Ned didn’t get much studying done, though. Instead, he spent most of the half-hour remaining before the examination in trying to solve the mystery of the stolen car and Laurie’s part in the affair. It wasn’t like Laurie to indulge in a prank so mischievous, and he could scarcely believe that Laurie had taken part in the escapade. Still, he had the evidence of his own senses. He had seen Laurie enter by the window; and, too, he recalled the latter’s stated desire to drive Mr. Wells’s car. At home in California Laurie was forever begging the wheel away from his father and was never happier than when steering the big car along the smooth roads about Santa Lucia. But, if Laurie had taken Mr. Wells’s roadster, who had been with him? He wished that Laurie hadn’t told a lie to the Doctor. That, too, was something very unlike Laurie. Of course, as he had said afterward, the question had been sudden and unexpected, and he had said the first thing that came into his mind, but that didn’t excuse the lie.
Ned’s refusal to answer had been made in the effort to shift suspicion from Laurie to himself, but he wondered now if it would not have been as well to tell the truth. His self-sacrifice hadn’t helped his brother much, after all, for Laurie was still suspected of complicity. The affair would probably end in the suspension of them both, perhaps in their expulsion. It was all a sorry mess, and Ned hadn’t discovered any solution of it when ten o’clock came.
Rather to his surprise, he got through the examination, which lasted until past twelve, very well. Then came dinner, at which neither he nor Laurie displayed much of the exuberant spirit that possessed their table companions. After the meal Ned went over to the library for an hour. When he returned to No. 16 he found Laurie standing at the window that looked southward toward the distant ball-field, dejection in the droop of his shoulders. Ned felt very sorry for the other just then, and he tried to find something to say but couldn’t, though he cleared his throat twice and got as far as “Hm!” You couldn’t see much of the baseball game from that window. The diamond was at the far end of the field, and a corner of the football stand hid most of it. Laurie found a book and read, and Ned began a letter to his father. Somehow the afternoon wore away.
Kewpie burst in at a little before five, at once triumphant and downcast. Hillman’s had won, 11 to 8, but Kewpie Proudtree had not been allowed to pitch for even a part of an inning, and so his last chance was gone, and if Pinky called that doing the square thing— But Laurie broke in just then. “Can it,” he said gruffly. “You saw the game, anyhow, and that’s more than I did!”
“That’s right,” said Kewpie, apologetically. “It’s a rotten shame, Nod. What’s Johnny got on you, anyhow? You can tell me. I won’t say a word.”
“He hasn’t got anything on me,” growled Laurie. “He just thinks he has. Who pitched?”
“George started, but they got to him in the fourth—no, fifth, and Nate finished out. Gee, they were three runs ahead of us in the seventh!”
“Did Elk get in?”
“No, he’s got a sprained wrist or something. Pinky had Simpson, of the scrubs, catch the last of the ninth. He dropped everything that reached his hands, though.”
“Elk’s got a sprained wrist, you say? How’d he do it?”