CHAPTER XXIII
Kidnapped
"Train leaves at 11.30, Kohinoor," said Swanson as McCarthy came up to their rooms after dinner that evening. "Let's play billiards until it goes."
"Can't," replied McCarthy shortly. "I've got to make that call to-night. There's something wrong up there at Baldwin's, Silent. The girl writes to-day that Baldwin will not be home this evening and that she must see me to give me important news."
"Sure you can trust her?" asked the big shortstop. "Don't take any chances."
"There's no danger in going to one of the finest homes on the drive to call on a young woman," laughed McCarthy.
"I'll get away as soon as possible and tackle you for fifty points, three cushions, before we start for the train," promised McCarthy. "You hang around."
McCarthy had puzzled for two days over the odd conduct of Helen Baldwin, and her brief note, appointing that evening for the call, had failed to bring any solution of the riddle. He knew now that the girl with whom he had imagined himself in love was selfish and shallow, but he could not believe her criminal, nor did he for an instant think that she was a part of the conspiracy to rob the Bears of their championship. That he was in any danger he did not consider possible. He went uptown determined to hasten the interview as much as possible and arrived at the Baldwin mansion shortly after eight o'clock.
Presently Helen Baldwin came. She was wearing a dark street gown and her face was pale, dark rings under her eyes showing that she had been suffering.
"Larry," she said quietly, "you'll think me hateful and wicked. I have had a terrible time these last two days, and I have been thinking.
"I wanted to tell you I was a foolish, vain girl. I didn't love you; I was in love with the thought of being mistress to James Lawrence's fortune. I was conceited and silly and never thought of any one but myself; but I did like you, Larry—I do. You will believe that, will you not?"
"Yes," he said simply.
"I thought baseball was just a silly game," she went on, as if each word cost her a pang. "I couldn't understand why you gave up so much; why you insisted upon staying with the team. I didn't know that here in the East it is a great business and that hundreds of thousands of people take it so seriously. Uncle Barney asked me to get you to quit, and I told him you would. My vanity was hurt when you refused."
"You found out what it means for me to quit?" he asked.
"Yes. Uncle Barney came home in a terrible rage. He had been drinking and when he saw me he swore about you. He swore he'd fix you."
Her voice sank to a frightened whisper.
"He was only bluffing—I beg pardon; only talking," he said, striving to soothe her.
"I didn't know until then that I really cared, Larry," she went on. "He frightened me. I asked him questions, and he told me what he and some others have been doing to keep your club from winning."
"What did he tell you?" he asked quickly.
"He said they had one of your pitchers, I think he said, fixed, and that he had paid some other players to hurt you and to hurt Mr. Wilcox, I think he said. He wanted me to get you to come to meet me somewhere, and they'd kidnap you and someone else—Mr. Swanson, I believe it was."
"He's a kindly fellow," commented McCarthy coldly, an angry light gleaming in his blue eyes. "Did he say where this was to take place?"
"No. He tried to get me to write you to meet me at some place he named. He said I needn't go there, just get you to come. I told him I would. When he went to sleep I telephoned you because I was so frightened. To-day we had a terrible quarrel. I refused to write to you to meet me at the place he named."
Her terror was so evident that her words were not necessary to add conviction.
McCarthy laughed a short, rasping laugh.
"It's a good joke on him," he explained. "If he and his thugs are hunting for me all over the city and I here in his own home, safe; the last place he would look for me."
"You mustn't wait," she urged anxiously. "You mustn't wait here, Larry. He is drinking and I do not know what he might do if he came home and found you here. You must go now."
"I'll run back to the hotel and pick up my bodyguard, Swanson," he said steadily, and with an attempt at indifference of manner, "I think I'll be safe."
"You'll kiss me goodbye, Larry," she pleaded. "She wouldn't care—if she knew."
"She?" he asked. "What do you mean?"
He was astonished and curious to learn how the girl knew anything of his growing regard for Betty Tabor.
"I knew, I knew," she repeated. "I knew it the first time we met—I knew there was another girl"——
"I'm certain I did not hint at such a thing," he replied with an attempt at dignified bearing. "I have not even told her."
"Good-bye," she said. "I hope you're happy, Larry, and please don't think I meant to do wrong."
She clung to him weeping until he put away her hands and went out. The girl threw herself face downward upon the lounge and sobbed, this time from a sense of loneliness and perhaps of loss.
McCarthy descended the stairs and walked rapidly through the darkened lawn to the street. In spite of his pretense of believing there was no danger he found himself nervous. He walked two blocks toward the street car line, when a taxicab swerved toward the sidewalk.
