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CHAPTER XXIX
THE JAWS OF THE TRAP

Lefty had defied Weegman. Henceforth it was to be open war, and he was glad of it. What the rascal would attempt to do he did not know, and cared less. It did not seem likely that he could do much, if anything, that he had not already made preparations to do. Of course, he might call Collier into the affair, and that, should it bring the owner of the Blue Stockings back to his own country, was something earnestly to be desired. Could he but get Collier in private for twenty minutes, Locke felt sure he could make him realize that he was the victim of a conspiracy, and that his trusted private secretary had sought to sell him out into the hands of a rival owner.

The telephone rang, and, thinking Stillman was calling at last, he hastened to answer. It was not the reporter’s voice that he heard, but he was informed that some one was speaking from the office of the Blade, and that, after making a fruitless effort to get Locke on the wire, Stillman had found it necessary to hustle away to keep an important appointment.

“But where can I find him?” asked the disappointed pitcher. “How can I get hold of him?”

“He wants to talk to you as much as you do to him,” was the answer. “Said it was absolutely necessary. That’s why he had me call you. Says he has something to tell you, personally and privately. He’ll try to be at Mike’s saloon, Thompson Street, near Broome, at three o’clock. If you get there first, wait for him. And don’t fail to come, for he’ll have important information. Got that straight?”

“Yes, but–”

“All right. I’ve done my duty. Good-by.” There was a click, and the wire was silent.

Lefty looked at his watch as he left the phone. It was twenty-two minutes to three.

“Just about time enough to make it comfortably,” he decided. “Stillman must be on the track of something.”

The subway being convenient, he chose it instead of a taxi, getting off at Spring Street. Five minutes ahead of time, he found Mike’s saloon, a somewhat disreputable-looking place when viewed from the exterior. The neighborhood, likewise, seemed sinister. However, a reporter’s business, thought Locke, carried him into all sorts of places.

Within the saloon a single patron, who looked like a vagrant, was picking at the crumbs of a sickly free lunch in a dark corner. A husky-looking, red-headed bartender was removing an emptied beer schooner and mopping up the counter. He surveyed the southpaw from head to foot with apparent interest.

“I’m looking for a man named Stillman who made an appointment to meet me here at three,” explained Lefty. “I was to wait for him if I got here first.”

“Jack’s here,” stated the man behind the bar, in a manner that bespoke considerable familiarity with the reporter. “Came in three or four minutes ago. Reckon you’re Lefty Locke?”

“That’s right.”

“He told me you might come round. He’s in the back room. Walk right in.” The speaker jerked a heavy thumb toward a closed door at the far end of the bar.

At the sound of Locke’s name the vagrant, who had been picking at the free lunch, turned to look the famous pitcher over with apparent curiosity and interest.

“Lefty Locke,” he mumbled huskily. “Lemme shake han’s. Ruther shake han’s with Lefty Locke than any man livin’.”

Locke pushed past him and placed his hand on the knob of the door. The fellow followed, insisting upon shaking hands, and, as Lefty opened the door, the vagrant staggered, lurched against the pitcher, and thrust him forward, the door closing behind him with the snap of a spring lock.

It is remarkable how seldom any one ever heeds premonitions. Even as he opened that door, Lefty was aware that ever since the telephone call had come to him some subtle intuition, thus far wholly disregarded, had been seeking to sound a warning. It had caused him to hesitate at last. Too late! The push delivered by the vagrant had pitched him forward into the snare, while the sound of the clicking spring lock notified him that his retreat was cut off.

Through a dirty skylight above another door that probably opened upon a back alley some weak and sickly rays of daylight crept into the room. A single gas jet, suspended from the center of the cracked and smoky ceiling, gave a feeble, flickering light, filling the corners with fluttering shadows. The furniture in the room consisted of a table and a few chairs.

At the table three men were sitting, drinking and smoking. Locke, recovering from the push he had received, stepped back against the closed door, and looked at them.

“Hello!” said Mit Skullen. “Don’t hurry away, Lefty. Folks that come in by that door sometimes go out by the other one.”

He was grinning viciously, triumphantly. The look upon his face was one of satisfaction and brutal anticipation, and amply proclaimed his purpose.

