It was to this club that Spike went when he burst out of his room, intent on finding, in some fashion, a way of vindicating Joe, for he was firm in his belief that Joe was innocent in spite of the silence.
There had been rain the night before, and on a billboard adjoining the club room some of the gaudy red and yellow posters, announcing the final Yale-Princeton game, had been torn off.
Hardly knowing what he was doing, Spike picked up part of a sheet, colored a vivid red. At that moment, from the side entrance, Charlie, the janitor’s son, came out, and Spike, who had often given him odd tasks to do, and who felt sorry for the afflicted one, playfully thrust the red paper at him, saying:
“Here, Charlie, take it home, and let your little sister cut out some paper dolls.”
He slapped the paper on the lad’s hand, and being damp and pasty it stuck there, like a splotch of blood.
Charlie shrank back, cowering and frightened, whimpering like a child, and mumbling:
“Don’t! Oh, don’t Mr. Poole. Don’t put that on me. I—I can’t bear it. It’s been haunting me. I’ll tell all I know. The red paint—I put it there. But he—he made me. Some of it got on my hand, and I wiped it off on his coat. Oh, the blood color! Take it away. I—I can’t stand it!”
“What’s that?” fairly yelled Spike. “Red paint? Here, tell me all you know! Jove, I begin to see things now!”
“Take it off! Take it off!” begged Charlie, and he trembled so that Spike feared he would have a seizure.
“There—there—it’s all right,” he said soothingly. “I’ll take it off,” and he removed the offending paper. “Now you come with me, and tell me all about it,” he went on quietly. And Charlie obeyed, like a child.