“I don’t understand how he got wise,” he finally said slowly. “Called me by my right name, did he?”
“Yep; said he knowed you was Paul Hazelton, of Princeton, and that he was negotiatin’ with ye last December. Now, what I want to know is if there’s any truth in that statement. If there is, we’re in a hole. Did you git a letter from him? Did you write him an answer?”
To the increasing surprise and alarm of Cope, the pitcher seemed to hesitate about replying.
“Did ye? Did ye?” cried the older man impatiently. “Why don’t ye answer? You know whether you got such a letter or not, don’t ye? You know if ye answered it? What’s the matter? Answer! If you done that, we’re in a hole. They’ve got it on us. And to think of that, just when we was holdin’ the best hand over them! Speak up, boy!”
“I am trying to think,” said Locke.
“Tryin’ to think! Look here, you told me you’d never done anything like this before—you’d never played baseball f’r money. Now anybody’d s’pose you’d had so many offers you couldn’t remember ’bout ’em. You was mighty partic’lar to have it ’ranged so nobody’d be likely to find out who you was.”
Lefty smiled a bit ruefully.
“Apparently all that precaution was wasted,” he said. “I give you my word, Mr. Cope, that I have no recollection of ever receiving a letter from Mike Riley, and I am doubly certain that he holds no communication from me. You know I did not send you a written answer to your proposition. A college pitcher who wrote such letters, and signed them with his own name, would prove himself a fool. He’d never know when the letter might bob up to confound him. It would be evidence enough to get him dropped from his college team in double-quick time. No, I am positive I never wrote to Riley.”
Cope breathed somewhat easier, although he was still very much disturbed.