CHAPTER III.

A SCRAP OF PAPER.

The Clover Country Club had acquired a wider reputation than is usual with an organization of that description.

Intended originally as a simple athletic club, with out-of-door sports and games the special features, it had one of the finest golf links in the Middle West. Its tennis courts were unsurpassed, its running track unrivaled. There was a well-laid-out diamond which had been the scene of many a hot game of baseball, and which was used in the fall for football. Indoors were bowling alleys, billiard, and pool tables, a beautiful swimming tank in a well-equipped gymnasium.

But in the course of time other and less desirable features had been added. The younger set had developed into a rather fast, sporting crowd, and, slowly increasing in numbers and in power, they gradually crowded the old conservatives to the wall, until finally they controlled the management.

To-day the club was better known for the completeness of its buffet, than for the gymnasium; and it was a well-known fact that frequently more money changed hands in the so-called private card room in a single night than in the old days had been won or lost on sporting bets in the course of an entire season.

In spite of all this, however, out-of-door sports were still a feature, and now and then, when some especially well-known athletes were at the club, matches and contests of various kinds were arranged.

That very afternoon a mile race had been planned between Stovebridge and Charlie Layton--a Columbia graduate reported to have beaten everything in his class from Chicago to Omaha--who was coming on from the latter city especially for the occasion.

Fred Marston and others of his ilk usually did a great deal of sneering at such affairs, calling them farcical relics of barbarism, and made it plain that they only attended for the excitement of betting on the result; but this made little difference in the general enthusiasm.

For a time after the departure of Stovebridge the discussion of Merriwell’s story continued with some warmth, and many were the speculations as to the identity of the brute who had run over the child and left her there. But even that topic could not hold the interest of such a crowd of men for very long, and presently they began to disperse, some seeking the card room, others the buffet, while the remainder found comfortable seats on the veranda to put in the hour before luncheon in indolent lounging and small talk.

Roger Clingwood hesitated an instant before the wide doors of the reception hall.

“It’s too late for golf or tennis,” he said regretfully. “Is there anything else you would like to do before lunch? Er--cards, perhaps, or----”

He was one of the older members who had fought vigorously, but in vain, against the introduction of gambling in the club; but his innate sense of hospitality made him suggest the only form of amusement possible in the short time.

Dick smiled.

“Not for me, thank you,” he said quickly. “It always seems a waste of time to sit around a table in a stuffy room when you might be doing something interesting outside.”

Clingwood’s face brightened.

“I’m glad of that,” he said warmly. “I enjoy a good rubber as well as the next man, but I don’t like the kind of play that goes on here. How do your friends feel about it?”

He looked inquiringly at the others.

“Nix,” Buckhart said decidedly. “Not for me.”

Tucker and Bigelow both shook their heads.

“I used to flip the pasteboards in my younger days,” the former grinned; “but I’ve reformed.”

“Why not just sit here and do nothing?” Merriwell asked. “I feel that I’d enjoy an hour’s loaf.”

Bigelow evidently agreed with him, for he sank instantly into one of the wicker chairs, with a sigh of thankfulness.

The others followed his example, and their host took out a well-filled cigar case and passed it around. Tucker accepted one; the others declined.

“Layton ought to show up soon,” Clingwood remarked, settling back in his chair and blowing out a cloud of smoke. “I believe he’s due in Wilton at eleven forty-seven.”

“Layton?” Dick exclaimed interestedly. “Not Charlie Layton, the Columbia man?”

“That’s the boy. Know him?”

“I’ve met him. He’s one of the best milers in the country. Stovebridge must be pretty good to run against him.”

“He is,” returned the older man. “He trains with a crowd that I’m not at all in sympathy with, but, for all that, he’s not a bad fellow; crackerjack tennis player, and has a splendid record for long distance running. He keeps himself in fair training and doesn’t lush as much as most of his friends do.”

“I see,” Dick said thoughtfully.

This did not sound at all like a fellow who would run down a child and never stop to see how badly she was hurt. As a rule, good athletes are not cowards, though he had known exceptions.

At the same time, Stovebridge’s actions had been suspicious. Dick had not failed to notice his consternation at the sight of the cap, though he had quickly recovered himself and his explanation had been plausible enough.

Later, during Merriwell’s conversation with him, the fellow’s agitation had been palpable. That he was laboring under a tremendous mental strain, the Yale man was certain. Of course, the cause of it might have been something quite different, but to Dick it looked very much as though Brose Stovebridge knew a good deal more about the accident than would appear.

