CHAPTERIII.THE MISSING WATCH.“What?” cried Bart, more than ever astonished; “you don’t think you’ll——Oh, come, Merriwell, what’s the matter?”Frank flung himself on a chair.“I told you before that I do not fancy this business of spying on a fellow. I haven’t changed my mind.”“But you agreed to go along. You wished to convince me that Hooker was on the square.”“I don’t know that I wish to convince anybody.”“Why—why——”“Hooker was here a short time ago, and I had a talk with him.”“I don’t suppose you gave him a hint——”Bart had started up, but Frank motioned for him to sit down.“Of course not!” he exclaimed. “Do you think I’d let him know that anybody could induce me to spy upon him?”“I didn’t know but you might let something slip,” muttered Bart--“something to put him on his guard.”“Not a word. I found him here in my room waiting for me. Why do you suppose he came?”“I don’t know.”“It was to tell me that he had learned I was to be cut out by the best men in college for associating with him. Now, how do you suppose he found that out?”“Give it up.”“Some unfeeling dog must have flung it at him!”“Well, is this why you have decided not to follow him to-night?”“Hodge, that man came to me all broken up. He sat where you are sitting now, and he told me how happy it had made him to know there was one man at Yale who had shown friendship for him.”Bart moved uneasily.“How do you think that made me feel?” asked Frank.Hodge cleared his throat.“Oh, I suppose it made you feel slushy!” he blurted. “I can’t stand that sort of thing myself. Why didn’t you run away?”“If ever a fellow seemed sincere, he did.”“Don’t doubt it.”“He confessed that he had been tempted more than once, when all the world was against him, but in the future he should have greater strength to resist temptation, knowing there was one who believed in him.”“That’s all right,” muttered Bart, feeling that he must say something.“Is it all right? How would it look if I were to play the spy on him to-night? Would it seem to him, if he knew it, that I believed in him?”“Well, as—er—as Dismal Jones says, ‘By their works ye shall know them.’ In these modern times, faith without proof is regarded as folly. If you were to convince yourself that Hooker did not visit the slums from any evil reason, then you would have all the more confidence in him. A man’s actions prove what he is.”“You make a good argument, Hodge, but I don’t believe I’ll go, just the same. I should feel guilty all the time I was doing it.”“Well,” said Bart desperately, “I’m not going to coax you!”“Don’t.”“But you may be doing Hooker harm by not going.”“Harm, Hodge?”“Yes.”“How?”“Well, I’ve told Browning and Diamond what we meant to do.”“You have?”“Sure.”“I’m sorry.”“Now, if you do not go, do you know what they’ll think?”“What?”“They’ll think you actually feared you might discover something that would cause you to change your mind about Hooker. They’ll think that, having picked the fellow up, you are not willing to learn the truth about him, but are going to stick to him, anyway.”Frank got up and walked across the room. Bart watched him with some anxiety.“If I could be sure Hooker would not know it,” muttered Merry.“Why should he know it?” cried Bart instantly.“I might go along with you for the satisfaction of teaching you a lesson. I believe I will!”“Good!”“If such stories are afloat about Hooker, it’s time somebody investigated. If the stories can be proved lies, it may have something to do with giving the fellow better standing.”“Exactly.”“That being the case, it may be my work to take hold of it and show his defamers that he is all right.”“Come on!” Bart sprang up.“All right,” said Frank, “I am going. I shall go, because I wish to be able when a man tells a slander about Hooker to say that I know it is not true. I have an interest in the unfortunate fellow, and I shall take chances in helping him; but we must be very careful not to let him catch on that he is being followed.”“Hurry,” urged Bart. “The evening is beginning to creep along, and we don’t want him to get away from us.”Frank hustled around and got ready to go. Bart waited impatiently while Merry searched for something.“What are you looking for?” asked Hodge.“My watch,” was the reply.“Can’t you find it?”“No.”“Where did you have it last?”“In another suit, but it’s not there.”“Haven’t you left it lying around?”“Sometimes I do.”Bart joined in the search.“It’s mighty queer,” declared Frank.“It is rather odd,” admitted Bart, in a singular manner.“It should be right here.”They looked almost everywhere, and at last, Frank stopped and stood staring about in a perplexed manner.