Chapter XXV: Two in One

The realization had scarcely flashed into Locke’s mind when Ogan, who had dropped weakly down against a sapling, slowly lifted his head from his lax arms, and stared fixedly at Savage. His expression was dazed, as one just awakening from a dream to realities which he could not understand. Then swiftly the puckered, puzzled wrinkles in his forehead changed to deep, vertical furrows.

“You!” he said sharply; then: “Well, where’s my watch?”

Savage’s eyes widened a trifle. “Your watch!” he repeated. “I don’t remember seeing it.”

The infielder made an impatient gesture with his hands. “Don’t try that game!” he snapped. “You saw it well enough last night in the billiard room. What’s more, you managed to slip it from my pocket into yours.”

Even though Ogan was probably still too dazed to realize what he was doing, the bad taste of entering into a discussion of the robbery at such a moment brought a flush of embarrassment to Lefty’s face. His lips were parted in a swift impulse to silence his teammate, when a glance at Savage stilled the words abruptly.

The busher had straightened almost imperceptibly; his face took on the keen wariness of one suddenly on his guard. It was gone in a second, leaving only the faintest added touch of color and a slight lowering of the lids; but it was enough to reduce Locke to wondering silence.

“You’ve made a mistake,” Savage returned, with chill brevity. “I know nothing whatever about any property of yours.”

“You don’t!” sneered Ogan. He rose unsteadily to his feet, and faced the quiet, square-jawed man before him. “I s’pose you’ll be saying next that you weren’t shooting pool with me last night?”

Savage’s lids drooped even lower. His hands were clenched so tightly that the knuckles showed white against the brown skin. He had not stirred, but to Locke he suddenly gave the impression of tremendous dynamic force, quiescent, but likely at any moment to leap forth in strenuous action.

“Because I played pool with you,” the Westerner returned, in that same cold, deliberately restrained tone, “it hardly follows that I am responsible for the disappearance of your valuables. I happen to own a very good watch already, and really have no use for two.”

“I didn’t suppose you’d wear it!” retorted Ogan hotly. “Such things are easy enough to dispose of, as you probably――”

“Al,” interrupted Lefty indignantly, “cut it out! Can’t you understand that but for Savage we’d both of us, probably, be at the bottom of the river? He’s the one who pulled us out.”

The infielder’s jaw sagged, and for a time he stared at his friend, a crimson tide surging into his face. His gaze shifted to the busher. His lips quivered a little and parted, as if he meant to speak, but closed again as he turned his back and moved uncertainly toward the near-by roadway.

“You mustn’t mind, Savage,” Locke said, in a low tone. “He’s been worrying a lot about losing a watch his father gave him, and he really isn’t himself at all. Suppose we go on back to the hotel? I’m beginning to feel as if some dry clothes would be acceptable.”

The other pitcher nodded, and they started after Ogan. At first there was a rather awkward pause, but, overtaking the infielder, his very silence seemed to throw the other two together, and before they knew it they were conversing on various topics relating to the training camp and the forthcoming baseball season.

Lefty was talking with a purpose. An idea had come into his mind――a strange, fantastic, almost uncanny idea, which, if he could find any reason for it, would explain a good many of Nelson Savage’s apparently inexplicable traits. By the time they reached the hotel he had accepted his solution of the problem, weird as it might seem. Ogan hurried on ahead of them, apparently eager to escape from an embarrassing situation. He was passing the desk when Major Holcombe, the proprietor, halted him.

“Mistah Ogan,” said the major, in his slow, courtly, Southern manner, “one moment if yo’ please, suh.” He came forward from behind the desk, one hand extended. “I think this is yoah property. It seems to be marked with yoah initials. I regret most sincerely the unfawtunate situation, suh, but I have discov’ed a man in my employ――the boy Charlie, who has taken cha’ge of the billiard room――guilty of theft, suh, and this was found on his pusson.”

For a long moment Ogan stared at the watch which had been laid in his mechanically outstretched hand. Then he raised his eyes to Savage’s. In them there was contrition, embarrassment, and regret. It was not easy to speak. He moistened his lips, and at last the words came haltingly:

“I beg your pardon, Savage. I seem to have made a big――mistake. I hope you’ll forgive me.”

There was no hesitation in the busher’s acknowledgment of the apology. He took the other’s outstretched hand promptly.

“Don’t worry about that, Al,” he said quickly. “We’re all of us likely to go wrong now and then. Forget it!”

Mumbling something indistinguishable, Ogan hurried toward the stairs, and disappeared, leaving the other two to follow more slowly. In the second-floor corridor Lefty paused an instant beside Savage’s door.

