Читать книгу Frank Merriwell's Prosperity; or, Toil Has Its Reward - Burt L. Standish - Страница 6

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Lester Vance got up. At first he was too dazed to speak, but he recovered his tongue after a little and began to swear.

Frank Merriwell came forward, saying sharply:

“That will do, Mr. Vance! You know I do not permit any such language on the stage or around the theater. There are ladies present, too.”

Vance put his hand over his eye and gave Merry an ugly look. The other members of the company were around, asking what had happened.

“Yes, I know your rules,” he admitted; “but that cursed cur assaulted me—struck me in a treacherous manner when I was not looking!”

“To whom are you referring in such a manner?”

“Hodge.”

“He struck you?”

“Yes, the dirty, sneaking, miserable——”

“Stop!” rang out Merry’s clear voice. “That will do, sir! Bart Hodge is my friend, and I will not permit you to apply such epithets to him!”

Vance showed his teeth, much after the manner of a snarling dog.

“But I suppose you permit your friend to assault and insult the ladies of this company?” he said, scornfully.

“Not if I know it; but Bart Hodge is not in the habit of assaulting and insulting ladies.”

“He did so a few moments ago, the miserable whelp of a——”

Frank took a quick step toward the fellow, and Vance stopped instantly.

“I have warned you once,” said Merry, speaking in a low tone. “I shall not speak again. Be careful!”

“Oh, you stand up for him, Frank Merriwell, without hearing what he has done!”

“I am willing to hear what he has done, but you must use proper language in relating it.”

“Proper language! I don’t know how proper language can be found to fit the occasion. I tell you your friend of whom you boast has insulted one of the ladies of the company!”

“Which one?”

“That one!”

Vance pointed at Stella Stanley, who, to his unspeakable surprise, broke into laughter.

Frank turned toward her.

“Is this true, Miss Stanley?” he asked, gravely.

“Of course, it isn’t true!” she exclaimed. “Not a bit of it.”

“What?” cried Vance, astounded, glaring at her. “Surely, Stella, I saw the miserable fellow clutching you in his arms. I heard you scream for help.”

“I heard that,” declared Granville Garland.

“Yes, I heard her scream,” said Agnes Kirk.

“So did I,” nodded Billy Wynne, “and I came running to this spot as soon as I could. I saw Hodge strike Vance.”

“Others saw that,” said Lester. “There were plenty of witnesses to his assault upon me.”

“Methinks thou didst attempt to swipe him first,” murmured Douglas Dunton, “else these faithful eyes much deceived me.”

“Gol darned ef Vance warn’t tryin’ to dew somethin’ ter Hodge,” grinned Ephraim Gallup; “but he didn’t seem ter do it very much.”

“I simply attempted to protect Stella from his attack,” asserted Lester. “I saw him seize her and kiss her in the most violent and offensive manner, and——”

Stella interrupted him with a laugh.

“Offensive to whom?” she asked.

“To you, of course, for you struggled to throw him off.”

“Now, you saw that in your mind, Lester, my boy,” she declared. “I did not struggle.”

Vance was astounded.

“But you—you screamed,” he fluttered, hesitatingly.

“Yes, I think I did.”

“Why did you do that?”

“Well, Hodge was a trifle abrupt, and he took me by surprise.”

“Then you acknowledge——”

“That—no more.”

“But it was an insult.”

“Nonsense! It was nothing of the sort.”

Vance was pale, and he began to glare at her, anger and jealousy in his eyes.

“I hope, Miss Stanley,” he began, stiffly, “that you are not going to say that you liked it? If you——”

“That is exactly what I am going to say,” laughed the actress, to the surprise of all and the fury of Vance. “I’d just been taunting him—having sport with him, you know. He had his revenge by seizing me and kissing me.”

“In a most offensive and insolent manner,” sneered Vance.

“Offensive to you, perhaps,” she commented, cheerfully; “but not to me. As I said before, I rather liked it. I like a fellow who has the nerve to take things by storm when he cannot get them otherwise.”

She smiled on Vance in the most tantalizing manner as she said this, and he well understood her meaning. He ground his teeth with impotent rage.

“If you liked it so well,” he panted, “you should not have screamed as you did.”

“That was an accident,” she declared. “Didn’t mean to do it, you know, but it slipped out.”

“By gum!” chuckled the youth from Vermont. “It don’t seem to me that Bart done anything so very bad. I think he was a purty gol-darn lucky feller!”

“I hardly think Mr. Merriwell, who is so rigid in regard to the deportment of the members of his company, can approve of the behavior of some of them,” said Vance, with something like a sneer.

