CHAPTER XX.A PAIR OF RASCALS.
At the tinkle of his alarm clock Mike Lynch awoke, opened one eye, squinted at the clock, and growled like a flea-bitten dog.
“Rot it!” he muttered. “I haven’t had thirty minutes’ decent sleep all night long. Whew! whew! I can taste smoke clean down to my toes. Got a bump as big as half a watermelon here on the side of my head, and the cords of my neck are stiff and sore. All I’ve done is dream fire, fire, and twist and snort and make up and try to go to sleep again. Dash it all, I must look like a wreck! I feel like one, anyhow.”
Making an attempt to sit up, he dropped back with a doleful groan.
“Jingoes, but that does pull on my neck!” he murmured, holding his head canted to one side. “What makes my neck so lame? I suppose I know. That whelp Merriwell chucked me headlong against the wall in the basement of that old warehouse. Wonder I didn’t spill my brains all over that wall. Next thing I knew I was getting scorched and everything around me seemed on fire. That brought me to my senses in a hurry, but when I tried to find the way out I was so bewildered that I didn’t know what to do. How did I get out, anyhow? Oh, yes, somebody came back and grabbed me and dragged me toward the door. Somebody—it was Merriwell! That’s right, by Jove, it was Merriwell! The rest of the fellows were gone. They had sneaked and left me, the cowards! They left me to roast in that fire trap. That’s a fine bunch of friends to have!”
He finally succeeded in sitting up, holding bothhands to his head as he groaned and cursed in mingled pain and anger.
“That was just about the worst night I ever experienced. And to think I might have roasted only for Merriwell! Hang it all! I hate to know I owe him anything. Do I owe him anything? Why, of course not. Didn’t he chuck me against the wall and knock me senseless? Gee! I wouldn’t like to tell anybody that he did, but that’s what happened. I suppose some of those sneaks who skipped and left me will tell. No, they won’t. They don’t dare. They’ll keep their faces closed. But Merriwell’s friends—those who were with him—they’ll tell. Let ’em! let ’em! They don’t know who it was rigged up in those devil togs. Anyhow, if they do suspect, they can’t prove it. I won’t acknowledge it, you bet your sweet life!
“No, I don’t owe Merriwell anything. If he’d left me there, it would have been the same as murder. After chucking me against the wall and sending my wits wool-gathering, it was up to him to get me out. I’m not going to blow up with gratitude toward him.”
Lynch was greatly relieved over the thought that he did not owe the lad he bitterly hated anything like a debt of gratitude. This caused him to grin the least bit, and, with some mumbling and muttering, he painfully dragged himself out of bed.
“Suppose a hot bath would do me good,” he said, “but I’m too stiff to get into a tub. I don’t know when I ever felt this way before. Toleman was the only one who had decency enough to come around last night to find out whether I was alive or had been cooked in that fire. I suppose he told the rest of the bunch that I was here, all right. Confound it! what brought Merriwell and his gang out there to the warehouse? That fellow always turns up and spoils things. How did he know we had Tucker there? He seems toget onto every move we make lately. Somebody is giving us away. It can’t be Wolfe, for he wouldn’t dare, and I know it isn’t Ditson or Toleman. I can trust Poland, too. But Daggett—that fellow would do anything for money. If the Merriwell gang tried it, they could buy him easy enough. Still, he seems the fiercest against Dick Merriwell. I don’t trust him. We’ve got to cut him out somehow. It’s pretty hard work doing it now he knows so much, but it’s necessary to find a way. We had to cut Lee out. Only yesterday I gave Wolfe a call-down for telling Lee about our plans. The kid hasn’t any backbone.”
After washing up, Mike began to dress with more or less difficulty. At intervals he paused to touch gently the lump on his head. Every time he did this he growled.
His head still throbbed, and when he stooped over to lace his shoes something like a sledge hammer seemed pounding within it.
“Oh, ache! ache!” he rasped. “You’ll get over it pretty soon—you’ll have to. I’m glad I haven’t any marks on my face, and I won’t wear a bandage round my head. My hat will cover that bump. They can’t spot me. I’ll have to get rid of that devil rig, though. Found my overcoat where we left our clothes when we dressed back of the old warehouse. Only for that I’d never been able to get to this room without being pinched. Lucky my overcoat was good and long and hid my costume. Two fellows did stop to stare at my red ankles, but I took to my heels, and I know they didn’t recognize me.”
