CHAPTER XI AUNT BETSY TO THE RESCUE
Ted sprang to answer the call.
"Yes. Ted. Yes, she is. Who is it, please? Just a minute."
He turned, putting his hand over the transmitter: "Pat, Norman Youngwants to speak to you."
"Good Heavens!" responded his cousin, getting up so suddenly that herchair toppled over backwards and fell to the floor with a loud crash.
"He'll think I'm throwing you to the phone," commented Ted with a grin.
"Hush! You wanted to speak to me? What? He is? Why, how should I know?"
Pat was nervously clenching and unclenching her left hand as she talked,and frowning heavily.
"Certainly not! He's probably out for the evening, and I don't see thatyou or anybody else has a right to meddle with his things."
"Don't burn up, Pat," advised her cousin.
"Well, perhaps," she admitted grudgingly to the man at the other end ofthe telephone. "Certainly. No, you may not; my cousin will take me home.Goodbye."
Patricia hung up the receiver with a bang, threw herself into the chairwhich Jack had meanwhile righted, leaned her elbows on the table andannounced explosively: "If there's anybody in this college whom Icordially dislike, it's Norman Young!"
"Why, what did he have to say?" inquired Ted, calmly helping himself toanother piece of beefsteak.
"He told me that Jack was missing, and wanted to know if I knew where hewas. The nerve of him! Somebody sent him to Jack's room, looking forJack, and our smart Norman found an envelope on the desk addressed tome."
"The tickets," interpolated Jack.
"And he wanted to know," went on Patricia, "if he should bring it to me!"
"Quite a meddler," said Ted.
"After I put him in his place, he apologized; and then wanted to know ifhe couldn't call for me and take me home when I was ready to go. How didhe know I was here, anyhow?"
"That fellow smells a rat!" announced Ted.
"I'm terribly afraid so," admitted Patricia. "Still I think I had bettergo back to the dorm right after we finish dinner--"
"Oh," began Jack in protest.
"I really think it's wiser," said Patricia, looking at him with a worriedexpression.
The telephone rang sharply a second time.
"Don't tell me it's that pest again!" cried Patricia, as Ted took off thereceiver.
"Yes. Oh, hello, Anne. Well, spill it. You heard what? The deuce he did!Of all the rot I ever--To be sure it will. Thanks a lot for telling me.I'll see what can be done right away. Goodbye."
"Well, what's happened now?" demanded Patricia.
"No use in my trying to break the news gently. Anne says there is a rumoraround college tonight that Jack was offered a big bribe to stay out ofthe Greystone game; that he took it, and has disappeared. Can you beatthat?"
Patricia, speechless with distress, simply twisted her napkin into a mererope.
"The curs! The contemptible curs!" exploded Jack. "I might have knownthey'd get even with me some way!"
"Don't tell me there's a foundation for that rumor!" cried Ted sharply.
"There is," replied Jack shortly. "I didn't mean to tell this; butlisten." Rapidly, yet omitting no important detail, he related the storyof the afternoon previous to his imprisonment in the belfry. "And theworst of it is, I haven't a single witness. They can say pretty nearlywhat they choose, and go unchallenged."
"Tut's responsible for the rumor, of course," decided Ted; "if we couldonly corner him some way."
"We will!" declared Patricia, with vehemence.
"And make him eat crow!" concluded her cousin.
"But how?" asked Jack, with a short laugh. "Tut's pretty hard-boiled, andwho--"
"I shall," announced Mrs. Carter firmly, getting up from the table.
"Aunt Betsy!"
"Mother!"
"Mrs. Carter!"
"No use objecting. I'm going to find him right now, and I'll promise youto be back with his scalp before the evening's over. I won't give any ofyou away. He doesn't know me from Adam."
"Eve, you mean, Mother," laughed her son.
"And, now where will I be most likely to find him?" she asked, slippingon her coat and perching a hat on the back of her head.
Jack looked at the clock. "Probably in his room at No. 9 Craig Street.It's on the second floor, a single, right opposite the stairs; but atleast let one of us take you as far as the house."
"I won't. You stay quietly here until I come back, all of you." With aslam of the door, she was gone.
The three young people looked at one another in speechless astonishment.Finally, Ted laughed.
"I feel kind of sorry for old Tut, much as I dislike him. Mother willhave the truth out of him if she has to stand him on his head. He'll dowhat she says, or she'll know why."