"Taxi, sir, taxi?" asked the driver. "Take you downtown, sir?"
McCarthy hesitated an instant. If he hurried back to the hotel and found Swanson he would rid himself of the nervous dread of something intangible which he could not explain.
"How much downtown?" he asked, stopping near the taxicab, which had come to a full stop.
"Take you down for half rates, sir; I'm going that way."
"Very well," said McCarthy.
He walked to the side of the car, and turned the handle to step within. The instant he entered the car he felt himself seized and jerked downward while a pair of hands gripped at his throat. A vicious blow struck him on the back of the neck. Twisting, fighting, squirming, he struggled to free himself from the hands that were throttling him. His knees found a grip upon the floor of the car, and bracing himself, he jerked loose from one of the men, and struck wildly at the shape he saw silhouetted against the opposite window. His fist met flesh with a crunching sound.
"I'll kill you for that," gritted someone, striking him. In the half light of the interior McCarthy saw an object descending. He threw up an arm to protect his head, and with a crunching blow a heavy blackjack fell upon his arm. He seized the weapon and jerked it from the hand that had held it, but it fell to the floor of the cab.
McCarthy had struggled to his feet, bowing as his head struck the roof. One man, seated, kicked at him and hurt him cruelly. He was standing, with the car door swinging wide, while the car lurched and raced along a rough street.
Curses, groans, cries of pain and anger came from the interior as the player, battling against two unknown opponents, fought on. All three of the participants in the battle at forty miles an hour, were hampered by the smallness of the interior.
McCarthy strove to tear himself from the arms and legs that struck and kicked him, to get his head out of the window to raise the alarm.
Again and again he cried. Then suddenly the car lurched around a corner at a mad pace, tipping onto two wheels and skidding sickeningly. At that instant one of his assailants drove his feet against his body, and, as the car lurched wildly, McCarthy broke loose, grasped frantically for something to save himself, plunged from the machine, struck upon the asphalt of the side street into which the car had whirled, slid along it to the gutter and lay a huddled heap.
The car stopped quickly and whirled back to where he lay. The men leaped out, one cursing and frothing, the other urging silence and haste. Between them they lifted the half-conscious player and shoved him into the bottom of the car.
THE MEN LEAPED OUT
"Hurry up, Fred," urged the quiet man to the driver. "These fellows down at the corner are coming. Jump in, Jack."
They leaped back into the taxi, and the man called Jack said viciously:
"There—you, that'll teach you"—He kicked the prostrate player.
"Cut that out," ordered the quiet man, quickly. "You needn't murder him; he's fixed."
CHAPTER XXIV
Baiting a Trap
Events that preceded and led up to the desperate encounter between McCarthy and the two strangers in the dark interior of a racing taxicab seemed to have been dictated by fate. At the end of the doubleheader between the Jackrabbits and Bears, Easy Ed Edwards had hurriedly laid new plans to save himself. The gambler had watched both contests, believing all the time that the result of the games ended his final hope of winning the bets, and, facing ruin, he had welcomed his new lease upon hope with the determination of resorting to desperate measures to achieve his end. He realized that unless he acted at once all his plotting had failed. After the defeat of the Bears in the second game he left the grounds, hastened downtown in a taxi and at once telephoned to both Adonis Williams and Barney Baldwin to meet him at his rooms. Baldwin responded at once to the gambler's summons and entered the rooms blustering.
"You've a frightful nerve, Edwards," snarled the angry politician. "Understand, I do not take orders from cheap gamblers."
"You needn't try storming at me," said the gambler quietly. "I'm onto you. You may ring over such a bluff as that in politics, but not with me. You don't seem to understand."
"I don't think you can deliver any votes anyhow," said Baldwin sullenly. "I've nothing but your word for it."
"That's all the security I ever needed," said the gambler superciliously. "But never mind about the votes—you're going to help me."
"I've done all I can"——
"No, you haven't. I want you to go to-morrow morning and join the Bears and I want you to see to it that Williams pitches one of those games against the Blues. He'll lose it this time. I've thrown a scare into him and he'll do it, even if he gives himself away."
"I tell you I can't," snarled Baldwin. "President Bannard is the only one who knows I own the club"——
"Take your stock with you. That proves you own it."
"And Bannard is out of town. Clancy wouldn't pay any attention to me"——
"You own this club," said Edwards. "You can do what you please with it, and you're going to do it."
"You talk as if you owned me!" Baldwin was purple with anger.
"I do," said the gambler coldly. "It would look good in print to have the people know that Barney Baldwin, the crooked politician, owns both the Bears and the Panthers, wouldn't it?"
