THE TELLTALE PHOTOGRAPH
“Clara’s sure the fellow was really McCarney, is she?” Joe asked, as
they hurried across the field toward the grandstand. “She may have made
a mistake in that. A great many fellows look like McCarney, you know.
He isn’t an unusual type.”
“Ask her and see,” returned Jim. “She can answer for herself.”
Clara seemed quite willing to answer for herself. In reply to Joe’s
sober questions she told him just what she had already told the others.
When she came to the part about the tall, thin man who was with
McCarney, Joe and Jim exchanged significant glances.
Mabel caught the interchange and put a beseeching hand on Joe’s arm.
“Joe,” she said, “if you are going to be in danger again――――” but Joe
interrupted with his flashing smile.
“Don’t go to worrying, honey,” he said reassuringly. “Clara’s story
sounds a little queer, but there’s not a thing in the world to worry
about. Let’s get on back to the hotel where we can finish our little
powwow in quiet.”
On the way home the chums tried to keep the conversation on a lighter
plane, but they were, nevertheless, deeply troubled.
Clara seemed strangely sure that the man she had seen on the station
platform at Liberty had been none other than the Giants’ third baseman.
Granted that she was not mistaken in this, then who was his companion?
Lemblow, perhaps. The imaginations of Joe and Jim traveled even
further, connecting McCarney’s companion with the strange man who had
hurried from the half-completed building the day the lumber had fallen
from the scaffold.
When they reached the hotel, the same at which Joe and Jim had been
staying and where the girls were to stay as long as they were in the
city, Joe was all for making plans as to how they should spend their
first evening together.
But it did not take them long to discover that the girls were not
yet in a party mood. They made it quite clear that they wanted this
“mystery business” cleared up first. Clara, especially, seemed fidgety
and nervous, and she had hardly taken off her wraps before she turned
to Joe.
“Joe, dear,” she said, “Jim says you have pictures of every ball player
and near ball player in the world.”
“Not quite,” said Joe modestly. “But, at that, I’ve got quite a scrap
book. What do you want of my rogues’ gallery?”
He knew quite well what she wanted of it, but he had made up his mind,
for the sake of the girls, to treat the whole matter as lightly as
possible.
“I want to see every last picture you have,” said Clara, with pretty
impetuousness. “I want to see if I can’t find some one.”
“Look out, Jim,” said Joe, with a heavy frown. “You have a rival!”
“Oh, dear!” groaned Jim, and Clara heartlessly made a face at him.
“How do you know he has only one?” she asked, evidently referring to
“rivals,” and poor Jim groaned again.
While Joe went off for his “rogues’ gallery,” Reggie stood by the
mantel, idly twirling his monocle, a thoughtful look in his eyes.
However, when he found Mabel’s gaze upon him he smiled brightly and
came over to sit beside her.
“You know, I really should be going,” he said. “But, you know, I have
the oddest desire to see this ‘rogues’ gallery’ for myself. I shouldn’t
linger for a bally second longer, I shouldn’t really. There’s a fellow
I must look up for the gov’nor without delay. I know jolly well I
should be upon my way.”
“Listen here, old boy,” said Joe, returning at that moment with a huge
album which looked as if it might in all truth contain the picture of
every ball player on the globe. “Whether you know it or not, you’re
going to attend to no business to-night. You’re going to help paint
this little town red along with the rest of our merry party. Don’t let
’em tell you different.”
“But I say, old chap, business is business, you know,” protested
Reggie, but this time it was Jim who put down the protest.
“Business!” he snorted. “And you can talk about business on your first
night in the greatest little town in the world? Stow it, Reggie, before
we make you!”
“But, you know”――it came feebly, but it was still a protest――“I’m
afraid I’ll be intruding, you know――the fly in the ointment――the odd
member――all that sort of thing.”
“Oh, Reggie, you ridiculous old dear,” cried Mabel, flinging an arm
about his neck and effectually choking off the last part of his
sentence. “Don’t be so absurd, honey. Don’t you know we couldn’t have
any fun at all without you?”
If Joe thought this was stretching the truth a bit, he did not say
anything. It made Reggie happy, and of course it was fine to have the
fellow along. However, he would not have been quite human if he had not
wanted Mabel all to himself.
As for Reggie, he was fairly beaming with pleasure.
“I didn’t know you felt quite so strongly!” he cried. “Bah Jove I
didn’t, you know.”
“But now you do, and so it’s all settled,” broke in Clara, giving him
an affectionate hug in her turn which brought a laughing remonstrance
from Jim.
“Look here!” he said. “Seems to me Reggie’s getting altogether too
popular around here. If you’re passing that sort of thing around, why
neglect me?”
“I shan’t,” said Clara so softly that nobody heard but Jim, and before
he could do anything about it she had turned swiftly and was holding
out her hand for Joe’s album. “Let me have it, Joe,” she said. She was
adorably flushed and no one――except Jim――understood the reason why.