The tension was broken, and they all laughed.
When the table was cleared, Ted announced that he was going to do thedishes.
"We'll help," said Patricia.
"No, you won't. You two sit in the living room and chatter."
Patricia shrugged her shoulders, and led the way into the next room;extinguished all but one of the lamps, turned on the gas log, and satdown before the fire. Jack threw himself on the hearth rug and proppedhis back against the big chair in which Patricia was sitting.
"Will--will this do you much harm, do you suppose?" she asked, after amoment's silence.
"Hard to tell. Of course if I can't be cleared, it will mean my finish asfar as sports are concerned--that's all Tut thinks of, naturally. But, asI told you once before, I think, there is a special reason why I mustmake good here; and if my reputation comes into question, well--"
Jack broke off abruptly, and frowned at the fire. In a moment hecontinued:
"I haven't told anyone else about this, but I'd like you to know; and I'msure it won't go any farther."
"Of course not."
"On the tenth of last August, I received a special delivery letter,"began Jack slowly, gazing steadily at the fire.
Patricia leaned forward, breathless with surprise.
"In that letter," continued the boy, "was a cashier's check for OneThousand Dollars; and on a slip of paper, the words, 'For John Dunn, tobe spent on a year at Granard College.' We tried in every way to find outwhere it came from, but when all of our efforts were fruitless we decidedthat the only thing to do was to use the money as requested. So you seewhy I feel under such heavy obligations to make good."
"Jack," whispered Patricia, with a little excited catch in her throat."I've never told anybody, either--not even my aunt or cousin; but that'sexactly what happened to me."
"You mean," cried the boy, twisting around to look up into her face,"that you got money that same way--to come here?"
Patricia nodded.
"How very, very queer!"
The strangeness of the situation silenced them completely for a time.Then Jack murmured: "This should make us better friends than ever,shouldn't it?"
Patricia smiled, but she did not withdraw the hand that Jack imprisonedin both of his.
"Doesn't it seem sometimes as if you just _must_ find out who sent thecheck?" asked Jack, a moment later.
"Yes; and sometimes I feel really nervous over it, as if somebody whom Icouldn't see were watching me all the time, to make sure that I behavedproperly."
The door flew open at that moment, and Aunt Betsy darted into the roomjust as Ted came in from the kitchen.
"Well," she exclaimed, sinking down in a big chair and throwing off hercoat, "I've settled _his_ hash! He's going around now contradicting therumor he started, and he'll never bother _you_ again."
"Hurrah for you, Mother!" cried Ted. "But tell us the whole story. Howdid you ever--"
"I knew that young man's father; used to go to school with him. Got himout of an awful scrape once, and he promised he'd do anything I asked himto pay up for it. Never had any occasion to before. Told the young fellowabout his dad's p
romise (though of course not the reason for it) and saidI was now about to ask him to redeem it. I said I knew what acontemptible thing he was up to, and that I stood ready right now totelephone the whole affair to his dad. Then I just lit into him, told himwhat a cad and a coward he is. Told him I'd start a public investigationand testify against him. Like all conceited blowbags, he collapsed whenunder fire; asked what I wanted him to do, begged me not to tell hisfather; for he'd take him out of college and put him to work in thestore. Made him tell me just where and to whom he'd told that abominablelie, and told him I'd go with him while he corrected it. 'You can call ita joke,' I said, 'if you must save your face.'"
Aunt Betsy laughed contemptuously.
"The boy fairly groveled, and swore he'd go; that it wouldn't benecessary for me to accompany him. I waited while he put on his coat, andstarted out with him. Watched him go to two places, and on his way to thethird before I left him."
"Mrs. Carter," began Jack, "I don't know how to thank you."
"Don't try. I hate to be thanked."
"Aunt Betsy, you're just wonderful!" cried Patricia gleefully, while Tedshook his mother's hand violently.
Conversation for the rest of the evening was general, concernedprincipally with the prospects of Granard in the morrow's game. Patriciaapparently forgot her resolution to leave right after dinner, for it washalf past nine when she drove back to the dorm alone, having decidedlyrefused Ted's offer to go with her.
"I'd feel lots better if you stayed home and kept guard," she whisperedto him as he protestingly let her out. "I'll be all right."
She did not know that Norman Young had inspected the interior of the caras it stood in the back yard; nor that, hidden behind a pillar on theporch next to the apartment house, he had watched her come out alone andstart for Arnold Hall.