“That watch hasn’t any legs,” said Bart.“But it has a pair of hands,” twinkled Merry.“It couldn’t walk off on its hands.”“Not unless it’s suddenly developed into a circus acrobat.”“Somebody must have helped it.”“Oh, I don’t think that!” cried Frank. “I don’t believe anybody would touch my watch.”“Well, I’m glad you think so,” came in a significant manner from Bart.There was a cloud on Frank’s brow as he looked sharply at Bart.“What are you driving at?” he asked.“Well, you have a new friend who was here a short time ago.”“Hooker?”“That’s the name.”“Don’t, Hodge—don’t try to put the blame on that poor fellow!”“All right. You may think what you like, and I’ll think—what I like.”“By heavens! I believe you are glad of this opportunity to put suspicion on him! You are like other human beings, ready to kick a man who is down!”“I have no sympathy with a sneak-thief!” said Bart harshly. “If Hooker has taken your watch, he’s a dirty sneak! You are a man who has shown friendship for him, and he steals from you! What do you think of that?”“I do not believe he did it!” declared Merry, clearly and emphatically.“But the circumstantial evidence.”“Look here, Hodge, have you forgotten that, more than once, you have nearly been convicted of crime by circumstantial evidence, and you were perfectly innocent on every count? You should not forget that everybody turned against you, while I alone stood by you. You should not forget how near you were to giving up in despair because things looked so black against you.”Bart Hodge flushed crimson, for, of a sudden, he remembered that there had been a time when his position was much like that of Jim Hooker. In that time of trouble Frank had proved to be a firm and trusty friend.“You’ve not known Hooker as you knew me,” he muttered.Frank saw that Hodge was stirred by shame, and he instantly said, dropping a hand on Bart’s shoulder:“Forgive me, old man! I didn’t mean to speak of it, but I couldn’t help it. Let us hope that Hooker is quite as innocent as you were when wrongfully accused. Come, we will go.”With considerable trouble, they were able to follow Hooker from the campus to a Jew’s little store on a side street in a poor quarter of the city. From a position outside the store they saw the suspected student speak familiarly to the old Jew who kept the place, and pass on into a little back room, disappearing from view.“Well,” said Frank, “it looks to me as if this is the end of our great shadowing expedition.”“I wonder what he’s doing in there,” muttered Hodge, nonplused.“I think we’ll have to guess at it.”“He seemed perfectly at home.”“Yes.”“It’s plain he’s been here before.”“True.”Bart meditated, and then he said:“Merriwell, I have an idea.”“Do you wish to part with it?”“I believe this old Jew keeps a fence.”“You mean a place for receiving stolen goods?”“Yes.”“What makes you think that?”“Well, this is a cheap quarter of the city, and—and——Well, I think so.”“You think so because Hooker seemed quite at home there.”“Perhaps that is the reason.”“It’s a pretty slim reason.”“You do not believe it?”“Not because Hooker came here. You’ll have to show stronger evidence than that.”“I suppose we might turn detectives and find out.”Frank shook his head.“That is carrying the thing farther than I care to go, old man.”“Well, are we going to give it up here?”“All we can do is wait awhile and see if anything will turn up. Now that I have entered into this thing, I have a curiosity to see how it will turn out.”So they waited, and, in less than twenty minutes, they were rewarded by the reappearance of Hooker. They were watching through the front window of the shop, which was none too clean, and saw the outcast come from the back room, but both were surprised by his appearance, which was greatly altered.“Great Scott!” muttered Hodge. “What’s he been doing?”“He’s changed his clothes,” said Frank instantly.“Changed them! I should say he had! Why, I hardly knew him at first.”“Nor I.”“He looks like a tough now.”“He looks pretty seedy,” confessed Frank. “What kind of a game is he up to, I wonder?”Hooker had paused a moment to speak to the old Jew.“Then it is beginning to dawn on you,” said Bart triumphantly, “that he may be up to some sort of a game?”“He can’t be going to a masquerade in that rig.”“He might be going to a poverty ball, but Hooker isn’t the sort of chap to take in balls of any kind.”The shadowed student had changed his respectable clothing for a ragged suit and a battered soft hat, which was slouched over his eyes. In fact, his appearance had been altered by the change of clothing so that he now seemed decidedly disreputable.