A BLACK CONSPIRACY
During the game Joe wondered once or twice what Clara’s sudden interest
in McCarney meant. His pretty sister was so deeply in love with Jim
that it seemed almost impossible for her even to see another man. Yet
here she was, calling attention to McCarney――――
At this point a spectacular play elicited a mighty roar from the
grandstand, and Joe forgot everything but his interest in the game.
He had been back and forth several times from the bleachers to the
grandstand and now, with a murmured word to Mabel, he slipped away
again.
He wanted to get closer to the field where he could watch the work of
Reddy Hupft, and of McCarney, too. The two men were apparently playing
good ball, and yet, to his experienced eye, there was something queer
about their game. Even while he reproached himself for letting his
imagination run away with him, his eyes narrowed and his mouth grew
grim.
If those fellows were trying to pull anything――――
So it happened that when the game ended in a smashing victory for the
Giants Joe found himself near the clubhouse and allowed himself to be
swept along by the rush of his team mates.
He made his way through to Jim, who was surrounded by a group of
enthusiastic players, and thumped his chum heartily on the back.
“Pretty work, Jim,” he said. “Didn’t I tell the girls you had that
little ball trained?”
“It did come right to papa, didn’t it?” Jim answered, with a grin,
submitting to the rub-down gratefully. “But wait till the girls see
your work,” he added. “That will be the whole show.”
“Maybe it will be an anticlimax,” protested Joe, at which Jim grunted
disdainfully.
“Baseball Joe, an anticlimax!” he jeered, and Joe, smiling
good-naturedly, passed on.
Robson and McRae promptly collared him and engaged him in earnest
conversation and Jim, being unable to disentangle Joe from the society
of the two older men, shouted an “I’ll see you later” to his chum and
started across the field to the grandstand where the two girls and
Reggie were waiting for him.
As he neared the trio he saw that they were talking excitedly and
wondered idly what it was all about. The real thing that engaged his
attention, though, was the fact that Clara looked amazingly sweet and
animated and that the flush in her cheeks was the prettiest thing he
had ever seen.
“Hello, everybody,” he called to them. “Get tired of waiting?”
“Oh, Jim! you were simply wonderful,” said Clara, turning sparkling
eyes upon him. “You ought to have heard what people were saying all
around us.”
“Perhaps it’s jolly good he didn’t,” broke in Reggie, with a twinkle in
the eye behind the monocle. “Might have swelled the old bean, you know,
completely ruined him, what?”
“He’s frightfully spoiled already,” said Clara, with a distracting,
sidewise glance at Jim. “You’ve no idea how conceited he is.”
“On the contrary,” replied Jim, stretching his long length contentedly
in one of the hard-backed seats, “the only time I’m tempted to be
conceited, my dear, is when I realize that I have you.”
“Don’t mind us, Jim,” chuckled Mabel delightedly, and Reggie added
benevolently:
“Bless you, my children. Mabel and I are looking steadily in the
opposite direction. But perhaps, on further reflection, you would enjoy
our absence greater than our presence? What say, Mabel, shall we stroll
on?”
“You’re all so silly!” Clara protested, her face flaming. “I wish you
wouldn’t talk such nonsense, Jim――in public, anyway.”
“I won’t until next time,” promised Jim, then, thinking it about time
he changed the subject, he asked what they had been talking about
so animatedly when he approached. “You seemed all heated up about
something,” he added.
“Jim, where’s Joe?” asked Mabel, her eyes, suddenly anxious, sweeping
the field.
“Talking to McRae and Robbie,” answered Jim. “He’ll be along in a
minute. But say,” he added, with more interest than he had hitherto
shown, “aren’t you going to answer my question?”
“Hold your horses, old chappie,” murmured Reggie. “Patience is a
virtue, what?”
Seeing that, even if patience were a virtue, Jim was at the end of it,
Clara hastened to explain.
“I don’t suppose you will think it very important, Jim,” she said. “But
it seemed rather important to me. I’ll tell you what I know and then
you can judge.”
“Sounds like a mystery,” said Jim, sitting up straight and beginning to
look interested.
Mabel shuddered.
“I hope it isn’t,” she said, adding plaintively: “I don’t like
mysteries.”
“It’s about that man, McCarney, your third baseman,” Clara hastened
on, lacing and unlacing her fingers in an agitation she could no longer
conceal. “I’ve seen him before, Jim. I saw him just before the season
opened.”
“Well, what about it?” asked Jim, interested, but not showing any
especial excitement. “It’s a coincidence, of course.”
“It’s a good deal more than a coincidence,” Clara declared impatiently.
“Wait till you hear what he said――――”
“Yes,” Jim prompted sharply, as she hesitated. “What did he say?”
