THE FINGER PRINTS.
When Dick Merriwell, walking with big Bill Brady, and a little ahead of
the rest of the team, arrived at the station, it was to find Watson,
with a white face, terrified, and scarcely able to talk. Jim Phillips
had suddenly disappeared, he told them, trembling, and he could make no
guess at what had happened. He told of the cry they had heard, and of
how they had separated in the effort to find out whence it had come.
After that, he could tell nothing of any value.
He had failed to find any trace of a crying child, and, turning back to
look for Jim, had seen no sign of him. None of the men about the big
freight train had seen the pitcher. They could give no help, although,
up to the very moment when their train had started, they had helped
Watson to search for his friend. But the search had been in vain.
Dick and Brady looked at one another in great concern. It was plain that
something very serious had happened to Jim. They wasted half of a
precious hour in looking for him, telephoning to his rooms, and to every
other place in New Haven where he could possibly have gone, and, when
the baseball men had all arrived, Dick told them to go on to the city in
charge of Tom Sherman, promising to come down himself later on, with
Brady and Phillips. He did not want the players to know that there was
any reason for anxiety as to Phillips.
With Watson, the coach and the big catcher searched all around the
station. They could find no one who had seen Jim. Suddenly Dick had an
inspiration.
“The freight train!” he cried. “He must have got locked in one of the
cars.”
He turned and raced for the office of the freight agent. That official
could give them only very cold comfort, however. He promised to do all
he could, but he said that to look for a man locked in one of the cars
of that train would be like looking for a needle in a haystack, since it
had been broken up at Bridgeport, and the cars scattered into a dozen
different trains made up there for dispatch to points all over the
country. But he promised to make the wires burn with messages, and to
let them know if he heard anything likely to be of value.
The three of them left his office with darkened faces. They were
seriously worried, not only over the game of the next day, but over
Jim’s personal safety. Like Jim, Dick and Brady knew of many cases when
death or serious illness had been the result of such an adventure, and
they had grave fears of Jim’s fate unless he were speedily rescued. They
knew that he was alert and resourceful, and that in any ordinary
emergency he could be trusted to look after himself, but there was
nothing ordinary about this case, and the chances of escape from such a
prison, if he were really caught in that way, were pretty slim.
“He never was locked in that car accidentally,” said Brady. “We can be
sure of that. Some one who knew exactly what he was about, and had
planned the whole thing out ahead is responsible for this outrage. If I
get my hands on him, he won’t be in condition to do anything of the sort
again in a hurry. I’ll promise him that.”
“You’ve got to catch him first,” said Watson, sadly shaking his head.
Suddenly Brady gave a cry, and, darting behind a coal car, reappeared a
moment later dragging a reluctant captive by the scruff of his neck.
“Parker!” cried Dick Merriwell, as he recognized the defeated football
man. “What are you doing here?”
“That’s my own business,” said Parker angrily. “I’ve got as much right
here as you have, I guess.”
“If you can prove that you had nothing to do with locking Jim Phillips
up in a freight car in which he may starve to death before he’s rescued,
perhaps that’s so,” said Dick.
Brady kept his hold on Parker’s collar all the while, in spite of the
big guard’s frantic efforts to wrench himself free. He was no match for
the catcher in strength, although he had supposed that there was no man
in Yale who could equal him in any physical encounter.
“What’s that?” cried Parker. “You say Phillips is locked in a freight
car?”
He ceased struggling, and stood still, in Brady’s grip. Dick Merriwell,
who prided himself on his ability to tell whether or not a man was
lying, was sure that Parker was truthful in the expression of his
surprise. He had evidently not known of Jim’s fate, no matter what part
he might have played in the conspiracy.
“Tell me about this,” he said. There was a note of furious anger in his
voice that escaped neither Merriwell nor Brady. Watson, who knew nothing
of what had happened, and wondered why they had jumped on Parker in this
fashion, stood there with round eyes, gazing at the picture.
“Tell him what you know, Watson,” ordered Dick. And Watson obeyed,
telling of the crying child and the manner in which Jim had disappeared
from sight.
“The infernal scoundrel!” cried Parker, as if overcome by what he heard.
“You’d better tell us all you know, Parker,” said Dick sternly. “It’s
easy to see that you know something of this, though I don’t believe that
you did understand what was actually being planned. I still have your
confession, though, in trying to steal it from my rooms, you did get
away with a private paper of no value to you or any one but myself.”
“You know that?” exclaimed Parker. His jaw dropped, and he stared at
Dick in stunned amazement. He remembered he had not looked at that paper
before tearing it up.
He waited a moment, reflecting.
“I can make a guess what’s happened,” he said finally. “I wouldn’t split
on a friend, as a rule, but, good heavens! that’s a terrible thing,
taking a chance of leaving a man in a locked freight car for days and
days! Remember, this is only a guess that I can make. But I know a man,
who was pretty sore at the way I was treated. And he’s often, just for
our amusement, showed me what he could do as a ventriloquist. He could
make his voice sound as if it came from different parts of the room, and
even from down in the street, when the windows were opened.”
“The child’s cry!” exclaimed Dick. “I never thought of that solution.
That would account for Jim’s being trapped in the car. It was a clever
scheme—but a murderous one. Who is this man, Parker? Your only chance
now is to tell the whole truth and help us to undo the mischief you have
made.”
“It’s Foote,” said Parker. “If you want anything else, you’ll have to
get it out of him. I won’t tell you anything more.”
He had turned sullen again.
“That’s all we need from you now,” said Dick. “Let him go, Bill. We can
get him any time we want him. Now we’ll have to find Foote.”
