CHAPTER XXI
SEEKING EVIDENCE
Phil Clinton walked over to the mantle, and, almost reverently, took down the fussy, ticking clock. It seemed to make more noise than usual, but perhaps this was because the room was so quiet, or perchance they had become used to the rather gentle tick-tock of the mahogany timepiece. The quarter-back turned the clock over and over.
"Yes, it's ours, all right," he finally announced.
"Did you have any doubt of it?" asked Tom.
"Some," admitted Phil. "There have been so many queer things happening, that I don't know whether or not to believe that we are really here, that we exist, and that there is such a place as Randall College."
"There won't be, if Langridge's father and those other lawyers have their way," declared Sid, solemnly.
Phil was still closely examining the clock, turning it over and over, and listening to the tick.
"Well, what's the matter?" asked Tom. "Do you think it's got the measles or the pip, that you have to hark to its breathing apparatus that way?"
"There's something wrong with it," declared Phil, with a dubious shake of his head. "It doesn't tick as it used to. Here, Sid, you listen to it."
Thus appealed to, Sid put the timepiece to his ear.
"Don't you remember," went on Phil, "how it used to sort of have a double tick, like an automobile with carbon in the cylinders? Sometimes it would act as if it was going to stop, and you'd think it had heart failure. Then it would get on the move again. It doesn't do that now. It ticks as regular as a chronometer."
"You're right," agreed Sid. "Here, Tom, have a hearken."
After a few minutes' test, Tom was also forced to conclude that there was something strange about the clock. Yet it was undeniably theirs.
"And it's exactly right, too," went on Phil, comparing it with his new watch, a present from his mother. "It's right to the half minute, and that's something that never happened before since the time when the memory of man runneth not to the contrary. Whoever had it, and brought it back, took the trouble to set it right."
Tom was now carefully looking the clock over. He gazed thoughtfully at the back, where there were a number of turn screws and keys for winding and setting it, and uttered an exclamation.
"Fellows!" he cried, "our clock has been taken apart and put together again. See, the back is scratched where some one has used a knife or screwdriver on it, and smell the oil they've put on it."
He held it first to the nose of Sid, and then to Phil. After several detecting whiffs, they both gave it as their opinion that the clock had been given an oil bath.
"This gets me!" exclaimed Phil. "Why in the name of the seven sacred somnambulistic salamanders, anyone should go to the trouble of making a false key to our room, take our clock away, renovate it, and then bring it back I can't see for the life of me."
"Same here," came from Sid, as he slumped down on the sofa. "But we've got it back, anyhow, and isn't there a proverb to the effect that you shouldn't look a beggar in the mouth?"
"You're thinking of gift-horses," declared Tom, "but what you mean is, 'take the gifts the gods provide.' Still, it is mighty queer, and I wish we could get some clews that would help unravel the mystery—that of our chair as well as the clock."
Sid uncurled long enough to reach out and get a book, which he began to study, while Phil set himself at some of his college tasks. Only Tom remained inactive—yet not inactive, either, for he was doing some hard thinking, in which the clock, the missing chair, and the troubles of Randall in general, formed a part. He arose and walked about the room, pausing now and then in front of the clock to listen to the insistent ticking.
"Oh, for cat's sake, sit down!" exploded Phil, at length. "I've written this same sentence over six times, and I can't get it right yet, with you tramping around like a prisoner in a cell."
"Yes, go to bed," urged Sid.
Tom did not answer. Instead, he stooped over and picked up an envelope from the floor, where it had fallen partly under and was almost hidden by a low bookcase. He turned it over to read the address, and uttered a startled cry.
"What's the matter?" demanded Sid, springing to an upright position with such suddenness, that the old sofa creaked and groaned in protest, like a ship in a storm.
"Look!" exclaimed Tom. "This letter—I found it on the floor—it's addressed to Bert Bascome—from someone in the college, evidently, for it hasn't been through the mail, as there's no stamp on it."
Sid and Phil eagerly examined the missive, turning it over and over, as if something on it might escape them. It was a plain white envelope, and was sealed.
"That throws some light on the mystery, and bears out my suspicion," went on Tom.
"What light?" asked Sid.
"And what suspicion?" demanded Phil.
"The suspicion that Langridge has had a hand in this mystery, and that Bert Bascome has been in our room since we last left it. That letter wasn't here when we went out, I'm sure of that, so Bascome must have dropped it when he brought back the clock."
"Brought back the clock!" cried Phil. "Do you mean to say he took it—and the chair?"
"I don't know that I do, but either he or Langridge had a hand in it," asserted Tom, positively. "Langridge probably put Bascome up to it, to annoy us. You know Bascome and that bully were quite thick with each other before Langridge was forced to leave."
"But this letter isn't in the handwriting of Langridge, Tom," objected Sid. "I know his fist well enough."
"That's right," agreed Phil. "But I can tell you who did write this."
"Who?" demanded Tom and Sid, in a breath.
"Henry Lenton," was the quiet reply.
"What, the fellow you suspected of making the false key?" cried Tom, in startled tones.
"That's the chap. He wrote this letter to Bascome; I'm sure of it."
"Then those two are in the game against us!" came from Sid. "Oh, say, this is getting more puzzling than ever! What can we do about it—Langridge—Bascome—Lenton—who's guilty—who had our clock?"
"I'm going to find out one thing!" declared Tom, with energy.
"What's that?" asked Phil, as his chum arose and strode toward the door.
"I'm going to give Bascome this letter, and find out what he was doing in our room."
"You may make trouble," warned Phil.
"I don't care if I do! I'm going to get to the bottom of this," and holding the envelope as if it might somehow get away from him, Tom strode from the apartment, his footsteps echoing down the corridor, while back in the room his chums listened to the ticking of the clock that formed a link in the curious mystery.