“All right, Lingard. Good-night.”
When the visitor’s footsteps had died away on the stairs Toby sat himself down at the table again, spread the dollar bill before him and then from the table drawer produced a little case containing three sheets of court-plaster. One was pink, one white and one black. The pink was whole, the black had been reduced to about half its original size and the white had had a strip about a quarter of an inch wide cut from its lower edge. Toby looked intently from that oblong of white sticking-plaster to the bill. Then he tore a piece of paper from a scratch-pad and found a pencil. Untying the little knot of silk that held the court-plaster book together, he extracted the pink sheet and laid it on the piece of paper and with the pencil carefully traced the outline of it. When that was done he laid the sheet of white plaster in place of the pink, and fitting it to the top and sides of the outline, passed his pencil across the bottom edge. After that he took his scissors and painstakingly cut out the quarter-inch strip remaining between the two bottom marks. As he had expected, the little piece of paper exactly fitted the strip of white court-plaster pasted over the edges of the tear in the dollar bill. There was no possibility of doubt. The two tallied to the hundredth part of an inch.
Toby tied up the court-plaster book again and restored it, with the scissors, to the table drawer. Then, actuated by what motive he scarcely knew, he slipped the bill and the telltale strip of yellow paper into an envelope and placed that in the drawer too. And after that he laced his fingers together behind his head and leaned back and frowned intently at the flickering gas-jet. That dollar bill had come into his possession just after his return from vacation. Who had paid it to him he couldn’t recall now. But he remembered perfectly discovering the tear in it and how, fearing it might increase if not mended, he had hit on the, to him, clever idea of patching it with a strip of court-plaster. It was, he reflected, rather odd that the only two pieces of money in the little box which he could have identified should both have come back to him! He no longer doubted that Frank Lamson had taken the little box and its contents from his bureau drawer, although he could not for the life of him find a satisfactory motive for the theft. Unless, and after all that was the most plausible theory, Frank had been pressed for money and Arnold had mentioned to him that Toby had a fund stowed away to buy hockey things. Wanting a better explanation, that must do, Toby told himself.
The next question was what was to be done about it. Toby’s proof, while positive to him, might not seem so to others. If he accused Frank and demanded the restitution of the stolen money Frank would, probably, deny emphatically and indignantly. It would be his word against Frank’s, and Frank was fairly well-liked and popular. But then he wouldn’t make it public, in any case, and a popular verdict had nothing to do with the affair. What he wanted was only the restoration of his six dollars and a quarter and if Frank refused to give it back to him the matter would have to rest right there. Toby had no notion of making the affair known. But, he thought vindictively, whether Frank was willing to restore the money to him or wasn’t, he would have the satisfaction of telling Frank what he thought of him! To be able to tell Frank Lamson to his face that he was a thief was almost worth the loss of the money! He planned and replanned what he would say. Even if he didn’t intend to make the matter public there’d be no harm in threatening Frank with it. He could scare him, at least. Frank, of course, would bluster and try to laugh at him, but for once that sort of thing wouldn’t work. Toby had the upper hand.
There was no studying done in Number 22 Whitson that evening. Nor was Toby disturbed again by visitors. He quite forgot his wish that Arnold would look him up. He forgot Arnold too. His mind was very busy planning how to wreak vengeance on Frank Lamson. He had not realized before to-night how thoroughly he hated that youth!
CHAPTER XIV
A QUESTION OF COLOR
I have already remarked that things look very different in the morning from what they do at night. Toby rolled out of bed some eight hours later with his mind made up to say nothing about the theft to any one, not even to Frank Lamson! Just when this resolve had come to him and by what process of reasoning he didn’t know, for he had certainly gone to sleep almost fidgety with the desire for morning and the opportunity to confront Frank with the charge of theft. There is a saying that the night brings counsel. It would be nearer the facts to say that sleep clears the brain. Violent emotions such as anger generate a poison, the scientists tell us, and sleep is one of the antidotes. Toby went to bed with a good deal of poison in his system and woke up quite free from it. He was just a little bit surprised at his change of heart, but he was more glad than surprised. After all, nothing was to be gained by making trouble for Frank. Evil-doers suffer eventually, anyway, and there was no reason why Toby should assume the rôle of Retribution. Besides, and I think this had a good deal of weight with him, Arnold liked Frank and believed in him, and Toby, now that he was no longer peeved with Arnold, didn’t want to cause him any pain. Six dollars and a quarter was still six dollars and a quarter, just as it had been last night, but it wasn’t worth acting the cad for! Business was looking up again, thanks, possibly, to the cut-rates advertised in The Scholiast, and it wouldn’t be more than a week or so before he would have another six dollars. Meanwhile the purchase of hockey gloves and leg-guards could wait. Oddly enough, he found that his sentiment toward Frank Lamson this morning was far more charitable than it had been a week ago. Dislike was tinctured with pity. As a rival, either in hockey or in the affections of Arnold, Frank seemed much less formidable. So far as he was concerned, Toby decided as he shuffled down the corridor to the bath, the incident was closed.
At breakfast Arnold’s manner showed that he had forgotten Toby’s aloofness of the evening before and when the meal was over they went up to Number 12 and talked until it was time to go to chapel. Of course Arnold wanted to know if Toby had found his money, and was surprised when told that he hadn’t. He was so genuinely sorry that Toby secretly called himself a beast for ever doubting Arnold’s affection.