NOT QUITE PROVEN
“Blue blazes!” roared Splinter Jones, his hands clutching Lefty’s
windpipe. “You bonehead! You mutt! I’ll teach you to pull them towels
from under me! I’m scalded――parboiled――burned to a crisp! Wough!”
Lefty grabbed the other’s wrists and, with a twist and a wriggle, freed
his throat from the choking grasp.
“Let up!” he panted. “What do you think you’re doing, Jones? Are you
nutty?”
The outfielder gasped and grunted with surprise. An instant later he
had rolled over so that the cub pitcher’s face was plainly visible, and
his eyes fairly popped out.
“By thunder!” he groaned. “I thought you was Fargo.”
A roar of delight issued from the open doorway. As Lefty sprang up, he
saw that it was crowded with members of the Hornet squad, several of
them in next to nature’s garb, and all convulsed with mirth. Behind
them rose vagrant eddies of what looked like smoke, but had the hot,
suffocating tang of steam.
“Come and see our Turkish bath, Kid,” invited Cy Russell when he had
recovered his power of speech. “Buck invented it, but something kind of
went wrong, and he beat it.”
“Went wrong!” snapped Jones, stung afresh by a sense of his injuries.
“The pirate did it on purpose! Just wait till I get my hands on him.
I’ll make him smart!”
He looked so ridiculous as he stood there, scowling fiercely and trying
to gather the inadequate folds of the scanty blanket around him, that
another burst of laughter commenced. It was cut short, however, by the
whirring of the elevator.
“Come inside, you loon!” ejaculated Russell, grabbing the outfielder by
the arm and hustling him into the room. “You ain’t decent. What if a
woman should come along!”
At the suggestion the men all scuttled out of sight. Lefty followed
them. The interruption had given Miller ample time to make himself
scarce, and, besides, Locke was curious to learn more of the trick
which had been played on Jones.
It proved to be simple to a degree. The improvised Turkish bath had
been an unqualified success, as Lefty realized the instant he entered
the superheated bathroom, where the atmosphere made him fairly gasp
for breath. The water still boiled from the tap, sending up clouds of
steam. In one corner was the fateful radiator that had aided Fargo in
the perpetration of the prank which justly aroused the wrath of Jones.
Until Buck Fargo’s unfortunate propensity for joking had got the
better of him, everything had gone smoothly. Jones and several other
players who thought they could stand a little less weight stripped,
swathed themselves in blankets, and took turns sitting on the sizzling
radiator, well protected by several thicknesses of bath toweling.
Perspiration streamed from every pore as superfluous tissue oozed away.
After each man had indulged in several rounds of the sweating process,
it was observed that Jones was monopolizing the newly discovered boon.
Protests were unavailing. He simply sat on the radiator until he
could stand the heat no longer, regardless of the clamorous waiting
list, and Russell was on the point of using force when he received an
unmistakably insignificant wink from Buck Fargo, which made him refrain
from butting in.
When the outfielder’s turn came again, he carefully adjusted the
blankets about him and approached the radiator. The others were all
gathered around, uttering various joshing comments. The big backstop
leaned carelessly against the wall close to the heated coils. The room
was hazy with steam pouring out of the faucet of the bathtub.
Cautiously Jones parted the blankets, and let himself down slowly,
quite oblivious to the fact that Fargo had removed the towels with a
dexterous twitch. The next instant a fearful yell rent the air, and
the outfielder shot up as if galvanized, caught sight of the catcher
slipping out of the door, and flung himself after in hot pursuit, with
the resultant upsetting of Lefty Locke’s plans.
The latter was not quite so entertained by the joke as he might have
been had it not caused him to lose the waiter. He was swiftly becoming
more and more convinced that, if he could only once get hold of the
fellow and bring a little pressure to bear upon him, Miller might tell
him a lot.
What was the man doing back in the hotel, anyway? Lefty wondered as he
took the elevator downstairs. The mere fact of his presence in that
corridor after he had been fired looked suspicious.
“It’s a shame I didn’t come out of my room a minute sooner,” the cub
pitcher grumbled to himself as he entered the lobby. “I’d have nailed
him. By Jove, Jack! You’re just the chap I want to see.” He caught
Stillman by the arm, and propelled him toward a couple of empty chairs
near by. “Who do you think I saw up in our corridor about fifteen
minutes ago?”
“That waiter who was fired yesterday morning,” the newspaper man
returned without an instant’s hesitation.
Lefty gasped. “What! Did you see him too?”
“No; but I heard him talking to Elgin. Our rooms adjoin, you know, and
there’s a connecting door which is locked. I was up there, doping out
some stuff to send to the paper, when I began to hear scraps of talk
coming through the door. Didn’t pay much attention at first, for I
wanted to get my story off in the five-thirty mail, but I made out that
somebody was trying to get money out of our friend. That made me sit up
and take a little more notice. The chap wanted fifteen dollars to take
him to Dallas. Elgin balked, of course, and then the waiter said it
would be the last touch he’d make, and, anyhow, it was little enough,
considering all he’d done for Elgin. They scrapped back and forth for
a bit, and then I reckon Elgin shelled out, for I didn’t hear anything
more.
“The fool part of it was that I never wised up to who he was till
afterward. I was thinking about my news dope, I suppose. Anyhow, it
wasn’t till after I’d got that out of the way that I began to wonder
whether the strange guy might not have been this man we want to get
hold of. It certainly looked a bit like it, his bleeding Elgin that
way.”
“Didn’t he say anything about what he’d done for Elgin?” Lefty asked
eagerly.
“No, or I’d have woke up in a jiffy. It was only that he’d done
something which put him personally to the bad. I haven’t a doubt now
as to what that something was, but I’m afraid there isn’t anything you
could call real proof.”
Locke shook his head. “I’m afraid not,” he agreed slowly.
More than ever he regretted that he had missed the rascal in the
corridor by a hair’s breadth. Truly, luck seemed to be with Bert Elgin
in everything he undertook.