WHICH ONE?
“Letters generally are a nuisance,” Lefty found himself saying, in an
instinctive effort at self-control. “I’d certainly like to have mine
all written up.”
He wondered if his voice sounded as queerly to Temple as it did to
himself. The youngster’s face showed no particular surprise; perhaps
he was too immersed in his own thoughts to notice the oddness of his
companion’s tone.
Locke’s eyes were fixed on the two men crossing the lobby; his mind
was striving to find some reason or explanation for their being
together. Ogan could not have been the one he had heard while crouching
behind the magnolia hedge. He had never even seen Savage before this
afternoon, much less known him in the intimate fashion indicated by
the few words Lefty had overheard. He must have met the fellow by
accident――perhaps just outside the door. It was absurd to suppose there
was any prearrangement about it.
Temple moved away with a casual remark about posting his letters. The
other two came on, headed for the billiard room door. Savage passed
the southpaw without a word, and with a sneering uptwist of the lips
which at any other time would have made Locke long to hit him. Just
now, however, Lefty was too intent on something else even to notice it.
The busher’s face was flushed, his eyes were a bit glassy, his
breath fairly reeked with the smell of liquor. In spite of Kennedy’s
confidence to the contrary, the man had found a way to get whisky in
the sleepy little town of Tulane.
With wrinkled forehead and puzzled eyes, the southpaw turned and
watched the man enter the billiard room. How had the thing been
managed? Had some one broken faith, or was there an element of mystery
in the affair which――
“A bit more, and he’d have as nice a little load aboard as you’d want
to see.”
The voice at his elbow was low and drawling, with an undercurrent
of laughter in it. For a fraction of a second, Lefty found himself
wondering how in creation Temple could have returned so soon from
posting his letters. Then suddenly he realized that it wasn’t Temple
at all――could not possibly be, and, whirling, he looked into Al Ogan’s
smiling countenance.
As he stood staring, Locke felt that his face was flushing visibly.
Had the tangled affair begun so to wear upon his mind that even for a
second he could mistake one man’s voice for another’s?
“I wonder――where――he got it?” he managed to stammer at last.
“Give it up,” said Ogan, occupied with lighting a cigarette. “He had it
when I――er――ran into him a while ago――down the street.”
Lefty drew a long breath; the blood began to flow normally through
his veins again. The likeness was still there; his mind had not been
playing tricks. Certain tones and inflections of Ogan’s voice were
almost identical with Temple’s. He had never noticed it before, but
that was probably because he had never compared the two. In a second
the southpaw was smiling his old careless, good-humored smile, and
declining a cigarette from Ogan’s proffered box.
“Guess I won’t, thanks,” he said. “I’m cutting ’em out except one after
meals. Rather a good one on Jack, isn’t it? He was so sure there was no
bugjuice to be found in Tulane. You must have beat it out of here sort
of unexpected, old man.”
The infielder stepped past his friend and glanced into the billiard
room. “Oh, I don’t know,” he returned over his shoulder. “I got tired
of the game.”
Locke raised his eyebrows. It was difficult to imagine this possible.
“Going to sit in again now?” he asked indifferently.
“Nix! It’s me for the hay when I finish this smoke.”
He turned from the open door, and dropped down on one of the leather
chairs facing the main entrance. Lefty followed, outwardly indifferent,
but in reality keenly observant. Whether Ogan was lying or telling
the truth, there was certainly something on his mind, and while the
southpaw was still curious as to what it might be, he no longer felt
that phase of the mystery to be vital.
Whether it was Ogan or Temple he had heard covertly threatening Savage
was really of no great consequence, after all. It was unpleasant, to
be sure, and vastly disappointing, to realize that one of the men he
had come to like so well was deceiving him; but that was all. Of much
greater importance was the learning of where and how Savage obtained
his liquor. To this end Lefty meant to devote some of his spare time.
Temple returned presently from posting his letters. After a few casual
remarks, he departed for his room, leaving the southpaw puzzled anew at
the odd likeness of those two voices, and wondering why he had failed
to notice it before. He was still pondering when the poker session
broke up and the crowd sauntered back into the lobby with much talk and
laughter.
Only Savage seemed in a state of persistent ill temper. He stood close
by, growling at Pete Zacher, one of the few members of the squad
who tolerated him at all; and Lefty could readily believe old Jack’s
statement that the fellow was “fairly devilish” when he was drinking.
“That’s some classy ring you’ve got, bo,” he heard Zacher remark
suddenly. “Let’s take a slant at it for a minute.”
He indicated a heavy gold ring, oddly carved, which Locke had noticed
before on the little finger of the busher’s left hand. Savage scowled.
“It ain’t never been off my finger, an’ I’m not going to take it off
now,” he grunted disagreeably. “I guess you’ll manage to live without
lamping it any closer.”
It was not so much what he actually said as the nasty manner in which
the words were spoken that caused Locke to turn away disgustedly and
start Ogan on his way to bed.
“The ill-mannered mule!” he muttered under his breath as he crossed the
lobby beside his friend. “I’m hanged if I bother my head any more about
him! He can lap up all the jingle juice between here and New York for
all I care. Let him accumulate a roaring jag and start an all-round
rough-house so that he’ll get the sack. I’m not going to stir a finger
to prevent it.”
All this “listened well,” as Ogan would have said had it reached his
ears; but deep down within him Lefty knew that he didn’t mean it. He
was aware that the following evening would probably see him playing
the thankless rôle of sleuth in an effort to discover Savage’s secret
and keep the promise he had rashly made to Jack Kennedy.