Chapter XXXIX: The Face in the Crowd

The game at Webster was scheduled for the morning in order not to interfere with the horse race at two P. M. The latter was the big event of the fair; but the presence of an organization like the famous Blue Stockings naturally attracted a goodly portion of the big crowd which had come in from miles around.

Kennedy’s squad looked upon the occasion as more or less of a lark, and were interested in it mainly because of the opportunity it brought to witness the race. But they found the team from Savannah a snappy bunch, and it was only by really hard work that they pulled out winners by a score of four to one.

Pink Dillon pitched for six innings, and was succeeded by Lefty. The latter had not been in the box five minutes before he noticed a waving handkerchief from one of the lower rows of the grand stand. Looking closer, he was astonished and overjoyed to see Janet Harting and Celia Berkeley smiling down on him.

He had received two letters from Janet since her departure from Tulane. Both were written in the old, friendly style, which made Locke hope and believe that she had forgotten the disagreement that had spoiled their last evening together; but in neither letter had she hinted at a possibility of their meeting so soon.

“Another surprise, I reckon,” murmured the southpaw as he doffed his cap and stared searchingly at the girls’ escorts. “Or maybe they came on the spur of the moment. Wonder who she’s got with her?”

A second later his heart sank, and even his slightly jealous speculation concerning the identity of the good-looking man at Janet’s right was swept from his mind. He would have to face Celia Berkeley! Worse than that, he would be obliged to tell her what had happened to Savage. He fairly squirmed at the thought.

There was a smile on her lips, and her laughing eyes were gazing around the field. She was looking for the man, of course, wondering, probably, why he had not shown himself. How could he tell her the truth?

In his troubled abstraction, Lefty put over a ball which the Savannah batter fell on with violent delight, smashing it out for a two-bagger. The accident brought Locke up sharply, and for the remainder of the game he kept his mind strictly on business.

He had no more idea, as he hurried toward the stands after the ninth, of how to break the unpleasant news than when the necessity for it first burst upon him. Striving to hide his discomfort, he pushed through the crowd to where the girls stood, and greeted them warmly. The escorts proved to be Miss Berkeley’s two brothers――good-looking young fellows――who would have appealed instantly to Lefty had his mind not been absorbed with the disagreeable duty before him.

“We only decided to come last night,” the Southern girl explained, in answer to Locke’s question. “We wanted to, of course, the minute we heard you-all were to be here; but Ted and Billy couldn’t tell definitely about getting off till yesterday afternoon. But where’s Nels? Didn’t he come?”

It was impossible to tell her here in the crowd, so the southpaw hedged.

“No,” he answered. “You see, Jack didn’t bring the whole squad”――which happened to be quite true――“and Nels was one of those left behind.”

“How mean!” pouted the girl. “That manager of yours must be a regular old bear.”

To Lefty’s relief, she asked no further questions, but at once began a discussion concerning lunch. They had motored over, it seemed, and brought a large hamper with them, the contents of which Lefty Locke was invited to share. Thankful for the temporary respite, the portsider hustled off to dress, accompanied by Ted Berkeley, while the others sought their machine.

The ordeal he was dreading did not come during the informal meal. At half past one the pitcher found himself beside Janet in a box that must have cost real money to secure at so short a notice, with the disagreeable task still before him.

Directly opposite them was the judges’ stand, and Locke had scarcely taken his seat before he became aware of a small-sized disturbance going on in that direction. A tall, erect old gentleman with iron-gray hair and a nose like the beak of a hawk stood against the stand, his hands behind the back of his long frock coat. Beside him were several other less noticeable men――officials, if one could judge from the ribbons on their lapels――while about them was a circle of some two dozen nondescript persons, attracted evidently by the dispute; for the track had not yet been cleared, and people were crossing it in every direction.

The eyes of each member of the little group were fixed intently on the small, wiry little man who stood before the gray-haired judge, rage and indignation mirrored in his keen, narrow face, emphasizing each remark by the slap of a clenched fist against an open palm.

“I tell you, colonel,” Lefty heard him assert, “that mare is a ringer! I know it! I can prove it! She’s got a record, she has! She ran in the race for the Maxworth Cup over the line last September, under the name of Princess. She was a sorrel then, with a white fetlock, and a white crescent on her off flank. She’s a sorrel now underneath the dye this faker soaked on to turn her into a bay, and――”

“One moment, suh!” The colonel lifted an impressive hand. “Yo’ are making serious charges, Mistah Baxby. Steve, run ovah an’ fetch Tethridge. He left heah not two minutes ago.”

One of the men hustled off, and Baxby, finding that the judge turned a deaf ear to his monologue, began to pour out his woes to the crowd of curious onlookers, which increased with every passing minute. He gave the date of the race, the fact that Tethridge had been the owner of the winning horse, and various other details in such a positive manner that Locke, becoming convinced that he was speaking the truth, waited for the Englishman’s appearance, with a smile of grim anticipation.

