“By Jove,” he said, “I don’t see—yes, I did lose something, Mr. Merriwell. Or, rather, I remember leaving it in my room. Mighty careless of me, too.”
“What was it you lost, Taylor?” asked Dick, more gravely than ever. Everything was working together to confirm the suspicions he had so reluctantly formed.
“I can’t tell you that, Mr. Merriwell,” said Taylor, looking a little surprised, and rather angry. “It was a private affair—that’s why I was rather annoyed at finding I had been so careless.”
Dick suddenly held out the folded papers, still looking just as they had when Sam handed the packet to him.
“Was it this you lost?” he said.
Taylor’s eyes lighted up as they fell on the packet, and he reached a hand to take it. But suddenly he drew it back.
“I thought for a moment—no, it isn’t,” he said. His confusion was evident. Dick, looking at him with concealed sorrow, thought his confusion was that of guilt. It certainly seemed so for the moment.
Dick Merriwell was almost dazed as he left the dressing room, and, catching a street car, made his way back to New Haven. The whole affair puzzled and disgusted him. He had trusted Taylor implicitly of late. The senior had aroused his anger and suspicion early in the year, but he had proved himself sincerely repentant since then, and it cut Dick to the quick to think that Taylor had proved himself, by the meanest of college crimes, unworthy of the forgiveness Dick had given him so freely.
“I’ve got to put this up to the dean,” he decided finally. “I may be wrong, but there’s enough evidence here for me to feel that I would be shirking my duty if I didn’t see to it that the whole business was investigated.”