TOMMY LINGARD EXPLAINS
Toby seated himself at the table, rested his chin in his hands and,
with the twenty-five cent piece before him, tried to think what it
all meant. The quarter had been in the box, the box had mysteriously
disappeared and now the quarter had turned up again. Logic told him
that the person who had sent him the quarter had taken the box, but
that, of course, meant theft, and, for all his dislike of Frank
Lamson, he couldn’t believe him a thief. Frank might be overbearing
and self-important and something of a snob, and possess numerous other
faults that Toby couldn’t think of just at the moment, but dishonesty
was another matter. Besides, Frank’s folks were well-to-do, if not
actually wealthy, and Frank had plenty of spending money――even if he
didn’t pay all his bills promptly.
Another circumstance against the logical theory was that Frank hadn’t
known of the existence of that six dollars and a quarter, much less,
where it was kept. But, for that matter, neither had any one else known
of it, and yet beyond the shadow of a doubt some one had taken it. Hold
on, though! Perhaps some one had known of it! He had gone to the bureau
when Tommy Lingard was in the room, and, although he hadn’t taken the
box from the drawer, Tommy might easily have guessed the existence of
it. That put a new phase on the matter, and Toby frowned harder than
ever. Granting that Tommy had known of the money being there, it would
have been an easy thing for him to have taken it. No fellow ever locked
his door at Yardley, whether he was in or out, and young Lingard might
have walked into Number 22 at any time during Toby’s absence. So might
any one else. Frank Lamson, for instance. Somehow it seemed quite as
impossible to connect Tommy Lingard with the theft of the money as
it was to suspect Frank of it, though not for the same reason. Toby
believed that Frank was honest. He didn’t have the same conviction
regarding Tommy Lingard, but Tommy was such a shy, ingenuous youngster
that one couldn’t imagine him having the courage to either plan a
burglary or, having planned it, carry it out. Suspecting Tommy of
robbery was like suspecting a canary of murder! Still――
Toby sat back suddenly and thrust his hands into his pockets, staring
at a crack in the plaster with half-closed eyes. Last night he had
found Frank coming along the corridor. Because Stillwell’s door had
been ajar Toby had presumed that Frank had come from that room. But he
might just as well have come from 22! And Frank had himself recalled
the debt and offered to pay it on the morrow, just as though――as though
he had suddenly come into funds! Toby wished that he knew whether Frank
had really been to see Stillwell. If he hadn’t――
After a moment he arose resolutely and crossed the corridor to Number
23. Stillwell was at home, and, although he had his books spread
before him on the table, he was concerned with a quite different task
than studying. He had three hockey sticks across his knees and was
binding electric tape around the blade of one of them. He looked mildly
surprised at Toby’s entrance, but was cordial enough.
“I’m patching up some old sticks,” he explained. “They do well enough
for practice. Sit down, Tucker. What’s on your mind?”
“I can’t stay, thanks,” answered the visitor. “I want to ask you a
question, Stillwell. You may think it’s funny, and you needn’t answer
it if you don’t want to. Anyway, I’d rather you didn’t tell any one I’d
asked it.”
“Hello! What’s the mystery? Fire away, Tucker. I’ll be as silent as the
grave. Only, if it’s anything incriminating――”
“Did Frank Lamson visit you last night?”
“Huh? Frank Lamson?” Stillwell looked at Toby in a puzzled way and
shook his head slowly. “Not last night, Tucker. Lamson hasn’t been here
this term as far as I know. Unless, of course, he came when I was out.
But he couldn’t have done that last night because I was here all the
evening.”
“You’re――you’re sure?”
“Don’t be an idiot, Tucker! Of course I’m sure. What’s the row, anyway?”
“It’s nothing of any importance,” said Toby. “Much obliged.”
“You’re welcome,” laughed the other, “but I’ll be lying awake half
the night trying to solve the mystery. You really oughtn’t to spring
anything like that, Tucker, unless you can come across with the answer!”
“I’m sorry,” replied Toby apologetically. “I’d explain it if I could,
but I really can’t, Stillwell.”
“All right, my boy. Don’t let it bother you. If Lamson committed the
foul deed, I hope the hounds of Justice get him.”
“W-what foul deed?” stammered Toby in surprise.
Stillwell laughed again. “Don’t ask me! I’m only guessing.”
“Oh!” Toby’s ejaculation expressed relief. He smiled. “You’ve been
reading dime novels, I guess. Good-night, and thanks.”
Outside the door the smile vanished. Of course, this new evidence was
only circumstantial, but it certainly supported the original theory.
What puzzled Toby chiefly, though, was why Frank should steal――that
is, take the money. If Frank needed money he could probably get it any
time by writing home for it. There was, Toby decided as he closed his
door behind him, just one explanation, which was that Frank had done it
out of pure meanness! But that wasn’t a very satisfactory explanation,
after all. Further reflection was interrupted by Tommy Lingard, who
came for his clothes. While Toby was taking them from the hangers
he studied the younger boy intently. Tommy Lingard was thirteen, a
pink-and-white youngster with light brown hair and a pair of big dark
blue eyes. He was a handsome youth, in spite of a very turned-up nose,
and had a rather engaging way of coloring shyly when spoken to. No,
thought Toby, this picture of innocence could never have stolen the
money. Nevertheless Toby remarked carelessly as he folded the clothes
on the end of the table:
“Sorry I was out when you came before, Lingard.”
The other boy reddened, but his eyes only grew rounder in surprise.
“I――I didn’t come before, Tucker,” he said. “I thought they wouldn’t be
ready until to-night.”
“Oh, I sort of thought you did,” replied Toby. “Here you are, then.”
“Th-thanks. How m-much is it, please?” stammered Lingard.
