"Yes," said Mr. Curtis, "this was my room for four years. If you look over on the windowpane I think you'll find my name scratched on the glass in the lower left-hand corner. I wonder if that old picture of the Belvoir Fox Hunt, that I left, is still here?"
"Oh, was that yours?" exclaimed Ralph. He darted into the bedroom and unhooked a framed lithograph which had been the joy and pride of the occupants of the room for the past four decades. Mr. Curtis turned it round and pointed to his name in faded ink upon the back at the head of a long line of indorsements, each of which represented a temporary possessor.
"The old room seems about the same. The wall-paper has been changed, but that big crack over by the bedroom I remember well. And there ought to be a bullet hole in the frame of the door."
"A bullet hole!" exclaimed Ralph and I in unison.
"Yes," said Mr. Curtis quietly, "a bullet hole--a thirty-two caliber, I should judge."
Ralph seized the lamp and, holding it high above his head, carefully scrutinized the woodwork of the door.
"There it is!" he cried eagerly. "Right in the middle; and, by George, there's the bullet, too! There's a story about that, I bet--isn't there? Who fired it? How did it get there?"
He replaced the lamp, quivering with interest.
"A story if you like," responded Mr. Curtis, looking curiously out of his laughing brown eyes at my impetuous roommate. "Yes, quite a little story. I could hardly tell you about it unless I told you also something of the man who fired the shot. Did you ever hear of Randolph? Randolph, '64?"
The blank look which came into our faces rendered answer unnecessary.
"Never heard of Randolph, '64! _Sic fama est!_ I suppose some Jones or Smith or Robinson now holds his place. Outside of Prex himself, there wasn't a better-known figure in my time. Why, he occupied this very room. He was my roommate."
"Did he, though!" ejaculated Ralph. "How did he come to be firing a pistol around? Didn't he fall foul of the Yard policeman?"
"There were no Yard policemen in those days," said Mr. Curtis.
"What luck!" ejaculated Ralph. "Do tell us about Randolph!" he pleaded in the same breath.
"Certainly. If you really wish it. I trust you fellows haven't any examinations to-morrow."