IN DANGER
"Bad news?" asked the hotel clerk, as he noticed the look on Joe's face.
"No--yes--well, it's unexpected news," hesitated Joe, as he made up his
mind, on the instant, not to tell the contents of the note. He wanted a
little time to think. Rapidly he read the message over again. The boy
was just shuffling out of the hotel.
"Wait a minute!" Joe called after him. "Where'd you get this note?" the
young pitcher asked.
"At de office."
"Yes, I know. But who brought it in?"
"I dunno. Youse'll have to see de manager."
"Oh, all right," Joe assented, and then he turned aside. He was still in
a quandary as to what to do.
Once more he read the note.
"'If you want to do your friend Rad a good turn,'" he repeated. "Of
course I do, but what does it mean? Rad can't be in trouble, or he'd
have sent me some word himself. That isn't a very good neighborhood at
night, but I guess I can take care of myself. The trouble is, though, if
I go out, and Rad comes back here in the meanwhile, what will happen?"
Joe was thinking hard, trying to find some solution of the mystery, and
then a flash came to him.
"Baseball!" he whispered to himself. "Maybe it is something to do with
baseball! Someone may be scouting for Rad, and want to find out, on the
quiet, if he's willing to help in making a shift to some other team.
They want me to aid them, perhaps."
Joe had been long enough in organized baseball to know that there are
many twists and turns to it, and that many "deals" are carried on in
what might be considered an underhand manner. Often, when rival
organizations in the baseball world are at war, the various managers,
and scouts, go to great lengths, and secretly, to get some player they
consider valuable.
"Maybe some rival club is after Rad and doesn't want its plans known,"
mused Joe. "That must be it. They know he and I are chums, and they come
to me first. Well, I sure do want to help Rad, but I don't want to see
him leave the Cardinals. I guess I'll take a chance and go down there.
I'll leave word at the desk that I'll meet Rad at the theatre. That
will be the best. I can telephone back to the hotel, after I go to this
address, and find out if Rad has been back here. I'll go."
Stuffing the queer note into his pocket, Joe started off, catching a car
that would take him near the address given. Before leaving, he arranged
with the hotel clerk to tell Rad that he would meet him at the theatre.
It was a rather dark, and quite lonesome, street in which Joe found
himself after leaving the street car. On either side were tall buildings
that shut out much of the light by day, while at night they made the
place a veritable canyon of gloom. There were big warehouses and
factories with, here and there, a smaller building, and some ramshackle
dwellings that had withstood the encroachment of business.
Some of these latter had fallen into decay, and others were being used
as miserable homes by those who could afford no better. In one or two,
saloons held forth, the light from their swinging doors making yellow
patches on the dark pavement.
"I wouldn't like to have to live down here," mused Joe, as he picked his
way along, looking, as best he could, for the number given in the note.
"It's a queer place to appoint a meeting, but I suppose the baseball
fellows don't want to be spied on. I'll be glad when I'm through."
Joe walked on a little farther. The neighborhood seemed to become more
deserted and lonesome. From afar off came the distant hum and roar of
the city, but all around Joe was silence, broken, now and then, by the
sound of ribald laughter from the occasional saloons.
"Ah, here's the place!" exclaimed Joe, as he stood in front of one of
the few dwellings in the midst of the factories. "It looks gloomy
enough. I wonder who can be waiting to see me here about Rad? Well,
there's a light, anyhow."
As Joe approached the steps of the old house he saw, at one side of the
door, a board on which were scrawled the words:
_Peerless Athletic Club_
"Hum! Must be a queer sort of club," mused Joe. "I guess they do more
exercise with their tongues, and with billiard cues, than with their
muscles."
For, as he mounted the steps, he heard from within the click of billiard
and pool balls, and the noise of talk and laughter. It was one of the
so-called "athletic" clubs, that often abound in low neighborhoods,
where the name is but an excuse for young "toughs" to gather. Under the
name, and sometimes incorporation of a "club," they have certain rights
and privileges not otherwise obtainable. They are often a political
factor, and the authorities, for the sake of the votes they control,
wink at minor violations of the law. It was to such a place as this that
Joe had come--or, in view of what happened afterward, had been lured
would be the more proper term.
"Well, what do youse want?" asked an ill-favored youth, as Joe entered
the poorly lighted hall. The fellow had his hat tilted to one side, and
a cigarette was glued to one lip, moving up and down curiously as he
spoke.
