CHAPTER XIII.
DON ACCUSES RENWOOD.
Don could scarcely fail to observe his companion’s strange agitation and pallor.
“Well, what’s the matter with you?” he exclaimed, wonderingly.
“That knife!” gasped Leon. “Where did you get it?”
He snatched it from Don’s hand and examined it closely, his fingers trembling a little, while his whole manner betrayed both astonishment and dismay.
“Have you ever seen that knife before?” questioned the dark-haired boy.
“I—I—why, I believe I have.”
“When? Where?”
“Why, I—er—saw it last night.”
“You did? Where?”
“In the club-room.”
“Who had it?” cried Don, clutching Bentley fiercely by the shoulder.
“Don’t!” begged the other lad, squirming and dropping his cigarette. “Great Cæsar! you hurt! Your fingers feel like iron!”
“Who had that knife?” Don again demanded. “If you saw it in the club-room, you must have seen it in the possession of some one. Who had it?”
“Why, it—it’s Renwood’s knife.”
“How do you know? Did you see it in his possession?”
“Yes.”
“Are you sure? Are you sure?”
“Yes, I’m sure, for I took it from him and examined it before all the other fellows. I told him I’d like to have a knife like that, and then I passed it back to him, and he took it. All the fellows saw me give it back to him,” Leon concluded, impressively.
“That settles it!” grated the doctor’s son, his eyes flashing and his face betraying triumphant satisfaction. “I’m glad they all saw this knife in that fellow’s possession and that he claimed it as his own. Even though I cannot understand his motive for doing the dirty job in the dressing-room, there is no longer a doubt in my mind but he did it.”
Bentley drew a long breath, looked wonderfully relieved, and a bit of color returned to his sallow cheeks. Had Don Scott been watching his visitor closely, he must have wondered somewhat at his manner.
“But how that knife came into your possession is more than I can understand,” said Leon, picking up his half-smoked cigarette and looking at Don askance.
Then Scott told him the whole story of his adventure in the dressing-room the night before, and the other listened attentively, but with his eyes downcast, at times gnawing at his lips in a nervous manner.
“That beats the world!” he muttered, when the story was finished. “But I think it’s a mighty unlucky thing that you turned up there last night, old man.”
“Unlucky?” cried Don. “How is that? Didn’t I catch the fellow right in the act?”
“Yes; but it might have been better if you had not caught him.”
“I don’t understand. How could it have been better?”
“Well, he—er—perhaps he might have—left a—a clew—there in the dressing-room,” faltered Leon, lamely. “He might have dropped the knife, you know, and—er—forgotten it.”
“Not at all likely! If I hadn’t come on him just as I did, he’d done the job and got away without leaving a trace. No one could have sworn who did it, and any one else might have been suspected. Why, they might have suspected me!”
“I don’t know but you’re right,” slowly admitted Bentley; “still, something tells me it would have been better if you hadn’t run onto him.”
“Why, you’re daffy!” laughed Don, his eyes gleaming. “I have the fellow—have him foul!”
“What are you going to do?”
“Why, I’m going to expose him! I’m going to show him up to the boys! I’ll show them what sort of a chap they have as coach for the eleven.”
“That’s all right,” said Bentley; “but what if they don’t believe your story?”
“They’ll have to believe it! Here’s the knife, and here are my fingers, cut in the struggle with him. More than that,” he went on, striding quickly to the clothes-press, “here is my coat, with a slit from the shoulder to the elbow, just as he made it when he tried to stab me.”
He held up the coat, and the visitor regarded it with no small amount of curiosity, whistling softly and observing:
“By gracious! he did come near carving you up.”
“I believe he knew me!” Don savagely declared. “He must have recognized me.”
“Oh, no! it was so dark in there that a fellow couldn’t recognize any one—at least, you said it was,” Leon hastily added.
“Still, I believe he knew me, and that was why he tried to cut me. I’ll square the account with him! Wait till I show him up to-morrow!”
“Well, I hope you succeed,” said Bentley, sincere in that wish, at least. “I think I’ll be going. Your old man might come home, and I have a notion he doesn’t like me.”
Don did not object to the departure of his visitor, and, having lighted another cigarette, Leon left, as he had entered, by the back door.
Don could scarcely wait for the following day, so eager was he to denounce Renwood. He pictured to himself the sensation his revelation would create, and in his mind he saw his enemy an outcast, scorned and taunted and shunned by the village lads.
It was barely eight o’clock the following morning when Don passed the fountain in the village square, being on his way to a grocery store to take an order for his aunt before starting for school. As he came out of the store, Dick Sterndale called to him from the opposite side of the street:
“Come over here, Scott, I want to see you.”
“And you’re the very fellow I’m looking for,” said Don, promptly crossing over.
“I want you to come to the club-room for a short time, Scott,” the captain of the eleven grimly declared, regarding Don in anything but a pleasant manner.
They climbed the stairs, Dick falling in behind.
“He means to give me a call-down for my talk to Renwood,” thought the boy in advance, feeling in his pocket for the captured knife. “I’ll make him change his tune in a hurry.”
Reaching the club-rooms, they found Mayfair and Chatterton there, both of whom regarded Don coldly, not even nodding to him.
“Well, what do you want of me, Sterndale?” demanded the dark-haired lad, ignoring the others.
“I have a few questions to ask you,” said Dick, ominously, closing the door behind them; “and it’s best for you to tell the truth, too.”
“I am not in the habit of lying!” flared the doctor’s son, his face turning crimson; “and I won’t take an insinuation of the sort from you or anybody else, Dick Sterndale! You want to be careful!”
He was scowling fiercely, but the captain of the eleven, regardless of his threatening manner, sharply asked:
“Where did you go directly after leaving this room last night, Scott?”
“I don’t know that it’s any of your business,” retorted Don, “but I don’t mind telling you. I went home.”
“Did you remain there?”
A sudden sensation of danger assailed Don, and his eyes swiftly scanned the faces of Sterndale and his companions. He discovered that he was being regarded with cold scorn, and an intimation of their thoughts fell upon him.
“Look here, Sterndale,” he said, quickly, turning to the captain, “if you have anything to say to me, just say it at once, without beating round the bush. What are you driving at?”
From behind the door the captain took down three football suits that had been cut and slashed into ribbons, and he kicked out before Don the remains of a football which had been destroyed in a similar manner.
“Do you know anything about this job?” asked Dick, sternly and accusingly.
“Yes!”
They were somewhat surprised by Don’s answer, and Chatterton whispered to Mayfair:
“Bub-bub-by Jinks! he’s gug-going to own up!”
“Oh, you do?” exclaimed Sterndale. “Well, what do you know about it?”
“I know who did it,” declared Don.
“No doubt about that,” muttered Mayfair.
“Who was it?” demanded Dick, watching Scott closely.
Just then footsteps sounded outside and the door opened.
“That fellow there!” rang out Don’s clear voice, as his finger was pointed accusingly at Dolph Renwood, who stood in the doorway.