"You have no proof"——
"Haven't I? I saved both your notes. You're a fool, Baldwin. You write letters. I have two mentioning McCarthy and Williams. I wouldn't have any trouble getting them printed. Any sporting editor in the city would give a thousand dollars for such proof."
"Look here, Ed," expostulated Baldwin, "there isn't any use for us to quarrel. We're both in this thing"——
"Now you're talking sense," said the gambler. "We haven't any time to lose. The club leaves town at 11.30 to-night."
"What do you want me to do?" gasped Baldwin helplessly.
"You're pretty strong with Captain Raferty, of the North Nineteenth Street police, aren't you?"
"Yes—I've done him some favors."
"Well, I want you to fix it with him that when I bring a prisoner in to-night some time he's to be locked downstairs and kept until you telephone to let him loose."
"What are you going to do?" asked Baldwin, alarmed.
"I'm going to do something myself," replied the gambler sharply. "I've tried a lot of you fellows and you've all fallen down. Now I'm going to get this McCarthy and put him out of the way."
"You're taking an awful risk"——
"It's a sure thing the other way, and I'm desperate," the gambler cut him short. "When you get that fixed you catch the first train and follow the team. You get Clancy in the morning and force him to let Williams pitch one of the games down there. Wilcox is worked out now, and if we can make sure Williams will pitch one game, that will force Clancy to pitch Wilcox again, and he'll be beaten sure. With McCarthy out of the game, as he will be, the Bears haven't a chance. They're half a game ahead, but if they lose two out of three and the Panthers win one out of their remaining two games, the Panthers beat them out on percentage, and the Panthers ought to win both games."
"You haven't cornered McCarthy yet?" asked the politician.
"No," admitted Edwards. "He left the hotel nearly two hours ago and said he'd be back before ten o'clock. I have two men watching him, and they're to let me know where he is and what he is doing. I ought to have heard from them before now."
The telephone rang at that instant.
"This is it now," said Edwards in low tones. "Hello!" he said, taking up the receiver. "Yes—you, Jack? All right. You have? Where? All right. I'll join you as fast as I can get there. Don't let him reach the hotel if I'm late—you understand?"
"What do you think of that?" he asked, turning to Baldwin. "Of all the gall—where do you think that fellow McCarthy was?"
"I don't know."
"No wonder Jack had such a hard time locating him. He was at your house."
"I have a taxi waiting downstairs," said Edwards quickly. "Come on, I'll drop you at the police station. We'll bring in the prisoner before you've been there very long."
"How are you going to get him?" inquired Baldwin, as the taxi dodged in and out among traffic.
"I've got Big Jack, the fighter, trailing McCarthy," said the gambler, laughing mirthlessly. "He's sore on ball players since that scrap with Swanson and Kennedy the other night, and he'll welcome a chance to get his hands on one."
"He won't hurt him, will he?" asked Baldwin nervously.
"No, he won't hurt him," replied the gambler with scornful sarcasm. "Not a bit. He'll probably take him in his lap and sing him to sleep."
"This is dangerous business," objected Baldwin nervously. "We might all get into trouble."
"We're all in trouble now," snapped Edwards. "You leave the trouble end of it to me."
The taxi slackened its pace as it approached the police station and Baldwin climbed out under the lights that marked it as the home of the paid guardians of the people's rights and liberties.
"Don't fall down this time," warned the gambler. "If this don't go through, the newspapers will have some fine information to print in the next few days."
"I'll fix it, Ed, I'll frame it all right," replied Baldwin nervously.
The mention of his name and the imposing manner he had assumed won for him immediate entrance to the captain's private room, and after ten minutes of earnest conversation, Baldwin emerged, the gray-haired official with the gilt stars and chevrons escorting him and shaking hands with him at the street door.
"Don't forget, Raferty," said Baldwin importantly. "I want him kept close until I can get the proof we need. Don't let any lawyers or reporters get near him and keep your cops from gossiping. You won't lose anything by it, Raferty. Drop down and see me sometime. I'd like to talk the political situation over with you. You understand?"
Meantime the taxicab, with Edwards inside, had raced across the upper portion of the city to the place where Big Jack was pacing the shadowy part of the sidewalk half a block from Baldwin's home.
"He hasn't come out yet," Jack reported, stepping into the light as the taxi slowed down and crept along near the gutter.
"Jump in," said Edwards. "Run over across the street, and step in the shadow there," he ordered the chauffeur.
"There he comes now, out the gate. Follow him."
Five minutes later McCarthy stepped into the trap laid by the gambler and, ten minutes after he lurched out of the machine, he was carried half unconscious, into the basement door of the police station and deposited roughly upon the bench in the "cozy corner."
