CHAPTER XX.DEFARGE PLOTTING AGAIN.
Although Bertrand Defarge had failed in his attempt to injure Merriwell and prevent him from leading the Yale nine to victory in the South, his malice had in no wise abated, and the team had scarcely returned to New Haven before he was again plotting darkly against the young athlete.
This time he felt confident of success, but he needed assistance to carry out the scheme, which he finally evolved for the undoing of Merriwell. He thought long over the men on whom he believed he could depend, but the list of Frank’s enemies had been considerably thinned and there were few to whom he could look for aid in his dastardly plans or whom he dared to take into his confidence.
At last he decided upon Roland Packard as a safe man, strong in his hatred of Merriwell. With his malicious plot well matured, he sent for Packard, without divulging anything of his purpose, but hinting mysteriously about “mutual interests” and “a man we both hate,” which he was confident would bring Roland to his room even though he might otherwise have ignored the invitation; for Packard was not an admirer of Defarge, and their hatred of Frank was the only common ground between them.
But, as Defarge had hoped, the hint that the manthey both were desirous of injuring was the reason for the summons was sufficient.
As usual, Packard was in anything but a pleasant mood when he entered Defarge’s room, and also, as usual, he had been drinking heavily.
“Well, you sent for me,” was Packard’s greeting. “What do you want?”
“Don’t!” whispered Defarge, slipping across the room and closing the door securely. “Be careful not to talk too loud. I would not have him catch on for the world, and some one might hear us.”
“Who is ‘him’?”
“You know.”
“Merriwell?”
“Of course.”
“I supposed so. If I remember correctly, you have not been in love with Frank Merriwell in the past.”
“Hardly,” admitted Defarge, although he took care to keep his voice lowered. “You know I have hated him. Sit down, Packard, and we will talk this matter over.”
Packard finally accepted the chair which Bertrand urged him to take. It was near a little table, on which sat a cut-glass decanter that contained a reddish-amber liquid. Defarge had placed that decanter in a conspicuous position for the purpose of having it fall beneath the eyes of his visitor.
Roland Packard, a Yale “medic,” had within a short time made a reputation for himself as a heavy drinker.On entering college he had seemed no worse than scores of other students in this respect, but circumstances and his own disposition had led him into bad ways. This Defarge knew very well, and he had rightly fancied that the sight of that decanter and its contents would attract Roland.
Defarge drew another chair near the table on which sat the decanter. There were glasses on it also. The curtains of the window were closely drawn.
Bertrand studied the face of his visitor closely for a moment, and what he saw there seemed to trouble him a little, for he shrugged his shoulders with an unconscious gesture of dismay. He even hesitated about offering Packard any of the contents of the decanter. The latter seemed to understand that something was the matter, and he frowned blackly.
“What is it?” he demanded. “Spit it right out!”
“Oh, nothing—nothing at all!” assured Bertrand, with a quick gesture. “I happened to think—of him!”
“Why are you so confoundedly afraid to speak his name?”
“Because I do not wish to be overheard. You do not know everything that has happened, Packard.”
“So you are afraid of him? Well, I’m not! I’m not afraid of a whole regiment of Merriwells!”
“Sh! That is why I sent for you. You are about the only one left who has not surrendered to him.”
“That’s right!” grated Roland. “It used to be different. Now everybody is bowing down to him and worshiping him. If a man opens his mouth aboutMerriwell in a public place he has every one who hears him on his back in a moment. Yale has gone Merriwell mad, Defarge! Even the instructors and professors take off their hats to him! Think of that! Why, he’s a regular little tin god! Isn’t it enough to make anybody sick! Isn’t it enough to drive a man to drink!”
“I am afraid it has driven you there too frequently.”
“What do you mean?”
“You are drinking pretty hard, Packard.”
“That’s nobody’s business but my own.”
“People will talk about it; besides, it’s beginning to show on you.”
As he made this remark, Bertrand glanced at Packard’s purplish countenance.
And this was a medical student! This man was one who should know that when he took alcohol into his stomach he was introducing it by a roundabout course to his brain!
