“Finger prints?” exclaimed Brady and Jim Phillips, together, deeply interested.
“Exactly,” said Dick. “The hands of the man who made the change were dirty, and his finger tips left marks all over the white and blue paper. We got a man from police headquarters who understood the science of those things, and he took an impression of Gray’s fingers. That showed at once that he wasn’t the one who had handled the book, for the marks were entirely different. Then we went at the problem of trying to find other traces, and we found marks on other objects in the room that showed plainly that some outsider had been in there.
“Fortunately, the room had been closely watched, and Canfield could tell us every one who had been in there, or, rather, every one who had had any business to be in there. We got finger-print impressions from all of them, and they didn’t fit the one who had handled the book at all. Both Canfield and the dean accepted that as conclusive evidence that Gray was all right, and the charge against him won’t even have to be made public. He had to miss pitching that game, but he certainly made up for that when he did have a chance.”
“But how about the one who really did it?” exclaimed Brady. “Have you caught him? Do you know who it is?”
“No,” said Dick, more vindictively than any of them had ever heard him speak before. “But he’s left evidence that will convict him as surely as if he had been seen. There’s only one man with fingers that could have made the prints we found—and we’ve got impressions of those that will last forever.”
“All you’ve got to do, then,” said Jim, “is to find the man who fits those prints?”
“Yes,” said Dick, a little dryly, “that’s all. But that’s quite enough, you know. It’s probably some Yale man, but we can’t take the finger prints of every man in Yale. We’ve got to keep our eyes mighty wide open for the next day or two, and trust to the idea that the man, whoever he is, won’t be satisfied to admit himself beaten. If we keep quiet about this, and don’t tell him we’re on the track, he’s likely to give himself away sooner or later. Those people usually do.”
“Well, we’ll have to hope for the best,” said Brady. “But this chap, whoever he is, seems to be cleverer than some of those who have tried to make trouble for us in the past. That’s the reason I’m inclined to leave Parker out of this. He wasn’t clever at all; he left a trail a mile broad behind him when he tried to make trouble. This chap hasn’t been able to accomplish anything, but he hasn’t made it at all easy for us to find him out. It’s one thing to block one of their games, and that’s necessary, of course. But it’s another thing, and certainly quite as important, to make it impossible for them to try something else. This chap’s free to do anything that comes into his head now.”
“That’s perfectly true,” said Dick Merriwell, “but I don’t believe that he’ll be able to do much. We’re all on our guard now, and it ought to be possible to defeat any plans that he evolves. Keep your eyes open, of course, and if you see anything suspicious, let me know about it right away. We go to New York to-morrow night, as usual, to sleep there the night before the game.
“I don’t need to say what an important game this is. It settles the championship, and they’ve got Briggs ready to come back at us and try to beat us. I know that we know more about his pitching than we did last week, but you want to remember that he also knows a good deal more about our batters, and the style they have. That will help him, and so will the seasoning of a really important game. He’d never had that before, but he did surprisingly well, in view of that. In fact, I was surprised when we won that game, after Jim’s rough experience. We want him to be ready to pitch the game of his life on Saturday, with nothing to worry him and disturb him.”