“What’s come over Raymond to-day?” asked Fred. “He looks as though he were going to the electric chair.”
“He certainly does have plenty of the gloom stuff,” agreed Billy.
“Off his feed, perhaps,” suggested Slim, to whom nothing seemed more tragic than a loss of appetite.
“Into each life some rain must fall,
Some days be dark and dreary,”
quoted Tom.
Fred laughed and made a pass at him, little thinking how soon the lines would apply to himself.
In his mail that afternoon, the professor received a letter. There was nothing about it to identify the writer. In fact, there was no writing, as both the address and the letter itself were printed in rough, sprawling letters. It read this way:
“Look in Fred Rushton’s locker.”
The professor was thunderstruck. For several minutes, he sat staring at the printed words without moving a muscle.
The first shock of amazement gave place to a sharp, gripping pain.