Kitabı oku: «Dick Merriwell's Trap: or, The Chap Who Bungled», sayfa 13
“You’re a ’ole lot of hiddiots!” he cried, his disgust breaking all bounds. “You heven laugh at a fool!”
“Don’t – don’t cast reflections on yourself!” said Smart.
Billy reached for him, but Ted knew better than to fall into those muscular hands, and he dodged away.
“Hi’ll ’ave nothing more to do with you!” declared the Cockney lad, as he turned and stalked out of the room, and the laughter behind him added to his disgust as he closed the door.
CHAPTER XXV – THE SPOOK APPEARS
Ted Smart saw it first, but no one believed him when he told about it. Ted declared that he turned over in bed and beheld a white, ghostly form floating slowly and silently across the room about two feet from the floor. He also declared that he could see through the white form and discern solid objects on the farther side. But every one knew Smart was given to exaggeration, and so they laughed.
“Did you really see anything at all?” asked one.
“Oh, no!” exclaimed Ted derisively; “I didn’t see a thing. I am stone blind, and I can’t see anything.”
“But it was dark.”
“Oh, the moon didn’t shine in at the window at all!” retorted the little fellow. “It was dark as pitch! I can see better in the dark than I can in the daylight!”
All of which meant exactly the opposite.
“Well, what was the spook doing in your room, Smart?”
“Ask me! Just floating round, I fancy. But when the old thing floated my way I just sat up and said, ‘Shoo!’ like that. The thing stopped and stretched out a hand toward me. I said, ‘Oh, Lord!’ and went right down under the bedclothes. I don’t know how long I stayed there, but when I rubbered out the spook was gone.”
“A pretty bad case of nightmare,” was the verdict, but Ted did not accept it. He insisted that something had been in his room. True, his door was locked when he got up and looked around, and the “something” was gone.
Ted was the last fellow at Fardale to be able to impress any one with such a story. They guyed him at every opportunity about it. One after another the boys came to him and asked him to tell them about the “spook.” They kept him repeating the story over and over until he became tired of it. Then when he became disgusted and refused to talk about it any more they laughed and kept up the sport by gathering around him and repeating what he had said.
Later in the day, Smart said:
“I wonder if spooks have to comb their hair. My pet comb and silver-backed hair-brush are gone. Don’t know where they could have gone to unless my spook took them.”
Of course he was advised to look around thoroughly in his room for the missing articles. He did so, but the comb and brush he could not find. Ted could not understand why any one should wish to steal the comb and brush.
The very next night Joe Savage saw the “spook.”
Savage and Gorman roomed together, although they were not the best of friends, having come to a misunderstanding over Dick Merriwell and football matters.
Joe knew not just what awakened him. It seemed like a long, low sigh. However, when he opened his eyes, he dimly saw a white form standing at the foot of his bed. His first thought was that Gorman had arisen for something, but a moment later he discovered that Gorman was peacefully sleeping beside him, breathing regularly and somewhat loudly.
Savage was a fellow of considerable nerve, but now he was startled in spite of himself. His room was not on the right side for the moonlight to shine in at his window, but still there was light enough for him to make out the white figure, which had the general semblance of a human being.
Joe thought of Smart’s spook-story.
“Rot!” he told himself. “That’s what’s the matter. I must be dreaming.”
He deliberately pinched himself, discovering that he was very wide-awake.
The thing seemed to be looking straight at him, and a feeling of unspeakable queerness froze him stiff in bed. He tried to convince himself that it was a case of imagination, but the longer he looked the plainer he could see the ghostly figure. After a while he became convinced that there really was something white there at the foot of the bed.
Then through the room again sounded that long, low, tremulous sigh. It was expressive of unspeakable sadness, and about it there was something inhuman and spiritlike.
Savage felt himself getting cold as ice. He began to shiver so that the bed shook. In that moment he was ashamed of himself, for he was not a fellow who believed in such nonsense as ghosts. Summoning all his will-power, he sat up in bed, expecting the thing would vanish, in which case he would be satisfied it was an hallucination of some sort. Instead of vanishing, the ghost stretched out a hand toward Joe as if to grasp him.
Immediately Savage lay down again. The thing slowly moved away, disappearing from view.
Joe lay there, hearing Gorman still breathing regularly and stentoriously, but straining his ears for some other sound.
