The Winning Touchdown/Chapter 22
CHAPTER XXII
BASCOME DENIES
Tom Parsons knocked vigorously on the door of Bert Bascome's room. If the character of his summons was any indication of his mind, the bearer of the letter was in no mood for compromise. As soon as he had tapped at the portal, there was audible within the apartment a hasty scramble.
"Guess they must think it's Zane, or Prexy," mused Tom, grimly. He waited several seconds, and then came the gentle and somewhat sleep-simulated query:
"Who's there?"
"It's me—Parsons," was the ready, if ungrammatical, answer. "Are you there, Bascome?"
"Yes, of course. I thought it was one of the profs. It's all right, fellows—you can come out," and, as the door opened, Tom saw several of Bascome's friends crawling from under the bed and couch. There was a smell of cigarette smoke quite noticeable in the room.
"Whew! You fellows are going some!" commented Tom. "You can smell that all the way up to our room."
"No! Can you really?" asked Bascome, in some alarm. "We opened all the windows, and we fan the smoke out regularly every ten minutes; don't we, fellows?"
"Sure," replied Merkle, one of the sportiest of sporty seniors. "It's regular bore to think we have to sneak around this way when we want to smoke. Why, in some big colleges, I understand, they allow the undergraduates to smoke in their rooms, and even the tutors have a pipe with them."
"Pity this isn't a big college," remarked Bascome, as he lighted another cigarette. "I suppose I oughtn't to do this when I'm in training," he went on easily, "but you won't squeal, will you, Parsons? Have a cig. yourself?"
"No, thank you. May I see you just a moment, Bascome?"
Tom had not thought to find anyone in the room save the left tackle, and he hardly knew how, under the circumstances, to put his question.
"Sure," answered Bascome. "Anything about football? Because if it is"
"It isn't," answered Tom, quickly.
"Oh, then, come on out. Excuse me just a moment, fellows," he said to his guests, as he followed our hero out into the corridor. "I hope it isn't spondulix, old man," he went on. "I'd let you have some in a moment, but I'm dead broke, and"
"I don't need any money!" broke in Tom, half angrily. "Look here, Bascome, were you in our room to-day after the football game?"
"In your room? Certainly not, either before the game or after it. What do you mean?"
"Well," went on Tom, "there have been some queer things happening lately. Our old chair was taken—for a joke, I presume, and"
"Do you mean to accuse me of having a hand in that?" demanded Bascome, indignantly. "If you do, Parsons"
"Take it easy," advised Tom, calmly. "I haven't accused you of anything yet. I merely asked you if you had been in our room."
"But why do you do that? What makes you think I was in there?"
"Because I found this there after we came back from the game this afternoon," went on the end. "It's a letter addressed to you, and I thought maybe you had dropped it."
Tom held out the missive, but, before taking it, Bascome, with a glance of anger at his companion, said cuttingly:
"Look here, Parsons, I don't know what your game is, but I think you're confoundedly insulting. Now, before I look at that letter, I want to say, in the strongest way I know how, that I was not in your room to-day, nor any other day lately. In fact, I haven't been there since a lot of us fellows were talking over football matters with you and Phil and Sid one evening."
"Yes, I remember that time," spoke Tom. "Well, I believe you, of course. Here's the letter. It's mighty queer, though."
Bascome gave one glance at the missive, and murmured:
"Lenton! I wonder what he's writing about now. That fellow's off his base, I think."
As he read the note, a scowl came over his face, and he muttered something that Tom could not catch. However, the end did hear Bascome say:
"Insolent puppy! He's got nerve to write to me that way! I'll have it out with him!"
Then, with rapid motions, Bascome tore the letter to pieces, and scattered them about the corridor.
"It doesn't throw any light on the mystery that has been bothering you fellows, about your clock and chair," went on the tackle. "I had some dealings with Lenton, and this was about that."
"I didn't ask to know what was in the letter," said Tom, quickly. "The only funny part of it was that it was in our room. I thought perhaps" he hesitated.
"Oh, don't make any bones about it," urged his fellow player. "You might as well say it as think it. You imagined I had been in there, playing some sort of a joke on you."
"Yes, I did," admitted Tom. "Our clock was returned mysteriously to-night, and the one left in its place was taken away. The other night we found a false key in our door, and now"
"Now you find a letter addressed to me!" interrupted Bascome. "I don't blame you for thinking it a bit queer, old man, but I'm not in the game. I've got other fish to fry. The way I suppose my letter got in you fellows' room, is that Wallops, or some of the messengers to whom Lenton gave it to be delivered to me, must have dropped it there."
"But Wallops nor none of the messengers would have a right to go into our room while we were out," declared Tom.
"Oh, you can't tell what those fellows would do," asserted Bascome, easily. "I'll wager that's how it happened. Ask Wallops. I'm out of it, anyhow. I wasn't in your shack, and you can't make that too strong when you report back to Phil and Sid."
"I will," promised Tom, somewhat nonplused at the outcome of the affair. He had been sure that something would come of the connection Bascome and the letter. "I'm sorry I took you away from your friends," he went on.
"Oh, that's all right. I'd rather have you speak openly like this, than be thinking a lot of queer things. No, I'm out of it. The letter had nothing to do with your clock or chair," and with this denial Bascome turned back toward his own room.
"Good night," he called to Tom; that is, unless you'll join us?"
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.
"I'll tell them," he thought. "Maybe they can see through it, for I'll be hanged if I can. 'The alarm clock!' I wonder if I would be justified in picking up the rest of the pieces, and seeing what I could make of them? No! Of course I couldn't read another fellow's letter, even to solve the mystery. It's not serious enough for that."
Then Tom, after another look at the scrap he had, thrust it into his pocket, as much for the sake of preventing it from falling into the hands of curiosity seekers, as for any other reason.
"We'll see what Phil and Sid can make of it," he mused, and then, hearing someone approaching, Tom hastened on to his own room.
"It certainly is queer," said Phil, when Tom had told him the result of his little excursion. "I think I'd almost have picked up the whole letter. Bascome couldn't have cared much about it, or he wouldn't have thrown the pieces into the hall. Guess I'll go get 'em."
"No, we can't do a thing like that," declared Sid quickly. "I know a better plan."
"What?" inquired Tom.
"Let's ask Wallops if he had a note to deliver to Bascome from Lenton. He may have gotten in our room by mistake."
"Of course!" cried Tom, quickly. "The very thing. Maybe that will help clear it up."
It was comparatively early, and Wallops was found in the janitors' quarters.
"No," he replied, in answer to Sid's inquiry, "I haven't seen Mr. Bascome or Mr. Lenton this evening, and I had no note for either of them, nor from one. And I wasn't in your room."
"Oh, all right!" exclaimed Phil, quickly, for he did not want to create any talk. "I dare say it was a mistake. Come on, fellows."
"Well, what do you think now?" asked Tom, as the three were on their way to their room.
"I think either Bascome or Lenton was in our room," declared Phil.
"Yes, but which one?" asked Sid.
No one could answer him.