When you met me a short time ago and asked for a private interview I started to turn you down. Then I saw old Jack Kennedy and Stillman, the reporter, in the background. They gave me a signal. Thirty seconds after we entered this room they were in the room adjoining, listening by means of that dictograph to every word that pa.s.sed between us. We've got you, Weegman, and we've got Garrity, too. Criminal conspiracy is a rather serious matter."

All the defiance had faded from Bailey Weegman's eyes. He trembled; he could not command even a ghost of a laugh. He started violently, and gasped, as there came a sharp rap on the door.

"They want to take another good look at you to clinch matters so that they can make oath to your ident.i.ty," said Locke, swiftly crossing and flinging the door open. "Come in, gentlemen!"

Kennedy and Stillman entered. Weegman cowered before them. They regarded him disdainfully.

"You beaned him all right, Lefty," said the ex-manager. "He wasn't looking for the curve you put over that time."

The reporter paused to light a cigarette. "After your arrest, Weegman,"

he said, "I advise you to make haste to turn State's evidence. It's your only chance to escape doing a nice long bit in the stone jug."

He turned, closed the door behind him, and shot the bolt again. "In the meantime," he added, "I think we can persuade you to refrain from warning Garrity regarding what is coming to him shortly after eleven o'clock to-morrow."

Looking feeble and broken, Charles Collier sat at his desk in the office of the Blue Stockings Baseball Club. On the desk before him lay the books of the club and a ma.s.s of letters and doc.u.ments. At one end of the desk sat Tom Garrity, smoking a big cigar and looking like a Napoleon who dreamed of no impending Waterloo. He was speaking. His words and manner were those of a conqueror.

"You can see how the land lies, Collier. You should have sold out your interest in the team before going abroad. Weegman made a mess of it.

To-day you can't realize fifty cents on the dollar. I've offered you my Northern Can stock for your holdings. That's the best way out for you now. If you refuse you'll lose Northern Can and the team, both.

Better save one by sacrificing the other."

Collier wearily lifted a protesting hand. "You don't have to repeat it, Garrity; I know you've got me cornered. I'm merely waiting for Weegman.

He promised to be here at eleven. It's past that hour."

Without asking permission, Garrity reached for the desk phone. "I'll call in my lawyers," he said. "They'll be here in a few minutes."

Before he could lift the receiver from the hook the door swung open, and Weegman came in, pale and shrinking. At his heels followed Locke, Kennedy, and Stillman. With an astonished exclamation, Garrity put the instrument down.

"I hope we don't intrude," said Lefty, smiling on the startled owner of the Rockets. "Having learned from Weegman of this little business meeting, we decided to drop in. I'm very glad to see that you have arrived home in time, Mr. Collier."

"Too late!" sighed the hopeless man at the desk. "Too late! You're just in time to witness the transference of the Blue Stockings to Garrity."

"On the contrary," returned the southpaw easily, "we have come to purchase Mr. Garrity's Blue Stockings stock at the prevailing price.

Likewise his interest in Northern Can."

Garrity rose, his face purple with wrath. A tremendously explosive e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n burst from his lips. "What in blazes do you mean?" he roared.

"Just what I have said," Locke answered calmly. "Since arriving in town I have made arrangements for this little business matter. I have opened an account with the New Market National by depositing a certified check for one hundred and fifty thousand dollars, which is more than enough to make the purchases mentioned. Mr. Collier's attorney will arrive in ten minutes or so to see that everything is done in a legal manner."

"But you can't buy a dollar's worth of my holdings in either concern."

"You may think so now. I'm sure you'll change your mind in a few moments. It is also reported that, for the good of the game, you'll get out of organized baseball. Have you brought a copy of the second edition of the _Morning Blade_ with you, Stillman? Show it to Mr. Garrity, please."

The reporter drew a newspaper from his pocket, opened it, pa.s.sed it to Garrity. One finger indicated a half-column article, with headlines.

GARRITY TO GET OUT.

WILL DISPOSE OF HIS INTERESTS IN THE ROCKETS AND ABANDON BASEBALL. HINTS OF A CONSPIRACY TO WRECK THE BLUE STOCKINGS.

Garrity's eyes glared. His breath whistled through his nostrils. His wrath was volcanic. "Somebody'll pay for that!" he shouted, swinging his ponderous fist above his head like a sledge hammer. "What's it mean?"

"It means," answered Stillman, "that more will follow, giving complete details of the conspiracy--unless you decide to quit baseball for the good of the game."

"I'll inst.i.tute a suit for libel!"

"No, you won't. You won't dare. We've got the goods on you. Let me tell you how it happened." He did so with unrepressed satisfaction, and the man's air of bl.u.s.ter gradually evaporated as he listened. But he gave Weegman a murderous look.

The door swung open again, and a sharp-faced little man entered briskly.

"Here's Mr. Collier's attorney," said Lefty. "Now we can get down to real business."

CHAPTER x.x.xVI

THE TEST OF MYSTERIOUS JONES

The unscrupulous Garrity had long been a menace to organized baseball, but such efforts as had been made to jar him loose from it had failed.