Skullen’s companions were tough characters, fit associates and abettors of such a man. That they were thugs of the lowest type, who would not hesitate at any act of violence, there could be no question. One looked like a prize fighter who had gone to the bad, his drink-inflamed face and bleary eyes advertising the cause of his downfall. The other had the appearance of a “coke” fiend, and the criminally bent habitual user of that drug has neither scruples nor fear of consequences.

Locke regarded them in silence. His pulses were throbbing somewhat faster, yet he was cool and self-possessed, and his brain was keenly active. He knew precisely what he was up against. Slipping one hand behind him, he tried the knob of the door; but, as he had expected, the door held fast.

Skullen continued to grin gloatingly, fancying that Locke’s inactivity was evidence that he was practically paralyzed by amazement and fear.

“Your friend Stillman was too busy to come,” he said, “and so I kept the appointment for him. Maybe I’ll do just as well. Anyhow, I’ll do–for you!”

He had risen to his feet, and the light of the flickering gas jet played over his evil face. Lefty flashed another look around, taking in the surroundings. To his ears came the distant, muffled sound of an elevated train rumbling along the trestle. Behind him, in the front of the saloon, all was still. Probably the door leading to the street was now also locked to prevent any one from entering and hearing any disturbance that might take place in the back room. The jaws of the trap held him fast.

“Oh, it ain’t any use to think about runnin’ away, Lefty,” croaked Mit. “Not a chance in the world. I fixed it so’s we could have our little settlement without any one buttin’ in to bother us. You remember I told you I had a score to settle with you?”

As Locke spoke, his voice was calm and steady. “And you engaged a pair of worthy pals to assist you! You’re a brave man, Skullen!”

“Aw, these lads are only here to see fair play, that’s all. They won’t mix in. They won’t have to. Last time we met you reckoned you put it all over me, didn’t you? Maybe I ought to thank you for keepin’ me from gettin’ a rotter on me hands, for that’s what you got in Dummy Jones. You’re welcome to that piece of cheese.”

The southpaw made no retort. He was measuring his chances against all three of the ruffians, having no doubt that he must soon find himself pitted against such odds.

“Some baseball manager, that’s what you are!” scoffed Mit, taking keen delight in prolonging the suspense that he fancied must be getting the nerve of the intended victim. “You’re rattlin’ around like a buckshot inside a bass drum. A busy little person, you are, but you won’t be so busy after I finish with you. You’ll find it convenient to take a nice long rest in a hospital.”

“You fight a lot with your mouth, Mit,” said Locke contemptuously.

“Go ahead an’ sail inter him, Skully,” urged the ruffian who looked like a broken-down prize fighter. “You been itchin’ fer him to show up so you could get inter action. Go to it!”

“Plenty of time, Bill. I enjoy seein’ him try to push that door down with his back. Wasn’t he a mut to walk right into this? I’m goin’ to change the look of his face so that his handsome wife won’t know him when she sees him next.”

He began to remove his coat, and Lefty knew the time for action had come. For an instant his imagination had sought to unnerve him by presenting a vivid picture of himself as he would appear, battered, bleeding, beaten up, if the trio of thugs carried out their evil design; but he put the vision aside promptly. In cases where a smaller force is compelled to contend with a greater, the advantage is frequently obtained through swift and sudden assault. Knowing this, Locke did not wait to be attacked. He hurled himself forward with the spring of a panther and the force of a catapult.

CHAPTER XXX
ONE AGAINST THREE

Skullen, in the act of removing his coat, was caught unprepared. Before he could fling the garment aside Locke was upon him, aiming a well-meant blow for the point of Mit’s jaw.

Skullen realized that it was no trifling thing to stop such a blow as that, and he jerked his head aside, as he dropped his coat. The blow caught him glancingly and sent him staggering, upsetting the chair from which he had recently risen. Locke grabbed the edge of the table and pitched it against the ruffian’s two companions, who had hastily started to get up. They fell over, with the table on top of them.

Lefty followed up his advantage, and kept right on after Skullen. Uttering a snarl of astonished rage, the latter sought to grapple, but the southpaw knew that he could not afford to waste time in that sort of a struggle. Whatever he did must be done swiftly, effectively, and thoroughly. Delay meant only disaster to him. Avoiding the clutching hands of his antagonist, he struck Mit on the neck, below the ear, staggering him again.