“No, he is not going to attend a ball,” said the dazed Merriwell. “By Jove! this affair is becoming interesting, Hodge! It can’t be that he’s been forced to sell his clothes in order to raise some money, can it, Hodge?”“Sell nothing!” exclaimed Bart. “Do you think he’d wear that sort of rig back to college? Why, he’d be ridiculous!”“But some of the men who have money to burn sometimes dress almost as bad as that.”“But not hardly. They do not look like toughs, and Mr. Hooker now looks like an out-and-out tough.”To himself Merriwell had reluctantly confessed that the change of clothes had made a most remarkable alteration in the appearance of the suspected student, for he now had a sinister, evil aspect that was awakening strange doubts and forebodings in the mind of his only champion and defender in the college. In his heart, Frank could not deny that Hooker now seemed like a genuine sneak and crook. It was a regular Jekyll-and-Hyde metamorphosis.The old Jew seemed to be laughing in an evil fashion at the alteration in the student, rubbing his hands, nodding his head and making characteristic gestures.“Perhaps,” said Bart, as if struck by a new idea, “perhaps Hooker is an out-and-out ruffian. Have you read in the papers how a number of persons have been held up and robbed by a mysterious footpad on the outskirts of the city?”Frank had read of it, and he was obliged to say so. More than that, a thought of the robberies had entered his head at the very moment Bart spoke of them.“Merriwell,” came eagerly from Hodge, “we may be able to clear up the mystery of those robberies to-night!”“I hope not!” came huskily from Frank.“I know it’s rather hard on you after you had such confidence in the fellow,” said Hodge; “but if he is a thorough scoundrel you want to know it, don’t you?”“Of course.”“Even though it may shatter all your faith in the natural honesty of human nature?”“It will not.”“Won’t?”“Not on your life! Even though I may find that I have been fooled in this fellow, I shall not give up my firm belief that there is more good than evil in human nature.”“Well, I admire you for the way you stick to your pet theory, but your belief must get shaken up sometimes. You have a way of looking on all men as honest till they prove themselves otherwise; I have a way of looking on all men as dishonest till they prove themselves otherwise, and I watch them after that, for fear they may get tired of being honest.”“You’re a pessimist.”“Call me what you like, I’ll not get fooled as many times as you do. You must be satisfied by this time that there is something crooked in Hooker.”“I am not.”“Well, you’re stubborn.”“I’m hopeful.”Hodge laughed shortly.“But I can see that you are beginning to doubt. Your manner of speaking shows that. What will you do, Merriwell, if we follow this fellow and he attempts to hold up and rob some stranger?”“If I can get near enough,” said Frank grimly, “I shall do my best to give Jim Hooker the worst thrashing he ever received.”“And afterward—will you turn him over to the police?”“Most assuredly.”“That being the case, I have a fancy that Mr. Hooker’s career in New Haven is pretty near an end. We must not let him see us when he comes out.”“Wait. I want to watch him. I am trying to make out what the old Jew is saying to him.”“It looks to me as if he’s telling Hooker where to go in order to make a strike,” said Hodge.And, strangely enough, that thought had occurred to Frank. Still, Merry was not willing to give up hope that Hooker might turn out right, after all. To be sure, the fellow’s actions were against him, but, as yet, he had done nothing actually bad. For all that he regretted the evident probability that Hooker was not “on the level,” still Merry was glad now that he had consented to come with Hodge and watch the fellow.“He’s coming out!” exclaimed Bart.They hurriedly drew back into a dark doorway. The old Jew followed Hooker to the door, where they paused a moment, and the shopkeeper was distinctly heard to say:“You vant to be careful, my young frient; you may ged indo drouple, you know.”Hooker said something in a low tone, and then started off, while the Jew turned back into the shop.“Come,” said Frank, “and we must be careful, too. I want to see this thing through to the end.”They followed Hooker.
“What?” cried Bart, more than ever astonished; “you don’t think you’ll——Oh, come, Merriwell, what’s the matter?”
Frank flung himself on a chair.