CHAPTER XXV
McCarthy Disappears
Silent Swanson was jabbing billiard balls around the table as if venting his irritability upon the innocent spheres of ivory.
"Why so cruel to the relics of departed generations of ball players?" inquired Kennedy, who was cuddled up in cushioned settee watching.
"Waiting for Kohinoor."
"Where has he gone?" inquired Kennedy carelessly.
"Skirting again," explained Swanson. "He ought to be back before long," added Swanson, jabbing the balls harder and stopping to look at his watch. "It's five past ten now, and he said he'd cut the call short."
"Think any sane guy would quit a pretty girl to spend an evening with you?" inquired Kennedy insultingly, having decided to wile away the time by ragging his big teammate.
"I've a hunch something is wrong with Kohinoor," said Swanson. "He told me he'd break away early and shoot me some billiards before train time. He didn't say just when, but I expected him back by ten."
"Why don't you sue him for divorce if he neglects you?" suggested Kennedy, again seeking to start an argument.
Swanson consulted his watch with gloomy foreboding and declined to engage in repartee.
"Better come drag along down to the train," suggested Kennedy. "I'll buy the gas wagon to haul us. Your little playmate is safe enough."
"I'll hang around here," replied Swanson without spirit.
"All right," Kennedy remarked, rising and stretching himself. "I'm going to dig along and get into the hay before that old rattler starts. I want some sleep. Most of the fellows already have gone."
Swanson resumed his gloomy pastime of making fancy shots on the billiard table. When he looked at his watch again it marked ten-thirty.
He strolled upstairs to the lobby, scanned the writing room and smoking rooms for a sign of McCarthy and then, with a sudden anxiety, he hurried to the telephone and called the Baldwin residence number.
"Is this Miss Baldwin speaking?" he inquired, using his off-the-field manner.
"Is my friend, Mr. McCarthy, there?" he inquired when she responded in the affirmative. "I was to meet him, and he has not appeared."
"Hasn't he arrived at the hotel?" he girl inquired in quick alarm. "He left here more than three-quarters of an hour ago. Has something happened to him?"
"I don't know, miss," said Swanson. "I got anxious waiting for him—— You're sure he left your house that long ago?"
"About that—I'm not certain," she said. "He was only here a short time."
"I expect he had to wait for a car, or else went straight to the station without stopping here," said Swanson, striving to quiet the evident alarm of the girl, although his own misgivings were growing. "He left the house alone, did he?"
"Who are you? Are you a friend of his?" asked the girl anxiously.
"Yes, I'm Swanson, his chum," replied the shortstop. "You needn't worry, miss, he'll be all right. I'm sorry I worried you about it."
He hung up the receiver and made a hasty tour of the hotel, descended to the billiard room, peeped into the bar and hurried through the writing and lounging rooms.
"Five after eleven," he muttered to himself, as he turned from the desk. "Kohinoor has found he was late and stayed on the car to the station. I'll grab a taxi and hurry down."
"If he comes in tell him I've gone," he called to the clerk as he hurried out.
A quarter of an hour later Swanson hurried into the great train shed where the train was waiting to bear the Bears on their final trip of the season. Most of the athletes already had sought their berths to attempt to get to sleep before the train started, as the ride was a short one and the hours of sleep too few.
"Kohinoor down yet?" asked Swanson in a low tone, as he came near the trainer.
"Haven't seen him," replied the trainer. "I put his baggage in his berth. There's a card game in the smoking room, maybe he's in there."
"I'll watch for him at the gate," said Swanson, "he may turn up yet."
Worried and alarmed, Swanson swung back along the train and took his stand where he could watch the entrances to the station and the great clock at the same time. Three minutes remained before time for the train to start. There was a flurry in the crowd at the gates, and a man broke through to race for the train. Swanson's heart leaped. He started to meet the newcomer, then, with a sickening feeling, he saw that it was not McCarthy, but Williams.
"Seen Kohinoor?" inquired Swanson, as Williams hurried past.
"Not since dinner. Isn't he here?" inquired Williams, stopping and dropping his grip.
"Haven't seen him," replied Swanson, watching Williams closely for symptoms of guilt, and finding none.
"I expected it," said Williams nastily. "Maybe that story about him trying to throw games is straight after all."
"That's what a lot of them will say if he don't show up to-morrow," reflected Swanson.
The warning cry of all aboard sounded. The big shortstop hesitated an instant, and gave a despairing glance toward the gates, just being closed.
"It won't do for both of us to miss this game," he muttered as he turned and ran along the platform. The porter was just closing the vestibule doors and the train was gathering speed as the big shortstop swung aboard, went into the now deserted smoking room and sank down, staring blankly out of the window at the rushing lights.
