A TWO-SIDED TRAP.
Carefully as the arrangement for discovering who the belated visitor to
the _Marina_ was had been carried out, it had not served to prevent
Harding from learning that some one was interested in his movements. An
honest man would probably have been deceived. Knowing that he had
nothing to conceal, he would have thought little of the sudden
appearance of a launch just as his own boat approached the landing
stage. But Harding, who was so used to treading lightly and avoiding
exposure, was disturbed, even though he knew that he had done nothing of
late for which the law could lay hands on him.
In fact, Harding seldom ventured on any step that rendered him liable to
arrest and trial. If a man is a great enough rascal, and a clever enough
one, he can usually find means of cheating his fellows that are within
the law. He cannot keep that sort of thing up indefinitely; for, as his
misdeeds increase, his reputation leaves him, and honest men come to
know him as a cheat and a scoundrel, with whom it is unsafe to have
dealings if they do not want to be defrauded.
So the men who begin by preying on others with safety for themselves,
find, presently, that they have to break the law to ensnare the victims
necessary to give them the money they think they must have. Harding was
in this class. But, except in New York, where his enormous political
influence made him safe, he had never yet put himself within actual
reach of the law.
That was the real reason for his refusal to join Barrows in this
enterprise. He was ready to admit that it looked safe, and it was
obvious that if it were successful, the profits would be great. But
Harding, who had once enjoyed political favors in Connecticut almost as
great as those extended to him in New York, no longer had any “pull” in
that State. His father, long the boss of New Haven, was dying in an
insane asylum, and Harding was afraid to risk an encounter with the New
London police, always on the alert at the boat-race time.
Moreover, he knew that the police department in New York had lent the
New London department a couple of detectives, expert in the recognition
and detention of notorious pickpockets, since a flood of these crooks
always went about the country, gathering wherever great crowds and a
rich harvest were to be expected. In the city these detectives had to
let Harding alone, for they knew that his political power was enough to
make them lose their jobs if they angered him; but in New London he
would be at their mercy.
He had no idea of who was in the launch that he had seen, but he knew
enough of Dick Merriwell to leap instantly to the idea that the
universal coach might already have suspected something. In fact, he had
lectured Barrows sharply for giving Merriwell reason to be suspicious at
all, and had told him plainly that he was likely to regret the
greediness that had inspired the effort to make the odds on Yale mount
so high.
He was not deceived at all by the cry with which Jim Phillips announced
his discovery to those waiting off shore in the launch, but understood
the maneuver at once.
“Pretty clever,” he said, to himself. “It’s just as well I’m out of
this. But I don’t mind pushing Barrows’ game along for him a bit. I’ll
get all the money away from him later, anyhow.”
He walked away from the dock with firm footsteps, as if he had no
suspicion at all that he was being watched. But as soon as he turned the
first corner, he stopped. He beat time with his feet, so that any one
who was trailing his footsteps might think that he was still walking on;
and then, after giving his pursuer time to come up to the corner, dashed
around it. A cry of triumph burst from his lips, which changed to a
snarl of hatred as soon as he recognized Jim Phillips.
“It’s you, is it?” he snarled.
He looked swiftly around. There was no one in sight. It was a good
chance to get some sort of revenge for the way in which Jim had beaten
him in every past encounter. He sprang at the Yale baseball captain.
Jim was taken by surprise for the moment, and Harding, in his first
swift rush, bore his lighter opponent down by sheer weight. But his
advantage lasted only for a moment. Harding was strong, but he was
self-indulgent, and took no care of his really fine body, smoking and
drinking as much as he liked, and it took only a couple of minutes for
Jim to reduce him to complete submission.
“I thought you’d have enough, Harding,” said Jim, panting a little, but
quite unhurt, and completely master of the situation. “What did you
expect to gain by attacking me in that fashion?”
“I wanted to give you the thrashing that’s coming to you,” said Harding
viciously. “You’ll get it some day, never fear, even if you’ve escaped
now. Let me up. I won’t try to hurt you now.”
“I know you won’t,” said Jim cheerfully, releasing him, and dusting
himself off with absolute unconcern. “You know you can’t—that’s the
reason. You’d better clear out of town, Harding, now that we know you’re
here. You can’t accomplish anything, with the watch we’ve put on you,
and I warn you that the next time you get caught in one of your
conspiracies, you won’t get off so easily as you have in the past. Mr.
