Baseball Joe Around the World Part 35

They tiptoed their way through the hall to a room opening on the right.

The door, half broken from its hinges, was standing open, and in the darkness they saw the tips of two lighted cigars.

As this was not at all ghostly and they did not care to intrude, they were about to retire as softly as they had come, when Joe was startled by hearing his own name. Jim's hand shot out and clenched his friend's arm, and they stood there like statues.

"That was a slick trick you put over on Matson," said a voice which Joe recognized instantly as belonging to Beckworth Fleming. He had heard that voice before when he had made its owner kneel in the dirt of the road and beg Mabel's pardon for his insolence.

"I think myself it was rather clever," drawled another familiar voice, that of Braxton. "He fell for it like a lamb."

"He's a pretty keen chap usually, too," remarked Fleming. "How is it you caught him napping?"

"I picked out just the right time," said Braxton complacently. "And I don't deny that luck helped me a little. If McRae and Barclay hadn't gone away just the time they did, it might not have worked. But I got him talking about handwriting, and the first thing you know he'd scribbled his name on the blank sheet. I took good care that only the bottom of the sheet was where he could reach it. Then I slipped the paper into my pocket, sent it to you to have the contract printed above the signature, and you know the rest."

"Easy meat," chuckled Fleming.

"Too easy," chortled Braxton. "It makes me laugh every time I think of it."

Joe stepped into the room, followed by Jim.

"I do a little laughing myself sometimes," Joe said coldly. "And this is one of the times!"

CHAPTER x.x.x

BROUGHT TO BOOK--CONCLUSION

There was a gasp of dismay and astonishment, as the conspirators jumped to their feet from the windowsill upon which they had been sitting.

At the same instant Joe drew the flashlight from his pocket and illumined their startled faces.

"Don't move!" he commanded. "Jim, you keep them covered."

Jim took up his station in the doorway, and in the insufficient light the rascals could not see whether he had a weapon or not.

"What do you mean by this?" bl.u.s.tered Fleming, in a voice that he tried to make brave, but that quavered despite himself.

"It means," said Joe grimly, "that one of you men is in for the licking of his life. Don't tremble so, Fleming," he added contemptuously. "I've already thrashed you once and I don't care to soil my hands with you again. But I've been aching for months to get my fingers on the man that made me out a liar and a contract-breaker. I have him now," he added, with a steely glance at Braxton.

"Here, Jim," he continued, stepping back, "take this flash. I've got some work to do."

With a quick wrench he tore off his coat.

"You'd better be careful," said Braxton--no longer the suave and polished trickster, but pale as chalk and trembling like a leaf. "This is a.s.sault and battery, and you'll answer to the law."

"Put up your hands," said Joe curtly. "You're as big a man as I am, but you've got to prove which is the better one. And you, Jim, keep your eye on Fleming and stand by to see fair play."

Even a rat will fight when cornered and Braxton, seeing no alternative, threw off his coat and made a desperate rush at Joe. Joe met him with a clip to the jaw that shook him from head to foot. Then he sailed in and gave the scoundrel what he had promised--the thrashing of his life.

Braxton tried foul tactics, b.u.t.ted and kicked and tried to gouge and bite, but Joe's powerful arms worked like windmills, his fists ripping savagely into Braxton's face and chest. All the pent-up indignation and humiliation of the last few weeks found vent in those mighty blows, and soon, too soon to suit Joe, the man lay on the floor, whining and half-sobbing with shame and pain.

"Get up, you cur!" said Joe, as he pulled on his coat. "I'm not through with you yet."

"You're not going to hit him again, are you?" asked Fleming, while Braxton staggered painfully to his feet.

"No," said Joe. "I guess he's had enough."

"You said it!" cried Jim admiringly. "If ever a man was trimmed to the queen's taste he's that man."

"But I'm going to nail, right now, the lies you fellows have been spreading," continued Joe, eyes alight with the thought of his coming vindication. "You've got to sign a written confession of the part you've played in this dirty business."

"We w-will, w-when we get back to town," stammered Fleming.

"No, you won't," cried Joe. "You'll do it right here and now."

"B-but we haven't any writing materials," suggested Braxton, through his swollen lips.

"I've got paper and a fountain pen!" exclaimed Jim eagerly. "This light is rather dim, but probably Mike has got the automobile lamps going by this time and that'll be light enough."

"Come along!" cried Joe sternly, and his crest-fallen opponents knew him too well by this time to resist.

They went out into the open and found that the rain had almost stopped. As Jim had prophesied, the automobile lamps were gleaming through the dusk.

Like every Irishman, Mike dearly loved a sc.r.a.p, and his eyes lighted with a mixture of eagerness and regret as he looked at Braxton and realized what he had been missing.

"Begorra!" he cried in his rich brogue, "'tis a lovely shindy ye've been after havin'."

With the paper resting on his knee and Jim's fountain pen in his hand, Joe wrote out the story of the trickery and fraud that had been practiced in getting his signature. When he had covered every important point, he held out the pen to Braxton.

The latter hesitated, and Joe's fist clenched till the knuckles were white. Braxton knew what that fist was capable of and hesitated no longer.

He wrote his name under the confession and Fleming followed suit. Then Jim affixed his name as a witness, and Michael O'Halloran happily added his.

"Now," said Jim, as he folded the precious paper and stowed it safely in his pocket, "you fellows clear out. I suppose that's your car that we saw standing a little way down the road. I don't think either of you will care to mix in my affairs again."

They moved away with an a.s.sumption of bravado they were far from feeling and were lost in the darkness.

"And now, Mike," said Joe with a jubilant ring in his voice, as they leaped into the car, "let her go. Drive to Dublin as if the ghost of the last of the O'Brians were at your back!"

And Mike did.

The two baseball players found the girls impatiently awaiting them, and wondering rather petulantly what had become of them. Joe seized Mabel in his arms and whirled her about the room like a dancing dervish, paying no heed to her laughing protests.

Jim would have liked to do the same to Joe's sister, but did not quite dare to--yet.

"Are you boys crazy?" demanded Mabel, as soon as she could get her breath.

"Yes," said Joe promptly. "You'll be, too, when you see this."

He flourished the paper before their faces and in disjointed sentences, frequently broken by interruptions, told them of all that had happened since they had left them after the game.