And he had come to the club that morning alone in a red car!

All at once Dick became conscious that some one had paused on the drive quite close to the veranda and was looking at him.

As he raised his head quickly, he saw that it was the same dark-haired, sullen youth he had passed as he came out of the farmhouse that morning.

To Dick’s astonishment the fellow’s eyes were fixed on him with a look of fierce, malignant hatred which was unmistakable. His fingers twitched convulsively and his whole attitude was one of consuming rage.

As Merriwell looked up, the other seemed to control himself with an effort, and, turning his head away, slouched on along the drive.

“What’s the matter with him I wonder?” the Yale man mused. “He looks as if he could eat me up with the greatest pleasure in life. I wonder who he is?”

He turned to Roger Clingwood, who was talking with Buckhart and Tucker.

“Who is that fellow that just passed, Mr. Clingwood?” he asked, when there was a lull in the conversation. “Did you notice him?”

“Yes, I saw him. That’s Jim Hanlon; he occasionally does odd jobs about the grounds.”

“Hanlon!” Dick exclaimed. “Any relation to the little girl?”

“Yes, her brother.”

“Oh, I see.”

Dick hesitated.

“Is he--all there?” he asked after a moment’s pause.

Roger Clingwood looked rather surprised.

“Yes, so far as I know. He’s deaf and dumb, you see, and has the reputation of being rather hot tempered at times; but I never heard that he didn’t have all his faculties. Poor fellow! It’s enough to drive any one dotty to have to do all one’s talking with pencil and paper. I’m not surprised that he loses his temper now and then.”

“I should say not,” Tucker put in. “Just imagine getting into an argument and having to write it all out. I’d lay down and cough up the ghost.”

“I opine you’d blow up and bust, Tommy,” Buckhart grinned. “Or else the hot air would strike in and smother you.”

“You’re envious of my wit and persiflage,” declared Tucker. “I’d be ashamed to show such a disposition as that, if I were you.”

“When you’re talking with Hanlon, do you also have to take to pencil and paper?” Dick asked interestedly.

“Oh, no,” Clingwood answered. “He knows what you’re saying by watching your lips. He’s amazingly good at it, too; I’ve never seen him stumped.”

At that moment Stovebridge strolled out of the clubhouse and stopped beside Clingwood’s chair.

“Any signs of Layton yet?” he drawled.

“Haven’t seen him,” the other man answered. “He’s had hardly time to get here from Wilton, has he?”

“Plenty, if he came on the eleven forty-seven. Sartoris went over with his car to meet him. I hope he’s not going to disappoint us.”

He turned away and walked slowly down the veranda toward Marston lounging in a corner.

As Dick followed him with his eyes, there was a slightly puzzled look in them.

Stovebridge was so cool and self-possessed, so utterly different from the man who had shown such agitation barely half an hour before, that for an instant Merriwell was staggered.

“Either I’m wrong and he’s innocent,” he thought to himself, “or he has the most amazing self-control. There isn’t a hint in his manner that the fellow has a trouble in the world.”

Then the Yale man’s intuitive good sense reasserted itself.

“He’s bluffing,” he muttered under his breath. “I’ll stake my reputation that, for all his pretended indifference, Brose Stovebridge is either the guilty man, or he knows who is. And I rather think he’s the one himself.”

Roger Clingwood pulled out his watch.

“Well, boys, it’s about time for lunch,” he remarked. “Suppose I take you up to your rooms and, after you’ve brushed up a bit, we’ll go in and have a bite to eat.”

“I’ll get the bags out of the car and be with you in a minute,” Dick said as they stood up.

“Wait, I’ll ring for a man to take them up,” proposed Clingwood.

“Don’t bother,” Dick said quickly. “They’re very light, and Brad and I can easily carry them. Besides, I’d like to see just where they’ve put the car so that I’ll know where to go if I want to take her out.”

“Well, have your own way,” smiled the other. “The garage is around at the back. Follow the drive and you can’t miss it.”

Leaving Tucker and Bigelow with their host, the two chums followed the latter’s directions and had no difficulty in locating the automobile sheds.

Merriwell was glad of the opportunity, for he wanted very much to have a look at Stovebridge’s car. In fact, that was his principal reason for coming out instead of having the bags sent for.