Before the train reached the city of the Blues the news that McCarthy was missing had spread through the car of the Bears. The consternation that followed the rumor grew as the berths were made up and it became a certainty that the third baseman was not with the team. Swanson had informed Manager Clancy early in the morning of the events of the preceding evening so far as he knew them. They had not told anyone, but every member of the team knew, and they gathered in little groups. Williams was circulating around the car, talking with different players.
"Look at him," said Swanson to Clancy. "He hates McCarthy and he was the one who told them first that Kohinoor was not with us. He guessed it when I asked him last night if he had seen him."
"It's queer," the voice of Pardridge came from the berth behind them. "It's a funny thing that all this sort of trouble in the team started when that red-headed tramp joined us."
"They'll all be talking that way," said Swanson gloomily. "They wait for a chance to knock."
"Something may have happened to delay him," said the manager in tones that showed he did not believe his own hopeful words. "Maybe he went to the wrong station, or had an accident. Have you looked at the papers?"
"Yes. Nothing in them about any accident. I'm still hoping he'll be in at noon, catching that early morning train."
"I hope for a telegram from him anyway, when we get to the hotel," replied the manager.
But McCarthy did not show up, nor was there any telegram from him awaiting when the team reached their hotel.
CHAPTER XXVI
Baldwin Shows His Hand
"There's a swarm of reporters down in the lobby all excited over McCarthy," announced Swanson as, in obedience to orders, he, with Kennedy, Norton and Technicalities Feehan, gathered in Clancy's room soon after breakfast.
"Let them wait," replied Clancy. "They've been calling up here every five minutes."
Briefly each of the players recounted the little they had seen or heard during the preceding evening, Swanson giving his account of his engagement with McCarthy, his telephone conversation with Miss Baldwin, of her evident sincerity when she informed him as to McCarthy's departure from the house and of his vain wait.
"But what could have happened?" asked Kennedy. "You're sure he got out of the house? It's only two blocks to the street car line and three to the elevated on lighted streets, you say. If he was hit by an automobile or held up by robbers it would have been in the newspapers."
"Manager Clancy," said Feehan softly from his perch upon a trunk, which gave him the aspect of a huge owl, "I have been giving consideration to a plan. Unless Mr. McCarthy should arrive on the 11.45 train I shall catch the noonday express for home, arriving there shortly after five, to put my plan into effect."
"But you cannot neglect your work, Feehan," protested the manager. "It's fine of you to offer it, but you've got yourself to think of."
"I have a premonition," responded the reporter solemnly, "or what Mr. Swanson so graphically expresses as a 'hunch,' that the story at the other end is bigger than the story of the contest. Besides, Mr. Hardner has kindly consented to report the game of to-day for my paper as well as his own."
"What's your theory, Technicalities?" asked Clancy gratefully.
"Only one of two things are probable," explained Feehan. "Either McCarthy left of his own accord or because of threats made to him or else he has been kidnapped by certain—ah—interests, let us say, desirous of preventing the Bears from winning the championship emblem."
"Ah, Kohinoor wouldn't quit, and they couldn't scare him," growled Swanson.
"Precisely, Mr. Swanson. The statistics prove beyond doubt that he is not concerned in the losing of games, putting aside the fact that the young man undoubtedly is honest and sincere. That leaves us only one premise, the other having been found untenable. Mr. McCarthy has been kidnapped."
"I can't figure how they could take him in a public street or from a street car," interposed Clancy.
"I have calculated that," said the reporter. "Either he is in the Baldwin home and Miss Baldwin ah—er—falsified or he was attacked between her uncle's home and the street car line two and one-half blocks distant."
"How do you propose finding him?" asked Clancy.
"I shall arrive at 5.11," replied the peculiar little man of news quietly. "Before six o'clock I shall have one of the best detective agencies in the world scouring the city."
The train came steaming into the station on time and the shortstop and the reporter crowded closer to the gates, watching the stream of hurrying passengers rushing through the narrow gates and spreading, fan-like, across the great floor. Suddenly Swanson's elbow jarred against the reporter's body, causing the frail statistician to wince.
"Look there!" said Swanson in excited whispers.
"Where—who?" inquired Feehan, striving to focus his heavy glasses upon the position indicated by his companion.
"It's Baldwin—the big fellow with the cane and the small satchel. See him?"
"I see a big man. I never saw Baldwin," responded the reporter. "Now, what can he be doing over here?"
