CHAPTER XLVTHE FORGERY
Benton King, called upon, rose and expressed regret that circumstances had involved him in the unfortunate affair. He spoke hurriedly, without looking at Locke, although he was well aware that Tom’s eyes were fixed upon him all the while.
At the first sight of Kingsbridge’s left-handed pitcher, he stated, he had been struck by the thought that he had seen the man somewhere before, and, after racking his brain, he suddenly recalled that it was at a game played the previous year, between Princeton and Harvard, when Locke, to use the name he had given in Kingsbridge, had sat in uniform upon the Princeton bench.
He went on to explain, with an effort to hide any personal animosity in the matter, that the man’s denial that he was Hazelton had led him to communicate with a friend in New York, requesting this friend to go to Princeton for the purpose of obtaining the photograph of the college pitcher.This the friend had done, getting the picture from the photographer who was generally patronized by the undergraduates. Concluding, King produced the photograph and the letter that had accompanied it in the same mail, and placed them in evidence.
Locke listened and watched, without making a movement, a scornful smile on his lips. He heard the letter read by King, and saw it turned over, with the picture, to Anson Graham. The president glanced at the letter, then seemed to make a comparison of the photographed features and those of the young man standing so enigmatically cool beside the chair of Henry Cope.
“Sir,” said Graham, extending the picture, “do you deny that this is your likeness?”
Locke barely glanced at it.
“It is my picture,” he acknowledged.
“And that,” exulted Mike Riley, “doessettle it! He’s Hazelton, and here’s a letter from him, dated December twenty-seven, last year, answering a letter o’ mine, in which I offered him twenty-five a week and board to pitch fer Bancroft this season, a-sayin’ he wanted forty ’n’ board. Take notice that he don’t say he won’t play for twenty-five, but that it’s jest a clever try to boost me t’ forty. I base my claim on that letter.
“I cal’late this smooth guy, who’s had the nerve to stan’ up here an’ practically swear that he ain’t Paul Hazelton, used my offer to boost his value with Mr. Cope, who, I hear, is payin’ him outer all reason. Sneaky, underhand work, I call it. Such a man is dang’r’us, an’ I hope that he will be put on the blacklist so that he won’t be able to play on any team in the league. That’s the way to fix him.”
“I would like,” said Locke, “the privilege of examining that letter.”
“Let him see it arter the rest have seen it,” said Riley. “’Twon’t do him no good t’ destroy it.”
“I have no desire to destroy it,” declared Tom, when the letter presently reached his hands and he had glanced it over. “On the contrary, I have a most powerful desire to preserve it carefully; for it is a miserable forgery, and it would give me no little satisfaction to see the scoundrels responsible for its production properly prosecuted for a criminal offense.”
“Bah!” snarled Riley. “More of his bluffin’. He must think we’re fools t’ let him put over anything like that on us. He’s trapped, an’ he can’t wiggle outer it. Mr. President, I urge immediate action on my protest, and I hope the directors ofthe league will put Mr. Paul Hazelton on the blacklist.”
Again Henry Cope tugged at Locke’s coat skirts; he looked pitifully downcast and disheartened.
“You tole me,” he whispered dolefully, “that you had it on ’em somehow, but it seems t’ me that they’ve got it on you.”
“Wait a minute, Mr. Cope,” was the cool reply; “this meeting is not over, and there is something mighty interesting yet to come.” He turned to the others. “Mr. President, I have some witnesses, waiting outside at my request, whom I ask leave to introduce. I will call them.”
Stepping swiftly to one of the open windows, he thrust his head out and called. Directly footsteps were again heard on the stairs. The door was flung open to admit Sam Bryant, the bell boy of the Central Hotel at Kingsbridge, followed by a stranger, who did not seem more than twenty years of age. The entrance of the boy appeared, for once, at least, to jostle Bob Hutchinson out of his usual unemotional calm, and the manager glared at Sam, alarm and menace in his unpleasant eyes.
“I have asserted that this letter,” said Locke,holding up the missive in question, “is a forgery. It is a rather clever imitation of my handwriting, a specimen of which was taken from my desk in my room last Sunday, together with a letter which the pilferer dared not present as evidence at this meeting.
“I have reasons to believe that a party present in this room was guilty of rifling that desk. It happens that I did a slight favor for the younger brother of this lad here, who is a bell boy at the Central, and Sammy’s conscience has been troubling him during the past few days, finally leading him into a confession which interested me not a little. Go ahead, Sammy, and tell what you have to tell.”
In less than a minute, the icy Mr. Hutchinson, warmed to the melting point, was on his feet denouncing Sammy Bryant as a wicked little fabricator; for the lad had told of being bribed by Hutchinson to slip the pass-key of Locke’s room from the office rack and unlock the door while Tom was absent at church, and had averred that, watching, he had seen Hutchinson sneak into the room.
“I’ll make you smart for this, you young rascal!” declared Hutch savagely. “You’ll lose your job, anyhow.”
“Mebbe,” returned the boy; “but you’ll loseyourn.”
“What’s this mess got t’ do with Hazelton’s letter ter me?” demanded Riley, essaying a diversion. “If it was true, which I don’t b’lieve at all, ’twouldn’t have nothin’ t’ do with the genuineness of that letter from Paul Hazelton.”
“But,” said Locke, something almost like pity in his contemptuous smile, “to illustrate what pitiful bunglers you and Hutchinson are, Riley, let me tell you that in making an imitation of my handwriting and attaching the supposed signature of Paul Hazelton, you have mired yourselves in a pit of your own digging. For, as I am not Paul Hazelton, a letter written in imitation of my penmanship and signed with his namemustbe a forgery. It is my turn now to put the work of a photographer in evidence.”