The door leading from his room to the corridor was not in view.
Joe had remained silent thus a full minute or more. At last he forced himself to get out of bed and step out of the alcove into the room. He was still shaking, but he looked about in vain for the spook. The thing, had vanished from the room.
He crossed the floor quickly and tried the door. It was locked.
“Well,” said Savage to himself, “I wonder if I really did see anything! I’m almost ready to swear I did, and yet – ”
He lighted a match and looked around as well as he could. Lights were not permitted in the rooms at that hour, but he did not believe any one would observe the light from a burning match.
The striking of the match broke Gorman’s slumber. He choked, started, and sat up. He saw Savage in the middle of the room, holding the lighted match above his head.
“What’s up?” grunted Abe, rubbing his eyes.
“I am,” answered Joe.
“What are you looking for?”
“The spook.”
“Hey?”
“I saw it,” said Savage.
“What’s the matter with you?” growled Gorman, in deep disgust. “Come back to bed.”
The match burned Joe’s fingers and he dropped it.
“I saw something,” he declared.
“Been dreaming,” mumbled Gorman, lying down.
But the darkness seemed to convince Joe that he had really and truly seen something.
“No,” he declared grimly, “I know I saw something at the foot of the bed.”
“Pooh!” ejaculated Abe, and he got into a comfortable position and prepared to sleep again.
After returning to bed Joe lay a long time thinking the matter over.
“I’m not a fool,” he thought, “and I am ready to bet my life that there was some kind of a thing in this room.”
The impression settled on him so that he found it almost impossible to get to sleep. As he lay thus a sudden wild yell echoed through the corridors, followed by a commotion.
Joe had left the bed at a single bound as the yell rang out. Another bound seemed to take him to the door of his room. He found some difficulty in unlocking the door, as the key was not in the lock, and he was compelled to take it from the hook where it hung and use it to unlock the door.
By the time he got outside, with Gorman at his heels, the corridor was swarming with excited cadets in their night garments.
“What’s the racket?” asked Savage, of the nearest fellow.
“Jim Wilson saw a ghost,” was the laughing answer. “Wouldn’t that jar you!”
But immediately Savage was eager to question Wilson. This was prevented, however, at this time, as the boys were hustled into their rooms.
“What do you think of that?” asked Joe, when he and Gorman were back in their room.
“Jim Wilson’s a scare-baby,” returned Gorman. “If any other fellow had yelled like that I’d thought it a joke to get up a sensation. Wilson would never think of such a thing.”
“But I saw something here in this very room a while ago.”
“Don’t tell anybody that,” sneered Abe, as he again prepared to sleep. “They’ll take you for a big chump.”
Gorman was a fellow who liked to sleep, and he declined to make any further talk.
During the remainder of the night all was quiet about the academy.
CHAPTER XXVI – THINGS ARE MISSING
“Hey, Savage!” said Gorman, as they were rushing through dressing in order to be present at roll-call; “where’s my watch?”
“How do I know?” returned Joe, as he buttoned his shirt. “Where you put it, I suppose.”
“No it isn’t. It’s gone.”
“Well, I think you’ll find it if you look for it.”
“But I can’t find it!” snapped Gorman. “I left it right here on the table last night, where I leave it every night. It’s gone now.”
“Well, you needn’t look to me for it!” flung back Savage, whose temper had been ruffled by the tone assumed by his roommate. “I hope you don’t think I took your old watch? I have one of my own, and – Hey! where’s my knife?”
Savage was very neat and trim in his habits, and he always cleaned his finger-nails mornings when he reached a certain point in his dressing. It was shortly after washing his face and hands, as that was the best time to do so. Just now he had thrust his hand into his pocket for his knife, only to discover that it was gone.
Gorman paid no attention to Joe, but continued to look around for his watch, a scowl on his face.
Savage felt hastily through his pockets, then began to look around himself.
“Seen my knife?” he demanded.
“No!” snapped Abe; “but I’d like to see my watch. It’s mighty strange where that watch has disappeared to.”
Joe stood still, his hands in his pockets, thinking.
“I had that knife last night,” he muttered. “I sharpened a pencil with it. I was sitting right there by the table. I put it back into my pocket. Funny where it’s gone.”
Then the two boys found themselves staring suspiciously at each other.