“A dollar and twenty. I won’t charge for pressing the extra trousers,
Lingard. They didn’t need much.”
Tommy Lingard fished in his trousers pocket and drew out two folded
bills and some change. One of the bills was of two-dollar denomination
and the other of one. Lingard handed the latter to Toby and selected
two dimes from amongst the coins. “That’s right, isn’t it?” he asked.
“Y-yes,” replied Toby. He was looking curiously at the dollar bill and
apparently didn’t see the change that Lingard was holding out to him.
“Yes, that’s right,” he went on. “Much obliged.”
“Here’s the twenty cents,” said the other.
“Oh, yes, thanks.” Toby accepted it. Then his gaze went back to the
bill. Lingard walked toward the door.
“G-good-night,” he said.
“Good-night, Lingard.” Then, as the door was shutting behind the
youngster, Toby called. “I say, Lingard, just a moment, please!”
“Yes?” Lingard’s voice sounded faint.
“Er――you don’t happen to know where you got this, do you?” asked Toby,
holding the bill out. Lingard retraced his steps slowly and looked at
it. There was a full moment of silence. Then:
“N-no, I don’t,” Lingard said slowly. “You see, I――” He stopped. “Why,
of course I do!” he exclaimed triumphantly then. “I’d forgotten. Frank
Lamson gave it to me this morning. I owed him a dollar and he asked me
for it and I gave him a two-dollar bill. Is――isn’t it all right?”
“Oh, yes, I――I just wondered. It’s been torn, you see, and mended with
a strip of court-plaster. It struck me that the court-plaster was a――a
funny thing to patch a bill with. Maybe Frank did it, eh?”
“He might have. I――I guess it’s just as good, isn’t it?”
“Oh, certainly. You’re sure he gave it to you, eh?”
“Yes, I remember quite well now,” replied Lingard promptly. “I borrowed
a dollar of him last term to pay for having my trunk mended, and I
forgot all about it until this morning――”
“You and Frank are friends, then?”
“Oh, yes. We live in the same street in New York, you know. Sometimes
he borrows from me――when I have it.” Lingard paused. Then: “If you
don’t mind, Tucker, I’d rather you didn’t mention it to any one. I
guess he wouldn’t want it known.”
“Why not?”
“Why――why, you see, other fellows might want to borrow from him. I――I’d
rather you didn’t, please.”
“All right, Lingard. Good-night.”
When the visitor’s footsteps had died away on the stairs Toby sat
himself down at the table again, spread the dollar bill before him and
then from the table drawer produced a little case containing three
sheets of court-plaster. One was pink, one white and one black. The
pink was whole, the black had been reduced to about half its original
size and the white had had a strip about a quarter of an inch wide cut
from its lower edge. Toby looked intently from that oblong of white
sticking-plaster to the bill. Then he tore a piece of paper from a
scratch-pad and found a pencil. Untying the little knot of silk that
held the court-plaster book together, he extracted the pink sheet and
laid it on the piece of paper and with the pencil carefully traced the
outline of it. When that was done he laid the sheet of white plaster
in place of the pink, and fitting it to the top and sides of the
outline, passed his pencil across the bottom edge. After that he took
his scissors and painstakingly cut out the quarter-inch strip remaining
between the two bottom marks. As he had expected, the little piece
of paper exactly fitted the strip of white court-plaster pasted over
the edges of the tear in the dollar bill. There was no possibility of
doubt. The two tallied to the hundredth part of an inch.
Toby tied up the court-plaster book again and restored it, with the
scissors, to the table drawer. Then, actuated by what motive he
scarcely knew, he slipped the bill and the telltale strip of yellow
paper into an envelope and placed that in the drawer too. And after
that he laced his fingers together behind his head and leaned back
and frowned intently at the flickering gas-jet. That dollar bill had
come into his possession just after his return from vacation. Who had
paid it to him he couldn’t recall now. But he remembered perfectly
discovering the tear in it and how, fearing it might increase if not
mended, he had hit on the, to him, clever idea of patching it with a
strip of court-plaster. It was, he reflected, rather odd that the only
two pieces of money in the little box which he could have identified
should both have come back to him! He no longer doubted that Frank
Lamson had taken the little box and its contents from his bureau
drawer, although he could not for the life of him find a satisfactory
motive for the theft. Unless, and after all that was the most plausible
theory, Frank had been pressed for money and Arnold had mentioned to
him that Toby had a fund stowed away to buy hockey things. Wanting a
better explanation, that must do, Toby told himself.
The next question was what was to be done about it. Toby’s proof,
while positive to him, might not seem so to others. If he accused
Frank and demanded the restitution of the stolen money Frank would,
probably, deny emphatically and indignantly. It would be his word
against Frank’s, and Frank was fairly well-liked and popular. But then
he wouldn’t make it public, in any case, and a popular verdict had
nothing to do with the affair. What he wanted was only the restoration
of his six dollars and a quarter and if Frank refused to give it back
to him the matter would have to rest right there. Toby had no notion
of making the affair known. But, he thought vindictively, whether Frank
was willing to restore the money to him or wasn’t, he would have the
satisfaction of telling Frank what he thought of him! To be able to
tell Frank Lamson to his face that he was a thief was almost worth the
loss of the money! He planned and replanned what he would say. Even
if he didn’t intend to make the matter public there’d be no harm in
threatening Frank with it. He could scare him, at least. Frank, of
course, would bluster and try to laugh at him, but for once that sort
of thing wouldn’t work. Toby had the upper hand.
There was no studying done in Number 22 Whitson that evening. Nor
was Toby disturbed again by visitors. He quite forgot his wish that
Arnold would look him up. He forgot Arnold too. His mind was very busy
planning how to wreak vengeance on Frank Lamson. He had not realized
before to-night how thoroughly he hated that youth!