A STARTLING DISCOVERY
The Giants did not have to slink into New York this time as they did on
the return from the disastrous western trip of the year before.
They were almost mobbed by their admirers at the station and the press
of the city welcomed them back as conquering heroes.
In the columns devoted to their exploits Joe got the lion’s share of
attention. His great pitching and batting received their full meed of
praise, and it was generally agreed that it was his comeback that had
revived the flagging spirits of the team and set them again on the road
to victory.
Joe would not have been human if he had not been gratified at this
recognition of his work. But he did not lose his head or become unduly
vain. He was only profoundly grateful at his sudden recovery on the
road from the mysterious ailment that his arm had suffered from at home.
Had it fully and permanently recovered? This was the question that
must yet be answered, and answered favorably, before the apprehension
that still lurked to some extent in his heart could be dispelled.
Of course, what Joe had said to Jim about a jinx hovering over him
at the Polo Grounds had been a joke. Joe was too intelligent to be
superstitious. He was not worried about being threatened by anything
supernatural.
But he knew that there were many natural things that were so mysterious
and bewildering that they might easily seem to be supernatural until
their causes were ferreted out. Some such thing as that it must have
been that had made his arm so powerless in New York but seemed to have
no effect when he had left the city behind him.
So it was with some secret apprehension that he went into the box in
the first game he pitched after returning to the Polo Grounds.
To his delight, he found that his arm worked as well as it had on the
western trip. He mowed down the opposing batsmen with all his old skill
and turned in a brilliant victory, in which only three hits were made
by the enemy and one run registered.
“How about that jinx that was waiting for you at the Polo Grounds?”
chaffed Jim at the conclusion of the game.
“Guess he must have pulled up stakes and vamoosed,” answered Joe
happily.
Jim, too, was now at the top of his form and was pitching great
ball. He had come along wonderfully since, fresh from Princeton, he
had joined the Giants. He had a powerful physique that had not been
weakened by dissipation and he had, as well, curves, slants and hops
that were only second to those of Joe himself. And his association with
Joe had aided him marvelously in the development of his powers and his
knowledge of the weak points of the batsmen who faced him. There were
few pitchers in the entire league who could hold their own against him.
With these two as the mainstays and the rest of the string to help out,
the Giants were well fortified in the pitcher’s box. And as the rest of
the team were doing excellent work both in the field and at the bat,
the prospects of the Giants for winning the pennant could scarcely have
been more promising.
On the days that Joe was not in the box he took the place in the field
of either Curry or Bowen, according to which one of them was going the
better with the bat. In this way the hitting strength of the Giants was
vastly increased, for his batting eye had never been keener and he was
crashing out the hits with great regularity.
Doubles and triples again and again cleared up the bases and almost
every other day he ripped out a homer.
“Guess you’re going to hang up that record you spoke about at the
beginning of the season,” said Jim one day, shortly after their return
from the western trip. “All you’ve got to do is to keep up your present
gait and no one else will have a look in. And that goes not only for
our league, but for the American as well. Already you’ve made a dozen
more homers than Kid Rose of the Yankees, and the gap is getting wider
all the time.”
“Knock wood,” grinned Joe, as he tapped three times on the table.
“Perhaps the jinx is listening.”
It seemed as though the jinx was, for on the very next day Joe’s arm
went bad again and Markwith had to be called on to finish the game.
“Remember what I said about the jinx,” Joe reminded his chum. “He’s on
the job again.”
“Just an off day,” pooh-poohed Jim. “You’ve got to remember that
Napoleon sometimes lost a battle. You can’t win always.”
Three days later the Giants moved to Boston and Joe pitched one of his
old-time games, winning with ease. He took the first game and repeated
in the fourth.
They moved on to Philadelphia, and here again Joe lived up to his
reputation. He was simply invincible. But in Brooklyn he once more fell
down.
“Singular thing, isn’t it?” he remarked to Jim, “that I can go like a
house afire the minute we get away from the city, but go bad again as
soon as I get back.”
“I’ll tell you just why it is,” declared Jim. “It’s because you were
first knocked out of the box at the Polo Grounds. That was such a
shock to you that you associate the grounds in some vague way with the
incident. You think that what happened there once may happen there
again. You’ve brooded over it. It’s made you nervous. You feel as
though you were hoodooed. Snap out of it, old boy!”
But Joe refused to accept Jim’s explanation. It was not psychological.
It was physical. He was as cool and nervy as ever when he went into the
box, but his arm was wrong. It felt queer, heavy, with little electric
tinglings rippling along it from hand to shoulder.
Dougherty could find nothing the matter with it. A leading specialist
whom he consulted had no solution except that the arm must have been
overworked. Rest was his only prescription. And neither Dougherty nor
the specialist could explain the difference between Joe’s work in New
York and that which he did on the enemy’s grounds.
One thing that relieved somewhat the gloom that was gradually settling
on Joe’s mind was the fact that Mabel was coming to New York for
a visit. Both had been looking forward to it eagerly, and Jim was
welcoming her coming also, for he hoped that it would cheer his chum,
give a different trend to his thoughts, and banish his depression.
Clara had at first intended to come with Mabel, but Mrs. Matson had
had one of her bad turns and Clara had to defer her trip, much to poor
Jim’s disappointment.
On the morning of Mabel’s expected arrival Joe went down to the station
to meet her, his heart beating with delighted anticipation.
“Won’t you come along?” Joe asked Jim.
“Not on your life!” grinned Jim. “I know when two’s company and three’s
a crowd. You’ll want her just to yourself for a little while. I’ll see
the dear girl when you bring her up here. In the meantime, I’ve just
had a long letter from Clara and I’ll try to console myself with that
while you luckier folks are renewing your honeymoon.”
So Joe went down alone and his heart skipped a beat when Mabel, more
distractingly beautiful than ever she seemed to him, came through the
gates and he rushed forward to meet her. For the next few moments they
forget that there was any one else in the world.
Then they called a taxicab, and in a short time were whirled up in
front of the Westmere Arms and went up to their suite.
“Jim’s in the next room,” said Joe, as Mabel removed her hat and
fluffed her hair. “I’ll just tell him you’re here.”
He went to the door and knocked.
There was no answer.
“That’s queer,” remarked Joe. “I know he wasn’t planning to go out
anywhere.”
He tried the door. It was locked.
He had a key to it, however, and with a little feeling of apprehension
he fitted it into the lock, turned it, and went in.
The next moment he uttered a shout that brought Mabel flying into the
room.