"I don't know who I want," said Joe, as pleasantly as he could. "I was
told to come here to do my friend Rad Chase a favor. I'm Joe Matson, of
the Cardinals, and----"
"Oh, yes. He's expectin' youse. Go on in," and the fellow nodded toward
a back room, the door of which stood partly open. Joe hesitated a
moment, while the youth who had spoken to him went out and stood on the
half-rotting steps. Then, deciding that, as he had come thus far, he
might as well see the thing through, Joe started for the rear room.
But, as he reached the door, and heard a voice speaking, he hesitated.
For what he heard was this:
"S'posin' he don't come?"
"Aw, he'll come all right, Wessel," said another voice. "He sure is
stuck on his friend Rad, and he'll want to know what he can do for him.
He'll come, all right."
"Shalleg!" gasped Joe, as he recognized the tones. "It's a trick. He
thinks he can trap me here!"
As he turned to go, Joe heard Wessel say:
"There won't be no rough work; will there?"
"Oh, no! Not too rough!" replied Shalleg with a nasty laugh.
Deciding that discretion was the better part of valor, Joe was hastening
away when he accidentally knocked over a box in the hall. Instantly the
door to the rear room was thrown wide open, giving the young pitcher, as
he turned, a glimpse of Shalleg, Wessel and several other men seated
about a table, playing cards.
"Who's there?" cried Shalleg. Then, as he saw Joe hurrying away, he
added: "Hold on, Matson. I sent for you. I want to see you!"
"But I don't want to see you!" Joe called back over his shoulder.
"Say, this is straight goods!" cried Shalleg, pushing back his chair
from the table, the legs scraping over the bare boards of the floor.
"It's all right. I've got a chance to do your friend Rad Chase a good
turn, and you can help in it. Wait a minute!"
But Joe fled, unheeding. Then Shalleg, seeing that his plans were about
to miscarry, yelled:
"Stop him, somebody!"
Joe was running along the dim hallway. As he reached the outside steps
the youth who had first accosted him turned, and made a grab for him.
"What's your hurry?" he demanded. "Hold on!"
Joe did not answer, but, eluding the outstretched hands, made the
sidewalk in a jump and ran up the street. He was fleet of foot--his
training gave him that--and soon he was safe from pursuit, though, as a
matter of fact, no one came after him. Shalleg and his tools were hardly
ready for such desperate measures yet, it seemed.
Joe passed a side street, and, looking up it, saw at the other end, a
more brilliantly lighted thoroughfare. Arguing rightly that he would be
safer there, Joe turned up, and soon was in a more decent neighborhood.
His heart was beating rapidly, partly from the run, and partly through
apprehension, for he had an underlying fear that it would not have been
for his good to have gone into the room where Shalleg was.
"Whew! That was a happening," remarked Joe, as he slowed down. "I wonder
what it all meant? Shalleg must be getting desperate. But why does he
keep after me? Unless he thinks I am responsible for his not getting a
place on the Cardinals. It's absurd to think that, but it does seem so.
I wonder what I'd better do?"
Joe tried to reason it out, and then came the recollection of Rad.
"I'll telephone to the hotel, and see if he's come back," he said.
"Then, when I meet him, I'll tell him all that happened. It's a queer
go, sure enough."
A telephone message to the hotel clerk brought the information that Rad
had telephoned in himself, saying that he had been unexpectedly
detained, and would meet Joe at the theatre entrance.
"That's good!" thought our hero. For one moment, after running away from
the gloomy house, he had had a notion that perhaps Rad had also been
lured there. Now he knew his friend was safe.
"Sorry I couldn't come back to the hotel for you," Rad greeted Joe, as
they met in front of the theatre. "But my business took me longer than I
counted on. We're in time for the show, anyhow. It starts a little later
in summer."
"That's all right," said Joe. "As a matter of fact I have been away from
the hotel myself, for some time."
"So the clerk said. Told me you'd gone out and left a message for me.
Say, what's up, Joe? You look as though something had happened," for
now, in the light, Rad had a glimpse of his chum's face, and it wore a
strange look.
"Something did happen," said Joe in a low voice. "I believe I was in
danger. I'll tell you all about it," which he did, in a low voice,
between the acts of the play.
It is doubtful if either Joe or Rad paid much attention to what occurred
on the stage that evening.