“My watch is valuable,” said Gorman.
“My knife was a present from my mother,” said Savage. “I thought everything of it.”
“My watch was a present from my father. It was worth a neat little bit.”
“I can’t help that. I know it is a good watch. You’ll find it – ”
“I don’t know about finding it. I had it last evening. I wound it up just the same as usual before going to bed. I remember very distinctly winding it.”
“Well, your watch didn’t walk out of this room, did it?”
“How about your knife?”
There was little satisfaction in these questions, and they suddenly realized that they would have to hustle if they were to be on hand at roll-call, whereupon they hastily completed preparations and scudded out of the room, both in a very bad temper.
After roll-call and morning service there were a few moments before breakfast. Savage came upon a group gathered about Gorman, who was telling of the mysterious disappearance of his watch. Just as he came up, Jim Wilson joined the group.
“Lost your watch right out of your room?” he said. “Well, I lost mine last night, so I’m in the same scrape.”
“Perhaps your ghost took it, Jim,” laughed one of the group of lads.
“Ghost?” exclaimed Gorman. “Why, confound it! Savage said something about a ghost. I woke up in the night and found him standing in the middle of the floor, holding a lighted match over his head. He was white as a sheet.”
“How about that, Savage?” demanded several of the boys, who had noted the approach of Joe.
Savage shrugged his shoulders.
“I wasn’t going to say anything about it,” he declared; “but I did see something in our room last night.”
Jim Wilson grew excited.
“What was it like?” he asked wildly, much to the amusement of some of the boys. “Was it tall and white, with long arms, and did it just seem to float along without making a sound?”
“I couldn’t see it very plainly. It stood at the foot of the bed. But it was white.”
“Did it groan just awful?”
“No; but it uttered a doleful sigh.”
“My ghost groaned. Gosh! It made my hair stand right up. Then when the thing lifted its arm I just gave a yell. It vanished quick enough. I got out of the room. Don’t know how I got out there. Don’t know how I opened the door. Perhaps it was open. I can’t say. Laugh, you fellows! I don’t care! I tell you there was something in my room!”
“I suppose you fellows know,” said a tall, solemn lad, “that a chap committed suicide here at the academy once?”
“No?” cried several.
“Sure thing,” nodded the tall fellow. “Cut his throat. He was daffy.”
“Dear me!” murmured Ted Smart, who had just strolled along in company with Dick Merriwell. “What a delightful way to kick the bucket! I admire his taste!”
“But was there a fellow who really committed suicide here?”
“Yes,” nodded Dick Merriwell. “My brother told me about it. His name was Bolt. The room he killed himself in was closed for a long time. Some of the fellows used to sneak into it nights when they wanted a little racket. There was a story about the room being haunted; but, of course, that was bosh.”
“Was it?” said the tall fellow, in a queer way.
“Perhaps it is the ghost of Cadet Bolt that is romping around here once more,” suggested a mocking lad.
“What do you think, Smart?” questioned a boy with squinting eyes.
“I have found it a bad practise to think,” answered Ted evasively. “It is wearing on the gray matter, don’t you know.”
But they observed that Smart was not as lively and jocular as usual.
“This spook seems to be a collector of relics,” said Dick. “He has collected something wherever he has appeared. First he got away with Smart’s comb and brush, then Gorman’s watch; Savage lost a knife, and Wilson is also out a watch.”
“Well, what do you think of it?” was the point-blank question put to Dick.
“It’s very remarkable,” confessed Merriwell.
“Oh, there’s nothing in the ghost-story, of course!” said a bullet-headed boy.
“Perhaps there is,” said Dick.
“What?” cried several, in surprise.
“You don’t believe it?” said one. “You don’t take stock in spooks?”
“I might not take stock in this one,” admitted Dick, “if it were not that he has taken stock wherever he had visited. In other words, the fact that he has carried off some valuable articles leads me to believe in him.”
“But how – ”
“Why – ”
“You don’t – ”
“I can’t see – ”
“You mean – ”
“It seems likely that somebody, or something, has been prowling round this building,” said Dick, cutting them all short. “There goes the breakfast-bell.”
There was a general movement to form into ranks to march to the dining-hall by classes, as was the custom, and the subject was dropped for the time being.
