“Make him give it up, Merry!” cried the students above.
“I’ve got nothing to give up,” protested Oliver, his face, which had turned pale, now flushing hotly. “What do they mean?”
Frank Merriwell was doing some swift thinking just then. He had not seen Oliver leave the room in company with Hock Mason, and he had not observed Roland’s face fairly as the latter whirled with the snatched envelope in his grasp; but he realized that Oliver’s actions in the past had stamped him as in no respect likely to perpetrate such a trick, while it was very much like his brother.
But it did not seem that Roland had been in the room. That he would dare come there in the midst of Merry’s friends seemed utterly beyond reason, and not worthy of consideration. Yet Frank asked Oliver a question:
“Where is Roland?”
Again Oliver’s face paled.
“Roland?” he said. “I don’t know.”
“Didn’t he pass you just now on these stairs?”
“He did not.”
Frank’s face was hard and grim.