Читать книгу Dick Merriwell's Heroic Players; Or, How the Yale Nine Won the Championship - Burt L. Standish - Страница 10

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When Steve Carter told Dick Merriwell that Parker had been surprised by his own anger into revealing the charge against Jim Phillips to his assembled classmates, he was quite right. But Parker, though he let his temper run away with him at times, was shrewd as well as unscrupulous, and he was not long in seeing that, by a slight change in the plan of his campaign, he could make the general knowledge of the case work to his own advantage, or, at least, to the advancement of his plan. That the discrediting of Jim Phillips, and, consequently, of Dick Merriwell, would certainly advance his own interests, he never doubted at all. Already he was laying his plans for the coming football season, which, if he had his way, was likely to be more for the benefit of Parker than of Yale.

He went to Shesgren’s room after he had finally torn himself away from the curious crowd that wanted to know all he could tell it about the registered letter and the Harvard protest, and there found Carpenter as well as the owner of the room. The news had spread all over the campus by that time, and they, remembering how strictly Parker had ordered them to maintain secrecy about the whole affair, were afraid that he would think that they had told. He soon reassured them, however, when they began, as soon as he entered, to protest their innocence and say that they had no idea of how the story had got out.

“I have,” said he curtly. “I changed my mind, and told it myself. It’s best the way it is, too. We can settle the whole thing now and make sure that there’s no way for Phillips to squirm out of this thing and prove that he is innocent. He is innocent, you know, and that’s why we’ve got to be careful. I read once that if a man hadn’t done a thing he was accused of, there always was some way, no matter how long it took for him to find it, to prove the truth, or to prove, at least, that he couldn’t have had a hand in it. Here’s where we fool the man that wrote that. Still got that letter, Carpenter?”

Carpenter nodded.

“Yes,” he said. “You told me to keep it. I wanted to burn it. It isn’t safe to have around. It might turn up some way, and then where would we be?”

“I’ll do all the worrying that’s needed around here,” said Parker harshly. “Just you leave that to me. You do as I tell you and there’ll be no trouble. I want you to go to see Phillips right away, and tell him you don’t believe all this story. Say you were with him that morning, and that you certainly didn’t see any registered letter. See?”

“Yes—but I don’t understand,” said Carpenter feebly.

“Never mind about understanding,” snarled Parker. “Have the letter with you, in your pocket. Then, when he isn’t looking, slip it into some place where it will stay hidden until they make a more thorough search. You can bet they’ve hunted through that place pretty carefully already——”

Suddenly Shesgren, his blue eyes flashing behind his heavy spectacles, cried out.

“What are you talking about?” he cried. “What letter do you mean? Do you mean to tell me that Phillips never really got that letter that they’re making all the fuss about? Why, he signed the receipt!”

“Yes, he signed the receipt,” said Parker mockingly, “but your friend Carpenter here got the letter.”

“But that—that’s stealing,” cried Shesgren, horrified. “There was money in that letter.”

“There still is,” said Parker, with a sneering grin. “And we’ll see that Phillips gets his letter in due time, with the money still in it. Stealing that is not what we’re after.”

Shesgren, confused, and slow, even when he was at his best, to understand complicated things, took some time to grasp the idea.

“Then Phillips isn’t crooked at all!” he exclaimed. “This was just a plan of yours to put the blame on him and make it look as if he’d taken money to play in that game when you knew all the time that he hadn’t.”

“What of it?” asked Parker, sneering again. “You knew what we were going to do—what the whole plan was.”

“I knew you were going to give him a chance to take the money,” said Shesgren, trembling. “I didn’t know that you were going to fake evidence against him. I won’t stand for that. I thought you had proved that Phillips was a hypocrite and a sneak—not that you had set a trap for him.”

Parker glared furiously at Carpenter.

“I thought you were cowardly enough,” he said, with contempt. “I didn’t suppose that you were training with such a white-livered chap as this, though.”

“I’ll tell the whole story,” cried Shesgren angrily. “I’m going to Merriwell right now.”

He sprang for the door, but Parker was after him in the twinkling of an eye, and, being immensely stronger, had no trouble in dragging the angry sophomore back.