"I'm going to find out," replied Swanson, his jaw setting pugnaciously. "McCarthy isn't on that train or he'd have been out among the first, and they're almost all out now. Good luck to you, Feehan, and wire me the minute you locate Kohinoor."
"I will," promised the reporter. "What you've got to do is to win that game to-day without him. I'll have him here to-morrow if he hasn't broken a leg."
Swanson leaped into the taxi immediately behind that into which he had seen Baldwin climb, and ordered the driver to follow the other vehicle. His surprise hardly could have been greater than when the short pursuit of Baldwin ended at the hotel from which he had come, unless it was that which came over him when, upon following the big man to the desk, he heard Baldwin order the clerk to send his card to Manager Clancy.
Swanson's surprise, however, was little more than that experienced by Manager Clancy when the bell boy delivered Baldwin's card.
"Send him right up," he said, and as the boy turned he said to himself: "Now, what the dickens does that fellow want with me?"
Baldwin entered the room pompously, and walked toward the Bears' manager with his pudgy hand extended.
"Ah, Clancy," he said patronizingly. "I'm Mr. Baldwin. I've seen you often on the field, but never had the occasion to meet you before."
"Yes," replied Clancy, ignoring the hand, "I've heard of you often, Baldwin, in various connections. You wanted to see me?"
"Yes; matter of business," said the big man. "Fact is, Clancy, I ran over from home purposely to have a little confidential talk with you."
"Depends upon what it is whether it's confidential or not," said Clancy; "I can't pledge myself not to tell the newspaper boys, especially if you've come to give me a third baseman."
"Hasn't McCarthy shown up?" inquired the politician quickly.
"No," responded Clancy coldly. "Didn't happen to see him over in town, did you?"
"No, no. Fact is, Clancy, I never have paid much attention to my ball players."
"Your ball players?" It was Clancy's turn to be astonished.
"Yes, yes; Clancy, I supposed you knew. I've owned the controlling interest in the Bears for a number of years. That's what I came to see you about."
"You own the Bears?" Clancy's tone was between surprise and disbelief.
"Certainly, certainly. Now, I haven't taken any active interest in them for several reasons until lately. Truth is things aren't going to suit me, and I have decided to take a hand myself."
"You have?" asked Clancy. "Well, you may own this club, but I'm d——d if you can run it while I'm manager."
"I'm not trying to run it, Clancy," replied the big man, unruffled. "Don't fly off that way. I just decided to use the owner's prerogative of consulting the manager."
"All right, Mr. Baldwin," replied Clancy, puzzled and mollified. "I did not know—you see it's a new idea—I didn't even know you owned stock."
Clancy was sparring for time in which to collect his thoughts, which were sadly scattered by the unexpected developments.
"Thought you might not be convinced," said Baldwin easily, "so I brought the documents along. Look over them and be convinced I own the club. They cost me a pretty neat pile, but I'm satisfied. You've made 'em pay me."
He tossed over the book of stock certificates, and Clancy, who owned a few shares of stock himself, realized their genuineness as he looked through them while planning his next move.
"I congratulate you," he said, handing back the forms. "I own a couple myself, so I know what they pay. Well, what have you to suggest, Mr. Baldwin? We're having a hard time winning this race, and if I seemed curt, blame it on worries. I have plenty."
"Naturally we all want to win," said Baldwin pompously. "Now, as to behavior, I'm told Swanson and Kennedy aren't behaving themselves."
"They're all right," argued Clancy, feeling from Baldwin's tone that he had not yet reached the point.
"I heard they had a fight in a barroom." Baldwin spoke with an effort of sternness. "That won't do, Clancy. And now McCarthy is missing. Then there's another thing."
Baldwin hesitated as if thinking how best to state his case, and Clancy eyed him closely, feeling that the real object of the interview was coming, "I'm not at all pleased with the way you are working your pitchers."
"A fellow makes blunders sometimes," replied Clancy, with a meekness astounding in him.
"That's what I wanted to talk to you about," went on Baldwin blandly. "Who do you propose pitching to-day and to-morrow?"
In a flash Clancy understood. It was Baldwin who had been urging Bannard to have Williams pitch. He saw through Baldwin's motives and planned quickly how to meet them.
"Well," he said, frowning as if worried, "it's a tough game. You see, the fans never forgive a fellow if he guesses wrong at this time in a race. I planned to use Williams in one game and Morgan the other. You see the Blues hit right-handers harder than they do left-handers."
"So I understand," a gleam of cunning and triumph came into the eyes of the politician. "Morgan and Williams ought to beat them, I think."
"Yes, they ought—I'm a little afraid of Morgan." Clancy was drawing the owner out. "He hasn't shown speed in his last two games."
