Parker, loathe at first to do anything of the sort, was finally persuaded, as Foote knew he would be. And, as Foote explained matters, there was little risk. Foote, with a cunning and cleverness worthy of a better cause, had not hidden the leaves he had torn from Gray’s book in any elaborate fashion. He had remembered that when a search is being made the obvious places are the ones most likely to be overlooked, and, seeing on Canfield’s desk an old Yale catalogue, of several years before, not at all likely to be looked at at this time, he had simply put the leaves inside of it, trusting to luck to give him a chance to get them away without suspicion later on.
Parker really saw no risk in it. A call at Dwight Hall was nothing to excite remark, and for him to turn the leaves of an old catalogue, as Foote pointed out, wouldn’t make any one pay any attention to him. So Parker went.
He was not gone long. But when he came back, his face was rather white.
“I got at the catalogue, all right,” he said, “and no one saw me do it, either. But either you’re mistaken about where you put that stuff, Foote, or else there was some one ahead of me, for it wasn’t there.”
For the moment Foote was dismayed. But he braced up when he had thought it over.
“That’s just cursed bad luck,” he said. “It explains how Gray cleared himself, too. Some one must have been inspired to go to that book and open it up, and, of course, found those leaves. That disposed of the case against Gray, but I don’t see that it gives me anything to worry about. If they suspected any one of being concerned in this, it would be you. They’ve got no reason at all to fix on me, although they must know by now, of course, that some one was mixed up in a deal. But, as long as they don’t get onto me, it’s all right. They might suspect you, but they couldn’t prove anything, so that wouldn’t do any harm.”
But lightly as he took it, Foote wondered who had actually got possession of those stolen pages from Gray’s examination book. He would have given a good deal to know, for the knowledge might well have been useful. Foote, as soon as he was relieved from fear for his own safety, was all anxiety again to work out some plan for the undoing of Dick Merriwell. Gray and Taylor were beyond his reach now, and he turned naturally to Jim Phillips as the victim most likely to serve his purpose. He had nothing against Jim, nor, for that matter, against Merriwell, but he needed Parker’s help to attain his own objects, and there was only one way to make that available, as he well knew.
“Is it at all certain that Phillips will be elected captain of the baseball team?” he asked Parker.
“It’s just as certain as that you’re looking at me now,” said Parker. “I tried to put him out of the running twice last week. If he had been found guilty of taking money for playing, he couldn’t have been elected, and when that failed I thought I could manage it by making him miss the game at Cambridge. If he hadn’t turned up to play, every one would have thought his story of how he was kept away pretty fishy, and it might have turned the crowd against him. I thought it was a good chance, anyhow. But now he’s solid, and there isn’t any one to fight it out with him. Jackson and Carter are both out of it, and they are the only ones—juniors, I mean—who are sure of holding their jobs next year. They might take Brady, if Phillips were out of it, but I’d just as soon have Phillips as that big stiff.”
“If Phillips didn’t pitch against Harvard on Saturday, there might be some trouble, I should think,” said Foote slowly, as if he were thinking hard.