Jimmy Kirkland and the Plot for a Pennant Part 6

"I'd have thrown him out at first easily if that four-flush third baseman hadn't b.u.mped me," snapped Williams, his pride hurt.

"Sure you would," sneered the gambler. "You'd have thrown me out of about $160,000 just to have a better average. You had a chance to lose that game without any trouble and you're sore because you did lose it."

"Why shouldn't I be?" demanded Williams. "If we win my part of the world's series money will be close to $4,000--enough to settle what I owe you and pay my bills."

"Now look here, Williams," said the gambler, laying aside his cigar and leaning forward across the table. "You stand to win just enough to pay your debts and you'll be broke all winter, without a sou to show for a year's work. If the Bears lose I'll cancel all you owe me and make you a present of as much as the winning players get out of the world's series. You get me?"

"Why, you d--d crook." Williams leaped from his seat threateningly.

"You want me to throw the championship?"

"Sit down, you fool," snarled the gambler, viciously. "Do you want me to let Clancy know who tipped it off that Carson's leg was broken? Do you want me to tell him you got $500 for tipping it to that Panther bunch of gamblers?"

"Now listen to sense," continued Edwards, more quickly, "you saw to-day how easily you can lose a game and blame the other fellow. You can use your head and get rich instead of being in debt. If you don't like McCarthy, all you have to do is to make him lose games for you. The papers will yell, 'Hard luck,' you'll get money and I'll clean up a fortune."

"You can't make a crook of me," whined Williams. "Wanting me to throw down a bunch of good fellows"----

"Oh, shut up. You make me sick," sneered the gambler. "All you have to do is to make a sure thing out of a doubtful one. You'll be protecting yourself and getting even with a fellow you hate."

"I won't do it." Williams was at bay and defiant.

"All right," said Edwards sharply, "then to-morrow Clancy will get some news that will start something."

"Aw, say, Ed, you wouldn't cross a fellow like that?" whined Williams.

"Wouldn't I? Perhaps you think I'll let go of all that money and not fight? I'm starting home to-morrow. I won't see you any more. I am depending on you to deliver--or I'll protect myself."

"I won't do it." Williams was desperately defiant.

"Yes you will--when you think it over," Edwards replied easily. "Let's have a drink." He rang the bell and smoked in silence while Williams sat sullenly defiant.

"I tell you I wouldn't do it for all the money in the game," declared the pitcher.

"Here comes the boy," said the gambler. "I'll watch the score of the next game you pitch to see what you do."

CHAPTER VI

_Adonis Makes a Deal_

The after theater crowd was trooping into the lobby of the hotel in laughing, chattering groups and drifting steadily toward the cafe, in which already gay parties were gathered at the tables. Manager Clancy and his wife, with Secretary Taber and his daughter, came together and they stood undecided, the men urging that they go to the restaurant for a lunch before retiring, and Miss Taber, laughing, declaring that too much pleasure in one day was bad for them. At that moment Williams, a little flushed, swaggered across the lobby, and, lifting his hat, advanced toward the group. The girl smiled pleasantly in response to his greeting, but as he spoke again she stiffened indignantly and retired a step involuntarily, as she saw he had been drinking.

"So you prefer that red-headed prison bird to me?" he asked in sneering tones.

Betty Tabor flushed, then turned pale and facing the handsome, half drunken fellow, she gazed at him steadily until, in spite of his swaggering att.i.tude, he grew uneasy and dropped his eyes. Then she spoke. She spoke just one word, vibrant with all the scorn and anger in her being.

"Yes."

Without a glance at him she turned and stepped into the waiting car, leaving Williams staring blankly in the elevator well. The cold scorn of the girl's single word had stung him more deeply than a volume of rebuke would have done. Half maddened by jealousy and drink he turned to cross the lobby, forgetting to replace his hat, and Clancy, whose attention had been attracted by the pitcher's pursuit of the girl, grasped him by the shoulder and said sternly:

"Williams, if you take another drink to-night it will cost you a month's pay."

The manager turned to rejoin his wife, and Williams, seething with what he considered a double dose of injustice, walked unsteadily across the lobby. He sat down and meditated over his wrongs. He thought of Edwards and his offer and rising quickly he walked to the telegraph office and wrote a message, for which he paid as he handed it to the night operator. Clancy, who had been talking with friends, was waiting for an elevator and saw his pitcher writing the message. His forehead knitted into a worried frown as he turned and slowly walked toward the elevator again, whistling, as was his habit when he was seriously disturbed. Clancy determined to watch his left-hander. He did not speak of the matter to anyone, having decided to await developments.

He watched Williams closely during the remaining games against the Pilgrims, which the Bears won easily, and during the trip to the city of the Maroons, where Williams was to pitch the opening game of the series.

The Bears and Panthers were fighting upon an unchanged basis, only a fraction of a game separating them in the league standing. With but eighteen more games remaining on the schedule for the Bears, and nineteen for the Panthers, the race was becoming more desperate each day and the nervous strain was commencing to tell upon some of the men.

Clancy was nursing his players, knowing that one disheartening defeat might mean a break that would lead to a succession of downfalls. The more he watched Williams the stronger his conviction that something was amiss. Williams was not acting naturally and his demeanor when with the other players was a puzzle to Clancy.

He selected Williams as the pitcher in the first game against the Maroons with the purpose, being determined to find whether or not the pitcher was in condition, and he sent Wilc.o.x, his best right-handed pitcher, out to warm up so as to be ready to rescue Williams at the first sign of distress.