"Then Williams is in fine form?" The triumph and satisfaction in the big man's voice were unmistakable.
"He's good," replied Clancy. "He ought to best them sure."
"Will you pitch him to-day or to-morrow?" asked Baldwin, completely thrown off his guard. "I'm anxious to make certain he will pitch."
"Of course he'll pitch, Mr. Baldwin," replied the manager. "I've got to pitch him and he's my best man."
"All right, Clancy, all right," said the owner genially. "I'm glad I had this conference with you. I was afraid you were angry with Williams or something and would not let him work. Glad to see you have good judgment."
He went out and as the door closed he removed his hat, and, wiping his brow, smiled a smile of great relief over the fact that his purpose had been accomplished without trouble. Had he been able to see through the door he would have seen Clancy, the veins of his neck standing out purple, his face convulsed with rage, standing, shaking his fist toward the door and muttering:
"Yes, I'll pitch Williams. I'll pitch Williams, and by —— he'll win."
CHAPTER XXVII
Searching
Betty Tabor had remained at the hotel in the home town with Mrs. Clancy when the Bears went to play their two-game series with the Blues.
Mrs. Clancy had refused positively to engage in any baseball conversation or to debate with Miss Tabor the chances of the Bears winning the championship.
"Heavens knows it's hard enough to be married to a baseball man," she said as she bit a thread, "him makin' base hits in his sleep and worrying the little hair he has left off his head, without havin' a girl that ought to be thinkin' of dresses and hats wantin' to din baseball into my ears all day. My dear, never marry a ball player."
"You appear to be pretty well satisfied with yours, Mother Clancy," teased the girl. "Maybe I'll find one as fine some day"——
"I'm thinkin' you've found yours now," replied Mrs. Clancy, without glancing up from her work. "A nice bye, too, although they do say the red-headed ones are hot tempered."
"Why, Mother Clancy! How dare you!" the girl expostulated, reddening.
"If you're thinkin' to deceive Ellen Clancy, you're sore mistaken," replied the manager's wife. "My Willie says I can tell when young people are in love before they know it themselves, an' ye and the red-headed McCarthy boy has all the symptoms. 'Tis a nice boy he is, too, and you'll be doin' well."
"But after ye've been married as long as we have ye'll not be wantin' to see many ball games. Many's the time I've begged Willie to quit it and get a little house out in the country, with a bit of green grass and maybe a flower bed and a little garden and a porch, and maybe a chicken yard, and let me end my days in peace, out of the sound of crowds and yellin' maniacs. Eighteen year I've ridden with him on cars smellin' of arnica, and with the train dust an' cinders in me eyes an' hair, and I long for peace. Only one season I've missed—'twas when little Mar-rtin was born"——
She snuffled a little and dropped her work to wipe her eyes hastily. It was fifteen years since their only baby had come and gone in a short year, to leave them closer to each other, but each with a heart pain that never ceased.
A bell boy interrupted her lecture to bring in a card, and Mrs. Clancy, glancing at it, passed it over to Miss Tabor.
"'Tis for you, Betty girl," she said. "And, Mother of Mary, she'll see us this way"——
Betty Tabor sat staring at the card, at first puzzled, then in a panic of mingled emotions.
"Tell her to come up," she said. "I'll see her here. Mother Clancy, don't you dare hide."
The girl hastily arranged her hair and straightened the room, and a few minutes later, when the boy ushered the visitor into the apartments, she was self-possessed and cool. She arose as the door opened, and started forward to meet her guest, but stopped staring as the color faded from her face and then slowly heightened.
"You are Miss Tabor?" inquired the visitor, her voice trembling from excitement and nervousness.
"Yes. You are Miss Helen Baldwin; you desired to see me?"
The sight of the girl she had seen talking with Kohinoor McCarthy in the hotel parlor, shortly after he joined the club, had shaken her composure.
"Oh, Miss Tabor," Helen Baldwin cried, sinking into a chair and giving way to her emotions. "I had to come—I had nowhere else to go—and they told me over the telephone only you and Mrs. Clancy were here and all the men of the team away."
"If it is baseball business," replied Miss Tabor, "perhaps you'd better see Mrs. Clancy. I'll call her"——
"No! no! no!" expostulated the girl, drying her eyes. "It is you I must see. Have you heard anything from Mr. McCarthy?"
"I have no especial reason to hear from Mr. McCarthy," said Miss Tabor, freezing slowly. "I suppose he is with the team."
"He isn't! He isn't!" pleaded the girl. "He has disappeared—— Haven't you seen the papers?"
"Mr. McCarthy disappeared! Where? When?" Betty Tabor had forgotten her jealousy in her startled alarm. "He isn't with the team?"