“It was at the railroad station at Liberty――the second station from
Riverside, you know. I had gone over there to take some things to Aunt
Lydia――――”
“Yes, but what about McCarney?” It was Jim’s turn to be impatient.
“McCarney was there on the station platform,” Clara hurried on. “He was
talking to another man. I couldn’t see them at first――I was around a
corner of the station, but I could hear their voices.”
“Yes?” Jim said again, as once more Clara hesitated, her glance roving
uneasily about the almost-emptied grandstand as though she were afraid
of being overheard.
“They were talking in whispers,” she said then, leaning closer to Jim
while Mabel and Reggie also came a little nearer. “I didn’t hear what
they were saying till suddenly one of them, McCarney, it was, raised
his voice and said, quite distinctly, ‘We ought to be able to make
fifty thousand out of this, maybe more.’”
“Great Scott!” cried Jim, his startled glance fixing the girl’s. “Are
you sure it was McCarney who said that, Clara?”
“Yes,” said the latter, a little frightened at the effect of her
revelation. Jim looked suddenly fierce. “When he said that about the
fifty thousand dollars I was curious and strolled around the corner to
see who it was who expected to make a fortune so easily.”
“Who was the man with him?” Jim’s question came like a pistol shot.
“Did you get a good look at him, too?”
“Yes,” answered the girl. “He was a tall, thin man and something about
him made me think he was a ball player. Of course I was interested, but
that was all. I didn’t think of it again until I saw one of the men,
McCarney, on the field to-day.”
“Did you hear anything else?” asked Jim, alert.
Clara shook her head.
“When the two men saw me they strolled off to a more deserted part of
the station. They started talking in whispers again, but of course I
didn’t follow them. At the time I didn’t see any reason why I should.
Only, I had a feeling that neither of the men was straight.”
“Um-m,” said Jim grimly. His forehead was wrinkled and his fingers
beat a nervous tattoo on the arm of the seat. “You didn’t happen to
recognize the other fellow――the one McCarney was talking to――on the
field to-day, did you?”
Clara shook her head. She looked worried.
“No, I looked for him after I recognized the other man,” she said. “But
I’m sure he wasn’t on the field to-day.”
“Do you think,” asked Jim, in the same grim tone, “that you could
recognize this fellow if I were to show you his picture?”
“Yes, I’m sure of that,” answered Clara quickly. “I was so curious
because of what McCarney had said, that I took a good look at both of
them. And I’m sure I could easily recognize the other man if I should
see him or a picture of him. He was the kind of person,” she added,
thoughtfully, “that one doesn’t very easily forget.”
“What do you think of it, old chappie?” asked Reggie. His monocle had
fallen from his eye and, in his agitation, he had not even bothered to
replace it. “Looks rather like some sort of plot, what? A conspiracy,
you might say.”
“I don’t know, I don’t know,” answered Jim thoughtfully. Then, seeing
how agitated the girls were growing, he decided to make as light of the
matter as was possible.
“Sounds rather mysterious,” he said, with a reassuring smile; “but the
sound is probably the only mysterious thing about it. These things
often clear up of themselves and you wonder afterward why you were such
a fool as to wonder about them. However, I’ll keep my eyes and ears
open, and if McCarney and his tall friend are cooking up anything, I’ll
soon find it out.”
“I wonder where Joe is?” said Mabel plaintively. “It isn’t like him to
stay away so long.”
“I’ll go and look him up,” Jim volunteered, unwinding his great length
from the seat. “I’ll make Robbie and McRae loosen their grip on him.”
As Jim started across the field the girls looked after his tall figure
thoughtfully.
“I hope,” said Mabel, putting back a lock of hair that the wind had
whipped about her face, “that this doesn’t mean more trouble for the
boys. Perhaps it’s foolish of me, but I’m always just a wee bit worried
about them. And now this McCarney――――”
“Stop your crabbin’,” said Reggie, laying an affectionate hand over
his sister’s little one. “I’m not particularly impressed with this
McCarney chap myself, but from personal observation I have learned
that both Joe and Jim can jolly well take care of themselves. Bah Jove,
it would take a pretty keen chap to put one over on them! It jolly well
can’t be done, you know!”
Meanwhile Jim, not completely sharing Reggie’s optimism, reached the
clubhouse just as Joe emerged from it.
“Hello!” said the latter, his eyes brightening at sight of Jim.
“Thought I’d never be able to give McRae and Robbie the slip? Did the
girls get tired of waiting?”
“Mabel sent me in search of you,” answered Jim, with a grin, then, his
face sobering, he swiftly told Joe the main facts about McCarney and
his mention of the fifty thousand dollar clean-up.
“What do you think of it?” he asked.
“Great Scott!” said Joe, raising a hand to his troubled forehead. “I
don’t know yet. Give me a chance to think!”