There were a dozen machines in the sheds, of all sizes and makes, but only two runabouts. One was a small electric, and the other--standing in the compartment next to Dick’s car, the _Wizard_--was a new, high-power roadster, painted a dark red.

“That’s the one, I reckon,” he said aloud, as they surveyed it.

The Texan’s eyes crinkled.

“I opine it is, pard, if you say so,” he grinned. “Might a thick, onery cow-puncher ask, what one?”

“Stovebridge’s car,” Merriwell explained briefly.

The Westerner gave a low whistle.

“Oh, ho! A red runabout,” he murmured. “So you think he’s the gent we’re after?”

As Dick stepped in to examine the car more closely, his eyes fell upon a scrap of paper which lay on the ground close by one of the forward wheels. Picking it up, he saw that it was a torn piece of common brown wrapping paper, very much mussed and dirty. He was about to toss it aside when he happened to turn it over. The next instant his eyes widened with surprise.

“What the mischief is this, I wonder?” he said in a low tone.

Buckhart stepped forward and looked at it over the other’s shoulder.

“‘His name is Dick Merriwell’,” he read slowly. “Who’s been taking your name in vain, partner?”

Dick made no reply. He was busy trying to decipher the illiterate scrawl which preceded the one legible sentence the Texan had read. Slowly, word by word, he made it out.

“Somebody--run over--Amy--and--kill her,” he read at last.

“Amy--who is Amy?” he mused. “Why, that’s the little girl we picked up this morning--Amy Hanlon.”

He looked at the paper again, and then, like a ray of light, the solution flashed into his brain.

“Why, that dumb fellow--her brother--must have written this!” he exclaimed. “Clingwood said he had to do his talking on paper. But what on earth is my name here for? Wait a minute.”

His eyes went back to the scrap of paper, and for a few minutes there was silence. When he looked up at Buckhart, his face was set and his eyes stern.

“Listen, Brad,” he said rapidly. “On this paper there are four questions and one answer. The questions were written by an illiterate person; the answer--was not. It is evidently part of a conversation between this dumb fellow and some one else. Hanlon first informs this person that his sister had been run over and killed. How he got the idea I don’t know, unless she had fainted when he went into the room, and he did not wait long enough to find out the truth. Then he proceeds to inform whoever he is talking with that he will kill the man who ran the child down. Then he writes: ‘What’s the name of the fellow that came, with three others, in that car?’ Do you make any sense out of that, Brad?”

The Texan shook his head.

“I sure don’t,” he said decidedly.

“Well, I don’t know as I blame you,” Merriwell returned. “The next sentence is apparently the answer to a question by the other man. It is: ‘He killed Amy.’ Meaning that the man in a car with three others ran over his sister, which, of course, we know isn’t so. There was only one, according to her statement. Then follows the line in another hand which you read: ‘His name is Dick Merriwell.’ Don’t you see now, Brad?”

“Afraid I’m awful thick----”

“Why, it’s clear as day,” Merriwell interrupted. “This Hanlon has somehow got the idea that I ran over the little girl. He doesn’t know my name and proceeds to ask this unknown person what it is, giving at the same time the reason why he wants to know. He gets the answer without a word of denial or explanation, and goes away with the firm belief that I am a murderer. That accounts for the look he gave me when he passed the veranda a little while ago.”

“The miserable snake!” exploded the irate Westerner. “Wait till I put my blinkers on him!”

“He isn’t to blame,” Dick asserted quickly. “He thinks he’s right. It’s the other man I’d like to get my hands on--the fellow that let him go on believing a lie.”

He paused and looked significantly at Buckhart.

“Who is the man most interested in shifting the blame to my shoulders?” he asked in a hard voice. “Whom have we suspected? Under whose car did I pick up this paper?”

“Stovebridge!”

The word came in a smothered roar from the lips of the irate Texan, and, turning swiftly, he started toward the clubhouse, his face flushed with rage and his eyes flashing.

“Stop! Come back, Brad,” Dick called. “You must not do anything now. We have no real proof; he would deny everything.”

Buckhart hesitated and then came slowly back to the shed. Dick went over to his own car and pulled out a couple of bags from the tonneau.

“Don’t worry, you untamed Maverick of the Pecos,” he said with a half smile. “We’ll get him right before very long.”

He folded the paper and put it carefully away in his breast pocket.

“I’ve got this, for one thing,” he went on, “and I also have an idea in my head which I think will come to something.”