CHAPTER XIX
DISAPPOINTMENT
"Hello! What's up?"
"What's the excitement, Tom?"
Thus his two chums greeted our hero when he entered with the human interrogation mark in tow.
"Something doing," responded Tom briefly.
"Did you trace the empty bottle so soon?" asked Jack.
"No, I didn't have time. But George here—out with it! Tell 'em what you told me."
"I was coming along," began George, "when Tom ran into me and knocked———"
"Never mind those horrible details," advised Tom, reflectively rubbing that portion of his anatomy that had come in contact with George. "Cut along faster."
"Well, I was coming to tell Tom that I saw Sam Heller being taken to the doctor's office by old Appleby," went on George.
"Get out!" cried Bert, incredulously.
"Sam Heller!" gasped Jack. "I wonder if Appleby's found out that it was Sam who poisoned his horses, and set the hay on fire?"
"That's it, I believe," said George. "That's why I came to tell Tom.
You're cleared all right now, old man."
His chums looked at him, but Tom only shook his head. "No such luck," he said in disappointed tones. "Sam may have been corralled by the old farmer, but it's for something else besides the fire and poisoning."
"What makes you think so?" asked Jack. "Why won't you believe Sam
Heller guilty, Tom."
"Because I know he isn't."
"You do? Then you must know who is."
"No, that doesn't follow."
"Look here!" cried Jack, coming close to his chum, and placing his hands on his shoulders, the while looking him squarely into the eyes. "I can't understand you. Here you go and say Sam isn't guilty, and you know it. And yet you say you don't know who did the business. You didn't do it yourself, I'm sure, and yet———"
"Say Jack," spoke Tom gently. "Believe me, if I was sure of what I only suspect now I couldn't really tell who poisoned those horses. There's a mystery about it, and I'm trying to get to the bottom of it. I want my name cleared more than anything else in the world, but I want it done in the right way. I don't want to cast suspicion on the wrong person. Now, George, tell us all you know about Sam being caught. It may help some."
"Well, I don't know an awful lot," went on George, as he accepted a chair that Jack pushed out for him. "I was coming in from a little trip to town when I saw, coming across the campus, two fellows—at least I thought they were two of our fellows, but when they got under one of the lights I saw it was Sam and the old farmer. And, believe me, Appleby had hold of Sam as if he was a thief and him the constable."
"As if Appleby was the thief?" asked Bert.
"No, as if Sam was. What's the matter with you fellows, anyhow, that you can't understand United States talk?" and George looked around half indignantly.
"The trouble is that you mix up your pronouns," said Tom. "Go ahead.
We got as far as that Appleby had hold of Sam as if Sam was a thief."
"Yes, and Sam was demanding to be let go, while the old farmer was saying: 'Now I've got ye! Consarn ye! I'll teach ye t' come sneakin' around my place! I'll have ye up afore th' doctor'!"
The boys all laughed at George's realistic imitation of the farmer's talk, for it was quite correct.
"And then what happened?" asked Jack.
"That's all, except that I came on here in a hurry, and Sam was fairly dragged into the doctor's office by Appleby."
There was silence in the room of the chums for a moment, and then Bert remarked:
"Well, Tom, what do you make of it?"
"I don't know," was the answer, slowly given. "It looks queer, and yet
Sam may have only trespassed on Appleby's place by chance."
"Don't you believe it!" exclaimed Jack. "He had some object all right."
"And it's up to us to find out what it is," added Bert.
"No, I'll try it," insisted Tom. "This is my game."
"But we're going to help you play it!" exclaimed Jack. "What's the matter with you, anyhow? Don't you want us to help you clear yourself of this suspicion that's hanging over you?"
"Of course I do, but———"
"'But me no buts,' old man. Just you let us help you out in this. Now it wouldn't look well for you to go around sneaking under the doctor's windows, trying to hear what's going on. But it wouldn't hurt either of us," and he indicated, by a sweeping gesture, himself and his two close chums.
"So, Tom, my boy," he went on, "we'll just see what we can learn. The doctor's sure to hold an audience with Appleby and Sam in the big front office, and he always has a window open, for Merry is a fresh air fiend, you know. Some of the talk will leak out and it may give us a clew."
"All right," assented Tom, after a moment's thought. "Go ahead. I don't believe it will amount to anything, though. Then I can go on with my drug store end of it," and he briefly explained to George where he had been headed for when the interruption came.
"Shall we all go?" asked Bert. "Won't it look sort of queer for three of us to be hanging around the doctor's house?"
"It will," assented Jack, "and, therefore, we won't all hang out in the same place. I'll get under the big office window; Bert, you can take the window on the other side, and George will guard the front door."
"Guard the front door? For what?"
"Well, just sort of drape yourself around it," suggested Jack, who had assumed the direction of matters. "Maybe you can overhear something as Sam and Appleby come out. I don't just like this sort of thing," he added, "but the end justifies the means, I think."
Tom nodded gravely. The stain against his name had affected him more than he cared to admit. The three lads went out and Tom sat down in moody silence to await their return. They were not long away, and came back together, rather silent.
