“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?”