Chapter XI: A Voice Out of Darkness

Thanks to the irritating nature of the encounter on the field, and the swarm of unanswerable questions it had aroused, Lefty entered the hotel in a decidedly ill humor. The delight and keen enthusiasm he had felt that morning were quite gone; in their place had come a sense of ill treatment.

After the sacrifice he had made in coming down ahead of the other regulars, and practically giving a week of his time to coaching these raw recruits from all over the country, it seemed as if fortune had played him a scurvy trick by bringing into his sphere such an irritant as Nelson Savage was likely to become.

“Wonder if I didn’t make a mistake, after all, in keeping my hands off him?” muttered Lefty, glancing around the lobby. “There won’t be any living with the dog until he’s been taken down by a thorough thrashing, and―― Well, for Pete’s sake, look who’s here!”

In a flash the frown was swept from his face by a grin of surprised delight as he leaped toward the tall, wiry young man who stood at one end of the desk, talking and laughing with Jack Kennedy.

“Al, you old villain,” he cried, gripping the newcomer’s hands in both of his, “where the deuce do you hail from? I’m certainly glad to see that homely mug of yours again.”

Al Ogan’s response to the greeting was equally hearty. The two had been fellow-cubs a year before in peppery Jim Brennan’s famous Hornet organization, and Lefty had got along better with the clever young infielder than with any other member of the team except his particular chum, Buck Fargo.

“Haven’t been doing a thing in the twirling line since I saw you last, have you?” Ogan inquired, one arm resting on Locke’s shoulder. “It’s a wonder you wouldn’t get a wiggle on and make some kind of a reputation for yourself.”

The southpaw laughed. “Time enough for that, old scout. We’re likely to show you a trick or two this season. But, say, what in the name of sense brought you down here? What license have you got to come snooping around our promising growth from the timber regions?”

Ogan showed a fine set of teeth in a wide grin. “Doesn’t seem to occur to you that I might be here for the purpose of giving you rubes a few lessons in the art of playing the national game,” he remarked, with twinkling eyes.

Lefty stared. “You’re kidding, aren’t you?” he asked, darting a swift, inquiring glance at Kennedy.

Evidently there was something in the latter’s face which gave away the situation, for Locke suddenly brought his open palm down across the manager’s shoulders with a force which shook old Jack.

“Why, you deceiving old reprobate!” exclaimed the pitcher. “So this is how you filled Spider’s place? I’ll be hanged! Never even gave me a chance to ask what luck you had with first. It was on the tip of my tongue three or four times this morning, but you always choked me off.”

“Thought I’d give you a surprise,” chuckled Kennedy. “From the way you looked a while back, I should say you needed one. What’s eating you, anyhow?”

Lefty had not the slightest intention of letting either man know of his clash with Savage; it would savor entirely too much of talebearing to suit him. He smiled blandly, convincingly, and shrugged his shoulders.

“Nothing,” he drawled. “No, Jack, if I seemed at all serious, it must have been caused by the thought of wasting a perfectly good week of freedom watching you do the Solomon act with this crowd from the sagebrush. Now that Al’s here, life will be more bearable.”

Kennedy laughed and moved away toward the proprietor’s office, leaving Locke and Ogan to talk things over.

Lefty was more than pleased at the encounter. The young Ohioan was a college graduate and a good fellow in every sense of the word. Personally Locke had always liked him, and just at present he would have welcomed a much less agreeable member of the old squad. It gave him some one of his own status to talk to; some one who knew men and conditions of the baseball world, and who did not spend any time either eying the famous southpaw with surreptitious awe, or jealously tearing to pieces his hard-earned reputation.

Within ten minutes the two had decided to room together. They sat side by side in the dining-room, and when the hour for afternoon practice approached went out to the field together.

Without appearing to do so, Lefty kept an observant eye that afternoon on Nelson Savage, and discovered, as he rather expected to, that the fellow was not a general favorite. So far as could be seen, he was on speaking terms with just two members of the squad. The remainder of the recruits he treated with contemptuous disdain; if one could judge by the biting comments cast in his direction, the dislike was mutual.

Of course it was impossible at this early day to obtain any idea of his professional skill. Beyond handling a baseball with a certain amount of deftness, he showed no particular ability; nor was he likely to for some time to come. As for his physical condition, Lefty was surprised at the discovery that the fellow was much too heavy, and extremely short-winded. He puffed and panted when he joined the file that Kennedy led at a trot around the inside of the fence; and he didn’t last five minutes when lured into the diabolical “high-low” game.