Skullen had not looked for such a whirlwind assault. He had fancied the trapped man would wait until set upon, and he had believed he would have little trouble in beating Lefty to the full satisfaction of his revengeful heart. He was strong and ponderous, and he could still strike a terrible blow, but years had slowed him down, his lack of exercise had softened his muscles, his eye had lost its quickness, while indulgence in drink and dissipation had taken the snap and ginger out of him. He had not realized before how much he had deteriorated, but now, witnessing the lightning-like movements of Lefty Locke, he began to understand, and sudden apprehension overcame him.

“Bill! Snuff!” he roared. “Get into it! Get at him, you snails! Soak him!”

His appeal to his companions was an unintentional admission that he suddenly realized he was no match for the man he had attempted to beat. The flickering gaslight had given him a glimpse of a terrible blazing look in Locke’s eyes. Once, in the ring, he had seen a look like that in the eyes of an opponent who had apparently gone crazy. And he had been knocked out by him!

Scrambling up from beneath the capsized table, Bill and Snuff responded. Lefty knew that in a moment they would take a hand in the fight, and then the odds would be three against one, and none of the three would hesitate at any brutal methods to smash the one. Once he was beaten down, they would kick and stamp him into insensibility; and later, perhaps, he would be found outside somewhere in the back alley, with broken bones, possibly maimed and disfigured for life.

The knowledge of what would happen to him, if defeated, made him doubly strong and fierce. He endeavored to dispose of Skullen first, believing that by doing so he would have half the battle won.

Skullen’s howls to his companions came to an abrupt termination. Like an irresistible engine of destruction, Locke had smashed through the defense of the ruffian, and, reaching him with a terrible blow, sent him spinning and crashing into a corner of the room. At the same instant, Bill, joining in, was met by a back kick in the pit of his stomach, and, with a grunt, he doubled up, clutching at his middle with both hands.

This gave the southpaw a chance to turn on Snuff, who had not, so far, shown any great desire to help his pals. The creature had seemed physically insignificant, sitting at the table, but now, in action, he moved with the quickness of a wild cat, in great contrast to the ponderousness of Skullen. And he had a weapon in his hand–a blackjack!

The southpaw realized that, of his three antagonists, the creature springing at him like a deadly tarantula was the most to be dreaded. Insanity blazed in the fellow’s eyes. He struck with the blackjack, and Lefty barely avoided the blow.

Locke snapped out his left foot, and caught the toe of the man plunging past him, sending him spinning to the floor. Snuff’s body struck a leg of the overturned table and broke it off short, but the shock of the fall seemed to have absolutely no effect upon him; for he rebounded from the floor like a rubber ball, and was on his feet again in a flash, panting and snarling.

“Get him, Snuff–get him!” urged Skullen, coming up out of the corner where he had been thrown.

Bill, recovering his breath, was straightening up. All three of the thugs would be at the southpaw again in another jiffy. Lefty darted round the table, avoiding the blackjack, but realizing what a small chance he had with his bare hands. He could not keep up the dodging long. Then he saw the broken table leg, and snatched it up. With an upward swing, he landed a blow on Snuff’s elbow, breaking his arm. The blackjack flew to the smoky ceiling, and then thudded back to the floor.

Feeling sure he had checked his most dangerous antagonist, Lefty turned, swinging the table leg, and gave Skullen a crack on the shoulder that dropped him to his knees. He had aimed at Mit’s head, but the fellow had partially succeeded in dodging the blow.

Another blow, and the cry of alarm that rose to Bill’s lips was broken short. Bill went down, knocked senseless.

But Snuff, in spite of his broken arm, was charging again. He was seeking to get at the southpaw with his bare left hand! The pitcher, however, had no compunction, and he beat the madman down instantly.

Groaning and clinging to his injured shoulder, Skullen retreated hastily to the wall, staring in amazement and incomprehension at the breathless but triumphant man he had lured into this trap. In all his experience he had never encountered such a fighter.

There being no one to stop him now, Lefty walked to the door leading into the alley, found the key in the lock and turned it. One backward look he cast at the two figures on the floor and the man who leaned against the wall, clutching at his shoulder.

