Chapter 14

"SUSPICION IS NOT PROOF"

Jack listened attentively to catch the reply of the boy for upon it much depended.

Some one had paid the boy to set up and insert the obnoxious article and Jack knew that his theory that a poor compositor had done the work was correct.

Now the thing to be learned was who had paid him for what he had done and Jack believed that he was about to be enlightened.

Then he heard the click of the receiver being put back upon the hook and the connection was cut off.

"That's too bad!" he muttered as he hung up. "I thought I was going to find out something. Maybe I can yet."

"Did you get him?" asked Percival.

"Yes," and Jack told what he had heard over the wire.

"It's too bad that Brooke hung up so soon," said Dick, "but can't you get him again?"

"I suppose I might."

"And ask him pointblank who it was that hired the office boy to do this dirty work."

"I will, for he must know that I could hear all that was said in the room. That is a common occurrence."

Jack took down the receiver again and called up the office of the _News_, presently getting an answer after some delay:

"Line is busy."

"Call me up when it is not, please," said Jack, giving the number of Dick's 'phone.

Then he hung up again and said to the eager boys:

"The line is busy, of course. It always is when you want it particularly. However, they will call me up when it is free."

"Somebody paid the boy to get this thing into the _Gazette_," observed Percival, "and that somebody was an enemy of ours. Who was it?"

"Some one who wants to do Jack an injury," said Harry. "There are Pete Herring, Ernest Merritt and a few others like them but Herring and his side partner are the most likely ones."

"It is really narrowed down to those two when you come to it," suggested Arthur, "for they hate him the worst and are more active than the others."

"I think we'd better take that for granted," added Harry, "and work along those lines. I think it was one of them, just as I think it was one of them who pushed Jack off the bank."

"They may have hired a third party to do the work," remarked Percival. "They would know that they would be suspected on account of their opposition to Jack and so wish to hide their tracks."

"That's all right on the supposition that they are clever fellows," laughed Harry, "but your rascals are always weak somewhere and trip themselves up. They say it takes a smart man to be a rogue and neither Herring nor Merritt has any medals for brilliancy of intellect."

"No, and yet they have a certain shrewdness. Detection in a case of this sort would mean expulsion from the Academy and I do not believe either of them would care to face that."

"No, but all the same I think it was one of them and I believe we will eventually discover this."

"Aren't they a long time in calling you up, Jack?" asked Percival with some impatience. "Try them again."

Jack took up the receiver again, therefore, and called the _News_ office.

After some delay the girl at the central office said:

"They don't answer. I guess they must have gone home."

"Central cannot get the _News_," said Jack, hanging up. "She thinks everybody must have gone home. It is rather late for a fact," glancing at his watch. "I had not thought of that."

"Has Brooke a telephone in his house?" asked Percival.

"I don't know, I'll look," and Jack took down the address book hanging at the side of the instrument.

"I don't remember that he has," murmured Percival.

"No, he has not, only one at his office," reported Jack, after looking in the directory. "We cannot catch him now."

"That's too bad," grumbled Harry. "I would have liked to know positively about the business before supper."

"I can call him up after supper," suggested Dick. "He often goes back to the office of an evening. If he knows anything he will tell me, of course."

"If he does?" cried Harry. "Won't he?"

"If the boy tells him, but the boy may not."

"He couldn't refuse. He'd lose his job if he did."

"But the boy may not know the person who hired him. All the Hilltop boys are not known in Riverton and it is not positive that one of the boys of the Academy hired him. It may have been a third party."

The three boys now left the room, leaving Percival alone and not seeing him until supper time.

Later, Jack went to his friend's room to learn if anything had been heard from the editor.

"I have not been able to get him yet," reported Dick, "but I will try again later."

Up to the time of the boy's retiring for the night, however, nothing had been heard from Brooke and the boys were as much in the dark as ever.

In the morning Dick went in the runabout and got the bundle of papers from Brooke.

"Well, did you find out who hired the boy to put in that outrageous article?" the young fellow asked.

"No, I did not," said Brooke. "He said he did not know the young man and could not tell him again if he saw him."

"Where is he now, the boy I mean?"

"I don't know. He did not come to work this morning and his mother says he has gone up the river to take a job somewhere else."

"Did the foreman see the man who gave the order supposedly from Mr. Sheldon?"

"He says he had the order by telephone and never saw the copy which he was told would be sent in. Please look over the papers now to see if they are all right."

Dick read over one of the magazines, compared it hastily with a dozen others and found that no extraneous matter had been introduced.

"Yes, they are all right," he said, "and we will pay you for them but I would very much like to find out who was juggling with them. It is a queer thing all around. Wouldn't the foreman know Jack's voice?"

"He says he never thought to question it when some one said over the wire that he was Sheldon. He never had to do with your friend anyhow. I did most of the talking."

"But didn't you think it odd to send such a message over the 'phone?"

"I was pretty busy at the time working at the paper and we had some job work besides so that I left things to the foreman. He is rather hard of hearing and cannot distinguish voices very well. You have to yell at him to make him understand but the more noise there is in the office the better he can hear."

"Well, I don't suppose we will see the boy again and I wouldn't know him if I did see him. Jack might, for he remembers faces. What's the boy's name, anyhow?"

"Joe Jackson. He is red headed and squints. He always did get on my nerves and I am not sorry that he has gone but I shall have to find another."

"Well, the papers are all right and we will give you the job again but I hope we will not have any more such trouble. You can trust to Jack to see if there is anything wrong, however."

Dick took the papers, put them in the car and started for the Academy, reaching which in something less than half an hour, he found a big crowd of the Hilltop boys waiting for him.

They all clamored for the papers and Dick rapidly distributed them, giving Jack a significant look to indicate that everything was all right and that the conspirators, whoever they might be, would be greatly disappointed when they examined the _Gazette_.

Harry, Arthur, Billy Manners and Jack himself kept their eyes upon the suspected boys to see how the perusal of the magazine affected them.

"Oh, I say, fellows, here's something rich!" Arthur heard Merritt say as he opened the paper. "Let me read--why, that's nothing."

"He is one of the disappointed ones," thought Arthur, "but he may have only had knowledge of the thing rather than participated in it."

Harry kept his eyes upon Herring when the latter began to look at the paper and noticed that he seemed disappointed for he turned page after page evidently without finding what he wanted.

"There's nothing in that!" he sputtered in disgust. "It is not worth the paper it is printed on and wouldn't be if it were printed on the worst kind of brown wrapping paper. I won't subscribe for it again."

"What is the matter with it?" asked Harry.

"There's nothing in it, that's what."

"You mean that you expected to find something that is not----" and then Harry caught a warning look from Jack and stopped short.

Herring flushed crimson, however, and looked guilty, throwing the paper on the ground with an angry exclamation and walking hurriedly off the campus.

"That's one of the fellows if not the principal one," said Harry to Jack with a triumphant tone. "I have always suspected him."

"Suspicion is not proof, Harry," answered Jack, "and we must have more evidence before we can convict him."

"Just wait till we do, then. I wouldn't be in his slippers at the time, not for a hundred dollars!"