“I told you before that I do not fancy this business of spying on a fellow. I haven’t changed my mind.”
“But you agreed to go along. You wished to convince me that Hooker was on the square.”
“I don’t know that I wish to convince anybody.”
“Why—why——”
“Hooker was here a short time ago, and I had a talk with him.”
“I don’t suppose you gave him a hint——”
Bart had started up, but Frank motioned for him to sit down.
“Of course not!” he exclaimed. “Do you think I’d let him know that anybody could induce me to spy upon him?”
“I didn’t know but you might let something slip,” muttered Bart--“something to put him on his guard.”
“Not a word. I found him here in my room waiting for me. Why do you suppose he came?”
“I don’t know.”
“It was to tell me that he had learned I was to be cut out by the best men in college for associating with him. Now, how do you suppose he found that out?”
“Give it up.”
“Some unfeeling dog must have flung it at him!”
“Well, is this why you have decided not to follow him to-night?”
“Hodge, that man came to me all broken up. He sat where you are sitting now, and he told me how happy it had made him to know there was one man at Yale who had shown friendship for him.”
Bart moved uneasily.
“How do you think that made me feel?” asked Frank.
Hodge cleared his throat.
“Oh, I suppose it made you feel slushy!” he blurted. “I can’t stand that sort of thing myself. Why didn’t you run away?”
“If ever a fellow seemed sincere, he did.”
“Don’t doubt it.”
“He confessed that he had been tempted more than once, when all the world was against him, but in the future he should have greater strength to resist temptation, knowing there was one who believed in him.”
“That’s all right,” muttered Bart, feeling that he must say something.
“Is it all right? How would it look if I were to play the spy on him to-night? Would it seem to him, if he knew it, that I believed in him?”
“Well, as—er—as Dismal Jones says, ‘By their works ye shall know them.’ In these modern times, faith without proof is regarded as folly. If you were to convince yourself that Hooker did not visit the slums from any evil reason, then you would have all the more confidence in him. A man’s actions prove what he is.”
“You make a good argument, Hodge, but I don’t believe I’ll go, just the same. I should feel guilty all the time I was doing it.”
“Well,” said Bart desperately, “I’m not going to coax you!”
“Don’t.”
“But you may be doing Hooker harm by not going.”
“Harm, Hodge?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“Well, I’ve told Browning and Diamond what we meant to do.”
“You have?”
“Sure.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Now, if you do not go, do you know what they’ll think?”
“What?”
“They’ll think you actually feared you might discover something that would cause you to change your mind about Hooker. They’ll think that, having picked the fellow up, you are not willing to learn the truth about him, but are going to stick to him, anyway.”
Frank got up and walked across the room. Bart watched him with some anxiety.
“If I could be sure Hooker would not know it,” muttered Merry.
“Why should he know it?” cried Bart instantly.
“I might go along with you for the satisfaction of teaching you a lesson. I believe I will!”
“Good!”
“If such stories are afloat about Hooker, it’s time somebody investigated. If the stories can be proved lies, it may have something to do with giving the fellow better standing.”
“Exactly.”
“That being the case, it may be my work to take hold of it and show his defamers that he is all right.”
“Come on!” Bart sprang up.
“All right,” said Frank, “I am going. I shall go, because I wish to be able when a man tells a slander about Hooker to say that I know it is not true. I have an interest in the unfortunate fellow, and I shall take chances in helping him; but we must be very careful not to let him catch on that he is being followed.”
“Hurry,” urged Bart. “The evening is beginning to creep along, and we don’t want him to get away from us.”
Frank hustled around and got ready to go. Bart waited impatiently while Merry searched for something.
“What are you looking for?” asked Hodge.
“My watch,” was the reply.
“Can’t you find it?”
“No.”
“Where did you have it last?”
“In another suit, but it’s not there.”
“Haven’t you left it lying around?”
“Sometimes I do.”
Bart joined in the search.
“It’s mighty queer,” declared Frank.
“It is rather odd,” admitted Bart, in a singular manner.
“It should be right here.”
They looked almost everywhere, and at last, Frank stopped and stood staring about in a perplexed manner.
“That watch hasn’t any legs,” said Bart.
