THE DIAMOND MEDAL
There was plenty of excitement in and about Lowell the morning after
Hans and Hal returned from Boston. In fact there had been a good
deal of excitement the evening before, but of this Hans and Hal knew
nothing. They were in Boston having a good time with Delvin.
“What’s all the bustle about?” asked Hal as he and Hans entered the
dining room at training table next morning.
“What! haven’t you heard?” asked Robb, to whom more than anyone else
Hal seemed to be talking. “The diamond studded Championship Medal was
stolen from the safe of the University treasurer’s office yesterday
between twelve and one o’clock. There is no clue of any kind. Orders
are from the faculty that every student in the University shall report
at the dean’s study before six o’clock to-night, and explain his
movements after twelve o’clock yesterday. Seems funny that they should
suspect any student of doing it.”
“Wasn’t there some one in the room where the safe is all day
yesterday?” asked Hal.
“What makes them think it was stolen between twelve and one o’clock?
How do they know it wasn’t stolen a week or a month ago?” asked Hans.
“It seems that the secretary of the University brought it back from
the jewelers at noon yesterday. It had been taken there to have one of
the settings tightened. He had put it in the safe. A few minutes after
one o’clock, Mr. Williams, the treasurer, came in and asked if the
medal had come back yet. ‘I just brought it over,’ said the secretary,
and walked over to the safe to get it. It wasn’t there and he almost
collapsed.
“They searched everywhere a dozen times. It couldn’t be found. Finally
they were forced to conclude it had been stolen. Who could have taken
it? No one but students had called at the office during that hour. It
was hard to believe any student could have taken it, but they had to
admit the possibility.
[Illustration: “Who could have taken it?”]
“The police were notified and asked if they had seen any suspicious
characters around the building. The Chief instructed all the patrolmen
in town to bring in any suspicious characters.
“Finally late last night,” continued Robb, “the policeman down at the
station reported that shortly after one o’clock yesterday a young
fellow had asked to be directed to a pawnshop. He was very much excited
and in a hurry. Might have been a student, but he thought he was a
stranger because most students would know where the pawnshop was, even
if they didn’t have any business there.
“So they have this cop stationed down by the entrance and he is looking
at the students as they go in thinking he can identify the fellow if he
should happen to be a student.”
“Seems silly to me,” remarked Hans, “that they should think any student
of Lowell who would do a trick like that would be so bone-headed as to
try to pawn it in this town. I doubt if any pawnbroker in the country
would take a thing like that. It would be recognized immediately.”
“He could take out the diamonds and melt it up,” said Talkington, who
had joined in the discussion.
Hal’s face was white. He knew they were looking for him, thinking that
he was the guilty party! What should he do? He could account for all of
his time. He would tell them the exact facts, every detail, even his
visit to the pawnshop in Boston to find out what his watch was worth.
Hans was with him all the time, excepting in the pawnshop, and so was
Delvin most of the time. The pawnbroker would no doubt testify for him
that he simply made an inquiry there and pawned nothing.
After breakfast he said to Hagner with as much self-control as he could
muster, “Hans, I’m the fellow they are after. When I was crazy to get
away yesterday for home, and was bent on pawning my watch, I went up
to that policeman at the station and asked him where I could find a
pawnshop.”
“Gee!” said Hans, “that looks bad, doesn’t it? Yes! it looks bad, but
only looks. You’re all right. Wasn’t the pawnshop closed when you got
there? Isn’t it the only pawnshop in town? They can find out that it
was closed, can’t they? Wasn’t I with you all the time in Boston and on
the way there and back? And wasn’t Delvin with us, too?”
“All but during my visit to the shop,” said Hal, “when I learned the
value of my watch.”
“Well,” returned Hans, “the pawnbroker will know you if it comes to
that, and can testify that you didn’t leave anything there.”
“That’s what I thought,” said Hal. “I am going right down there and
tell the whole story. That will let me out, except that I may have to
make another trip to Boston.”
“I’ll go along,” said Hans.
So they went on down. They didn’t see any policeman around outside.
Inside they found Mr. Williams, the treasurer, who came to meet them.
Hal told him that they had heard the police were trying to locate a
fellow who had asked one of them to direct him to a pawnshop yesterday.
He was the fellow, and he said he wanted to tell all about it, which he
did.
Mr. Williams was impressed with the straightforwardness of his story
and told him he needn’t worry about it. He felt sure it wasn’t any
student that had stolen the medal. Only they had to run down this clew
and he was sorry he had been annoyed. Hal told him he would like some
one to go to the pawnbroker in Boston and verify what he had said
about his visit there just to remove any possibility of suspicion that
anyone might have against him on that account. He knew, of course, it
would prove to be as he said, and that was the only space of time he
was alone while in Boston. Without doing this, people might suspect
that both Hans and himself, having made such an unusual trip to Boston
together so soon after the robbery occurred, were in it and he didn’t
want anything left undone to prove that neither of them was in any way
connected with the matter or subject to suspicion.
Hal left with Hans, very much relieved. Not that he had anything to
be worried over, but the way the matter had come about had upset him
more than he himself could tell, and now that he had explained himself
fully, his feelings again became normal, and he went about his work of
the day in a much better frame of mind than he had enjoyed since he had
the accident.