It took another hour to find Foote, but he had to be found, for without
him they could do nothing more. The railroad authorities were doing all
they could to trace the cars that had been in the train; but, without
knowledge of the exact car in which Jim had been locked, it would be
only a lucky chance that would lead to his discovery. And finally Foote
was run down. He had not gone back to his own room, or to Parker’s, but
was in Moray’s, eating a well-chosen supper with much relish. He paled
slightly when Dick Merriwell and Brady appeared, but he assumed an air
of bravado.
“Won’t you join me?” he said.
“There’s no use in trying to bluff us,” said the universal coach
sternly. “We’ve found out that you had something to do with sending Jim
Phillips off in an empty freight car this afternoon. You’d better
confess, unless you want to find yourself charged with murder.”
Foote was as resourceful as he was utterly unscrupulous. He was
frightened, but he intended, if he could, to brazen it out.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, even,” he said indignantly. “I
don’t know anything about Jim Phillips.”
Dick Merriwell was thinking hard. He stared at Foote for a moment
without a word. Foote, nervous, picked up a piece of soft bread and
pressed it flat between his fingers. Suddenly Dick snatched it from him.
“Go and get Jones,” he commanded, and Brady, understanding, hurried out.
“Then how about the business of the false evidence against Gray and
Taylor?” asked Dick. “And the examination book, with the leaves torn
out? You thought we wouldn’t find those leaves, but we did. Will you
confess to that?”
Only Foote’s eyes showed how terrified he was by this revelation of what
Dick Merriwell knew or suspected. If it was only a suspicion, Foote felt
that he might still escape. But if Parker, as he began to fear, had
confessed the earlier offenses, he was in a serious position.
“I deny your right to ask me insulting questions of this sort,” he said.
“You’re universal coach here, Mr. Merriwell, and there’s no question of
your authority in athletic matters. But I hadn’t heard that you have
been appointed censor of the whole college. I’m going away. I refuse to
stay and listen to such nonsense as you have been talking.”
He got up, but Dick Merriwell’s hand, strong as a steel chain, fell on
his shoulder.
“Sit down, Foote,” he said. “I know you’re lying—and in a minute I’ll
prove it. I’ve got a witness you can’t refute.”
“You mean Parker?” cried Foote furiously. “My word is as good as his.”
“You gave yourself away there, Foote,” said Dick. Had he not been so
worried over Jim, he could almost have laughed. “No, it’s not Parker.
The only thing he told us was that you were a ventriloquist. You’ll see
the witness I mean in a minute. He’s of your own making.”
They had not long to wait until Brady returned with Detective Jones, of
the New Haven police department. Jones carried a little bundle of
photographs.
Dick Merriwell handed him the bread that Foote had been playing with.
“See if these fit, Jones,” he said, and the detective at once began a
close comparison of the photographs he had brought and the bread, which
contained the record of Foote’s nervous fingers. He produced a
microscope and with it examined the piece of bread.
“These prints on the bread and the prints we found on those papers and
on the other articles in Dwight Hall were made by the same person, Mr.
Merriwell,” he presently announced.
“There’s my witness, Foote,” said Dick sternly. “There can be no going
back of that evidence. It proves that you were concerned in the other
plots. And I don’t need to tell you, what you already know, that when
that car is found, there will be the same sort of evidence to prove that
it was you who locked the door.”
Foote indeed knew that better than Dick Merriwell himself. For he knew,
what Dick did not, that the door of the car into which he had enticed
Jim had been covered by some sticky substance that must have caught the
most perfect possible record of his finger prints. The game was up, and
he knew it.
“All right!” he said, giving up all at once. “I’ll confess. You’ve got
me. What are you going to do about it? Have me arrested?”
“Not if you’ll help us to rescue Phillips,” said Dick. “Have you the
number and line of the car?”
Foote took a bit of paper from his pocket.
“Yes,” he said. “I wasn’t going to let him starve to death. I took the
number so that I could see that it was opened some time to-morrow. Here
it is—number thirty-four thousand five hundred and seventy-six, of the
Big Four Road.”
But, even with that clew, it was many hours before Dick Merriwell was
able to trace the car. There had, by some freakish mischance, been a
mistake in billing several of the cars, and Dick and a railroad official
chased it almost to Philadelphia before they found they were on the
wrong track, and, retracing their footsteps, finally located it at
Kingston, New York, on the West Shore Railroad.
Jim Phillips, exhausted, but happy in his release, reached New York at
four o’clock in the morning, to be greeted with delight by Dick
Merriwell. The coach had stayed up himself, but had made Brady go to
bed, in order that he might be fit for the game.
“Well,” said Dick, “it’s a good thing, after all, that Gray didn’t pitch
on Thursday. As it is, he’ll be able to go in to-day.”
“Why can’t I pitch?” asked Jim. “I’m willing enough to give way to Gray,
but I’m also ready to go in and pitch.”
“You can’t be in any condition to do that,” said Dick. “I’m delighted to
have you back, but I couldn’t ask you to do anything like that in your
present shape. That would be altogether too much.”
But Jim insisted that if he were needed he would be able to do it.
“There’s only one chance,” said Dick. “You’re probably tired out, but
you can’t get enough sleep in an ordinary bed to rest you. We’ll go to a
Turkish bath, and that may steam you out.”
And when Dick and Jim joined the rest of the team at the hotel just
before noon, Jim looked like a new man. Dick’s prescription had worked
wonders for him. But the universal coach was very doubtful as to his
ability to go through the game. He had decided to let him start,
however.
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