"Well?" asked Tom questioningly, as his chums entered.
"Nothing much," answered Jack in despondent tones. "We were almost too late, but I did manage to overhear something. Sam and Appleby came out a short time after we got there. It seems that the farmer caught Sam sneaking around his barn, and as he's been suspicious, and on the watch ever since the poisoning of his horses, he rushed out in a hurry and collared him."
"What explanation did Sam make?" asked Tom.
"All I could hear was that it was a mistake, and that he wandered off the road in the darkness."
"The same as we did when we got in the corn," said Tom. "So that's all there was to it?"
"Except that Appleby was ripping mad, and threatened to have the next school lad arrested whom he found on his property. We'll have to make a new course for cross-country runs after this I guess, for we used to run across his big meadow."
"Yes," assented Tom. "Well, I didn't think it would amount to anything. I'm much obliged, though."
"You wait!" insisted Jack. "This isn't the bottom of it yet, not by a long shot."
"What do you mean?" asked Tom curiously.
"I mean that Sam isn't such a loon as to get off the road on to
Appleby's land just by mistake, or because it was dark."
"You mean he went there purposely?"
"I sure do."
"What for?" and Tom gazed curiously at his chum.
"That's what I've got to find out. He had some object, and I shouldn't be surprised but what it was you, Tom."
"Me?"
"Yes. He hasn't succeeded in driving you out of the Hall as he hoped, and now he's up to some more mean tricks."
Tom shook his head. He had a curious disbelief in Sam's guilt.
"Go ahead on that line if you like, Jack," he said. "But I can't agree with you. I'm going to follow my bottle clew to-morrow, and nothing the others could say would make Tom admit that Sam had a hand in poisoning the horses, or in setting the hay on fire.
"But look how ready he was to accuse you," insisted Bert.
"That was only to clear himself," said Tom. "The fact of his sweater being like mine was a strange coincidence, and he had to say something."
"He was ready enough to accuse you," put in Jack. "Say, Tom, old man, why don't you come out and tell us where you went that night—and why? Tell us what you did—how your sweater got away from you, and was found on the farm. Go ahead!"
"Do!" urged Bert.
But Tom shook his head.
"I can't—not yet," he said. "I promised Ray———"
He stopped suddenly. His chums leaned forward eagerly.
"Well, I can't say any more," he finished. "Now let's forget all this, and have a game of chess, somebody. It will make me sleep good."
"I'm going to cut," said George. "You fellows can play."
Tom and Jack sat down to the royal game, while Bert got out a book, and for a time silence reigned in the apartment.
Tom made an early trip to town the next day. He went directly to the drugstore, the torn label of which was on the bottle he had found to contain a trace of poison.
Without going into details, but announcing who he was, he asked if the druggist could give him any information as to who had bought the cyanide.
"Well, I can look at my records," said the pharmacist. "I keep a list of all persons to whom I sell poison, and make them sign a receipt for it. Of course I have no means of knowing that the names are true ones. There are some poisons I sell only on a doctor's prescription, but it is not against the local law to dispense cyanide, and it has many legitimate uses. I'll look it up for you."
He disappeared behind his ground-glass partition, to return presently, announcing:
"My clerk made that sale. He'll be in presently, and he can tell you who bought the stuff. The name signed is Jacob Crouse, however."
"Jacob Crouse," mused Tom, and he slowly shook his head. Yet there was a gleam of hope in his eyes. "Maybe it isn't him after all."
Tom spent a fretful half hour, waiting for the clerk to come in, and he was nervous lest some of the school lads enter and question him as to his presence in the place. For Tom was not anxious that his errand be known except to his chums. But none from Elmwood Hall came in, and shortly the clerk arrived. There was a whispered conference between him and the proprietor, and the clerk addressed Tom.
"You wish to know who bought cyanide, some time ago?" asked the young man.
"Yes," said Tom. "Can you describe Jacob Crouse?"
"I don't know that he gave me the right name," said the clerk. "In fact I suspect he didn't. But he was a young fellow, about your own age and build."
"He was!" exclaimed Tom, and his voice showed disappointment.
"Yes, but he was not so well dressed. In fact he was rather shabby. He said he wanted the stuff to kill rats, and asked the best way to prepare it. I tried to sell him some regular rat poison, but he wanted the cyanide. I told him to mix it with corn meal. He said there were lots of rats on his father's farm."
"He said that?" cried Tom.
"Yes. Oh, they make up all sorts of stories when they want to get suspicious stuff, though there's no law here against cyanide. Why, did some one of your friends poison someone, or commit suicide?"
"Oh, not as bad as that," replied Tom. "Is that all you can tell me about this—this person?"
[Transcriber's note: The next piece of text has several missing fragments, which seem to have been caused during printing. I have indicated the missing text with brackets.]
"Well, about all—hold on, though, he had a big scar on—let me see—on his left cheek. It extended from his eye almost to his [missing words] livid, ugly scar."
[missing line]
[missing words] good! [missing words] I'm much obliged to you, and with a smile of hope our hero hurried from the drug store, followed by the curious glances of the proprietor and the clerk.