Читать книгу Dick Merriwell's Heroic Players; Or, How the Yale Nine Won the Championship - Burt L. Standish - Страница 11

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The letter dropped so carefully by Carpenter—for he had done his work well—was found by Jim Phillips himself on Friday morning. Jim was nervous and upset. The team was to start that evening for Cambridge, and he knew, despite Dick Merriwell’s optimistic way of speaking, that things were still looking very bad, and that he was as far as ever from being cleared of the charge against him. The feeling that he was regarded by many of his friends and fellow students as one who had for money deliberately violated his standing as an amateur and a Yale athlete, and that Yale would suffer the next day because of his absence, had had a bad effect on him, as was only natural.

Bill Brady was with him as he found the letter. Jim, bending over by his desk, saw a little speck of white protruding from the edge of the carpet. He pounced on it, and, with a cry of amazement, held up the envelope.

Eagerly he and Brady examined it. Outwardly, it was exactly as Chetwind had described it. The number stamped on it by the post-office was the same that had appeared on the card receipt which Jim had signed, now in Chetwind’s possession. But inside they found the real surprise. The money was missing. There was only a single sheet of note paper, folded three times, with no writing at all on it. That, too, confirmed Chetwind, in a way. He had said that the two fifty-dollar bills he had sent had been put inside a sheet of folded note paper.

“We must have overlooked this when we searched the room,” said Jim, tremendously excited.

“Not a bit of it,” cried Brady. “I took up the whole carpet myself, and went over the whole floor. I shook out the carpet, too, and I couldn’t possibly have missed this. Look here, Jim! This envelope has been slit open by a knife. Some one has opened it, and taken the money out. And it isn’t here by accident, either. It’s been put here for you to find—or for some one else. Probably they would rather have had some outsider find it than you—but that’s a small matter. A criminal, or you, if you were guilty, might destroy this. But I think it may work the thing out yet. I’m no detective, but Merriwell is. If he doesn’t call this a first-class clew, I’ll eat my hat.”

“Let’s take it to him right away,” cried Jim eagerly, seizing his hat.

“Hold on!” cried Brady, almost as excited as his friend, but because he was less deeply concerned personally, finding it easier to keep his head. “I want him to see this just as we found it, before there’s any chance to have things changed around in the room.”

He went to the window, and looking out into York Street, soon saw a freshmen walking past.

“Hello, there, freshie!” he called. “Beat it up to Mr. Merriwell’s rooms, and ask him if he can’t come down here right away.”

The freshman obeyed—he would have been venturesome, indeed, had he not—and Bill and Jim Phillips waited impatiently for the universal coach to appear. He did not keep them waiting long, for he knew that such a summons must mean an important discovery.

“Well,” he said, “this certainly does look as if we were getting warm. But I must confess that the whole thing is too complicated for me. Why should this thing be allowed to turn up just now? I should think they would have done better to keep the letter altogether.”

Even as he spoke, Jim’s landlady appeared in the door and announced that a man was asking for Phillips.

“He’s a post-office inspector, sir,” she said.

The three Yale men exchanged quick glances.

“Show him in,” said Jim quietly, and in a moment the inspector, a dark, keen-looking man, appeared.

“I was in town on some other business,” said he, “and the postmaster asked me to investigate the matter of a missing registered letter.”

“I don’t see how the post-office department is concerned,” said Dick. “The receipt was duly signed, which shows that the letter carrier did his duty. The responsibility of the department ceases with the safe delivery of the package.”

“Y-e-es,” said the inspector, a little doubtfully. “But I understand that Mr. Phillips says he did not actually receive the letter. The mail carrier says he delivered it personally, and, therefore, the postmaster has been rather annoyed by the implication that some misuse of the mails has been made.”

“I don’t know who has implied that,” said Dick. “However, it makes no difference. The letter has just been found. Good day.”

The inspector looked annoyed.

“It seems to me this whole affair is a tempest in a teapot,” he said, rather hotly. “I’ve been chased up here on a fool’s errand. I’m sorry to have intruded.”

