, are two very
different things. We’re not in a position yet to accuse Carpenter of
anything, or to try to make him answer any questions. In fact, it would
be dangerous to try it. We would simply put him on his guard, if he has
anything to do with it, and make it harder than ever to straighten
things out. And our time is getting so short that we can’t afford to
make any sort of a move without being absolutely sure.”
He waited a minute to think over the new facts.
“There’s one thing we can do, though,” he said. “Our friend Chetwind has
had time to do some thinking. And I imagine that with what we can tell
him now, he may decide that it’s time he told us who served as his agent
in those remarkable negotiations of his with Jim by which he agreed to
pay for the services of a pitcher in that wretched baseball game.”
“That’s so, too,” said Brady. “Let’s go to it.”
The three of them, accordingly, taking the letter as mute but convincing
evidence, took their way to Chetwind’s office. Dick Merriwell, on the
way, examined the letter very closely.
“The man who opened this made one bad mistake,” he said. “He should have
torn it open with his fingers, as nine men out of ten open a letter. He
didn’t. And he may be sorry before we get through that he did not. If he
did that with this letter, the chances are that he makes a practice of
it—and that practice may give us some very valuable information yet.”
They had to wait some little time to see Chetwind, but when they finally
reached him, they found him much more disposed to talk with them than on
their previous visit. Briefly, Dick explained to him why they had come,
and laid before him all the facts that had developed since the charge
had been made against Jim.
“You see, Mr. Chetwind,” said Dick Merriwell, “we’ve gone about as far
as we can without your help. You said that, in view of the strong
evidence against us, it was up to Phillips to prove his innocence, or,
at least, that there was a chance that he was innocent. Now consider the
whole affair.
“Phillips makes no attempt to deny signing the receipt for this letter.
He does deny having received the letter itself, however, and the fact
that he received, at a time when he was in a great hurry, two registered
letters in the same mail, a highly unusual occurrence, explains how that
might have happened. If he did not receive it, and some one else did, it
ought to be possible to prove who the other person was. We haven’t
proved that it was Carpenter, but we have done something to show that
Carpenter had the chance, and practically the only chance, both to
abstract the letter in the first place, and to return it afterward. Now,
I think we have the right to demand that you tell us who it was that was
concerned with you in the arrangement to pay Phillips for pitching
against the Boston team.”
“I guess I’ll have to do that,” said Chetwind. “I don’t like to, but
you’ve certainly raised a doubt in my mind as to Phillips’ guilt, which
I didn’t think, yesterday, it was possible for you to do. The man who
approached me, and through whom I made the arrangement, was a sophomore,
named Shesgren.”
“Shesgren!” cried Merriwell and Jim, together, with Bill Brady’s deep
bass to echo them.
“Why, I hardly know the fellow,” exclaimed Jim. “I’ve seen him around
with this chap Carpenter, but I don’t think I’ve ever spoken to him more
than about three times.”
“What does he look like?” asked Dick Merriwell quickly. “Did you see
him?”
“Only once,” admitted Chetwind. “I did most of the dealing with him by
conversation over the telephone. But I saw him once. He was a big
fellow, with rather a deep voice. I couldn’t describe him, except to say
that he was big and dark. I suppose that much of a description would fit
a hundred Yale men.”
“Yes,” said Brady dryly. “But it doesn’t happen to fit Shesgren.”
“I should say not,” exclaimed Jim. “He’s small, and light, and he wears
glasses. His eyes are blue, and he has a thin, reedy sort of a voice,
like that of a young boy.”
“Good,” said Dick Merriwell. “Now I’m going to look for the knife that
opened this envelope.”
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