The two girls enthroned themselves on the couch with the album between
them while the boys grouped themselves back of it. Over Mabel’s
shoulder Joe turned the pages, pointing out the different players as he
did so with a word of explanation for each.
“But I want to see the Giant players, Joe,” said Clara.
“You won’t find Lemblow on the Giants,” said Joe, and instantly could
have bitten his tongue out for the slip. Both girls glanced up at him
quickly.
“Lemblow?” repeated Mabel breathlessly. “Then you know――you suspect――――”
“I don’t know anything,” retorted Joe, almost brusquely, then added,
with an immediate softening of his tone: “I didn’t mean to speak that
way, dear, but I want to get this thing over with. Guess I’m hungry,”
he ended, with a laugh.
“Feed the brute,” added Jim. “I’m just about starved myself.”
But the girls were not to be put off. They deluged them with questions
as to who Lemblow was until in desperation the boys carried the attack
into the enemy’s camp.
“See here!” said Joe. “We refuse to answer any more questions. If we
didn’t, you’d be sitting with that fool album in your laps for the
rest of the night. Altogether, boys: ‘We want dinner!’ Again: ‘We want
dinner!’”
The three gave the cry with a gusto that made the girls laugh in spite
of themselves.
“Oh, well, if you want to be so mean!” said Clara, and again turned her
attention to the album. Almost immediately she cried out, touching one
of the pictures with her finger.
“Look,” she said. “Here’s the one I’ve been looking for all the time!”
“Which one?” asked Jim, as the boys leaned forward to get a better look.
“The man who was talking to McCarney on the station platform,”
explained Clara, so excited that she stammered. Mabel’s earnest eyes
were fixed upon her. “I’d know that face, anywhere. He’s horrid
looking, isn’t he? Like a snake or something scaly. Look at those lob
ears of his.”
She glanced up at the boys just in time to catch the look that flashed
between them.
“Then you do know him!” she exclaimed triumphantly. “Now maybe you’ll
tell me his name.”
“His name,” said Joe slowly, all fun temporarily gone from his eyes,
“is Lemblow.”
“And his reputation,” added Jim, with a faint grin, “is conspicuous by
its absence.”
“Oh, I knew it!” cried Clara, triumph giving place to real anxiety. “I
knew he was a wretch from the first. Oh, Jim, what does it mean?”
Jim looked at Joe and slowly shook his head.
“It’s hard to tell what it means,” he said gravely.
“I’ll jolly well say it is!” burst from Reggie, and at his vehemence
the monocle, as though shocked by such an improper display of feeling,
toppled from his eye. Reggie picked it up and nervously replaced it,
squinting his eye as he did so till he looked like a scheming old
magpie. “But one thing I do know, old chappie,” he added, more mildly,
“these two men are a menace to the Giant team. You might even go so far
as to say they are a menace to the Game itself――you really might, you
know!”
“Reggie, old chap,” said Joe dryly, “I could see that myself, without
the aid of a monocle.”
“But what do you think it means?” asked Mabel, her pretty forehead
puckered in a troubled frown. “How could anybody make fifty thousand
dollars out of baseball all at once?”
“They couldn’t, if they made it straight,” returned Joe. “Of course
there are various ways known to crooks by which a nifty little fortune
may be made――――”
“Such as throwing games and all that sort of thing?” queried Reggie.
Joe nodded.
“There are plenty of other ways too, I reckon, once you get wise
to them,” he said. “The worst of it is,” he added, with a sudden
clenching of his hands and a fierce look in his eyes, “that rascals
like this Lemblow and McCarney not only plot against a special team
or a certain group of men, but go further than that, as you yourself
said, Reggie, and attempt to put a stain on the name of all baseball.
The scoundrels!” he added, throwing back his head with a fierce gesture
that made Mabel proud of him, even while she was half afraid. “Whatever
rotten thing they’re working up, they’ll find they have me to reckon
with.”
“Me too, Joe,” said Jim grimly. “Don’t forget me.”
* * * * *
The happy week that the boys spent with the girls flew by as
though on wings. Every moment they could spare from the duties of
their profession was spent in visiting with them the sights of the
metropolis, and they did things in royal style. In the afternoons the
girls were in a box at the Polo Grounds, and their hearts swelled with
pride as they saw the splendid work of Joe and Jim and realized how
high they stood in the affections of the followers of the game.
But at last the time of parting came, and they faced it with sinking
hearts but with brave smiles that showed what sports they were.
“And remember, Joe,” were Mabel’s last words to Joe, as she leaned from
the window of the train, “to keep on your guard against those wicked
men.”
“Don’t worry, honey,” replied Joe. “I still wear your glove against my
heart. That’s my mascot.”