THE DEPARTURE OF THE BULLIES
Dr. Wise had had something to do with the going away of Herring and
Merritt, although the two bullies had already decided that the camp
on the river would not be a very pleasant place for them in view of
what had occurred in the matter of the prize poem.
While the boys were out on the river and in the woods the doctor
called Herring into his study, and looking at him fixedly through
his big black-rimmed spectacles, said slowly:
"Don't you think there are some very peculiar circumstances connected
with your discovery of Sheldon's supposed plagiarism, Herring? It
strikes me that there are."
Herring said nothing, but looked very surly, and the doctor went on.
"Does it not strike you as peculiar that you should have a week old
paper in your pocket at the very time we were to pronounce upon the
poems submitted by the students? And also that you had not noticed
these verses before when they were published in a town paper? You
can imitate different hand writings, can't you?" the doctor suddenly
broke off.
Herring flushed, but said nothing.
"You have never liked Sheldon," said the doctor, going on to another
side of the subject, "and have tried to injure him in many ways.
This is known to all the Hilltop boys. Would it not be natural,
therefore, that you would try to throw discredit on him at this time?"
"It would not do me any good," muttered the other. "I did not
compete for the prize."
"I know you did not, but your dislike of Sheldon might induce you
to endeavor to injure his reputation. Don't you think you went
very clumsily to work about it?"
"You are assuming that I did this thing," growled Herring. "What
proof have you that I did? Suppose I should deny it?"
"Do you?" asked the doctor pointedly.
"There haven't been any direct charges brought against me as yet,
only hints and innuendoes," growled the other. "Sheldon has not
accused me of anything, and he is the one most interested. What
is it to me if a woman up the state stole his poem? I didn't."
"No, you did not, but who inserted the lines claimed by another
person in the manuscript submitted? Were you in the cottage the
other night? Some one was, for my servant heard some one prowling
about, and a little later there was some sort of fracas outside.
How did Manners receive his black eye? Can you tell me that?"
"He got to wandering in his sleep and fell over a tent rope, I
understand. That might give him a black eye."
"Didn't he seize you by the leg and shout that he had got you, and
that you must give an account of yourself?" the doctor asked. "My
servant heard some one say this."
"I was in my tent all night when Manners got his black eye," said
Herring, who did not fancy having this evidence brought suddenly
before him.
"With a light burning?" asked the doctor. "One of the guards saw a
light at occasions shining from your tent. What were you doing
with it?"
"Could it not have been Merritt?" asked Herring. "I do not occupy
the tent alone."
"You were writing in those lines, were you not? Did you observe
that the first page had more on it than the others? I suppose
it would have taken too long to copy the entire poem, insertion
and all?"
"I don't know anything about it," snarled Herring. "What evidence
have you that I did these things that you charge me with doing?"
"I have not charged you with them, Herring. I am merely asking you
a few questions. I have circumstantial evidence, however, that you
did these things."
"Circumstantial evidence has hanged innocent men before now," said
the bully. "Haven't you any corroborative evidence?"
He was beginning to grow defiant now, feeling that the doctor had no
real evidence against him.
"Don't you think that a trip to some more lively spot for the rest of
the summer would be advisable, Herring?" the doctor suddenly asked,
looking quizzically at him. "Better for all concerned, perhaps?
You don't altogether like this camp life, do you, Herring?"
"Oh, I am satisfied with it," said Herring, putting on an air of
braggadocio, seeing that the doctor was giving him a loophole by
which to get out. "I don't see that I need---" but then he
stopped, seeing a look in the doctor's face like a danger signal.
"You think on the whole that it might be as well to go somewhere
else for a few weeks?"
The doctor got up, and Herring took the hint and went out, saying
nothing further upon the subject.
By the time Percival and the others had returned he was packing up,
and when Jack and Dick came back from Riverton he had gone, and
Merritt and one or two others had gone with him.
Shortly after this Jack and Percival, while in Riverton one day,
came across Gabrielle, the former nurse maid for Mrs. Van der Donk,
and Percival, recognizing her said shortly:
"How do you do? Will you tell me how you happened to put that watch
in my friend's pocket the night of the fire at your employer's house?"
"What you say?" asked the girl in the high key customary with her.
"I do not know you, I have not meet you before."
"But you know me," said Jack. "You remember the watch with the
diamonds on the case that your friend gave you? You were talking
about it on the banks of the kill one afternoon and said you had
lost it. You did not lose it, did you? Didn't you put it in my
pocket?"
"Who are you?" asked the girl, making a move to pass the boys.
"I brought the baby down from the room in the extension, and you
took him from me and thanked me very much. You remember this?
You said you would lose your place if the baby had been burned."
"Ah, then you are the young gentleman so brave who save the babee
from being burn? Ah, yes, that was very brave. The ladee give you
the reward, yes? That was very good."
"Yes, but what about the watch? You need not be afraid. The
owner has been found."
"An, yes, and you find the watch in your pocket? That is very droll!"
and the girl began to laugh.
"Yes, it was very funny," said Jack, "but how did it get there?"
"I put it there, me, myself. I am afraid to carry so fine a watch
and I wish to get rid of him. When you give me the baby and are
tangle in the blanket I put him in your pocket."
"The baby?" laughed Percival.
"The babee?" said the girl with a look of scorn. "No, the watch.
How I can put the babee in the boy pocket? That is stupid.
It is easy to do when I am so close to the boy and he not know
it. You have the watch then. You are be arrest, yes?"
"No, I was not arrested, and I found an owner for it. Your friend
tried to get it, but I had heard him say that he had stolen it, and
I would not give it up."
"An, and now he has go away and I do not see him. You want that you
shall arrest him?"
"No, I don't care anything about him," said Jack, "but I did want
to know how the watch got in my pocket without my knowing it."
"An, that is one easy thing to do," laughed the girl. "Then you
do not mean to make me arrest?"
"No, certainly not," said Jack.
"I am very glad. Good morning, sir," said Gabrielle, and in a
moment she had whisked past the boys, and when they turned to see
where she had gone she had disappeared.
"Well, that thing is explained at any rate," said Percival. "We
thought she might have done it, but I don't see now how she managed it."
"She is evidently very quick in her motions," suggested Jack, "and
from what we know of the man she was with, she may have been just
such a character herself, and have learned deftness of fingers from
him. He was evidently a pickpocket, and perhaps she had practiced
the trade herself. That is the only explanation I can give."
"No doubt it is the correct one, but it does not matter. It is
really the only feasible explanation there is. She had had the
watch, and she was the only one who was close enough to you that
night to have done it."
"Well, we shall probably not see her again to find out just how she
did it, and very likely she would not tell us, as that would be
revealing one of the secrets of the trade, and, of course, she could
not do that."