Packard growled like a dog.
“Don’t get so personal in your remarks!” he retorted. “I don’t like it, especially from a fellow who is so afraid of Merriwell.”
Defarge flushed.
“You do not understand,” he declared. “Merriwell has a strange power over me. I don’t know what it is, but he can make me do anything he likes.”
“Hypnotism,” declared Packard.
“No!” cried the French youth. “I do not believe in hypnotism!”
“That doesn’t make any difference. Hypnotism is an actuality, whether you believe in it or not. I have known for some time that Merriwell possessed some sort of hypnotic power, else how does he always succeed in turning his enemies into friends?”
“He does not always succeed. He has not succeeded in your case—or in mine.”
“He’s come near it as far as you are concerned.”
“No! It’s not true!” panted Bertrand hotly. “Here, here,” beating on his chest, “I feel the same hatred for him slumbering! But he can read my secrets! I have to avoid him! I am afraid of a man who can read my mind, for sometimes I think of things I would not have any one but myself know.”
“Haven’t a doubt of that. We all do. I wouldn’t like to have all my thoughts published in the Lit.”
“That’s it. Besides, he holds me under his thumb.”
“That’s bad,” said Packard, with a sneering laugh. “No man can hold me there.”
“If he could read your thoughts he might. You do not know everything that has happened since Merriwell returned to college.”
“You mean since the Southern trip of the ball-team?”
“No; before that—while the men were training for the team. You know I trained and tried to get on.”
“Yes.”
“I failed.”
“Merriwell kept you off.”
“I ruined my chances one day when I tried to spoilMerriwell for any use this spring. I laid for him out along the road when the men took their run into the country. Had not the devil protected him, I’d fixed him by dropping a stone on his head. He fell down, and the stone missed his head by about an inch. Had he not fallen just at that instant—well, Frank Merriwell would not be running the Yale nine now.”
“He certainly has Satan’s luck! He’s a man who would not fall down once in five years, yet he fell just then.”
“Exactly. I thought I had fixed him all right, for it was rather dark, being in the early part of the evening. I hustled away from that place and got into the road behind him without being seen, coming up to him with others. And there he was, all right and well. But the stone——”
“Ah! the stone,” said Packard. “Did it recognize you and sing out, ‘Hello, Defarge?’”
“It had caused him to stop. He knew somebody had thrown it. He told them.”
“But you had been coming along the road far behind with others. How could it have been you who threw the stone? My dear fellow, you must have given yourself away by your actions.”
“Not at all. But I had been at the tail-end of the party when I dropped off and cut across through a lane to reach the road by which I knew they would return to town. Two of the fellows saw me sit down beside the road as if to fix my shoe. They came up while I was there with the gang around Merriwell, and oneof them spoke up and asked me how the dickens I got ahead of them.”
“Bad!” commented Packard. “Dead give away. Put Merriwell on the scent.”
“No; Hodge.”
“The devil!”
“Just as bad! He went back there that very night with a lantern and found my handkerchief which I had dropped on the spot where I stood when I threw the stone.”
Packard nodded.
“A man who throws a stone at an enemy always makes a fool of himself by dropping a handkerchief or doing some other foolish thing to give himself away. I wonder why that is? I don’t understand it.”
“Well, Hodge demanded my exposure to the fac.,” said Defarge.
“Like Hodge.”
“To save myself, I faked up a pretty little story about being compelled by Morgan to do what I did. I thought Merriwell would come down on Morgan’s neck, and I had it in for Morgan.”
“He’s like all the others—beginning to crawl before Merriwell.”
“That’s why I hate him! I thought he would stand out, but he has thrown up the sponge. He’s even said sharp things to me. I told him he could not make the ball-team. I expected Merriwell would drop him from that, at least. Instead of that, he came upon me one night here in this room and forced me to acknowledgethat I had lied about Morgan. More than that, he made me promise that I would never again lift a hand to harm him. And,” finished Defarge, in a husky whisper, “may I drop dead if I’ve ever been able to do so from that time to this!”