At last, however, like a remorseless hunter, he was caught in a trap of his own setting. Twist and squirm as he might, the jaws of that trap held him fast. Even when the representatives of a syndicate met him by agreement to take the team over at a liberal price, he showed a disposition to balk. Stillman was there. He handed Garrity a carbon copy of a special article giving a complete and accurate statement of the conspiracy.

"If you own the Rockets to-morrow morning," said the reporter, "that will appear, word for word, in the _Blade_. Criminal action against you will be begun at the same time."

Upon the following day Garrity was no longer interested in the Rockets.

The _Blade_ had put over a scoop by being the first paper to announce that Garrity would retire. It could have created a tremendous sensation by publishing the inside facts relative to the method by which he had been forced out. But organized baseball was under fire, and already the suspicious public was beginning to regard it askance. The menacing Federals were making no end of trouble. The cry of "rottenness" was in the air. Through the publication of the story thousands of hasty, unthinking patrons could be led to believe that, square and honest though it seemed to be on the field, the game was really rotten at the core. Stillman knew how that would hurt, and he loved the game. He was tempted to the limit, but he resisted. Not even his editor ever found out just how much he knew and suppressed.

On the usual date the Blue Stockings went South for spring training. Old Jack Kennedy was among the very first to arrive at the camp. He had been engaged as coach and trainer.

The newspapers had a great deal to say about how the Federals had taken the heart out of the once great machine Collier controlled. Few of them seemed to think that Locke, the new manager, could repair the damages in less than a year or two. He would do well, they declared, if he could keep the club well up in the second division. For it was said that Lefty himself would pitch no more, and the rest of his staff, filled out with new men and youngsters, must necessarily be weak and wabbly. Occasionally a new deaf-mute pitcher, Jones, was mentioned as showing great speed, but who had ever heard of Jones? Of course he would lack the experience and steadiness a pitcher must possess to make good in fast company.

Behind the bat the Stockings seemed all right, for Brick King would be there. Still, it was strange that Frazer had let King go. Old Ben was wise as the serpent, and he certainly had his reasons. The Stockings were trying out a young fellow named Sheridan in center field, but surely Herman Brock was worth a dozen ordinary youngsters. Some of the papers had a habit of speaking of all youngsters as "ordinary."

Jack Keeper, who seemed slated to hold down the far cushion for the Stockings, was also a youngster Frazer had not seen fit to retain.

In the few games he had played with the Wolves Keeper had made a good showing, but the general impression was that the manager had not considered him quite up to Big League caliber. Various other youngsters who had been farmed out to the minors were being used at second and short, and two of them, Blount and Armstrong, from the Cotton States League, seemed to be the most promising. But what an infield it would be, with three-fourths of the players "unripened"!

The interest of the fans who read this sort of "dope" turned to the Wolves, who were almost universally picked as probable pennant winners.

All this was natural enough. The Wolves had held together before the Federal raids better than any team in the league. Certainly no one who knew much about baseball would have chosen the Blue Stockings in advance for a come-back. But in baseball, and nearly everything else, there is no fixed rule of reckoning that can't be smashed. Plenty of old-timers will say this is not so, just as men a.s.sert that there is nothing like luck in the game. The Stockings continued to attract little attention during their tour North, although they won exhibition games regularly and with ease. Jones pitched in some of these games. Locke did not.

All the same, no day pa.s.sed that Lefty failed to get out and warm up with his pitchers. Dillon, Reilley, Lumley, and Savage were the old flingers left with the staff. The "Gla.s.s Arm Brigade," it was called. Savage was regarded as the only one of the quartet who possessed the stamina to work through nine hard innings. Counting him out, the team would have to depend on young twirlers. Of course, Locke warmed up merely from habit and as an example for the others. Otherwise he would try to pitch sometimes in a game.

The season opened with the Blue Stockings playing against the Dodgers, away from home. Mysterious Jones pitched and shut the Dodgers out, his team making five runs behind him. Even that created no more than a slight flurry, for the Dodgers were chronic subcellar champions. Jones had speed, and it had dazzled them. But wait until he went up against real batters!

Reilley and Lumley, taking turns on the mound, succeeded in handing the Dodgers the second game by a one-sided score. Savage went in and captured the third contest, but Pink Dillon dropped the fourth after making a fight for it up to the eighth inning. If that was the best the Blue Stockings could get, an even break, when facing the habitual tailenders, what would happen to them when they tackled the Wolves in the series to follow?

The crowd turned out loyally to witness the opening game on the home grounds, but even the most hopeful among the fans permitted their courage to be tinged with pessimism. They were in that state of mind that would lead their sympathies easily to turn to the opposition.

True, they hailed Lefty cheerfully and encouragingly from the stands and bleachers, but they could not have the faith in him as a manager that they had had as a pitcher. They were stirred, however, by the sight of old Jack Kennedy, and they gave him a rousing cheer. It warmed the c.o.c.kles of the veteran's heart. He doffed his cap to them.

Frazer came over from the visitors' bench and shook hands with Locke and Kennedy.