At that Stella Stanley threw back her head and gave him a withering look.

“Is it possible you mean me by that?” she said.

“Not so much as Hodge,” mumbled the jealous actor, weakly.

“Not so much?”

“No.”

“But some?”

“Well, I was surprised to hear you confess that you liked the treatment you received from that low fellow.”

“Oh, you were!” came scornfully from the woman’s lips. “I understand you, Mr. Vance, and I do not like your language! Any insinuation against my character I will not stand! I see I have been wrong in thinking you a gentleman! I see I have made a mistake in permitting you to pay me some attentions! Now you are ready to presume on our friendliness.”

“No, not that! You are——”

She cut him short with a gesture that might have been given by a tragedy queen.

“You have said enough, Mr. Vance! You cannot remedy it now. Let me tell you something—let me tell you all something! Bart Hodge has acted as a gentleman toward me. Anything that has happened that may seem to contradict my statement I could account for—if I chose. Let me say something more. I admire Bart Hodge. He is young, but he doesn’t care for any living thing, and that is something that I admire in any man. When he is angry he looks as if he’d enjoy killing somebody, and I admire him for that! If he started to do a thing men or devils could not keep him from doing it, and I admire him for that! When I attempted to have sport with him, he seized me, held me, forcibly kissed me—and I admire him for that! When some one attempted to interfere in my behalf, he promptly knocked that person down, and I admire him for that! There—I’ve said my say. You know what I think of Hodge.”

“I suppose you admire him for acting like a cad on the stage?” hissed Vance. “Havener must admire him, too! Oh, he is a fine chap to admire!”

Stella looked at him and began to laugh again.

“My dear fellow,” she said, in a most provoking way, “you had better attend to that eye without delay. It’s turning black. It’ll be closed if you don’t look after it.”

Then she turned and walked away, leaving Vance almost frothing with jealous fury.

Granville Garland was almost the only man who remained with Vance. The others moved away, talking about what had happened.

“You’ve got it in the neck, Vance,” said Garland, sympathetically. “She has thrown you down for Hodge.”

“Oh, don’t talk to me!” growled the discomfited actor. “I could murder that fellow! I’d do anything to get even with him, and I’ll find a way to do it, too!”

“Well, just now you had better take Stanley’s advice and attend to that eye. You’ll be a beauty if you don’t doctor it in a hurry.”

Snarling to himself, Lester Vance left the stage, and a second later, fuming with fury, hurried from the theater. At a market he bought a slice of beefsteak to use as a poultice on his eye, and then hastened to the hotel at which the company was stopping.

Entering as unobtrusively as possible, he hurried up to his room. Turning a corner of the corridor, he suddenly halted, catching his breath.

A short distance away, with his back toward Vance, Hodge was unlocking the door of a room.

“Why is he going in there?” thought the jealous actor. “That is not his room. It’s Merriwell’s!”

Bart opened the door and entered the room.

Vance stood irresolute in the corridor, wishing to do something to injure Hodge, but undecided concerning the course to pursue.

“He has secured the key from the office and entered Merriwell’s room,” muttered the actor. “I wonder what he is up to. I’d give something if I knew.”

Softly he stole along the corridor till he reached the door of the room. There he paused and listened. He could hear Hodge moving about inside.

“Wish I might get a peep through the keyhole,” thought Vance. “I believe he is up to something queer. If I had time, I’d bring Merriwell here, so that he might catch the fellow in there.”

He looked up at the transom.

“If I could get a peep through that!” he mentally exclaimed.

A moment later he was tip-toeing along the corridor, almost on the run. He had the key to his own room, and he quickly and silently unlocked the door and entered. Soon he came out, bearing a chair, and leaving the door of his room standing wide open.

“I may want to get back there in a hurry,” he muttered.

Reaching Merriwell’s room, he placed the chair before the door and quickly sprang upon it. Then, by standing on his toes, he was able to look through the transom glass.

What he saw did not give him satisfaction just then, for Bart was sitting at a little table, writing swiftly.

“Pshaw!” thought Vance. “He’s writing a letter—that’s all! He isn’t doing anything out of the way.”

The fellow was filled with disappointment. Still he continued to stand on the chair and watch the youth within the room.

After a time Bart finished his writing. He took out his watch and looked at it, muttering:

“I must hurry if I want to catch that train.”

Vance pricked up his ears. He knew nothing of the quarrel between Merriwell and Hodge, if quarrel it could be called, and still instinct told him that something was wrong.

