THE CLUE
For the moment Tom was so surprised that he did not move. He lay
there, looking at the curiously pasted-together document, so strangely
restored to him. Flack was on his way out of the room. Then Tom
realized he must know more about the matter.
“I say, Flack--wait a moment!” he called after the janitor.
“Yes, sir.”
“Just a minute. Come here. Where did you get this?”
Flack did not answer at once. He approached the bed, looked carefully
around to see that no one was within hearing, and leaning over,
whispered:
“I got it out of his waste-paper basket.”
“Whose?” asked Tom, though he knew well enough.
“The man that run you down, Mr. Taylor, sir. I got it out of Captain
Hawkesbury’s waste-paper basket.”
“Oh,” said Tom. He hoped the matter was straightforwardly
done--sneaking tactics were not tolerated at West Point. Still the
document was Tom’s own. But after his interview with the old army
officer he had been so discouraged about the matter that he had not
cared what had become of the trust deed. Now it had come back to him.
“I clean up around Captain Hawkesbury’s quarters, Mr. Taylor, sir,”
went on Flack. “When I was emptying his basket some time back I saw
this torn paper drop out. I didn’t pay much attention to it until I saw
the name Charles Taylor. I thought of you, though that isn’t your name;
is it--I mean your first name?”
“It’s my father’s,” Tom answered, as he saw where Mr. Taylor’s name
appeared in the paper.
“Ah, that accounts for it then,” the janitor said. “Well, when I saw
the name Taylor I looked further and got all the pieces. Then I pasted
’em together. I was going to bring it to you, thinking maybe you had
lost it, though I couldn’t figure how it got in his basket.”
Tom did not think it wise to illuminate the janitor on that point.
Flack went on.
“I was going to give it to you before, but I got laid up with the
rheumatics, and I didn’t want to trust it to any one else. Then you got
laid up yourself, Mr. Taylor, sir.”
“Yes,” Tom assented with a smile, “I’m laid up all right.”
“So I brought it as soon as they’d let me see you,” concluded the old
soldier, “and I hope it’ll be of value to you.”
“Thank you, very much,” Tom answered. “I have no doubt but that it
will. I’m obliged to you.”
“Don’t mention it,” Flack said. “Sure you did me enough favors. It’s
time I paid some of ’em back. He was quite anxious to get it himself,”
and he jerked his head in the direction of the officers’ quarters.
“Who was anxious to get it?” Tom wanted to know.
“Captain Hawkesbury, sir. He come to me the day after I’d taken the
basket from his room, and asked to have all his litter brought back. He
said he’d mislaid some valuable documents. I didn’t let on anything,
but I gave him a bag of papers where I had emptied his basket. That
wasn’t among ’em, though,” and he pointed to the pasted deed on Tom’s
bed.
“I’d taken that out beforehand,” Flack said, with a very human wink.
“And as it had your name on it before it had Captain Hawkesbury’s, I
thought you had the best right to it.”
“I have,” Tom said. “Thank you very much.”
He was fired with new energy now. If the document was valuable enough
to cause the old army officer to make such an effort to get it back,
Tom was glad he himself had it again.
“The captain was quite put out when he brought back the papers he’d
looked over,” went on Flack. “He asked me if I was sure there weren’t
any more. I gave him all the refuse I had in the cellar, for I only
burn the papers once a week. He went over it all, and pretty dusty and
dirty he got, too. But he didn’t find it. I took good care of that.”
“I’m glad you did,” Tom replied. “It’s quite a complicated matter,” he
went on. “Captain Hawkesbury is mistaken in thinking this paper is his.
It belongs to me.”
The young cadet did not want Captain Hawkesbury to stand in too bad
a light before the janitor, and that was why he made the qualifying
statement he did. There was time enough yet to prove certain points.
Flack went out, leaving Tom in a rather bewildered state of mind. One
fact stood out clearly. The document must have suddenly assumed new
importance to justify Captain Hawkesbury’s making such an effort to
regain possession of it. He had torn it up in a fit of anger and thrown
it in the basket.
“Evidently he was going to let it stay there,” Tom reasoned. “Then
something came up that made him want to get it back. Now what could
that have been? And why is this paper of any value?”
Tom looked at it carefully. He knew pretty well the contents of it.
The trust deed was of the usual character. The location of the land,
on which stood one end of the big railroad bridge, was given in feet,
chains, links, and by degrees--in the manner in which all descriptions
of property are made, “beginning at a point,” and so on.
But, somehow now, the dull details took on a new interest for Tom. The
draft of the deed recited how the land was not to be in the possession
of Captain Hawkesbury and Mr. Doolittle, but was to be in their hands
to insure a better settlement from the railroad. The proceeds were to
be turned over to Mr. Taylor, or his heirs and assigns. At that time,
of course, Tom’s father was in perfect health, but all deeds and such
instruments recite that the property goes to a certain person, and his
heirs and assigns.