"What's the matter with Adonis?" inquired Manager Clancy, as his catcher and princ.i.p.al adviser returned to the bench after the second inning.

"His curve is breaking slow and low and on the inside corner of the plate to the right-handers," replied Kennedy. "I can't make him keep it high and out."

"Make him use his fast one or he'll get Kohinoor killed with one of those line smashes," ordered Clancy quietly. "Watch him closely, and if he is loafing, signal me."

The third inning and the fourth reeled away without a score, and in the first half of the fifth a base on b.a.l.l.s, a steal by Norton and a crashing drive by Pardridge gave the Bears a score and the lead.

Caton, one of the heaviest hitters of the Maroons, started their half of the inning, and as he stepped into position Kennedy crouched and signaled. Williams shook his head quickly and pitched a curve that broke on the inside corner of the plate. Caton drove the ball with terrific force straight at McCarthy, who managed to knock it down and hold the batter to one base. The next batter sacrificed, and Ellis, a right-handed slugger, came to bat. Again Kennedy signaled for a fast sidearm ball, pitched high, and again Williams shook his head and curved one over the plate. Ellis struck the ball with one hand and sent a carroming down to Swanson, who failed in a desperate effort to throw out the runner. With men on first and third the Bears' first and third baseman came close to the plate to cut off the runner, while the shortstop and second baseman remained in position to make a double play or to catch the runner stealing. Burley, the giant first baseman of the Maroons, was at bat, a man noted for his ability to hit any ball pitched close to him. Williams sent a strike whizzing over the plate.

Again the catcher ordered a fast ball, and he pitched a curve that Burley fouled off for the second strike. Kennedy, perplexed and anxious, ran down to consult with the pitcher. Williams sullenly a.s.sented to the order to pitch high and out and waste two b.a.l.l.s.

Instead, he threw a curve, low, close to the batter's knees and barely twisting. Before Kennedy's cry of anger rose the bat crashed against the ball, which flashed down the third-base line, struck McCarthy on the arm, then on the jaw, and he went down like a poled ox, the ball carroming away toward the stand. Before it was recovered one Maroon had scored and the others were perched on second and third.

Time was called and players rushed to a.s.sist the injured third baseman.

Kennedy threw off his mask and ran to the bench.

"I signaled him and told him to pitch fast and waste two," he said to Manager Clancy. "He nodded that he would and then crossed me and lobbed up an easy curve inside the plate."

"Don't say a word," cautioned Clancy, as McCarthy, still dazed, but recovering, was helped to his feet. "Keep ordering him to pitch fast and outside. Signal me if he disobeys again."

McCarthy got onto his feet unsteadily, while the trainer worked with his numb and aching arm. He winced with pain as he tried to throw to see how badly his arm was damaged. While he was walking slowly back to the bag, testing his arm anxiously, McCarthy had the second shock. The cheering in the stands drew his attention, and as he glanced toward the crowd he saw a girl. She was sitting in one of the field boxes between two men and she was staring straight at him. McCarthy lifted his cap, as if acknowledging the tribute to the crowd, but really in salutation to the girl, who flushed angrily. A wave of resentment stirred McCarthy. He strove to think that she had failed to recognize him, yet feeling that the cut was deliberate.

Play had been resumed, but McCarthy's mind was not upon it. A sharp yell from Swanson aroused him from his reverie just in time to see a slow, easy bounding ball coming toward him. He leaped forward, fumbled the ball an instant, recovered and threw wild. Two runners dashed home, the batter reached second. McCarthy was thoroughly unnerved. A few moments later he permitted an easy fly ball to fall safe in left field without touching it. His errors gave the Maroons two more scores, and, although the Bears rallied desperately late in the game, it was too late, and they were beaten 5 to 3.

A sullen crowd of players climbed into their 'bus under punishment of the jeers of the crowd that gathered to see them start back to their hotel. McCarthy, with his shoulder and head aching, but with his heart aching worse, sat with his chin drawn down into the upturned collar of his sweater, refusing to be comforted. The Bears were in second place, half a game behind the Panthers, and he, McCarthy, had lost the game.

Williams was smiling as if pleased and McCarthy blazed with anger.

CHAPTER VII

_McCarthy Meets Helen_

"Come to the hotel parlor at eight this evening. I wish to see you."

The note, hastily scribbled on hotel letter paper, was awaiting him when Kohinoor McCarthy entered the hotel after the disastrous game. He recognized the angular scrawled writing at a glance. Since the moment his eyes had met those of Helen Baldwin during the game he had been thinking hard. Her behavior had hurt him and the thought that she deliberately had refused to recognize him stung his pride. The note proved she had recognized him on the field. Either she was ashamed of his profession or did not want the men with her to know that she knew him.

McCarthy ate a hurried dinner and paced the lobby of the hotel. He was anxious to meet the girl, yet he felt a dread of it, an uncertainty as to the grounds on which their acquaintanceship should be resumed. For nearly half an hour he waited, growing more impatient with every minute and wondering whether there had been a mistake. His mind was busy framing a form of greeting. When last they met it had been as affianced lovers. Now---- A rustle of soft garments brought him to his feet and he stepped forward with outstretched hand to meet the tall, slender girl who came leisurely from the hallway. Her ma.s.s of light, fair hair framed a face of perfect smoothness.