The Mark of the Knife

by Clayton H. Ernst

On the morning following the Jefferson game, Ridgley School, somewhat stiff after the strenuous hours of struggle and victory, but feeling utterly contented with the world and more than ever convinced that there was no school quite like the one that stood on the hill among the maples, awoke and prepared to settle itself leisurely to the enjoyment of glorious memories. The first person who opened a newspaper intended to undergo the pleasant experience of allowing the lines of printed words to recall to mind the deathless moments of Ridgley accomplishment and triumph. After his eyes had taken in the headlines that announced the victory of the red, however, they were arrested by heavy type that announced a tragedy. Two members of the school had been the victims of an accident and one of them had lost his life. The reporters' story of the occurrence read as follows:

"On Saturday afternoon while Ridgley was earning its triumph over Jefferson and while the sounds of cheering echoed across the field, death came to one member of the school and serious injury to another. No one witnessed the tragedy. Mr. Osborne Murchie, while driving along the State road from Greensboro to Springfield yesterday at about three o'clock, came upon a seven-passenger car which had crashed through the railing and had rolled down the embankment at the beginning of Hairpin Turn and lay at the bottom of the gulch in a demolished condition, with two young men pinned beneath the wreck. With the aid of a friend who accompanied him, Mr. Murchie pried up the car and removed from beneath it the dead body of a young man which was later identified as that of J. M. Bassett, a student at Ridgley, whose home is in Denver, Colorado. The other young man, Tracey Campbell, son of the prominent leather dealer, who was unconscious and suffering from severe injuries, was conveyed to the hospital at Greensboro, where it is said that he has a fair chance of recovery.

"There are certain matters in regard to the tragedy that have not yet been explained: first, why on this day when all members of the school were attending the game at Ridgley Field were these two students driving away from the school? No one has been able to tell where the young men were going or how the accident occurred. The assumption is that while traveling at high speed they attempted to take the sharp turn too swiftly. The machine, which was wrecked beyond repair, belonged to the father of Tracey Campbell."

The news flew from room to room, from dormitory to dormitory, with the rapidity of wireless. It was as if the story had suddenly been blazoned across the clear November sky above the Ridgley campus; in one moment, it seemed, the whole school knew that Whirlwind Bassett had come to his end under tragic circumstances and that Tracey Campbell was lying in the Greensboro hospital with an even chance of recovery. It was difficult at first for many a member of Ridgley School to believe that the tragic news was true,—so vivid is life, so unreal seems death. They could not quite imagine Bassett—Whirlwind Bassett—lying dead out there at the bottom of Hairpin Gulch.

Certain incidents which previously had seemed quite unworthy of attention now assumed proportions of importance. A third-year student named Gilmore who had sat in the Ridgley stands beside Bassett recollected that the self-styled "Whirlwind" had risen from his seat at the start of the game, had made his way out of the stands and had not returned. Fred Harper and one or two others of the Ridgley football substitutes remembered that Campbell, after coming off the field when Teeny-bits had arrived, had slipped out through the opening under the stands and had not returned. Most of the members of the squad remembered that Campbell had not appeared at the locker building during the rest-period between the halves and recollected that it had occurred to them that he was "playing baby" because of the fact that he had lost his chance to start the game. There seemed to be no sufficient explanation, however, of the simultaneous exit of Bassett and Campbell. The last person who had seen them, according to rumor, was one of the ticket-takers at the field-gates who said that just after the game began he caught a glimpse of Campbell driving his father's big car down the street toward Hamilton with some one beside him in the front seat.

To certain members of Ridgley School the tragedy served as a last link in a chain of circumstantial evidence that had gradually been involving Campbell and Bassett. Among those persons were Neil Durant and Snubby Turner.

On the previous evening Teeny-bits Holbrook had not been so absorbed in the celebration that he had not found time to say to the captain and the coach what he had in his mind. While the sounds of the revelers still rose over the campus the three had gone into Neil Durant's room, and there Teeny-bits had told of the false telephone message, of the struggle in the road, of how his unknown assailants had carried him away and kept him prisoner, of his fight to escape, of the strange action of his Chinese captors when they discovered the mark of the knife, of his escape and finally of his return to the Holbrook home and his long sleep.

"It sounds like a pretty wild story, I know," he had said to his two friends, "but it's true, every word of it, and I don't know why in the world it all happened or whatever made those Chinamen let me go when they saw my birthmark."

Coach Murray and Neil Durant had readily admitted that they thought it was an extraordinary story but the idea did not enter their minds that it was not true in every detail, for they knew that what Teeny-bits Holbrook said could be relied upon to the minutest detail. For half an hour they sat talking it over, suggesting possible motives and trying to fathom the meaning of the mystery. Two things Teeny-bits did not mention: the incident of finding Snubby Turner breaking into Campbell's room and the accusatory letter that had led to the discovery of the stolen loot. Those things, he felt, were matters not to be discussed even with two such good friends as Mr. Murray and Neil Durant. There was one person, however, with whom he wished to discuss that phase of the strange circumstances in which he had become involved; he had already made up his mind that very few hours should pass before he would have a heart-to-heart talk with Snubby Turner. He was weary, however—bone and muscle and brain weary—and as the sounds of the celebration diminished he mounted the stairs to his room for a well-earned sleep.

In the morning Teeny-bits went to see Snubby Turner early,—before the newspapers brought the first information of the tragedy. Snubby, still in his pyjamas, let the new captain of the Ridgley eleven into his room and blinked happily at his visitor.