Chapter XIII: Which One?

“Letters generally are a nuisance,” Lefty found himself saying, in an instinctive effort at self-control. “I’d certainly like to have mine all written up.”

He wondered if his voice sounded as queerly to Temple as it did to himself. The youngster’s face showed no particular surprise; perhaps he was too immersed in his own thoughts to notice the oddness of his companion’s tone.

Locke’s eyes were fixed on the two men crossing the lobby; his mind was striving to find some reason or explanation for their being together. Ogan could not have been the one he had heard while crouching behind the magnolia hedge. He had never even seen Savage before this afternoon, much less known him in the intimate fashion indicated by the few words Lefty had overheard. He must have met the fellow by accident――perhaps just outside the door. It was absurd to suppose there was any prearrangement about it.

Temple moved away with a casual remark about posting his letters. The other two came on, headed for the billiard room door. Savage passed the southpaw without a word, and with a sneering uptwist of the lips which at any other time would have made Locke long to hit him. Just now, however, Lefty was too intent on something else even to notice it.

The busher’s face was flushed, his eyes were a bit glassy, his breath fairly reeked with the smell of liquor. In spite of Kennedy’s confidence to the contrary, the man had found a way to get whisky in the sleepy little town of Tulane.

With wrinkled forehead and puzzled eyes, the southpaw turned and watched the man enter the billiard room. How had the thing been managed? Had some one broken faith, or was there an element of mystery in the affair which――

“A bit more, and he’d have as nice a little load aboard as you’d want to see.”

The voice at his elbow was low and drawling, with an undercurrent of laughter in it. For a fraction of a second, Lefty found himself wondering how in creation Temple could have returned so soon from posting his letters. Then suddenly he realized that it wasn’t Temple at all――could not possibly be, and, whirling, he looked into Al Ogan’s smiling countenance.

As he stood staring, Locke felt that his face was flushing visibly. Had the tangled affair begun so to wear upon his mind that even for a second he could mistake one man’s voice for another’s?

“I wonder――where――he got it?” he managed to stammer at last.

“Give it up,” said Ogan, occupied with lighting a cigarette. “He had it when I――er――ran into him a while ago――down the street.”

Lefty drew a long breath; the blood began to flow normally through his veins again. The likeness was still there; his mind had not been playing tricks. Certain tones and inflections of Ogan’s voice were almost identical with Temple’s. He had never noticed it before, but that was probably because he had never compared the two. In a second the southpaw was smiling his old careless, good-humored smile, and declining a cigarette from Ogan’s proffered box.

“Guess I won’t, thanks,” he said. “I’m cutting ’em out except one after meals. Rather a good one on Jack, isn’t it? He was so sure there was no bugjuice to be found in Tulane. You must have beat it out of here sort of unexpected, old man.”

The infielder stepped past his friend and glanced into the billiard room. “Oh, I don’t know,” he returned over his shoulder. “I got tired of the game.”

Locke raised his eyebrows. It was difficult to imagine this possible.

“Going to sit in again now?” he asked indifferently.

“Nix! It’s me for the hay when I finish this smoke.”

He turned from the open door, and dropped down on one of the leather chairs facing the main entrance. Lefty followed, outwardly indifferent, but in reality keenly observant. Whether Ogan was lying or telling the truth, there was certainly something on his mind, and while the southpaw was still curious as to what it might be, he no longer felt that phase of the mystery to be vital.

Whether it was Ogan or Temple he had heard covertly threatening Savage was really of no great consequence, after all. It was unpleasant, to be sure, and vastly disappointing, to realize that one of the men he had come to like so well was deceiving him; but that was all. Of much greater importance was the learning of where and how Savage obtained his liquor. To this end Lefty meant to devote some of his spare time.

Temple returned presently from posting his letters. After a few casual remarks, he departed for his room, leaving the southpaw puzzled anew at the odd likeness of those two voices, and wondering why he had failed to notice it before. He was still pondering when the poker session broke up and the crowd sauntered back into the lobby with much talk and laughter.

Only Savage seemed in a state of persistent ill temper. He stood close by, growling at Pete Zacher, one of the few members of the squad who tolerated him at all; and Lefty could readily believe old Jack’s statement that the fellow was “fairly devilish” when he was drinking.

“That’s some classy ring you’ve got, bo,” he heard Zacher remark suddenly. “Let’s take a slant at it for a minute.”

He indicated a heavy gold ring, oddly carved, which Locke had noticed before on the little finger of the busher’s left hand. Savage scowled.

“It ain’t never been off my finger, an’ I’m not going to take it off now,” he grunted disagreeably. “I guess you’ll manage to live without lamping it any closer.”

It was not so much what he actually said as the nasty manner in which the words were spoken that caused Locke to turn away disgustedly and start Ogan on his way to bed.

“The ill-mannered mule!” he muttered under his breath as he crossed the lobby beside his friend. “I’m hanged if I bother my head any more about him! He can lap up all the jingle juice between here and New York for all I care. Let him accumulate a roaring jag and start an all-round rough-house so that he’ll get the sack. I’m not going to stir a finger to prevent it.”

All this “listened well,” as Ogan would have said had it reached his ears; but deep down within him Lefty knew that he didn’t mean it. He was aware that the following evening would probably see him playing the thankless rôle of sleuth in an effort to discover Savage’s secret and keep the promise he had rashly made to Jack Kennedy.