“Get me a trunk strap,” he cried to Carpenter, and Carpenter, who was completely under the influence of the junior, obeyed. In a moment Shesgren, struggling pluckily, though there was no hope that he could cope with Parker, was trussed up in a chair.

“This is fine business,” exclaimed Parker angrily, then. “I thought I could count on you two to help me do Jim Phillips up to get him out of your way, while I was disposing of Dick Merriwell at the same time. And now you go back on me just when the thing seems likely to be a success.”

Furiously angry, he sat in sullen silence for a few minutes, trying to work out some way in which he could rescue his plan from the destruction with which Shesgren’s sudden attack of conscience seemed to threaten it. If he released Shesgren, the sophomore would betray the whole conspiracy at once. If he kept him tied up, he could only postpone discovery a short time. The only thing to do was to find some means of stopping Shesgren’s contemplated betrayal—to find some way to seal his lips. He must get him in his power in some fashion.

“I’ve got it,” he cried suddenly. “You’ll be sorry you ever turned on me before I’m done with you, Shesgren. Give me that letter, Carpenter.”

Skillfully, he slit open the edges of the envelope with a sharp knife, and, extracting the two fifty-dollar bills the letter contained, put them in Shesgren’s wallet, which he was able, without difficulty, to take from his captive’s pocket.

“Those bills are marked,” he said. “Chetwind took their numbers from the bills when he mailed them, as an extra precaution, in case of any trouble. Now, my fine fellow, if you start to tell anything, you’ll have difficulty explaining those bills. I’ll see that you have no chance to get rid of them, and if you try to do me any harm, you’ll simply find yourself involved in the case with Phillips without doing me any harm or him any good. You can’t prove anything that you say—and the evidence of those bills in your possession will be taken as worth much more than anything you say. And you want to remember, too, that if it comes to a test, Carpenter and I will stick together and tell the same story, and our word is better than yours. I won’t give you a chance to promise not to split—I wouldn’t take your word now, no matter what sort of an oath you swore.”

“You won’t get the chance,” cried Shesgren. He seemed like a great coward, but like many other weaklings, Shesgren had a certain courage, and, when he made up his mind to do anything, it took more than threats to dissuade him. “I’m going to tell the truth no matter what you do, and you’ll find that the truth can be proved, even if it is difficult. Just as soon as you let me go, I’ll take the whole story to Merriwell, and he’ll believe me, whether any one else does or not. Then, when he knows the truth, he’ll find some way to prove it. You can make your mind up to that, you crook! You’re pretty clever, but there are some people who know just as much as you do, and you’ll find that out and wish you’d kept straight.”

“Quite a bantam cock, isn’t he?” said Parker contemptuously, to Carpenter. “I didn’t think our little friend had so much nerve. I really admire him, honestly I do.”

The junior was much relieved by the plan he had worked out. And he had one or two trump cards, too, of which Shesgren knew nothing, for he had not been fool enough to confide fully in his two rascally and treacherous helpers.

They left him there, Parker walking freely, singing as he went; Carpenter terrified, white and trembling. He wasn’t much of a rogue, really, and it was only Parker’s complete domination of his weak character that had made it possible for him to do as much as he had so far. With them went the registered letter, slit now, and empty, except for a folded sheet of paper. Parker carried it, and seemed afraid to trust it to Carpenter.

“What do you want me to do?” asked Carpenter shakily. “The letter isn’t any good now, is it, with the money gone out of it?”

“Certainly it is,” said Parker, laughing. “You’re a silly sort of a fool, Carpenter. The letter—without the money—turns up in Phillips’ room. At the right time, the money is found in the possession of Shesgren. You explain, very sorrowfully, that you’re afraid Shesgren and Phillips went together on the thing. And then see what Chetwind will say. You needn’t worry. I’ve got everything they can do worked out, and we’ll fool them on every side. You go on up and see Phillips now. And be sure to drop the letter in his wastebasket, or some place like that.”

Carpenter felt that he could only obey. He would have given all he possessed, and all his hopes of graduating at the head of his class, to be well out of the mess, and free from the fear of Parker. But he was afraid to make a move. He had seen the fate of Shesgren, still a prisoner in his own room, and, as Carpenter well knew, likely to find himself, because he had turned honest and had tried to undo the wrong that had been done, involved as deeply as Jim Phillips himself in the toils, with no way at all of clearing himself of the charge.