"I read it in the papers," sobbed Helen Baldwin. "He was at my house last evening. He left there—and he has disappeared. I hoped you might know."
"At your house?" Betty Tabor's alarm struggled with her jealousy. "And he's gone? Let me see the paper."
"I haven't seen him, Miss Baldwin," she said, after glancing at the paper. "We thought he had gone with the team. Tell me what you know. Perhaps we may help you. You were engaged to him, were you not?"
"We were—once," sobbed Helen Baldwin. "But that's all over. I did him a wrong. I never loved him—that way—and it's all my fault he's in trouble now."
Betty Tabor's heart leaped with a joy that overwhelmed all other emotions. Her cold attitude toward Helen Baldwin changed, and, sinking upon the seat beside the sobbing girl, she put her arm around her.
"There, there," she said comfortingly, as a mother might, forgetting that Helen Baldwin was older that she. "You must not blame yourself. Try to tell me what happened last evening. Perhaps we may know what to do."
Slowly, with interruptions by hysterical moments, Helen Baldwin told the story of her unconscious part in the conspiracy; of her alarm for the safety of McCarthy; how she had sent for him and warned him, and of Swanson's telephone call.
"You'd better go home, dear, and rest," Betty said finally. "There is nothing we can do. The men will have started the search early this morning and notified the police. He will return."
Helen Baldwin, calmed and reassured by the brave pretense of the younger woman, prepared to go home. Betty Tabor assisted her to rearrange her disordered fair hair, murmuring her admiration for it as she worked. For the first time a smile came to the troubled face of Helen Baldwin, and when she was ready to go she kissed Betty and held her at arm's length.
"You're very good and unselfish," she said in low tones. "I hope you and he are very happy."
"Why, Miss Baldwin," exclaimed Betty, blushing, "there is nothing between us. He is scarcely a friend"——
"I know, dear," replied the taller girl, kissing her again. "He is a very good and lovable boy, and very impetuous. He really loves you."
She smiled a trifle wanly and turning, left the room.
Betty Tabor turned with a sigh, just in time to see Mrs. Clancy making violent gestures through a small crack in the door.
"You didn't ask her," exclaimed the exasperated Mrs. Clancy. "You didn't ask her!"
"Ask her what?" inquired Betty in surprise. "You heard what we talked about?"
"Every word. I listened shamelessly," replied the manager's wife. "'Tis my curiosity will kill me. You didn't ask her one word about who McCarthy is. And she knows all about him!"
"I didn't think—I forgot," said Betty, hurrying to gather her work and belongings in preparation for leaving.
"Where are you going, child?" asked Mrs. Clancy.
"I'm going to dress and get an automobile to make the rounds of all the hospitals. He may be hurt and in one."
"Glory be! I never thought of it! Dress fast, darlin', an' I'll go with you."
They returned, weary and discouraged. They had not found a trace of the missing boy. Scarcely had they reached their rooms than another call for Miss Tabor came, and a few minutes later Technicalities Feehan entered.
"Mr. Feehan, what are you doing here?" both women exclaimed in chorus.
"I'm searching for Mr. McCarthy," responded Feehan. "I reached the city shortly after five o'clock, and, having concluded my arrangements for finding Mr. McCarthy, it occurred to me that, having an evening of idleness, I might devote it to no better purpose than in escorting you ladies to some place of amusement."
"To a theatre, with a tragedy like this happening to one of our boys!" exclaimed Miss Tabor indignantly.
"Rest assured, Miss Tabor," he replied, "we can do nothing, and eventually Mr. McCarthy will be found."
"How? Who is looking for him while we waste time?" she asked hotly.
"My arrangements," he stated quietly, "did not include useless running around. I called upon our managing editor, laid the figures and conclusive data before him, and convinced him that, besides securing an excellent news story, he can serve the team and the ends of right and justice by seeking Mr. McCarthy."
"Well, what did he do?" demanded Mrs. Clancy, sadly out of patience with his deliberate manner and rather flamboyant style of expression.
"As a result of his interest in the matter," replied Technicalities, "eight of the most highly trained men of his staff—men who know the city better than anyone who lives in it does—are seeking Mr. McCarthy with orders to find him to-night."
"How did to-day's game come out?" inquired Miss Tabor, relieved. "I almost forgot the game."
"Our team was defeated, 8 to 6," replied Feehan quietly. "McCarthy's absence already has cost us one game, and I greatly fear that unless he plays to-morrow the Bears are defeated in the championship contest."
"Glory be! I've dropped two more stitches!" said Mrs. Clancy.