ort
of the window, it rolled down upon the roof of the second story.

Dick promptly climbed out of the window, and sliding down the
waterspout, reached the roof and went in pursuit of the ball. One of the
windows opening from the third story onto this open space was that in
the electric room, and it was under this window that the ball came to a
standstill. As Dick stooped to pick it up he found a knife lying beside
it. He brought it along with him and climbed back into his room. Then he
pulled it out and looked at it. It was an ordinary pocket knife with a
horn handle. On one side of the handle there was a plate bearing the
name F. Boyd. "Frank Boyd's knife," said Dick to himself. "He must have
dropped it out of the window." Idly he opened the blade. It was broken
off about half an inch from the point. Dick began to turn things over in
his mind. A piece of a knife blade had been found in the electric room.
A knife with a broken blade had been found on the roof under the window
of the electric room. That knife belonged to Frank Boyd. The inference
was very simple. Frank had climbed in the window of the electric room
from the roof of the second story and cut the wires, and then climbed
out again, and so was not seen coming out of the room into the hall. In
climbing out he had dropped the knife without noticing it. He had
already left a piece of the blade inside. Frank Boyd was one of the
lawless spirits who had caused much of the trouble all through the year.
He had also been blackballed at the last election of the Thessalonian
Society. It was very easy to believe that he would try to do something
to spite the Thessalonians.

Dick hastened down to Mr. Jackson's office with the knife and asked him
to fit the broken piece to the shortened blade. It fitted perfectly.
Beyond a doubt it was Frank Boyd and not Hinpoha who had cut the wires
in the electric room. The next morning Frank was confronted with the
evidence of the knife and confessed his guilt. He had been in league
with Joe Lanning, and cutting the wires had been his part of the job. He
had done it in the early part of the evening while the actors were
making up for their parts, getting in and out of the window, just as
Dick had figured out. No one had detected him in the act and the lucky
incident of Hinpoha's having been seen coming out of the electric room
turned all suspicion away from him. Justice in his case was tardy but
certain, and Frank Boyd was expelled, a