He paused and looked back.
“No, thank you, I’m going to turn in.”
Tom swung around, and was about to proceed down the corridor, when the torn pieces of the letter Bascome had destroyed caught his eye. By this time the other youth had entered his room, before Tom could call to him that perhaps he had better pick up the scraps.
“Oh, well, leave them there,” mused Tom. “I guess if he doesn’t care whether or not anyone sees them, I oughtn’t to.”
Slowly he walked along, when a piece of paper, rather larger than the other fragments, was turned over by the draft of his walking. It was directly under a hall light, and Tom could not help seeing the words written on it. They stood out in bold relief—three words—and they were these:
the alarm clock
Tom stared at them as if fascinated. They seemed to be written in letters of fire. He stooped and picked up the piece of the torn letter.
“The alarm clock!” murmured Tom. “I’ll wager anything Lenton was writing about our clock, and yet Bascome said the letter didn’t have a thing in it about our mystery. I wonder—I wonder if he expects me to believe that—now.”
For a moment he paused, half inclined to go back and have it out with Bascome. Then he realized that this would not be the wisest plan. Besides, he wanted to talk with Phil and Sid.