Policemen seemed to be scarce in that neighborhood, and Locke found one with difficulty. The officer listened incredulously to Lefty’s story. “Mike’s is a quiet place,” he said. “Didn’t make a mistake about where this happened, did you? Well, come on; we’ll go round there and see about it.”

The saloon was open when they reached it. The red-headed bartender was serving beer to an Italian and a Swede. The vagrant had vanished. The man behind the bar listened with a well-simulated air of growing indignation when the policeman questioned him. He glared at the pitcher.

“What are you tryin’ to put across, bo?” he demanded fiercely. “You never were in here before in your life. Tryin’ to give my place a bad name? Nothin’ like what you say ever happened around here. Nice little yarn about bein’ decoyed here by some coves that tried to beat you up! Say, officer, is this a holdup?”

“I’ve told you what he told me,” said the policeman.

“In my back room!” raged the barkeeper. “There ain’t been nobody in there for the last two hours. Come here an’ have a look.” He walked to the door and flung it open.

Skullen and his partners were gone. Even the broken table had been removed. There was nothing to indicate that a desperate encounter had taken place there a short time before.

“You cleaned up in a hurry,” said Lefty.

At this the barkeeper became still more furious, and was restrained by the officer, who scowled at the pitcher even as he held the other back.

“You don’t look like you’d been hitting the pipe, young feller,” growled the representative of the law; “but that yarn about being attacked by three men looks funny. Don’t notice any marks of the scrap on you. They didn’t do you much damage, did they? Say, you must have had a dream!”

Locke saw the utter folly of any attempt to press the matter. “As long as you insist upon looking at it in that way, officer,” he returned, with a touch of contempt that he could not repress, “we’ll have to let it go at that. But I’ll guarantee that there are three men somewhere in this neighborhood who’ll have to have various portions of their anatomies patched up by a doctor as the aftermath of that dream.”

CHAPTER XXXI
LIGHT ON A DARK SPOT

Janet returned from the matinée in a state of great excitement. “She’s here!” she cried, bursting in on Lefty. “You were right about it! I’ve seen her!”

The southpaw gazed in surprise at the flushed face of his charming wife. “You mean–”

“Virginia! I tell you I’ve seen her!”

“When? Where?”

“As we were leaving the theater. The lobby was crowded, and we were in the back of the jam. Suddenly I saw her over the heads of the people. She was just getting into an auto that was occupied by a handsome woman with snow-white hair. I wasn’t mistaken; it was Virginia. I couldn’t get to her. I tried to call to her, but she didn’t hear me. I’ll never say you were mistaken again, Lefty. Somehow you seem always to be right.”

Locke scarcely heard these final words. He was thinking rapidly. A sudden ray of hope had struck upon him. Confound it! Where was Stillman? He sprang to the telephone and called the Blade office again.

“Jack is the one best bet in this emergency,” he said, as he waited for the connections to be made.

He got the reporter on the wire, and Stillman stated that he had not been in the office ten minutes, and was about to call Lefty. Could he come up to the Great Eastern right away? Sure.

The feeling of depression and helplessness that had threatened to crush Locke began to fall away. The door he had sought, the one door by which there seemed any chance of passing on to success, appeared to be almost within reach of his hand. In her excitement at the theater, Janet had not possessed the presence of mind to call the attention of her friends to the snowy-haired woman, but he knew that she could describe her with some minuteness.

“Stillman knows everybody,” Lefty said. “It may be clew enough for him.”

There was a rap on the door. A messenger boy appeared with a telegram. Locke ripped it open and read:

Jones sick. Team busted. I’m busted. Signal of distress. How about that five hundred? I knead the dough. Don’t shoot! Wire cash. Wiley.

“Trouble in another quarter,” muttered Lefty, handing the message over to Janet. “How am I going to send him that money? I can’t force Weegman to do it. Wiley has a right to demand it. If I don’t come across, he’ll have a right to call the deal off.”

“But Jones is sick,” said Janet.

“Still it was a square bargain, and I mean to stand by it. Jones is sick. He was sick that day in Vienna; that was what ailed him. He showed flashes of form when he braced up, but he was too ill to brace up long. I’ve wondered what was the explanation, now I have it. Get him on his feet again, and he’ll be all right. I’ve got to hold my grip on Jones somehow.”

