“Really!” said Lefty interestedly. “You seem to be shouldering a lot of responsibility.”
“I am,” chuckled Charles Collier’s private secretary. “It was all arranged with Mr. Collier before he sailed. He left me with proper authority. I am to sign up the manager for the team.”
“Is that right?” exclaimed Locke, surprised. “Then, according to your own statement, if you want to save the Blue Stockings from being riddled, you’d better be about it.”
“I am,” said Weegman. “That’s why I’ve come to you.”
“For advice?”
“Oh, no!” He laughed heartily. “I don’t need that. I know what I’m about. I’ve brought a contract. I want you to put your name to it. Your salary will be advanced fifteen hundred dollars.”
“The Feds offered to double it. As a pitcher–”
“You’re not getting this extra money on account of your pitching,” interposed Weegman promptly. “I’m offering you the increase of salary to assume the additional duties of manager.”
CHAPTER II
SOMETHING QUEER
The expression of amazement that leaped into the eyes of Lefty Locke was masked by a shadow. He stiffened, and sat bolt upright, speechless.
Bailey Weegman, having stated the business that had unexpectedly brought him down from the North to the Florida town where the great left-hander of the Blue Stockings was spending the winter with his wife, once more settled back, taking a long, satisfied pull at the stump of his fragrant Havana. He was chuckling beneath his breath. A gentle breeze crept into the leaves of the vine-covered porch and set them whispering like gossips. The dynamo droned drowsily in the distance.
Presently Lefty found his voice. “What’s the joke?” he asked a trifle harshly.
“No joke,” assured the jovial visitor. “I’m not given to joking. I’m a man of business.”
“But it’s preposterous! A pitcher for manager!”
“Clark Griffith isn’t the only pitcher who has succeeded as a manager.”
“Griffith’s success came when he was on the decline as a pitcher.”
“What’s the use to argue, Locke? There’s really no good reason why a pitcher shouldn’t manage a ball team. You’ve been doing it with the little amateur club you’ve been running down here in Fernandon this winter.”
“Because necessity compelled. Nobody else would take hold of it. I organized the team for a special reason. It’s made up mainly of visitors from the North. No salaries are paid. I had located here for the winter, and I wanted to keep in trim and work my arm into shape for the coming season. I couldn’t find anybody else to organize the club and handle it, so I had to. I have only three other players who have been with me from the start. The rest of the nine has been composed of changing players who came and went, college men, or just plain amateurs who have taken to the sport. We have played such teams as could be induced to come here from Jacksonville, St. Augustine, and other places. Handling such a club has given me absolutely no reason to fancy myself qualified to manage one in the Big League.”
“I’ve been keeping my eye on you,” said Weegman patronizingly, “and I am satisfied that you can fill the position of playing manager for the Blue Stockings.”
“You’re satisfied–you! How about Charles Collier?”
“As you know, he’s a sick man, a very sick man. Otherwise he’d never have dropped everything just at this time to go to Europe along with a physician and trained nurses. He has been too ill to attend properly to his regular business outside baseball, and therefore his business has suffered. He has had heavy financial reverses that have worried him. And now the meddling of the Feds has hurt the value of the ball club. The stock wouldn’t bring at a forced sale to-day half what it should be worth. Mr. Collier trusts me. He was anxious to get some of the load off his shoulders. He has left me to straighten out matters connected with the team.”
“Where is Mr. Collier now?” asked Locke quietly.
“He was taking the baths at Eaux Chaudes when last heard from, but he has since left there. I can’t say where he is at the present time.”
“Then how may he be communicated with in case of emergency?”
Chuckling, Weegman lighted a fresh cigar, having tossed the remnant of the other away. The glow of the match fully betrayed an expression of self-satisfaction on his face.
“He can’t be,” he said. “It was his doctor’s idea to get him away where he could not be troubled by business of any nature. He may be in Tunis or Naples for all I know.”
“It’s very remarkable,” said Lefty slowly.
“Oh, I don’t know,” purred the other man, locking his fingers over his little round stomach which seemed so incongruous for a person who was otherwise not overfat. “Really, he was in a bad way. Worrying over business reverses was killing him. His only salvation was to get away from it all.”
Locke sat in thought, watching the serene smoker through narrowed lids. There was something queer about the affair, something the southpaw did not understand. True, Collier had seemed to be a nervous, high-strung man, but when Lefty had last seen him he had perceived no indications of such a sudden and complete breakdown. It had been Collier’s policy to keep a close and constant watch upon his baseball property, but now, at a time when such surveillance was particularly needed because of the harassing activities of the Federals, having turned authority over to a subordinate, not only had he taken himself beyond the range of easy communication, but apparently he had cut himself off entirely from the sources of inside information concerning baseball affairs. Furthermore, it seemed to Locke that the man who claimed to have been left in full control of that branch of Collier’s business was the last person who should have been chosen. What lay behind it all the pitcher was curious to divine.
Presently Weegman gave a castanet-like snap of his fingers. “By the way,” he said sharply, “how about your arm?”
“My arm?” said Lefty. “You mean–”
“It’s all right, isn’t it? You know there was a rumor that you hurt it in the last game of the season. Some wise ginks even said you’d never pitch any more.”
“I’ve been doing some pitching for my team here in Fernandon.”
“Then, of course, the old wing’s all right. You’ll be in form again, the greatest left-hander in the business. How about it?”
“I’ve never been egotistical enough to put that estimate on myself.”
“Well, that’s what lots of the sharps call you. The arm’s as good as ever?”
“If you stop over to-morrow you’ll have a chance to judge for yourself. We’re scheduled to play a roving independent nine known as the Wind Jammers, and I hear they’re some team, of the kind. I shall pitch part of the game, anyhow.”
“You’ve been pitching right along?”
“A little in every game lately. I pitched four innings against the Jacksonville Reds and five against the Cuban Giants. We’ve lost only one game thus far, and that was our second one. The eccentric manager and owner of the Wind Jammers, who calls himself Cap’n Wiley, threatens to take a heavy fall out of us. He has a deaf-mute pitcher, Mysterious Jones, who, he claims, is as good as Walter Johnson.”
Weegman laughed derisively. “There’s no pitcher as good as Johnson anywhere, much less traveling around with a bunch of hippodromers and bushwhackers. But about your arm–is it all right?”
“I hope to win as many games with it this year as I did last.”
“Well,