“Well, I’ll go on and get into something dry,” he said. “See you later, old chap.”

Savage nodded and entered his room. The southpaw continued on down the hall alone. While dressing Lefty turned over and over in his mind the curious idea that had come to him. It was almost absurd, yet what other explanation could make apparent impossibilities dovetail so accurately? Starting downstairs, he found that it was almost noon, and was not surprised to encounter Jack Kennedy in the lobby below.

“Well,” queried the manager briefly, “did you find the man you went after?”

Hesitating, Locke glanced swiftly around. The players were appearing by twos and threes at the main entrance. He drew Kennedy across the room, pausing beside the door of the stuffy little writing room.

“We did,” he returned quietly. “And, Jack, I want you to do something for me.”

The manager stared, then frowned. “Look here, Lefty,” he exploded, “don’t tell me you want a favor for that sneak!”

“But I do. Wait! Just let me tell you what he’s done for me.”

Briefly, but with vivid clearness, he told what had transpired on the river that morning. Kennedy remained unmoved.

“Very nice!” he conceded. “But where do I come off――holding on to a creature who gets skated every time he can beg, borrow, or steal drink? I’m not running the Blue Stockings for my health, you know. I’ve got to show results. I’ve got to make every man count, and how am I going to do that if I keep no-goods like this Savage? Why, son, he isn’t worth his board. Not only has he tippled ever since he struck camp, and sassed me till I’m ready to mash his homely mug in, but he’s got the kind of disposition that would set a whole team scrapping――and you know what that means.”

Locke reached forward impulsively and laid a restraining hand on Kennedy’s arm. “Listen to me, Jack,” he said quickly. “I want to ask you something. Did you ever read a book called ‘Doctor Jekyll and Mr. Hyde’?”

The manager’s eyebrows went up, and he sniffed. “About that fool who took powders and changed himself into a bum?” he inquired.

“Well, that’s the way the story has it, but Stevenson didn’t mean it quite so literally. What he had in mind was a case of dual personality. You know that every one of us has good impulses and bad. In some people these impulses are strengthened to personalities which are constantly at war. Sometimes the good nature is uppermost, sometimes the bad. It’s a constant fight for control of the body, and the one that is strongest ultimately wins out.”

His eyes were very bright; his whole face indicated his earnestness. “That’s Savage’s case,” he went on emphatically. “I’m positive of it. I’ve told you what sort he was when I first met him that day on the train. When I ran into him at Belle View, he was utterly different; he was human and civilized. He’d lost that beastly look about the eyes; the better nature was uppermost. Down here he had changed again; the other self held control, and you know what that was. It got my goat. I didn’t know what to make of it. But to-day when I found him changed again I remembered the story. I remembered a play I saw last winter which had that very subject for its plot, and which was founded on fact. There have been such cases――a number of them――and I’ll bet you any money, Jack, that Savage’s is one of them.”

In spite of the talk and laughter of a group over by the desk, that corner of the room seemed very still. Kennedy, incredulous and skeptical, leaned against the back of a worn leather chair.

“And you believe all that?” he asked at length.

“I certainly do,” was the emphatic response.

“Where do I come off if I keep this man? What’s there in it from a business point of view?”

“A good deal, I think,” Locke rejoined. “You’ve complained that Savage has never made good on the diamond. Well, you’ve only had a chance to judge from the poorer side of him. How do you know what he’ll do in his present condition? It’s like trying out a totally different man. He may develop into a pippin.”

“And then do this lightning-change business just when I need him most?” the manager growled pessimistically. “Hanged if I want to monkey with a chameleon like that, son. I’ve got too many troubles running a crowd of normal, ordinary ball players to bother with freaks who change themselves every little while.”

“But won’t you give him a chance, Jack?” pleaded Lefty. “If you won’t do it for him, or for the good it may bring to the organization, do it for me. I haven’t asked you for many favors, have I?”

There was another pause. Then Kennedy’s homely face expanded in that rare smile which transformed it utterly. “Have it your own way, Kid,” he muttered. “You mostly do when you really set out to get something. We’ll give this changeling of yours another try-out, only remember this: If he falls down you won’t have a leg left to stand on. There goes the gong.”

He turned toward the dining room, and Lefty followed him. Even before they had crossed the lobby there came the scraping of a chair in the little space misnamed the writing room, and Nelson Savage moved slowly into the doorway. His face was set, and rather pale. The pupils of his eyes were dilated, and his expression was a curious mixture of pain, gratitude, and infinite regret.