Opening his wardrobe door, he found the crimson masquerade suit, which he made into a bundle carefully wrapped in brown paper and securely tied with stout cord. This bundle was hidden away beneath some underclothing in a drawer of the dresser.
“I’ll dispose of that to-night,” he muttered. “Don’t like to have stolen property on my premises. It was Ditson’s idea to rig up in those costumes. He thought it would frighten Tucker. Hanged if it didn’t seem to amuse the little fool! I’m going to quit taking the foolish advice of Ditson or anybody else. I didn’t see anything like a joke in that business. I was in earnest. But now I suppose we wasted our time. Of course this isn’t any good at all, and I may as well destroy it.”
From a pocket he produced the typewritten confession which Tucker had been forced to sign.
“No, it’s no good now,” he muttered, after reading it over. “The little rat could prove he was compelled to sign against his will. If any one tried to use this document, it would get him into a nasty scrape. This will settle it.”
In front of the fireplace he struck a match and applied the flame to one corner of the paper.
“What are you doing?” cried a voice that made him jump as if struck by a bolt.
The burning paper fluttered to the hearth, and Lynch turned a pale face toward the lad who had softly opened the door and thrust his head into the room.
“Gee!” he breathed, with mingled relief and resentment. “You gave me a jerk. What the dickens do you mean by poking your head into my room and yelling like that? Come in and shut that door.”
Bern Wolfe needed no invitation. Slamming the door behind him, he leaped toward the hearth and placed his foot on the burning paper.
“Get away! get away!” said Lynch, catching the visitor by the collar, and jerking him back. “Let it burn.”
“It’s Tucker’s confession!”
“Yes.”
“Are you crazy?”
“I guess not.”
“We had trouble enough getting that confession.”
“Too much trouble,” confessed Mike.
“And now it’s destroyed!” groaned Bern, as he watched the flames char the sheet and turn it to a black film of ash, which crinkled at a breath and dissolved into fluttering fragments.
“It wasn’t any use after what happened,” declared Lynch. And he proceeded to explain his reason for thinking so. “You see,” he concluded, “that thing might have gotten me into trouble if I had kept it and any one had chanced to find it in my pocket.”
“I suppose that’s right,” muttered Bern, his thin lips pulled back from the points of his sharp white teeth. “Yes, I see you’re right, Mike, but I swear I’d like to get some sort of a twist on that fellow Tucker. He’s playing the position on the nine that I ought to fill. I’m a better shortstop than Tucker ever was or ever will be.”
“Perhaps you are,” nodded Mike, “but you’re not one of Richard Merriwell’s petsy-wetsies. Therefore you have no show to play on the team.”
“That’s not the reason why I’m not playing on the team.”
“Eh? It isn’t?”
“No.”
“Then what is the reason?”
“You know well enough!” snapped Bern bitterly. “You know I had my chance to get on the team, and I landed there, too. Only for your great scheme to knife Merriwell, I’d be playing on the team now.”
“Now, hold on—hold on. Don’t always try to shoulder everything onto me.”
“I’m telling you the truth, and you know it!” cried Wolfe, smashing his clenched right hand into his openleft. “If I’d refused to listen to your scheme, I’d be playing shortstop and Tucker would be on the bench.”
“Bah! bah! What are you giving us?”
“Bah! bah! Bleat away. It’s a fact. Merriwell was ready to use me. He did use me. I played in that Hudson game until I got spiked.”
“And you haven’t played since,” grinned Lynch.
“Because Merriwell and his friends are dead sure that I was concerned in the giving away of Umpty-ten’s signals. That was your plan to hurt Merriwell, but it never harmed him a bit. Instead of that, it swamped me, all right, all right.”
“What right has Merriwell to keep you off the team? There’s never been anything proven against you, has there?”
“Not proven perhaps, but——”
“Then you’re not being used right, Bern.”
“Not proven, but established as a conviction in Merriwell’s mind.”
“Rot! rot! You just think it has been established as a conviction in his mind. You don’t know whether it has or not.”
“I do know he is satisfied that Tucker is innocent.”
“And Tucker, being one of his goo-goo boys, gets the chance to play, while you pine on the bench.”
“Merriwell knows I’m friendly with you. He knows you would do anything in this world to hurt him. He doesn’t trust me. If I’d cut loose from you the way Kates did, I’d be on the team the same as Kates is. He’s there, isn’t he? You can’t say Merriwell is keeping one of his particular pets on first to the exclusion of Kates.”
