“What I think, sir, is that he got hurt, hurt badly enough to keep him from hard work.” Loring took a slip of paper from his leather wallet. “Grosfawk’s name appears eight times in the stories written for the paper by the Wolcott correspondent up to October Fifth. After that it doesn’t appear at all. The Fifth of October was Friday, and Wolcott played Nelson the next day. Wolcott won by 23 to 6, or something like that. It was a slow game and Wolcott used a whole string of substitutes in the last half. But she didn’t use Grosfawk. Grosfawk was spoken of in the paper as having taken part in practice on Thursday. Now I think something happened either Thursday or Friday. Either he got hurt or he got in wrong with the faculty over studies. Up to that Fifth of October, the fellow who writes the stuff for the paper was always mentioning him. Once he spoke of him as ‘Wolcott’s spectacular end,’ and another time as ‘the speedy runner who grabbed last year’s game from Wyndham,’ or something like that. Then he drops him entirely!”
“All that is food for thought,” replied Mr. Babcock, smiling. “I dare say that you’ve figured it correctly, Deane, but, just for the sake of argument, what about this theory? Suppose they’ve kept on using Grosfawk in practice and have carefully kept his name out of the papers with the idea of letting us think he isn’t to be bothered about. You know he has played occasionally.”
“Mighty little, sir. Maybe five times, and then only for a few minutes, probably.”
“Still—”
“Besides, sir,” interrupted Loring eagerly, “if Wolcott wanted us to think that Grosfawk was—was eliminated she would have used more certain methods, don’t you think? Wouldn’t she have let the report get out that he had been injured or that he was in Dutch with the Office or—or something? See what I mean, sir? She couldn’t be certain that we’d notice his not playing.”
“Yes, probably she would have,” acknowledged the other. “Well, granting your idea’s the right one, Deane, who do you take it is to get Grosfawk’s job at catching passes and getting off with them? Or who has got it already?”
Loring shook his head. “That’s what I can’t make out, sir. They’ve been building up a forward-passing game in secret, but the reports from there don’t actually say so. You’ve got to read between the lines. In the outside games five players have taken passes, and only one of them, Loomis, is mentioned more than the others. Loomis is their regular left end. He was on their team last year, and fellows I’ve talked with say he wasn’t much of a player.”
Mr. Babcock was silent for a long moment. Then he asked briskly: “Think you could get to Cotterville next Saturday, Deane?”