CHAPTER VI

WHO WAS TO BLAME?

On his way in to breakfast next morning, Manager Brennan bought a copy of the Ashland _Morning Chronicle_ to glance through during the progress of the meal. Having seated himself and given his order, he spread open the sheet. The first thing to catch his eye was the flaming headline, “Palace Theater Wrecked by Mob.”

Having heard echoes of the affair the night before, the manager glanced over the account with interest. Halfway down the column he stopped short, clutched the paper, and stared with bulging eyes and purpling cheeks at a certain short paragraph:

The cause of the riot is not definitely known. It is said, however, to have been started by the rowdyish behavior of one of the visiting baseball men who was attending the performance. We might call Manager Brennan’s attention to the fact that, while Ashland is always ready to extend every hospitality to himself and his famous organization, she does not care about having that hospitality abused.

With a guttural exclamation of rage, Brennan half started from his seat, only to relax again and glare around.

“You read that stuff?” he demanded, catching the eye of Red Pollock across the table.

“Sure!” grinned the latter. “Great dope. If Cy hadn’t coaxed me into a game of draw, I’d been there myself, instead of missing all the fun.”

“You’d ought to thank me,” said Russell philosophically. “If you hadn’t been so busy losing your dough to Pete and me, you’d likely got your block knocked off down the street. According to accounts, there wasn’t nothing playful about that mix-up.”

“I reckon not,” sighed Pollock regretfully. “They say the lad that started the rumpus, whoever he was, got into a corner and held off the whole bunch for ten minutes. He must be some scrapper. I got mixed up in a strike riot in Chicago once, and, believe me, it’s no cinch to stand off a crowd of roughnecks like that.”

“Humph!” grunted the manager. He had cooled down considerably while the others were speaking, and was doing some thinking. “Any of the boys see it?”

“Sure! Buck got a look-in, he was telling us.”

Brennan glanced swiftly down to where Fargo sat at the end of the table. “How about last night, Buck?” he called, in a deceptively mild tone. “Were you the one who started the rough-house downtown?”

“Nix on that!” grinned the catcher. “It was going full blast when I got there. I seen all I wanted to from the outskirts. The crowd was plumb crazy. About a hundred of ’em trying to get at one poor bloke penned in behind the upset ticket booth. Them that couldn’t get a whack at him hit somebody else for luck, and a dozen nice little individual scraps were going on all over the place.”

“But who was the man?” Brennan persisted. “Didn’t you see him?”

“Couldn’t get a sight of him from the street,” Fargo answered readily. “The ticket booth was too high. I run into one of your cubs――Locke’s his name――trying to get out of the crowd, and we came home together.”

The manager frowned suspiciously. He knew Fargo of old, and realized that he was just the sort of man to be concerned in an affair of this description. The catcher’s gaze was candid and open, however, and the closest scrutiny failed to disclose as much as a scratch on his face.

Brennan’s gaze veered swiftly to the next table, where his new recruit sat with some of the other youngsters. Locke looked cool and undisturbed as he ate his breakfast with evident relish. The manager’s keen eye discovered a bit of plaster on one lip and a scratch on one side of his nose; but, by what Fargo had said about the general nature of the fighting, those slight abrasions might easily be accounted for. Besides, Locke did not strike him as having much of the rowdy in his make-up.

Without further comment, Brennan fell to on his breakfast and resumed reading the newspaper account. When he had finished it, he came to the conclusion that if one of his men had indeed been the cause of the disturbance the fellow must be a scrapper of unusual ability, and would surely bear upon his person unmistakable marks of the conflict.

Being a man of action, he at once started the round of his players. He had no desire to antagonize the rougher element in Ashland. He knew perfectly well that this would mean a constant succession of bickerings, with the possibility of injury to some of his highclass players if they got into a fight.

His critical inspection of the men showed the regulars to be beyond reproach. Not one had even a slight abrasion for which he could not account. The majority were provided with plausible alibis. Of the cubs, three were on the suspicious list. Locke he had already eliminated, and so did not bother about him. The other two were Bert Elgin and a young fielder named Ross, both of whom――and particularly the first mentioned――bore telltale signs on their faces.

They told a plausible, well-balanced story: They had been sitting near the stage of the Palace Theater when the uproar started back by the door. They arose with the rest of the audience and were carried out by the rush of the crowd. When they finally emerged into the lobby――Elgin swore that he had left a good-sized piece of skin from his face on the edge of the door――the place was filled with men, yelling and fighting like maniacs. They were so busy forcing their way to the street that neither had been able to get a look at the cause of the disturbance. Both were hit several times in the face, and had naturally smashed back. On reaching the sidewalk, they had left the place at once and returned to the hotel.

Brennan was slightly nonplused. The story rang true. It agreed perfectly, moreover, with Fargo’s account of the affair, and the manager knew that his catcher was not at all on friendly terms with either Elgin or Ross. Lastly, he was confident that neither of them had pugilistic skill or nerve enough to stand up before such a crowd after the manner which every account agreed that the unknown had done.

Puzzled, with a vague feeling that there was something about it which he did not understand, Brennan was obliged to content himself with a strict order that the entire squad forego shows of any description in the future, under penalty of heavy fines.

Later in the day he instituted inquiries throughout the town, with equal lack of success. The majority of people who had been at the theater had lost their heads, and could tell him nothing that he wanted to know. Three men there were who swore that they had obtained a good look at the mysterious individual, but their descriptions were so totally at variance that the manager gave up his quest in disgust.

“A lot of dough-heads!” he growled. “Sounds as if they were each describing a different person.”

Which happened to be exactly the truth.