Kennedy and Stillman appeared at the Great Eastern together. First, Lefty showed them the message from Cap’n Wiley. Over it the former manager screwed up his face, casting a sharp look at his successor.

“If you can trust this Wiley,” he said, “send him two hundred, and tell him to bring Jones north as soon as Jones can travel. Don’t worry. Wiley’s outfit didn’t come under the national agreement, and Jones’ name on a Stockings contract ties him up.”

“But without drawing money from the club I haven’t the two hundred to spare now. I can’t draw.”

“I’ll fix that. I’ve got two hundred or more that you can borrow. After the training season opens, you’ll pretty soon find out whether or not you’ve picked a dill pickle in your dummy pitcher.”

Janet told Stillman about seeing Virginia Collier, and gave him a fairly minute description of the woman Virginia was with. The reporter smoked a cigarette, and considered.

“I think I can find that lady with the snow-white hair,” he said, after a time. “Leave it to me. You’ll hear from me just as soon as I have something to tell.”

With a promising air of confidence, he took his departure, leaving Kennedy and Locke to attend to the matter of Wiley and Mysterious Jones. Of course, the southpaw told the old manager all about Skullen’s attempt at revenge, but he did not do so within the hearing of Janet, whom he did not care to alarm. The veteran chuckled over the result of the encounter in the back room of Mike’s saloon.

“Right from the first,” he said, “you was picked for something soft and easy. I knew you was a fighter, son, but Weegman and his gang didn’t know it. Mebbe they’ll begin to guess the fact pretty soon.”

A few minutes after eight that evening, Stillman returned to the hotel and found Locke waiting with what patience he could command. The reporter wore a smile, but he declined to answer questions.

“Mrs. James A. Vanderpool’s private car is waiting for us at the door,” he said. “Bring Mrs. Hazelton, Lefty. We’re going to make a call.”

“Mrs. Vanderpool? The widow of the traction magnate? Why, what–”

“Now don’t waste time! Somebody else can gratify your curiosity a great deal better than I. In fact, I know so little about the facts at the bottom of this queer business that any explanations I’d make would be likely to ball things up.”

The magnificent residence of the late James Vanderpool was on upper Fifth Avenue. They were ushered into a splendid reception room. In a few minutes an aristocratic-looking woman with white hair entered, her appearance bringing an involuntary exclamation to Janet’s lips.

“It’s the very one!” she breathed excitedly, her fingers gripping Lefty’s arm. Stillman introduced them to Mrs. Vanderpool, who met them graciously.

“Virginia will be down in a minute or two,” said the lady. “For reasons, she has been staying with me since she returned from abroad. I’ll let her tell you about it.” She regarded Locke with frank interest, yet in a manner that was not at all embarrassing, for it plainly contained a great deal of friendliness. “Virginia has told me much about you,” she stated. “It has never before been my good fortune to meet a professional baseball player. My niece is very fond of Mrs. Hazelton.”

“Your niece!” exclaimed Lefty.

“Virginia is my niece, although I have scarcely seen her since she was a very small child. Here she is now.”

Virginia ran, laughing, to meet Janet. After the manner of girl friends, they hugged and kissed each other.

“Really,” said Virginia, “I should give you a good shaking for not answering all my letters!”

“Your letters!” cried Janet. “I’ve received only two letters from you in goodness knows how long! I answered them; and wrote you a dozen to which I got not a word of reply.”

They gazed at each other in blank uncertainty for a minute or two, and every trace of laughter died from Miss Collier’s face. Her blue eyes began to flash.

“Then,” she said, “our letters were intercepted. I can’t remember whether I posted any of mine or not, but I was so worried over father that it is doubtful if I did. I let my maid attend to that. She nearly always brought the mail to me, too. When I obtained positive proof that she was dishonest, I discharged her. Even now it’s hard to believe she was so treacherous.”

“But why should she intercept our letters? I don’t understand, Virginia.”