“Merriwell had to have a first baseman and an assistant pitcher. Ambitious as he is, as much as he likes to show off, he can’t do all the pitching. Toleman was sulking, and the team just had to acceptKates. That’s plain enough. You didn’t have a chance of forcing yourself in the way Sam did.”
“Oh, don’t tell me that! I don’t believe it. I got there once. What have I made by listening to your plans and plots? I’ve lost the chance I had, and even though they can’t prove anything against me I’m under suspicion. You’ve said you would clear me, but never yet have you made a single promise good.”
“Now, hold on!” snarled Lynch, his red hair seeming to bristle. “That’s just about enough from you. Haven’t I been doing my best? Wasn’t I putting myself out on your account last night, and didn’t it come near being my finish?”
“I told you that was a preposterous scheme before we started in upon it. You were the only one in the crowd who thought it would amount to anything.”
“How do you know so much?”
“Oh, I know—I heard ’em say so.”
“Then why did they take any part in it?”
“For a lark. It was to have some amusement with Tucker that those masquerade costumes were stolen and worn. I was against that piece of business, but Ditson had been drinking, and he was ready for any piece of recklessness. Give him a couple of drinks, and you never know what he’ll do.”
“Well, you’re about as ungrateful a runt as I ever saw!” declared Lynch bitterly. “I wash my hands of it. I’m through trying to help you. If you want to, you can go tell every one that you gave away the team’s signals.”
“You know I’m not likely to do that.”
“I don’t know what you’re likely to do. Why, I’ve even convinced our own bunch that Tucker was the guilty one instead of you. They believe it.”
“They pretend to,” muttered Bern, “but I’m not sure they do.”
“To tell the truth, a fellow can’t be sure of much of anything with them,” growled Mike. “Look at the way they skipped me last night! Wasn’t that fine? You did the same thing. You dusted out with the rest and left me to the mercies of the Merriwell bunch, or to roast.”
“It was every man for himself then.”
“Oh, was it?”
“Sure.”
“And in such a case you’d leave a friend lying unconscious to be burned to death, would you?”
“I didn’t know you were unconscious. I was having troubles enough of my own. I didn’t know what happened to you.”
“Well, I’ll tell you what happened. About four of those fellows, including Merriwell himself, jumped on me in a bunch. One of them hit me over the head with a piece of lead pipe or something like that. That was the last I knew until I found myself lying on the floor, almost choked by smoke and nearly roasted by fire.”
“That was a tough situation,” admitted Wolfe. “How’d you get out?”
“How did I? I wish you’d tell me. I crawled among those boxes and bales on all fours without having an idea where the door was. Just by good luck I found it. Only for that good luck, my bones would be lying this minute in the ruins of Dinsmore & Hyde’s old warehouse.”
“It was a mighty bad piece of business,” breathed Bern, shaking his head. “Only for that accidental fire the Merriwell crowd would have had us all pinched. I can see what would have happened to us. The fire gave us a chance to break away, for they had to take care of themselves, and they were all afraid of being nabbed by the police or some one. You see you can’tblame me for leaving you, Mike. I didn’t know what had happened to you, and I don’t think the others did. It was pretty rank of the Merriwell bunch when they skipped out and left you there. Seems to me it was up to some of them to look after you.”
“Well, they didn’t,” lied Mike. “But why didn’t some of you fellows come around last night to find out whether I reached my room or not? Toleman was the only chap who had decency enough to poke his nose in here.”
“We sent him.”
“Oh, you did?”
“Yes. He came back and reported you were here. We didn’t think it best to come around in a bunch just then. I’m the first one to show up this morning, ain’t I? Well, doesn’t that indicate that I take some interest?”
“Oh, yes,” mocked Mike, as he buttoned his collar and began knotting his necktie. “I expect you were so terribly disturbed over me that you didn’t sleep a wink.”
“Well, I didn’t sleep much,” confessed Wolfe. “I haven’t been doing much sleeping for the past two or three weeks. I’m getting thin, and I feel like a leftover jag the most of the time.”
“Don’t tell me how you feel. I’ve got a bump as big as a lemon here on my coconut. My head aches. My neck is stiff. My back is lame, and every breath I exhale smells of smoke. All on your account, too. And you come around here and growl! You make me sick. Get out of my way! Sit down!”
Lynch thrust his companion on a chair just as the door opened and other visitors appeared.