“But it has a pair of hands,” twinkled Merry.
“It couldn’t walk off on its hands.”
“Not unless it’s suddenly developed into a circus acrobat.”
“Somebody must have helped it.”
“Oh, I don’t think that!” cried Frank. “I don’t believe anybody would touch my watch.”
“Well, I’m glad you think so,” came in a significant manner from Bart.
There was a cloud on Frank’s brow as he looked sharply at Bart.
“What are you driving at?” he asked.
“Well, you have a new friend who was here a short time ago.”
“Hooker?”
“That’s the name.”
“Don’t, Hodge—don’t try to put the blame on that poor fellow!”
“All right. You may think what you like, and I’ll think—what I like.”
“By heavens! I believe you are glad of this opportunity to put suspicion on him! You are like other human beings, ready to kick a man who is down!”
“I have no sympathy with a sneak-thief!” said Bart harshly. “If Hooker has taken your watch, he’s a dirty sneak! You are a man who has shown friendship for him, and he steals from you! What do you think of that?”
“I do not believe he did it!” declared Merry, clearly and emphatically.
“But the circumstantial evidence.”
“Look here, Hodge, have you forgotten that, more than once, you have nearly been convicted of crime by circumstantial evidence, and you were perfectly innocent on every count? You should not forget that everybody turned against you, while I alone stood by you. You should not forget how near you were to giving up in despair because things looked so black against you.”
Bart Hodge flushed crimson, for, of a sudden, he remembered that there had been a time when his position was much like that of Jim Hooker. In that time of trouble Frank had proved to be a firm and trusty friend.
“You’ve not known Hooker as you knew me,” he muttered.
Frank saw that Hodge was stirred by shame, and he instantly said, dropping a hand on Bart’s shoulder:
“Forgive me, old man! I didn’t mean to speak of it, but I couldn’t help it. Let us hope that Hooker is quite as innocent as you were when wrongfully accused. Come, we will go.”
With considerable trouble, they were able to follow Hooker from the campus to a Jew’s little store on a side street in a poor quarter of the city. From a position outside the store they saw the suspected student speak familiarly to the old Jew who kept the place, and pass on into a little back room, disappearing from view.
“Well,” said Frank, “it looks to me as if this is the end of our great shadowing expedition.”
“I wonder what he’s doing in there,” muttered Hodge, nonplused.
“I think we’ll have to guess at it.”
“He seemed perfectly at home.”
“Yes.”
“It’s plain he’s been here before.”
“True.”
Bart meditated, and then he said:
“Merriwell, I have an idea.”
“Do you wish to part with it?”
“I believe this old Jew keeps a fence.”
“You mean a place for receiving stolen goods?”
“Yes.”
“What makes you think that?”
“Well, this is a cheap quarter of the city, and—and——Well, I think so.”
“You think so because Hooker seemed quite at home there.”
“Perhaps that is the reason.”
“It’s a pretty slim reason.”
“You do not believe it?”
“Not because Hooker came here. You’ll have to show stronger evidence than that.”
“I suppose we might turn detectives and find out.”
Frank shook his head.
“That is carrying the thing farther than I care to go, old man.”
“Well, are we going to give it up here?”
“All we can do is wait awhile and see if anything will turn up. Now that I have entered into this thing, I have a curiosity to see how it will turn out.”
So they waited, and, in less than twenty minutes, they were rewarded by the reappearance of Hooker. They were watching through the front window of the shop, which was none too clean, and saw the outcast come from the back room, but both were surprised by his appearance, which was greatly altered.
“Great Scott!” muttered Hodge. “What’s he been doing?”
“He’s changed his clothes,” said Frank instantly.
“Changed them! I should say he had! Why, I hardly knew him at first.”
“Nor I.”
“He looks like a tough now.”
“He looks pretty seedy,” confessed Frank. “What kind of a game is he up to, I wonder?”
Hooker had paused a moment to speak to the old Jew.
“Then it is beginning to dawn on you,” said Bart triumphantly, “that he may be up to some sort of a game?”
“He can’t be going to a masquerade in that rig.”
“He might be going to a poverty ball, but Hooker isn’t the sort of chap to take in balls of any kind.”
