THE FORGERY
Benton King, called upon, rose and expressed regret that circumstances
had involved him in the unfortunate affair. He spoke hurriedly, without
looking at Locke, although he was well aware that Tom’s eyes were fixed
upon him all the while.
At the first sight of Kingsbridge’s left-handed pitcher, he stated,
he had been struck by the thought that he had seen the man somewhere
before, and, after racking his brain, he suddenly recalled that it was
at a game played the previous year, between Princeton and Harvard, when
Locke, to use the name he had given in Kingsbridge, had sat in uniform
upon the Princeton bench.
He went on to explain, with an effort to hide any personal animosity
in the matter, that the man’s denial that he was Hazelton had led him
to communicate with a friend in New York, requesting this friend to
go to Princeton for the purpose of obtaining the photograph of the
college pitcher. This the friend had done, getting the picture from
the photographer who was generally patronized by the undergraduates.
Concluding, King produced the photograph and the letter that had
accompanied it in the same mail, and placed them in evidence.
Locke listened and watched, without making a movement, a scornful smile
on his lips. He heard the letter read by King, and saw it turned over,
with the picture, to Anson Graham. The president glanced at the letter,
then seemed to make a comparison of the photographed features and those
of the young man standing so enigmatically cool beside the chair of
Henry Cope.
“Sir,” said Graham, extending the picture, “do you deny that this is
your likeness?”
Locke barely glanced at it.
“It is my picture,” he acknowledged.
“And that,” exulted Mike Riley, “_does_ settle it! He’s Hazelton, and
here’s a letter from him, dated December twenty-seven, last year,
answering a letter o’ mine, in which I offered him twenty-five a week
and board to pitch fer Bancroft this season, a-sayin’ he wanted forty
’n’ board. Take notice that he don’t say he won’t play for twenty-five,
but that it’s jest a clever try to boost me t’ forty. I base my claim
on that letter.
“I cal’late this smooth guy, who’s had the nerve to stan’ up here an’
practically swear that he ain’t Paul Hazelton, used my offer to boost
his value with Mr. Cope, who, I hear, is payin’ him outer all reason.
Sneaky, underhand work, I call it. Such a man is dang’r’us, an’ I hope
that he will be put on the blacklist so that he won’t be able to play
on any team in the league. That’s the way to fix him.”
“I would like,” said Locke, “the privilege of examining that letter.”
“Let him see it arter the rest have seen it,” said Riley. “’Twon’t do
him no good t’ destroy it.”
“I have no desire to destroy it,” declared Tom, when the letter
presently reached his hands and he had glanced it over. “On the
contrary, I have a most powerful desire to preserve it carefully; for
it is a miserable forgery, and it would give me no little satisfaction
to see the scoundrels responsible for its production properly
prosecuted for a criminal offense.”
“Bah!” snarled Riley. “More of his bluffin’. He must think we’re fools
t’ let him put over anything like that on us. He’s trapped, an’ he
can’t wiggle outer it. Mr. President, I urge immediate action on my
protest, and I hope the directors of the league will put Mr. Paul
Hazelton on the blacklist.”
Again Henry Cope tugged at Locke’s coat skirts; he looked pitifully
downcast and disheartened.
“You tole me,” he whispered dolefully, “that you had it on ’em somehow,
but it seems t’ me that they’ve got it on you.”
“Wait a minute, Mr. Cope,” was the cool reply; “this meeting is not
over, and there is something mighty interesting yet to come.” He turned
to the others. “Mr. President, I have some witnesses, waiting outside
at my request, whom I ask leave to introduce. I will call them.”
Stepping swiftly to one of the open windows, he thrust his head out and
called. Directly footsteps were again heard on the stairs. The door was
flung open to admit Sam Bryant, the bell boy of the Central Hotel at
Kingsbridge, followed by a stranger, who did not seem more than twenty
years of age. The entrance of the boy appeared, for once, at least,
to jostle Bob Hutchinson out of his usual unemotional calm, and the
manager glared at Sam, alarm and menace in his unpleasant eyes.
“I have asserted that this letter,” said Locke, holding up the missive
in question, “is a forgery. It is a rather clever imitation of my
handwriting, a specimen of which was taken from my desk in my room last
Sunday, together with a letter which the pilferer dared not present as
evidence at this meeting.
“I have reasons to believe that a party present in this room was guilty
of rifling that desk. It happens that I did a slight favor for the
younger brother of this lad here, who is a bell boy at the Central, and
Sammy’s conscience has been troubling him during the past few days,
finally leading him into a confession which interested me not a little.
Go ahead, Sammy, and tell what you have to tell.”
In less than a minute, the icy Mr. Hutchinson, warmed to the melting
point, was on his feet denouncing Sammy Bryant as a wicked little
fabricator; for the lad had told of being bribed by Hutchinson to slip
the pass-key of Locke’s room from the office rack and unlock the door
while Tom was absent at church, and had averred that, watching, he had
seen Hutchinson sneak into the room.
“I’ll make you smart for this, you young rascal!” declared Hutch
savagely. “You’ll lose your job, anyhow.”
“Mebbe,” returned the boy; “but you’ll lose _yourn_.”
“What’s this mess got t’ do with Hazelton’s letter ter me?” demanded
Riley, essaying a diversion. “If it was true, which I don’t b’lieve at
all, ’twouldn’t have nothin’ t’ do with the genuineness of that letter
from Paul Hazelton.”
“But,” said Locke, something almost like pity in his contemptuous
smile, “to illustrate what pitiful bunglers you and Hutchinson are,
Riley, let me tell you that in making an imitation of my handwriting
and attaching the supposed signature of Paul Hazelton, you have
mired yourselves in a pit of your own digging. For, as I am not Paul
Hazelton, a letter written in imitation of my penmanship and signed
with his name _must_ be a forgery. It is my turn now to put the work of
a photographer in evidence.”