Chapter 17

Mr. Proctor Gets the Bag

Saturday evening, the telephone in Colonel Morrell’s office rang. After a short conversation he sent an orderly in quest of Don and Jim, as well as Douglas and Hudson. When they were all assembled he told them what he had in mind.

“I have just had a call from Mr. Proctor, boys. He has the black bag with the 1933 trophy in it!”

“He has?” cried Don. “That’s fine.”

“Yes, and he is on his way here now. I wanted you young men on the spot to get a good look at it as soon as I did. All we have to do is to wait until the detective comes.”

It took Mr. Proctor a good half hour to arrive, but at last they heard a taxi drive up to the front of Locke Hall and a door slam. A moment later and Mr. Proctor was with them, a satisfied expression on his sleek face. In his hand he carried a small black bag, of which he took excellent care.

“Well, so we have it at last, eh?” boomed the colonel. “How did you get hold of it?”

“I didn’t get it in the house at all,” the detective explained. “Mr. Burgess, the visitor from Canada, kept it so close beside him that I didn’t have a chance. I had to wait until after he was gone. I followed him down to the station and watched my chance, but it didn’t come until after I got on the train. He had placed it in the rack overhead and when we came to a small station I got up, took the bag and made for the door, just as he raised a cry. It was good and dark, so I just beat it away and took a cab here. I called you up from Orangeville, colonel.”

“I see,” said the colonel. “Well, now let’s have a look at that cup.”

Mr. Proctor went to work on the bag, which was locked, but with the aid of some keys and a huge knife forced the top open, while the cadets looked on in breathless interest. As the bag split open with a rush they all craned forward to see what was in it.

It was full of old newspapers, and nothing more.

For just a minute there was complete silence in the room. The boys looked from one to another and the detective looked as though his eyes would pop out with surprise and mortification. The colonel breathed hard.

“Looks as though something had been put over on you, Mr. Proctor,” he said quietly.

The detective nodded miserably. All the way to the school he had been congratulating himself on his cleverness and now it turned out to be but a mockery.

“Then he must have the thing in his suitcase!” he cried. “But I distinctly heard Gates tell him to take the cup in the black bag.”

“It looks very much as though they both knew you were on the trail and switched the cup to the suitcase,” Hudson remarked.

“If that is the case, the cup is lost, for it is on its way to Canada,” the colonel declared.

“I don’t see how they could have gotten onto me,” the detective cried. “I never did a better job in my life.”

“I have just thought of something,” ventured Don. “Do you remember the night you called up the school here and told the colonel all about it, Mr. Proctor?”

“Yes,” replied the man.

“Was Arthur Gates at home when you called?”

“Yes, but he was upstairs, for I made sure of that. Oh, he couldn’t have heard me!” the man protested.

“When I was at that house, on the night we took Mr. Gates home from the accident, I noticed a telephone upstairs. Do you suppose—”

“Ah!” almost shouted the detective. “That click on the wire!”

“Did it sound as though someone upstairs picked up the telephone receiver while you were talking?” pressed Don quietly.

“Yes,” acknowledged the detective. “Now that you put it that way, it