The high school professor felt keenly annoyed. He trusted his intuitions violently, and to have the opportunity to prove them taken away from him by so simple a thing as a girl going on a visit was not to be thought of. In the first place it was not like a girl with a face like that one to suddenly fly up without any reason and go off on a series of visits to distant relatives, right in the midst of important examinations which he had all reason to suppose she had worked hard for and was anxious to take. In fact, the members of the school board whom he consulted all agreed in his judgment of Joyce’s character and the things they said about her showed that she had every reason to wish to pass her examinations well and get a position to teach. There must be something behind all this and he meant to ferret it out.
So he put aside his stacks of examination papers and took his hat and went for the third time to interview poor Nannette. But Nannette saw him coming and fled to the attic, locking herself in, and keeping quiet as a mouse till he grew discouraged knocking and went back to his papers once more. But he did not give up. He searched out Eugene’s city address and got him on the telephone, grilling him for fifteen expensive minutes as to the cause of Joyce’s leaving, and why he couldn’t reach her by telephone or wire if he tried every place that she had expected to visit. Eugene was reduced almost to a state of distraction and came home that night in a worse temper than ever.
That night four men sought out an old haunt where they had been accustomed to meet and sat in dark conclave. They were big, husky fellows and three were dark-browed with heavy jaws and hands that could break an iron bar or crush a lily, but one had bright red hair and unclean eyes, with a voice that had continually to be hushed by his companions.
“Well, I say there’s a skirt somewhere in all this,” he bellowed forth as he raised a glass of ill-smelling liquor to his lips.
“You spilled a mouthful!” hissed out one they called Bill. “He never cleared out alone. D’you know who the dame is, Tyke?”
“I got my ideas,” boasted the red-haired one mysteriously.
“Whaddaya know, Tyke? Spit it out. This ain’t no Deef Mute Club. You’ll get in the same class with him if you go around keepin’ things ter yerself, an’ you know what that means, Tyke! We ain’t to be trifled with. Can’t swing that game with us the second time. It’s mates or hang, and you understand. Now, let her fly. Whaddaya know?” A heavy hand came down on his shoulder and Tyke shivered in his long length like a serpent taken unawares.
“Take yer hand off’n my shoulder you, Taney, ur ya don’t get a word outen me.” He shook the rough grip off and shuffled into another position. “You fellers go off like powder. Ef you don’t quit yer suspicions I’m outta this fer good, and then where’ll ya be? I got brains, an’ I know a thing er two, an’ when I say I got ideas I ain’t sayin’ I know it all, but I got a line on it. I think I can foller it up.”
“Meanin’?” The heavy hand came down once more upon his shoulder.