The Mark of the Knife Part 15

"Why don't we go up those stairs there and see what we find," said Mr.

Stevens. "It's trespa.s.sing, I suppose, but all in a justifiable cause."

Quickly they let themselves in the rear door and began to mount the steps.

"That night," said Teeny-bits, "I remember that I came down two flights; this might be the place, but of course I didn't stop much to look around."

At the top of the second flight Mr. Stevens and Teeny-bits came to a narrow hallway from which opened two doors. Mr. Stevens knocked softly on the one at the right and, receiving no answer, pushed it open. They had expected to find no one in the room; to their surprise, a Chinese who had been lying on a "double-decker" bunk jumped down to the floor and stood looking at them with astonishment and fear in his face.

"This isn't the room, and I don't think I ever saw this fellow before,"

Teeny-bits whispered to the English master.

"We're looking for two Chinese who were in one of these rooms last Friday night," said Mr. Stevens to the Oriental. "Perhaps they're in the other room."

It was evident that the Chinaman who confronted them with startled eyes did not understand much English. He made no reply and continued to stare at them as if he thought it inexplainable that two white men should suddenly invade his sleeping quarters.

Mr. Stevens backed out of the room and somewhat to Teeny-bits' surprise immediately tried the other door. It opened upon a small square room, empty except for a table and four chairs which were arranged as if for a game of cards. Teeny-bits had expected to see a mattress lying on the floor, but nothing of the sort greeted his eyes and no one was in the room.

"This looks like the place, but somehow it seems changed," he said to Mr. Stevens.

At that moment they both heard a cry in Chinese and, as they whirled round, an answer came from the floor below and the sound of feet pattering down the stairway.

"There!" exclaimed Mr. Stevens, "I'm afraid your friends are running away. That fellow in the other room has given the alarm. Let's go down to the restaurant quickly and see what we can find."

Chuan Kai met the two with an inscrutable countenance. There was something about his eyes, however, that suggested to Teeny-bits and Mr.

Stevens that he was not wholly unprepared for their call.

"Last Friday night," said the English master, "this young man was kept for several hours in one of the rooms upstairs. We should like to talk to the two Chinese who were kind enough to permit him to escape."

"No unne'stan'," said Chuan Kai, wrinkling his lips in a manner that showed his yellow teeth.

Mr. Stevens was patient. He repeated his request, laid his hand on Teeny-bits' shoulder, pointed toward the ceiling as he mentioned the room above and then held up two fingers as he spoke of the Chinese who had been present when Teeny-bits escaped. The only answer was a puzzled frown on Chuan Kai's wrinkled features; either the old man was bewildered by the request of his visitors or he was a good actor.

Suddenly Mr. Stevens decided the latter, for he spoke rapidly and with considerable force:

"I think you understand English all right. Now tell me, where are those two men of yours? If you will let me see them quickly perhaps we can agree not to trouble you further. Now then, where are they?"

Chuan Kai smiled with such ingenuousness as he could summon. "Ai," he said. "You like to see my boys?"

He turned away from them quickly and cried out something in Chinese, at the same time throwing back a door which led to the kitchen.

"Come, look, _see_," he said as he turned back to Teeny-bits and Mr.

Stevens. "You like see all boys."

In the kitchen which was disclosed to view were four Chinese in loose-sleeved shirts and ap.r.o.ns. They were engaged in cutting up meat and in mixing food over the fire. Among them Teeny-bits did not recognize either one of the Orientals who had acted so strangely at the sight of the knife mark.

"I don't think they're here," he said to Mr. Stevens. "As I remember it they were bigger than these fellows."

The English master turned to Chuan Kai and said, "We don't intend to cause you any trouble. This young friend of mine has a mark on his shoulder which looks like a knife. Two of your men acted strangely when they saw it. What can you tell me about it? Don't be afraid to speak up."

Chuan Kai and his four employees looked at their American visitors with every semblance of frank amazement and bewilderment.