“Wonder why he’s going to catch a train?” he speculated.

Hodge had risen, leaving what he had written on the table. He now picked up Frank Merriwell’s leather grip.

“It’s a good thing I know how to spring this lock,” said Hodge, “else I’d not be able to get out of Atchison unless I walked, and I’d do that before I would stay here now. I have cut clear from everybody now, and I’m going to go it alone in the future. If I go to the dogs who cares!”

The eyes of the spy beyond the transom began to glitter and he was in a flutter of excitement. Now he was certain that Hodge was up to something crooked, and he eagerly awaited developments.

Bart worked at the lock of the leather bag. It was some time before he succeeded in opening it, but succeed he did at last.

The man outside the door rose on his tiptoes and peered through the glass. In his excitement he nearly lost his balance, but he recovered without falling with a crash that would have alarmed the man he was watching.

Vance felt his heart fluttering and throbbing; it was not easy for him to control his breathing, which now was loud and hoarse. A sense of exultation was growing in his bosom.

“So that is the chap Frank Merriwell trusts!” he thought. “That is the friend in whom he has so much confidence! Ha!”

Hodge was taking things out of the grip. He scarcely looked at them as he dumped them out. He was eager and in great haste.

Vance recognized the grip as being beyond a doubt the one Merriwell always carried. He had observed that Frank seemed to think a great deal of that plain leather bag. He remembered hearing Merriwell say once on a time that the grip was very valuable to him, even though it might not be worth much to anybody else.

Bart did not seem to be looking for any particular article in the grip, for he did not examine the things he dumped out so carelessly. Evidently he was after something that lay at the bottom.

What was it?

The spy choked down his heart, which seemed rising into his throat. The glitter in his eyes became exultant. His lips were drawn back from his teeth, and they quivered with a movement like the lips of a snarling dog that is watching a hated enemy.

Everything was out of the grip at last; it was empty. The spy expected Hodge would begin sorting the articles over in search of what he desired, but nothing of the kind happened.

Bart picked up the leather bag, and then, with one hand inside it and one outside, he made some singular movements.

“Jove!”

Vance almost shouted the word. Out from the grip Hodge had taken a false bottom!

The spy dropped down and listened. He was aware that some sort of sound had issued from his lips in his intense excitement, and he wondered if the youth within the room had heard it.

After some minutes, hearing nothing to warrant him in believing he had alarmed Bart, the fellow arose again on his toes and peered through the glass of the transom.

Hodge was taking something out of the grip.

Money!

Yes, money—paper money! There was no doubt of it. In that grip, hidden by the false bottom, Merriwell carried his money, and Hodge was removing it!

Now the spy’s excitement was so great that he could hear his own teeth chattering.

“I’ve got him!” he thought. “I’ll settle him now!”

Hodge partly turned toward the door, and Vance ducked down, listening again. It was several moments before he dared peer through the glass again.

Hodge had restored the false bottom to the grip, and was putting back the various articles he had taken out in the first place.

“He’s got the money!” exulted Vance. “He’s a thief! This is Frank Merriwell’s trusted friend! Oh, but I have him foul! I’d better skip, for he’ll be coming out directly.”

Vance slipped down from the chair, and hurried toward his room, taking the chair with him. Safely within his room, he watched and waited till Hodge came out, locked Merriwell’s door and hurried along the corridor.

Dodging out from his room, the spy sped the length of the corridor. Reaching the turn, he peered cautiously round.

The door of Hodge’s room was standing open, and Hodge was within.

Not more than two minutes did Vance have to watch. Hodge came out of his room, carrying his light overcoat and a heavy valise. With these he descended the stairs.

“By heavens! he is going,” muttered Vance. “He has robbed Merriwell, and he is going to skip! What shall I do?”

He thought of stopping Bart and having him arrested, but quickly decided that was not the best course to pursue, as he was not yet certain Bart had really committed robbery. It was possible Hodge had given Merriwell his money to keep, knowing it would be concealed in the bottom of the grip.

Lester’s heart sank at that, for, if it were true, Hodge was simply skipping the company, which was not such a serious crime.

“It’ll be best to let him go,” Vance decided. “That will queer him with everybody, and I shall have no more trouble with him. If he has robbed Merriwell, so much the better. Oh, but it will be my turn to triumph now! Somebody’ll hear from me! Stella shall acknowledge that this slippery chap is not such a fine fellow after all. Merriwell will not stand up so proudly and claim Bart Hodge as his friend. Things have turned my way!”