CHAPTER XXVII – DICK MAKES A DISCOVERY
The mystery of the “spook” that had so suddenly appeared at the academy grew with every night. Strange sounds were heard in the corridors, sentinels were frightened, and little articles and things of value continued to disappear from the rooms of the cadets.
“I wonder if this yere spook has visited us, pard?” said Brad Buckhart, one morning.
“Why?” asked Dick.
“My knife is gone now. The critter seems to take to knives and such things as a duck takes to water, and so I thought maybe he had wandered in here and appropriated my sticker.”
But Brad dismissed the matter with that, nothing more being said about it.
The “spook” excitement continued to provide a topic of interest for the boys, but the approach of the football-game with the New Era A. A. finally surpassed it in interest.
Various were the opinions expressed in regard to the probable outcome of the game with New Era. Some thought New Era would not be able to score, some thought she would make the game interesting, some even thought there was a chance for her to win; but the majority seemed inclined to the idea that Fardale, thus far undefeated, would not fall before this team.
When the report came that the Trojan A. A., which had been defeated by Fardale, had not permitted New Era to score and had rolled up twenty-eight points, it seemed a settled thing that the cadets were to have an easy time of it. The members of the team grew overconfident, something Dick warned them against.
“Oh, we’ll eat those galoots up!” declared Buckhart.
“Perhaps so,” said Dick; “but we don’t want to be too sure of it. You know it is never possible to know just what to expect from one of these independent teams. They are full of tricks, and they are not over-particular about their methods.”
“Oh, if they are looking for rough-house, they can find it! Remember what happened to the Trojans when they tried that sort of business.”
Dick remembered that the Trojans had been battered into a state of amazed decency.
Chester Arlington’s interest in the football-team seemed very keen. He was out every day to watch practise, and he cheered and encouraged the boys like a most loyal supporter of the eleven. He even went further than that. Darrell’s shoulder had been injured, and Chester declared he knew just how to massage the muscles to bring it back into perfect condition. He peeled off his coat, to the surprise of all, and gave Hal’s shoulder a rubbing after practise each day.
And it was a fact that Darrell’s shoulder improved amazingly beneath this treatment. Seeing which, some of the other fellows, who were bruised or lame, ventured to ask Chester to give them a little attention.
Dick was not a little surprised when Arlington consented and seemed so intensely eager to have every man on the team in the finest possible condition.
Buckhart looked on in deepest distrust. Leaving Arlington in the gym, working over Bradley, stripped of coat, vest, and hat, and sweating handsomely, Brad followed Dick from the building and spoke to him as they walked toward the barracks.
“This yere Ches Arlington is puzzling me some, I admit I can’t just make out his little game now.”
“Then you think he’s up to some game?” asked Dick.
“Pard, he’s crooked. He’s been against us ever since he found he couldn’t get on the team. There is no reason why he should flop now.”
Dick thought how Chester had been compelled to humble himself and ask a favor. Was it possible there had come a change of heart in the fellow?
“I suppose you’re right, Brad,” he said. “But I don’t see what harm he can do. He seems to be doing considerable good.”
“I wouldn’t let him put his paws on me if every bone in my body was out of place and he could put them all back!” exploded the Westerner. “Bradley’s just thick-headed chump enough to let him do it.”
In the meantime, Arlington had attended to Billy Bradley, who was the last one to seek his attention, and had donned his coat and vest and found Hal Darrell waiting. Bradley departed, leaving Arlington and Darrell together.
“Well, Arlington, old man,” said Darrell, with a puzzled smile, “I never thought you’d come down to it.”
Chester flushed a bit.
“Come down to what?” he asked.
“Rubbing these fellows you consider so far beneath you. It is amazing!”
“I suppose so,” admitted Chester.
“You have turned Good Samaritan.”
“For my own benefit.”
“For your benefit?”
“Exactly.”
“I fail to catch on. How for your benefit?”
“I’ve got to get on my feet somehow, Darrell. You know my dislike for Merriwell has led me into betting heavily against Fardale, and I have been soaked good and hard.”
“Yes, I know.”
“I know you did, but every time I thought I had a sure thing. With Merriwell off the team I should have been eager for Fardale to win. With him on it, I hated him so much that I was more than eager for the other side to win. Fardale secured victory after victory; but that simply made me all the more confident that the tide must turn and she must lose. What’s the result? I’m flat. Of course, I can get more money, but really, old man, I’m ashamed to call for it.”