Merriwell is a patient man, but you’ve tried him too far.”
“I’m not afraid of Merriwell or you, either,” said Harding, with a
coarse laugh. “You’re four-flushers, both of you. But you can’t bluff me
out. You haven’t got anything on me, and you never will have, that will
do you any good in a court, and you know it as well as I do.”
“Well,” said a new voice, “I don’t know about that. Assault and battery
isn’t a hanging offense, of course, but I guess they’d send you to jail
for ten days or so, even at that. And you wouldn’t like that, you know.”
Harding’s first instinct was to run away. But he didn’t obey that
instinct. The reason was that the hand of big Bill Brady was firmly
fixed in his coat collar, and that he couldn’t have got away if he had
been even stronger than he was.
“Where did you spring from, Bill?” asked Jim, in great surprise.
Harding was speechless with rage and astonishment. He was fairly
trapped.
“Oh, I just thought I’d drop around,” said Brady, who was enjoying
himself hugely. “I thought, perhaps, our little friend here might not be
alone, and I didn’t want you to get hurt, Jim. I got here just in time
to see him rush you. You settled him rather nicely, I thought. Know
where the town lock-up is?”
“Oh, I say,” protested Harding, with a whine, “you’re not going to press
a charge against me, are you? I’m not doing any harm. I’m just here to
look on this time.”
“If you swore you had a broken leg, Harding,” said Bill Brady, amiably
enough, “I wouldn’t believe you unless you brought a doctor along to
testify to it. We sure do mean to press the charge. The inside of a jail
is a darned sight too good for you, but I can’t think of anything that
would please me more than to see you there for ten days or so. I’ll come
and bring you nice, improving books to read, too, so that, when you come
out, you’ll reform and decide to live a sober and virtuous life ever
after; just the way the bad men do in the stories.”
Jim Phillips laughed openly. He could not help it. Brady was so
obviously enjoying himself, and Harding was so evidently scared by the
picture of himself in jail.
Harding was scared, as a matter of fact. Ten days in jail did not appeal
to him particularly. If he could have served such a sentence under an
assumed name, he wouldn’t have minded it so much. But he knew that if
Brady carried out his threat, which he certainly had the power to do,
the story would go all over the country, and that his friends and
cronies would never be done laughing at the story of his discomfiture by
two college boys.
His influence would be gone, for, once a man is laughed at, people are
not likely to go on being afraid of him; and Harding knew this. He had a
certain crowd of hangers-on, who at present admired him immensely,
though the continual defeat of all his plans to undo Dick Merriwell had
rather alienated some of his most loyal supporters.
“Oh, drop this,” he said finally. “What do you want me to do? It won’t
do you fellows any good to make trouble for me here. I don’t believe you
can do it, anyhow. But, even supposing you can, what object have you?
There’s nothing in it for you. Tell me what you want me to do, and I’ll
do it. That’ll be better for you than trying to get me sent to jail.”
The two Yale men looked at each other. Brady’s look was dubious; he was
questioning Jim with his eyes, as he had so often done in a critical
moment of a baseball game. And Jim nodded his head, as he used to do
from the box when he approved of Brady’s signal for some particular
ball.
“If we let you go,” said Brady, “will you promise to leave New London
and stay away until the boat race is over? There’s a train down to New
York in about half an hour. You’ll have to get off at the Harlem River,
and take the elevated down, but I guess that’ll be better than the town
jail here. They tell me that isn’t a very comfortable place—no private
baths with the cells, and a very poor table for the boarders.”
“Sure I will,” said Harding. “You’ve got me where you want me, and I’d
be a fool not to admit it. I’ll get you some time, but this isn’t the
time, and I can see as far into a stone wall as the next fellow.”
Secretly, Harding was elated. He was not at all unwilling to quit New
London. He had seen Barrows, and there was nothing to cause him to stay.
Moreover, he saw that the two Yale men thought that he was at the head
of whatever plot they thought was stirring, and he saw a chance to throw
them off their guard, and, through them, to remove any suspicions that
Dick Merriwell had formed. Altogether, he decided, the luck had turned.
So long as he got his revenge, he didn’t care at all whether he got it
himself or whether some one else did the work. It was the result, not
the method, that interested him.
So they saw him off, and got a mocking laugh as the train went out.
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