Many of the other recruits were out of condition, but none of them quite as badly as this, and Locke naturally laid it to the busher’s intemperate habits. That evening after dinner, sitting in the lobby with Kennedy and Ogan, a quick suspicion came to him at the sight of Savage slipping out of the hotel alone.

“I thought you were keeping an eye on that fellow, Jack?” he remarked, in a low tone. “What’s to prevent him digging up some redeye in the village?”

Kennedy laughed, leaning back comfortably. “Evidently you don’t know Tulane, son. The place is so dry that a quart of bourbon would look like the flood. Only way he could smuggle it in is on the railroad, and the boys are all good friends of mine that I’ve tipped off to look out for that sort of thing. Unsociable grouch, ain’t he? Goes off alone ’most every night just like that. You’d think he’d get tired of himself, wouldn’t you?”

“Where does he go?” Lefty asked.

“Oh, moving pictures, I reckon. I followed him the first couple of times, and found him down there.” He yawned. “There ain’t no danger of his getting firewater now. The trouble’ll come when the push lands on us. They’re supposed to be on the water wagon, an’ most of ’em are; but you know how some of ’em carry flasks for colds, which they’re likely to leave around permiscuous-like.”

Lefty could not take the manager’s easy-going point of view. He knew that in country towns like Tulane the films are sometimes changed only once a week――never oftener than twice weekly. Unless a man was an absolute crank on the subject, he could scarcely care to see the same series of pictures three or four times in succession. It looked rather as if the busher had been clever enough to prepare a sort of alibi for himself which made it possible for him to slip away every evening without arousing the manager’s suspicions.

Presently Kennedy went off to write letters. A few moments later Locke and Ogan strolled into the billiard room to see if there was anything doing. They found a flourishing game of draw in progress, and, being urged to “sit in,” Ogan succumbed without a struggle. Lefty shook his head, however, watched the play absently for a few minutes, and finally walked out through the lobby into the street. He had given in to the pull of mingled curiosity and conscience, and found not a particle of pleasure in doing so.

Tulane was certainly small, and, at night, at least, most undoubtedly “dead.” It supported two moving-picture establishments, nevertheless, which rather weakened the southpaw’s theory regarding Savage’s inability to find continued amusement at picture-plays, but did not make him abandon his determination to learn if such was the man’s practice.

Entering the Palace Theater, he was fortunate in finding the lights up for the accommodation of a vaudeville turn. The seating capacity was not large, and in five minutes he was certain that Savage was not in the place. At the Tulane Opera House the wait was longer, but the result the same. By the time he had reached the street again Lefty’s interest in the search had quite swallowed up the reluctance with which he had started it.

The question now was, not to pick and choose from a multitude of places where Savage might have gone, but to hunt out one solitary spot or building which would attract the fellow or serve the purpose which Lefty felt sure was moving him.

A baker’s shop was open, Locke discovered as he moved slowly down the street; but its feeble light was the only one flickering amid the rows of low-fronted, quaint old shops. It was like hunting a needle in a haystack.

Presently, without any hope of success, the pitcher wandered through some of the rambling, curving residence streets near the river. Here the lights, save those from the houses themselves, were few and far between, and there seemed so little chance of anything doing that he was about to turn back when he became suddenly aware that two people were approaching from the direction of the river road.

Stopping abruptly, he heard the murmur of men’s voices; but the darkness was so intense that it was impossible to see more than the shadowy outlines of objects a dozen feet away. For a moment he hesitated; then, stepping back against the hedge which bordered the place on his right, he found he could easily push through. A second later he was standing on the other side of the flowering magnolia shrubs.

The action had been governed by impulse――and just the faintest suggestion of familiarity in one of the unknown voices. Almost immediately the raucous, angry accents of Nelson Savage reached Lefty’s ears.

“Why, you fresh young squirt!” said the pitcher to his companion. “I’ve got a good mind to put old Kennedy wise to what I know.”

There was a momentary pause, during which the steps sounded loud and clear, as if the men were passing on the other side of the hedge. In his desire to find out who the other person was, Locke bent eagerly forward, his ears strained.

“I hardly think you’ll do that,” came at length in a low, composed voice. “You see, I happen to know a thing or two myself, and I might be forced in self-defense――”

That was all. The man did not cease speaking, but a movement of his head, or a little eddy of wind, perhaps, turned the words into an unrecognizable murmur.

Lefty did not need anything further. Already he had heard enough to amaze him. The voice of the second man was that of Gene Temple.