"Well, we'll try one thing more," said Mr. Stevens. "Pull off your coat, Teeny-bits, and let them take a look at that mark."

Teeny-bits quickly threw off his coat and unb.u.t.toned the soft collar of his shirt until he could pull back the linen and show the mark of the knife. The effect was more than the English master or Teeny-bits expected. The four Chinese, who had been observing in apparent astonishment this sudden performance on Teeny-bits' part, gazed at the mark and began to jabber among themselves in a manner that showed plainly enough their excitement and agitation. One of them even took a step nearer as if to obtain a clearer view. Chuan Kai, however, quickly brought their demonstration to an end. He exclaimed sharply in his singsong language and stepped toward them in a manner that had only one meaning,--a threat of violence. Instantly the four Chinese resumed their work over the meat and the kettles, and although they rolled their black eyes furtively toward Teeny-bits and the English master they said nothing more, nor could they be induced to show further sign of excitement.

Chuan Kai himself muttered in Chinese. Finally he smiled craftily, shrugged his shoulders and said to Mr. Stevens, "Where did boy get mark?

These fellas (pointing to the four Chinese) think it's funny."

"Why do they think it's funny?" asked Mr. Stevens. But the Oriental had no answer to that and took refuge again in his a.s.sumed or actual unfamiliarity with English. For several minutes Mr. Stevens tried to get something further from the Chinamen but was unsuccessful and finally said to Teeny-bits who had b.u.t.toned his shirt and put on his coat:

"Well, I guess we've found out as much as we are able to from these fellows. Let's be going."

Chuan Kai, following them out to the street, was obsequiously polite. He even gave them a little box of Chinese nuts and candied fruit and pressed it upon them when they at first refused to accept it.

The result of the visit had not been satisfactory. Teeny-bits had been unable to discover either of the Orientals who had held him prisoner.

Perhaps, as Mr. Stevens had suggested, these two had escaped down the alley when the young Chinese whom they had encountered in the upper room gave his cry of warning. The only significant incident had been when the four Chinese had shown excitement on viewing the mark on Teeny-bits'

back.

"Of course, we could swear out a warrant and have the police investigate this whole matter," said Mr. Stevens, "but I am afraid that that would get us nowhere, for as you say, it would be pretty difficult for you to identify those men and we couldn't even prove that it was at Chuan Kai's place that you were held prisoner. I guess the next thing for us to do is to wait for some word to come from Tracey Campbell."

But no word of explanation came. For a few days Tracey Campbell lay in a semiconscious condition; he then grew rapidly better and at the end of the week was removed to the Campbell home.

The leather dealer, who had been away on a business trip at the time of the Ridgley-Jefferson game, had, of course, been summoned back to Greensboro by telegram. Twice he came to Ridgley School for a conference with Doctor Wells. His att.i.tude on the occasion of his first visit was one of indignation and arrogance. He indicated to the Head that Ridgley School was responsible for the whole tragic incident and that explanations were in order. When he learned that his son was under accusation and that there was evidence to give weight to the case, his att.i.tude underwent somewhat of a change. He was still in a warlike mood, however, and left Doctor Wells with the promise of getting at the root of the whole matter and exonerating his son. On the occasion of his second visit, however, his att.i.tude was quite different. He now wished to hush up the whole affair and treat the thing as an unfortunate incident which could not be too quickly forgotten. Tracey Campbell would not return to Ridgley School. As soon as he recovered sufficiently to travel his father intended to send him to Florida. From certain remarks that the leather dealer made, it was evident to Doctor Wells that Tracey had confessed his part in the theft of the trinkets and money. In regard to the charge of being implicated in the kidnapping of Teeny-bits, Mr.

Campbell declared that nothing had been proved against his son and in his opinion it was doubtless "all a story made up by that young Teeny-bits fellow in order to curry favor and win popularity."