The shadowed student had changed his respectable clothing for a ragged suit and a battered soft hat, which was slouched over his eyes. In fact, his appearance had been altered by the change of clothing so that he now seemed decidedly disreputable.
“No, he is not going to attend a ball,” said the dazed Merriwell. “By Jove! this affair is becoming interesting, Hodge! It can’t be that he’s been forced to sell his clothes in order to raise some money, can it, Hodge?”
“Sell nothing!” exclaimed Bart. “Do you think he’d wear that sort of rig back to college? Why, he’d be ridiculous!”
“But some of the men who have money to burn sometimes dress almost as bad as that.”
“But not hardly. They do not look like toughs, and Mr. Hooker now looks like an out-and-out tough.”
To himself Merriwell had reluctantly confessed that the change of clothes had made a most remarkable alteration in the appearance of the suspected student, for he now had a sinister, evil aspect that was awakening strange doubts and forebodings in the mind of his only champion and defender in the college. In his heart, Frank could not deny that Hooker now seemed like a genuine sneak and crook. It was a regular Jekyll-and-Hyde metamorphosis.
The old Jew seemed to be laughing in an evil fashion at the alteration in the student, rubbing his hands, nodding his head and making characteristic gestures.
“Perhaps,” said Bart, as if struck by a new idea, “perhaps Hooker is an out-and-out ruffian. Have you read in the papers how a number of persons have been held up and robbed by a mysterious footpad on the outskirts of the city?”
Frank had read of it, and he was obliged to say so. More than that, a thought of the robberies had entered his head at the very moment Bart spoke of them.
“Merriwell,” came eagerly from Hodge, “we may be able to clear up the mystery of those robberies to-night!”
“I hope not!” came huskily from Frank.
“I know it’s rather hard on you after you had such confidence in the fellow,” said Hodge; “but if he is a thorough scoundrel you want to know it, don’t you?”
“Of course.”
“Even though it may shatter all your faith in the natural honesty of human nature?”
“It will not.”
“Won’t?”
“Not on your life! Even though I may find that I have been fooled in this fellow, I shall not give up my firm belief that there is more good than evil in human nature.”
“Well, I admire you for the way you stick to your pet theory, but your belief must get shaken up sometimes. You have a way of looking on all men as honest till they prove themselves otherwise; I have a way of looking on all men as dishonest till they prove themselves otherwise, and I watch them after that, for fear they may get tired of being honest.”
“You’re a pessimist.”
“Call me what you like, I’ll not get fooled as many times as you do. You must be satisfied by this time that there is something crooked in Hooker.”
“I am not.”
“Well, you’re stubborn.”
“I’m hopeful.”
Hodge laughed shortly.
“But I can see that you are beginning to doubt. Your manner of speaking shows that. What will you do, Merriwell, if we follow this fellow and he attempts to hold up and rob some stranger?”
“If I can get near enough,” said Frank grimly, “I shall do my best to give Jim Hooker the worst thrashing he ever received.”
“And afterward—will you turn him over to the police?”
“Most assuredly.”
“That being the case, I have a fancy that Mr. Hooker’s career in New Haven is pretty near an end. We must not let him see us when he comes out.”
“Wait. I want to watch him. I am trying to make out what the old Jew is saying to him.”
“It looks to me as if he’s telling Hooker where to go in order to make a strike,” said Hodge.
And, strangely enough, that thought had occurred to Frank. Still, Merry was not willing to give up hope that Hooker might turn out right, after all. To be sure, the fellow’s actions were against him, but, as yet, he had done nothing actually bad. For all that he regretted the evident probability that Hooker was not “on the level,” still Merry was glad now that he had consented to come with Hodge and watch the fellow.
“He’s coming out!” exclaimed Bart.
They hurriedly drew back into a dark doorway. The old Jew followed Hooker to the door, where they paused a moment, and the shopkeeper was distinctly heard to say:
“You vant to be careful, my young frient; you may ged indo drouple, you know.”
Hooker said something in a low tone, and then started off, while the Jew turned back into the shop.
“Come,” said Frank, “and we must be careful, too. I want to see this thing through to the end.”
They followed Hooker.