“A strangely timely visit,” said Dick, laughing, when the inspector had gone. “You would almost think that some one who knew that letter was going to be found wanted to make sure that we shouldn’t conceal the discovery, wouldn’t you? Now, Jim, I want to know who could have dropped that envelope in this room? It must have been done while you were here, for I have had the room watched in your absence, and no one has been here. Tell me every one who has been here since dinner time last night. It must have been done since then.”

Jim had no difficulty in supplying the list. He had just three visitors. Harry Maxwell, Bill Brady, and Carpenter made up the list.

“Carpenter again,” said Brady, with a sarcastic laugh. “He’s very careless. He was here when the letter disappeared—he is the only one, eliminating Harry Maxwell and myself, who could have restored it—with the money gone.”

“Exactly,” said Dick Merriwell. “There are a lot of things I should like to have Carpenter explain. But being sure of a man’s guilt and proving it afterward so that other people will be sure also, are two very different things. We’re not in a position yet to accuse Carpenter of anything, or to try to make him answer any questions. In fact, it would be dangerous to try it. We would simply put him on his guard, if he has anything to do with it, and make it harder than ever to straighten things out. And our time is getting so short that we can’t afford to make any sort of a move without being absolutely sure.”

He waited a minute to think over the new facts.

“There’s one thing we can do, though,” he said. “Our friend Chetwind has had time to do some thinking. And I imagine that with what we can tell him now, he may decide that it’s time he told us who served as his agent in those remarkable negotiations of his with Jim by which he agreed to pay for the services of a pitcher in that wretched baseball game.”

“That’s so, too,” said Brady. “Let’s go to it.”

The three of them, accordingly, taking the letter as mute but convincing evidence, took their way to Chetwind’s office. Dick Merriwell, on the way, examined the letter very closely.

“The man who opened this made one bad mistake,” he said. “He should have torn it open with his fingers, as nine men out of ten open a letter. He didn’t. And he may be sorry before we get through that he did not. If he did that with this letter, the chances are that he makes a practice of it—and that practice may give us some very valuable information yet.”

They had to wait some little time to see Chetwind, but when they finally reached him, they found him much more disposed to talk with them than on their previous visit. Briefly, Dick explained to him why they had come, and laid before him all the facts that had developed since the charge had been made against Jim.

“You see, Mr. Chetwind,” said Dick Merriwell, “we’ve gone about as far as we can without your help. You said that, in view of the strong evidence against us, it was up to Phillips to prove his innocence, or, at least, that there was a chance that he was innocent. Now consider the whole affair.

“Phillips makes no attempt to deny signing the receipt for this letter. He does deny having received the letter itself, however, and the fact that he received, at a time when he was in a great hurry, two registered letters in the same mail, a highly unusual occurrence, explains how that might have happened. If he did not receive it, and some one else did, it ought to be possible to prove who the other person was. We haven’t proved that it was Carpenter, but we have done something to show that Carpenter had the chance, and practically the only chance, both to abstract the letter in the first place, and to return it afterward. Now, I think we have the right to demand that you tell us who it was that was concerned with you in the arrangement to pay Phillips for pitching against the Boston team.”

“I guess I’ll have to do that,” said Chetwind. “I don’t like to, but you’ve certainly raised a doubt in my mind as to Phillips’ guilt, which I didn’t think, yesterday, it was possible for you to do. The man who approached me, and through whom I made the arrangement, was a sophomore, named Shesgren.”

“Shesgren!” cried Merriwell and Jim, together, with Bill Brady’s deep bass to echo them.

“Why, I hardly know the fellow,” exclaimed Jim. “I’ve seen him around with this chap Carpenter, but I don’t think I’ve ever spoken to him more than about three times.”

“What does he look like?” asked Dick Merriwell quickly. “Did you see him?”

“Only once,” admitted Chetwind. “I did most of the dealing with him by conversation over the telephone. But I saw him once. He was a big fellow, with rather a deep voice. I couldn’t describe him, except to say that he was big and dark. I suppose that much of a description would fit a hundred Yale men.”

“Yes,” said Brady dryly. “But it doesn’t happen to fit Shesgren.”

“I should say not,” exclaimed Jim. “He’s small, and light, and he wears glasses. His eyes are blue, and he has a thin, reedy sort of a voice, like that of a young boy.”

“Good,” said Dick Merriwell. “Now I’m going to look for the knife that opened this envelope.”