“Now what gets me,” Tom mused as he lay there in bed, “is why the
captain wanted this paper so badly after he threw it away. I feel sure
he thought as I did, at the time I had the talk with him. He felt that
it wasn’t worth bothering with and I did also. But I feel differently
now.”
Tom folded the document and put it under his pillow. He felt better
than at any time since having been brought to the hospital.
“I want to get up and do something!” Tom told himself. And that feeling
did more toward hastening his recovery than all the doctor’s medicine.
“My! This is an improvement!” exclaimed the medical man, when Tom was
found sitting up on the occasion of the first visit after Flack’s call.
“You look a whole lot better!”
“And I feel a whole lot better!” Tom said, eagerly. “When may I get out
of bed, Doctor?”
“Pretty soon now. I guess we’ve eliminated any possibility of an
internal injury. You can get up and walk as soon as it doesn’t hurt you
too much to move. I expect, though, that you’re going to be lame and
stiff for some time yet.”
Tom was. It was agony to get out of bed for the first time, but he
persisted, knowing that the sooner he began to use his muscles and
joints the more quickly would they limber up, and lose their soreness
and stiffness.
The time came when Tom could leave the hospital and walk about. His
chums rejoiced with him. He was not wholly discharged, however, and
still kept his hospital bed as his sleeping place.
“But I’ll be with you inside of a week,” he told
“That’s what I want to hear!” his chum exclaimed.
Tom was rather apprehensive about the first meeting with Captain
Hawkesbury. He wondered how the old army officer would behave toward
him, and if he would make any mention of the missing deed.
It was on the day when the physician first said Tom could leave the
hospital for good, and return to his own quarters, that our hero met
the captain.
It was while on his way to his own room that Tom saw, coming toward
him, the man with whom he had collided. And at the sight of our hero,
walking with just the least suspicion of a limp, the face of the old
army officer took on a deeper tint of red.
Tom saluted as he passed, but was a little diffident about speaking
first.
“Oh, so you’re out of the hospital, eh?” the captain said, and there
was no kindness, but a sneer in his voice. “The next time you ride try
and keep your horse under better control” he said, sharply. “We might
have both been seriously hurt. Luckily I know how to take a fall.”
He seemed to think only of himself, as if he were the only person
concerned. He did not take into consideration the fact that Tom _had_
been hurt. There were no chances in his case.
“I could not help it, Captain Hawkesbury,” Tom said, firmly. “It was
not my fault--altogether,” he added, significantly.
“It was rank carelessness!” was the snapped-out retort.
Then, turning on his heel, the captain marched away, not answering
Tom’s parting salute. The old army officer was very insulting in tone
and manner, but Tom was not going to let that annoy him.
“Welcome home!” exclaimed Sam, as his chum came in. “It’s good to see
you back again!”
“It’s good to be back,” Tom replied, with a smile, as they shook hands.
“You’re all decorated in honor of my return,” he went on whimsically,
as he glanced at the bare walls of the room.
“Good joke!” laughed Sam. “Oh, I’d have decorated all right, if ‘tac’
would stand for it. But you know how it is here.”
“I sure do!” agreed Tom.
For Tom, matters soon resumed their normal sway at West Point. He
had to make up what he had lost in his lessons, but he managed to do
this, and soon he was back in the saddle again, literally as well as
figuratively, for he was riding once more, though a different steed
from the one that had figured in the accident.
All the while Tom was trying to plan how to find out more about his
father’s property. He had drawn up a letter to be sent to Mr. Blasdell,
the lawyer, but the young cadet was not quite satisfied with his
epistle, and was going to rewrite it.
He was on his way to call on young Blasdell, to get a few points in
this matter, when, as Tom passed the room of Captain Hawkesbury, he
saw, standing near the open window of the quarters of the old army
officer, Sam Leland. The latter seemed to be looking at a scrap of
paper that he had picked up from the ground.
“Hello, Tom!” he exclaimed. “This just came fluttering by, and I picked
it up. It’s part of a telegram, but the address is torn off, and I
don’t know to whom it belongs. It’s been thrown away, evidently. Take a
look.”
“A telegram?”
“It looks like it to me. Take a squint at it yourself,” added Sam,
after a pause.
He passed it to Tom, who saw, in a flash, these words:
“Too bad he knows about draft--sorry you lost track of it. Better come
to Garrison at once and consult with me. Will wait for you at same
hotel I always stop at.”
Tom could not comprehend for a moment, but when he saw signed to the
torn telegram the name Aaron Doolittle, it all came to him in a flash.
“I believe this is the clue I need!” Tom said aloud.