KEEPING IT CLOSE
“What are you going to do about telling McRae and Robbie?” queried Jim,
as the two players neared the baseball park. “Don’t you suppose they
ought to know?”
“I’ve thought about that,” said Joe. “But I haven’t found out very
much――――”
“Except that two of the Giants’ players frequent disreputable hotels
and partake of contraband liquor while they hatch up their evil
schemes,” Jim reminded him dryly. “That information ought to go a long
way toward discrediting McCarney and Reddy Hupft for life.”
“But it wouldn’t stop their plotting,” Joe retorted. “They’d go on
hatching their rotten schemes just the same, only in such a way that
we’d have hard work bringing the guilt home to them. No, I’d rather
have them where I can watch them until some time when I have the chance
to get the real goods on them.”
“Perhaps you’re right,” said Jim doubtfully, adding suddenly: “How do
you know they didn’t get pinched in the raid?”
“I don’t,” answered Joe. “Only they beat it at the first sign of
trouble and probably had a chance to get away. It would be some joke,”
he added, as they walked together toward the entrance of the field, “if
they had been caught.”
“Some joke on them――but one also on the team,” added Jim.
“Yes, there it is again. You can’t punish one member of a nine without
reflecting more or less on the whole team.” Joe stopped short and
stared out to the field where several of the players were already in
practice. “Say, Jim, do you see what I see, or am I dreaming again?”
“It’s Reddy and his pal McCarney all right,” said Jim grimly. “They
gave the police the slip that time, and I suppose they’ll do it many
times more before they’re caught.”
“But when they’re caught, oh, boy!” said Joe, with relish.
They were still standing, staring out toward the diamond, when Robbie
hurried up to them.
“What do you boys think this is, a star-gazing contest?” he demanded.
“You’ve got your time wrong, Robbie,” said Joe, grinning. “There are no
stars.”
“You bet there ain’t!” retorted Robbie, with heavy sarcasm. “Not on
this team, anyway!”
The boys chuckled and, still chuckling, entered the clubhouse.
“Well, if Robbie hasn’t any stars on the team he certainly has a couple
of crooks,” commented Jim.
“Wonder how long it will be before he tumbles to it,” conjectured Joe.
“What do you suppose those two will do, Hupft and McCarney, I mean, when
they see you back safe and sound and in your normal state?” asked Jim,
in a carefully lowered voice.
“That’s what I intend to find out,” said Joe, with a chuckle of
amusement. “I bet they’ll be surprised to see me.”
Jim stared at him for a minute, then chuckled in his turn.
“Never thought of that,” he said. “I suppose they’ve had it all fixed
up in their own minds that you were caught in the raid.”
Joe nodded.
“And it’s just due to the barest chance in the world,” he added
seriously, “that I wasn’t.”
Jim considered this new angle of the case for a moment.
“Just what would you have done, Joe, if the police had found you in
that place?” he asked.
“I’d have told them the truth, of course. What else could I have done?”
“Do you think they would have believed you?” asked Jim.
Joe shrugged his shoulders.
“No telling,” he answered. “I had no proof, you know. No witnesses,
only my word. They would have let me off, probably, but it would have
made an ugly story――something for Hupft and McCarney to chuckle over.
No, sir, it’s lucky for me I found a means of exit.”
“Even if you did nearly break your neck,” added Jim.
“You notice I didn’t,” laughed Joe.
As the two were leaving the clubhouse Joe grasped his friend’s arm and
reiterated what he had said more than once:
“Not a word of this to Mabel, you know, old man, or Clara either. It
would only worry them, and they’ve had enough to worry over since Clara
overheard McCarney and Lemblow in their scheming. Not a word!”
“Not a word!” returned Jim emphatically.
As the chums approached the diamond they looked at Hupft and McCarney,
who were tossing the ball to each other――looked at them with a more
than ordinary degree of interest.
Aside from the suspicion of a black rim around Reddy’s left eye and a
slight swelling of McCarney’s naturally thick and heavy upper lip, no
sign could be seen of the hearty fight in which they two and Joe had
participated.
“That’s tough luck,” Joe murmured, in a crestfallen aside to Jim. “I
surely thought I landed at least a couple of good rights. It seems as
though, someway or other, I’d missed doing my duty.”
“At that, they got more out of it than you did,” returned Jim, in the
same modulated voice. “Your face has the smoothness of a babe, as it
were.”
“Yes, but you ought to feel the back of my head,” said Joe ruefully.
“I’ve got a bump there the size of a hen’s egg.”
“That’s probably where you hit the floor,” said Jim, and then it was
necessary to discontinue the _sub rosa_ conversation, as they had come
within earshot of the two players.
If Joe was curious as to just the manner in which his erstwhile
assailants meant to greet him, he was not long kept in doubt.
As his glance crossed that of Reddy Hupft the latter merely scowled
faintly and looked away, shouting something to Larry, who had just come
up.
“Snubbed, by Jiminy!” murmured Joe, and Jim replied with a grin as he
turned and loped off toward the pitcher’s box.
Later, when Joe and McCarney came face to face, the experience was
repeated, only that there was a little more ferocity in the latter’s
stony glance.
“That fellow McCarney surely does hate me like poison,” Joe communed,
as he played with the ball in practice, sending little teasers over the
plate that kept the unfortunate batters in a state somewhere between
apoplexy and nervous prostration. “I’d like to meet him again some time
when the odds aren’t two to one.”
It was hard for him to make up his mind in the hour or two that
followed whether to tell McRae of his experience or whether to let the
matter go by, for the time at least.
One minute he was not sure but what it was McRae’s right to know the
story and the next moment he was telling himself that, since he had
really learned nothing from the overheard conversation between McCarney
and Hupft, there was no vital reason why he should say anything about
it.
He was in the latter frame of mind when, after practice, McRae led him
to a secluded corner of the field. The manager looked about him to make
sure that no one was within earshot, and then turned to Joe, saying
abruptly:
“See here, Joe, I’m worried. There’s something wrong with this
team――all-fired wrong. And that something is Reddy Hupft and McCarney.
They’re not working right. They’re going stale and they’re having an
effect on the rest of the team. Did you notice them to-day?”
“What about them?” Joe asked evasively.
“They’ve been drinking,” said McRae, pounding a big fist in the palm of
his hand by way of emphasis. “I talked to Reddy, and his breath nearly
knocked me over. And when a ball player begins to drink, you know as
well as I do that that’s the end of him. I tell you, something’s got to
be done or we’ll be getting new men for third base and center-field.”
For several minutes longer the manager aired his grievances with Joe as
a sympathetic and equally worried listener and several times it was on
the point of Joe’s tongue to tell McRae what had happened that day. But
always something held him back.
“Wait,” said a voice within his brain. “Wait till you have some real
evidence. Then you can not only talk, but act!”