“There has been a dreadful plot to ruin my father. You’ll hardly believe it when I tell you. I find it difficult to believe, even now.” She shivered, some of the color leaving her face. “It was necessary to cut us off from any true information of what was happening to his business interests. Letters from you might have given me an inkling, Janet, and so they were secured and destroyed before they ever reached my hands. Other letters met the same fate. Mr. Weegman declared he wrote several which I know my father never got.”

“Weegman!” exclaimed Locke incredulously. “Why, he–”

“Doctor Dalmers warned Mr. Weegman that father must not be disturbed or excited in the least over business matters. He said such a thing might have a fatal effect on his heart. Still Weegman says he wrote guardedly several times, mildly hinting that things were not going right.”

“The liar!” whispered Lefty to himself.

A bit in the background, Jack Stillman was listening with keen interest, thinking what a sensational special article the truth regarding this affair would make.

“We were surrounded by wretches who had no compunction,” declared Virginia Collier. “It was I who first suspected them. My father was too ill, and the doctor kept him under opiates almost all the time, so that his mind was dulled. After I discharged Annette I became suspicious of the nurse. I spoke to Doctor Dalmers about her, but he insisted that she was all right. He insisted too earnestly. I began to watch him without letting him realize I was doing so. Once or twice I found a chance to change father’s medicine for harmless powders and clear water, and it seemed to me that he was better than when he took the medicine. He was very weak and ill, but his mind seemed clearer. I kept the medicine away from him for two days in succession, and got an opportunity to talk to him alone. I succeeded in convincing him that the change of climate, the baths, and the stuff the doctor had given him were doing him no good at all. In London there was a physician whom he knew and in whom he had confidence, Doctor Robert Fitzgerald. I urged him to go to Doctor Fitzgerald, but not to tell Doctor Dalmers of his intention, and I begged him to refuse to take any more of Doctor Dalmers’ medicine. We were in Luchon, and all the way to London I had to watch like a hawk to keep that medicine from father, but I succeeded, although I became extremely unpopular with Doctor Dalmers. The minute we reached London, I went to Doctor Fitzgerald and told him all that I suspected. Although he could not believe such a thing possible, he accompanied me at once to our hotel. Doctor Dalmers was taken by surprise, for he had not anticipated this move. When I discharged both him and the nurse, he gave me a terrible look. Of course, I could not have carried this through, had not Doctor Fitzgerald been a close friend of my father. Dalmers called Fitzgerald’s action unprofessional, and made threats, but we got rid of him.”

Despite the fact that she was such a mere slip of a girl, it was evident that she possessed brains and the courage and resourcefulness to use them. Mrs. Vanderpool seemed very proud of her. Lefty expressed his admiration.

“I knew,” Virginia continued, “that there must be something behind such a plot. I did not believe Dalmers had put it through merely to bleed my father while keeping him ill. I was worried over the fact that we knew so very little concerning how father’s affairs were going over here. What information we could get by cable or otherwise might be unsatisfactory. So I determined to come home and investigate for myself. I got father’s consent, and I left him in Doctor Fitzgerald’s care. I intended to sail by the Victoria, but there was a misunderstanding about accommodations, and I was forced to take a later ship. I find father’s affairs involved, and I’ve sent a statement of conditions as they appear to be.

“Of course,” she concluded, smiling a little, “I was greatly relieved to learn from Mr. Weegman that he felt sure he had blocked the contemptible efforts to smash the Blue Stockings. He felt highly elated over signing Lefty Locke as manager.”

“Miss Collier,” said the pitcher, “did Weegman offer an explanation of the raid on the team? Did he say who was at the bottom of it?”

Instantly a little cloud came to her face, and an expression of regret appeared in her eyes. “Yes,” she answered. “He told me. At first I could not believe it.”

Stillman leaned forward, listening, his lips slightly parted. Locke turned toward him, but turned back quickly, with another question on his lips. Virginia was speaking again, however.

“I can scarcely believe it now,” she said sadly. “It seems too utterly impossible! I can’t imagine any one being such a scoundrel–much less him! But Weegman has made sure; he has the proof. Of course, he has told you all about it, Lefty; it was necessary that you should know.” Her manner had grown deeply dejected.

“What did Weegman tell you?” asked the southpaw. “Who did he say was responsible for what had happened to the Blue Stockings?”

With an effort the girl answered: “Franklin Parlmee!”