And so the matter was left as far as the Campbells were concerned, though it was said that Mrs. Campbell called Doctor Wells on the telephone and in her shrill voice denied vigorously that her son had acted in any manner unbecoming to "the son of a gentleman" and that for her part she thought that the school was a poor one and that she wished they wouldn't have such games as football "which work the boys up to excitement and get them into a dangerous state of mind." No one took the pains to ascertain whether Tracey Campbell was actually expelled from the school or had merely been withdrawn. At any rate Ridgley School would see him no more and as the days went on, it seemed less and less worth while to investigate the circ.u.mstances which preceded the Jefferson game by calling upon Tracey Campbell to confess further details.

The visit of Ba.s.sett Senior to the school--Blow-Hard Ba.s.sett as he was known in certain sections of the West--was sadder and more pathetic. He was a big man who dressed gaudily; even the tragedy had not served to remove wholly from his appearance the garish quality that proclaimed his type. To Mr. Stevens and Doctor Wells his visit was a startling exemplification of that old saying: "Like father, like son." When they talked to him it was as if they were talking to Whirlwind Ba.s.sett grown into a man of fifty. His visit was an unpleasant incident,--he showed so plainly that he had made a failure of his duties as a father and he groped so helplessly in his grief for the reason why his boy, whose body he would carry back to the West, had by his own acts brought an unhappy termination to his career.

"I never understood him," he said to Doctor Wells, "and I suppose I haven't been just the right kind of father for him. He didn't have any mother after he was four years old, and even when he was a little feller I never seemed to have much luck in making him mind me. He was always doing something to cause a commotion of some sort, like running away or getting into mix-ups--nothing very bad, you know, just such things as young fellers are apt to do. Sometimes I talked to him but it never made much impression."

As Blow-Hard Ba.s.sett looked out of Doctor Wells' shaded windows there was a hint of moisture in his eyes. "He was a determined little feller,"

he remarked after a moment, "and when he'd get a notion in his head it seemed like nothing would shake it out. I remember one time when a mongrel dog that they had out on a ranch where we were staying bit him on the wrist and the little chap--I guess he was only eight years old--came bawling to me and says, 'He bit me, Pa; you've got to kill him!'

"I said, 'Don't you see, it was your fault; the dog wouldn't of bit you if you hadn't been teasin' him,' but he kept on begging me to kill the mongrel and when I wouldn't do it, he decided to take matters into his own hands--and what do you suppose he done? He got a six-shooter out of a holster that one of the cowboys had left lyin' around an' come up behind that dog while he was sunnin' himself beside the ranch house and blowed out his brains! You see, he just made up his mind to settle with that dog, and nothing that any of us could say made a bit of difference.

I always thought he was going to be a smart man, but I never could get close to him, so to speak. It was just as if he belonged to some other man, and now, of course, I can't help wishing that I had somehow got to understand him better."

There was not much that Doctor Wells could say after that except to extend his sympathy and to express the wish that it had been possible for others as well as the father to understand and help the youth who had come to his untimely end.

November, with each day crisper than the last, slipped into December and one morning the school awoke to find a thin sifting of snow over the brown gra.s.s of the campus and the bare branches of the maple trees. The Christmas vacation suddenly became the subject of conversation, and to Teeny-bits it seemed that every one had a plan that promised pleasure and recreation. He felt a little lonely at the thought of seeing all these friends of his depart for the holidays and leave him to spend the vacation alone in the quiet little village of Hamilton; and then one evening after the last mail, Neil Durant came into his room with two opened letters in his hand.

"A couple of invitations," he said. "It's all fixed up, Teeny-bits.

You're going home for Christmas with me and we're going up to Norris'

place in the mountains for some winter sports. You remember he spoke about getting together, after the game. I thought then that I'd like to renew old times and now he writes that he wants us to come up to his place, which is a wonder, way back in the hills where there's great skiing and snowshoeing."

To Teeny-bits it seemed suddenly as if he had been dreaming and hoping for a long time that this very thing would happen. It was a wonderful chance for a good time--but it was to prove more than that for the new captain of the Ridgley football team.