After considerable delay, Lefty discerned the attendant returning. Beside him was the lean, lank, rather awkward figure of a man with a slouching gait and a thin, hard, weather-beaten face. The pitcher had no difficulty in recognizing this individual as the same Tethridge whose slurs on professional baseball had once roused his ire.

As the Englishman came closer, a certain veiled anxiety almost hidden beneath an overassured manner, made Locke wonder if the attendant, inadvertently or otherwise, had not put the fellow on guard.

Pushing through the rapidly increasing crowd of people, Tethridge paused before the judge. “Well, old chap,” he drawled, “what might be the trouble?”

The colonel cleared his throat and bent a searching gaze on the man, which was returned without the tremor of an eyelash.

“A serious charge has just been made against yo’, suh,” explained the official. “Mistah Baxby heah asserts that the mare yo’ have entered under the name of Alice Gray is a――ah――ringer, suh. He claims that she won the Maxworth Cup under the name of Princess.”

“He’s a bally liar!” retorted Tethridge, drawing himself up. “Princess is a sorrel with white mawkings. Blimy――I ought to know! I only sold the blooming mare a fortnight since.”

“Who’d you sell her to?” shrilled Baxby. “Produce the owner――I dare you! Produce the bill of sale! You can’t do it! Because why? She’s over there in the stable this minute, daubed up with dye! A bit of acid will show up the fake, you crook!”

By this time the space about the judges’ stand was packed with people, jostling, shoving, and surging back and forth as they tried to get a place in the inner circle to see what was going on. Some one raised a cry of “ringer,” and it spread like wildfire, echoing in a chorus about the track. Others came running; the people in the boxes and seats stood up to see and hear better. The whole affair reminded Lefty suddenly of a brimming powder keg waiting for the spark. He was just congratulating himself that the girls were not down there in that seething mob when all at once a new actor entered upon the scene.

He was a burly fellow of thirty-five or so, and he came tearing up the track, dragging by the arm a wizen colored boy, roughly dressed, and evidently frightened half out of his wits. Straight at the crowd the man launched himself, boring a hole with his big shoulders, heedless of angry protestations from those he was shoving aside. At last he burst into the inner, much diminished space――the boy popping after him like a seed squeezed from an orange――and glared around.

“There you are!” he roared, in a voice which rose even above the din. “You dog!” He shook his fist under the Englishman’s nose, and Tethridge shrank back to the edge of the narrow circle. “I’m going to beat up that face of yours so your own mother won’t know you!” He whirled toward the judge. “Kunnel, my horse is gone lame!”

An uneasy quiver eddied through the crowd. Voices took up the news, adding the name of the horse which had so unexpectedly failed at the last moment. Freckles couldn’t run――he was out of the race. Freckles was evidently a favorite, for instantly men by the dozen flung themselves out of the mob and tore over to the betting shed.

The noise increased. Lefty, bending over the edge of the box, could see the colonel’s lips move, but heard no sound. Tethridge, his ruddy color gone, shrank behind the officials, passing a limp hand across a shining forehead. Gesticulating wildly, the big, black-haired man continued to shout out his story. Though Locke missed a word here and there, he heard enough, thanks to that bull-like voice, to understand what it was all about.

Tethridge had evidently tried to bribe the stableboy to prevent his master’s horse――the favorite above all other entries――from running. Not daring to take the risk, the boy refused; but threats or bribes, or both, sealed his lips. Not an hour before, Tethridge had been in the stable with a friend, who had diverted the attention of the trainer long enough for the Englishman to slip into the favorite’s stall and out again. When the horse was led out he limped badly, and examination revealed a cut muscle which would take months to heal, if, indeed, a cure could ever be accomplished. No one had actually seen it done, but that was unnecessary.

The recital proved to be that spark which Lefty had been expecting. With a roar, the crowd surged forward.

A gasp arose from the stands. Women screamed and turned their backs. For a second Locke expected to see the man torn to pieces before his eyes. But at this juncture Colonel Arlington gave an exhibition of strategic maneuvering which proved his early training. With a single sweep of his arm, he flung Tethridge against the foot of the narrow steps leading up into the judges’ stand. In another second he whipped out a large revolver and held the crowd at bay until the terror-stricken man and the various officials had climbed into the stand. Once safely up there, with the colonel and his revolver at the top of the steps, the mob might surge and eddy and roar around the base of the structure without doing a particle of harm.

It did not even come to that. Almost immediately, now that the cause of their excitement had been spirited out of reach, the units of the mob began to lapse into individuals, and realize how foolish they had been. In rapidly increasing numbers they slipped away, some spurred by the necessity of rearranging their bets, until at last the crowd had shrunk to a size easily handled by officials and policemen hurrying up.

From his seat in the box, Lefty smiled grimly as he watched the white and terrified Tethridge, cowering behind the railing of the stand.

“And you’re the man who called professional baseball crooked!” he murmured to himself. “I wonder――”

He stopped abruptly, gripping the arms of his chair spasmodically. Unaccountably his gaze had shifted to the fair-sized crowd still thronging about the foot of the judges’ stand. He found himself staring down into the upturned face of Nelson Savage!