Thinking of the money Chester had lost and had squandered in foolish ways, Hal did not wonder that he was ashamed. Truly, it was astonishing that a boy of Chester’s years could have so much money to fling about without thought or reason.
“That’s the explanation,” nodded Arlington. “I must get on my feet somehow.”
“I don’t see how you expect to do it by – ”
“This time I’ll back Fardale.”
“Why, you can’t find any one to bet on New Era.”
“Oh, yes, I can! Those New Era fellows have sent some chaps into town looking for bets.”
“Why, great Scott! we downed the Trojans, and the Trojans buried New Era!”
“All the same, the sports who are looking for bets seem confident that New Era will make Fardale look like thirty cents.”
“But you say you’re broke. How are you going to – ”
“I’ve raised money on everything I could hook. I’ve borrowed some. I want to borrow ten of you, Hal. You know I’ll pay if I lose, but I won’t lose. Will you let me have a sawbuck? It’s my chance to get even, and I’m going to make the best of it.”
“Why, yes, I think I can squeeze out a tenner,” said Darrell.
“But you will be in up to your eyes if we happen by any chance to drop this game.”
“If Fardale loses, I’ll have to make a clean breast to mother and get her to put me on Easy Street again. But Fardale’s not going to lose. That’s one thing I’m sure of. And I want every man in the best possible condition. That’s why I’m working so hard on the fellows who will let me polish them up. See?”
Hal saw, but still it seemed strange that Chester Arlington, proud, haughty, independent, should do what he was doing.
The following day was Friday. After practise Arlington again stripped in the gym and gave his attention to those who would have him.
There was more or less football talk, and the boys gradually dressed and wandered out. A few were left when a little incident occurred that must be recorded.
Again Arlington was working over Bradley. Sweating, he paused to pull out his handkerchief and wipe off his face. As he removed the handkerchief from his pocket a knife dropped to the floor. He picked it up and then paused, staring at it.
Dick noticed this, and he saw Chester stop and stare at the knife. He also noted a frown on Arlington’s face, a puzzled expression. Suddenly Dick showed interest.
“Let me see that knife, Arlington,” he demanded.
Chester surrendered it.
“Is this your knife?” asked Dick, with something like accusation in his voice and manner.
“No,” admitted Chester, “it is not.”
“But it came out of your pocket?”
“It dropped to the floor when I took my handkerchief out. I never saw it before.”
Dick stood looking straight at Chester. Somehow Arlington’s manner seemed truthful. In a moment, however, he grew angry beneath Dick’s persistent gaze.
“What do you mean by staring at me that way?” he demanded hotly. “Do you think I’m lying?”
“No,” said Dick, turning away and putting the knife in his pocket. “I know the owner of this knife, and I’ll give it to him.” Then he walked out.
Chester started as if to follow him, but stopped and turned back, saying to Bradley:
“I think you’re all right now.”
“Here’s your knife, old man,” said Dick, as he handed the knife over to Buckhart in their room after supper.
“Hey?” exclaimed the Texan. “Why, why, where – ”
“It is your knife, isn’t it?”
“Sure as shooting. But where did it come from?”
“I saw Chester Arlington pick it up from the floor in the gym.”
“When?”
“To-day.”
Brad looked surprised.
“Why, it couldn’t have been there ever since I lost it,” he said. “Somebody would have found it before this.”
“It seems that way,” said Dick; and he did not explain to Brad that the knife had fallen first from Chester’s pocket as he pulled out his handkerchief.
Why Dick chose to keep silent on this point he hardly knew. He was mystified over the knife incident. Chester Arlington did not seem like a fellow who would resort to petty robbery. Surely he would not steal an ordinary pearl-handled knife, worth perhaps three dollars, when he spent money lavishly? And yet Dick had heard it hinted within a day or two that Chester was hard up, and that his parents had declined to advance more money for him to squander until a certain time had passed.
Strange thoughts were flitting through Dick’s head. Placed in a desperate situation, would Chester be tempted to pilfer? The “spook,” the missing trinkets and articles of value, these things Dick thought about. Then he wondered if there was not some way for him to solve the mystery and clear up the whole affair. But, in the meantime, the football-game with New Era took his attention.
