"No," answered the colonel decidedly.
"Kindly read the note through, anyway. It will show a reason for this Slocum plot."
Colonel Plympton read the note through carefully, and with a considerable show of surprise.
"Where did you get that?" he asked.
Matt thereupon told how Carl had been waylaid and taken to the meeting room of the Drivers' Club, of what had transpired there, and how Carl had been turned loose in an unknown quarter of the town and sent to the hotel with the letter.
"This is too incredible, King!" exclaimed the colonel. "It's the wildest kind of a yarn. No, I'm not disputing your word at all, but simply suggesting that some of the drivers may be having a little fun at your expense. That the racing men should band together to keep you out of the game is too outrageous for belief."
"I thought myself it was all a bluff until this Slocum business came out," said Matt. He got up. "I'm going to get to the bottom of this, colonel," said he with a glint in his gray eyes, "and I'm going to drive a car in that Kansas race. I should like to race for the Stark-Frisbie Company, but, if that's impossible, I'll go in for whoever will give me a show."
"I'm afraid it's impossible, King, so far as our people are concerned. I'm glad you came in here and had this talk with me, though, for I think a hundred per cent. better of you than I did before. I was thinking Tomlinson had been deceived in you. I'll not tell him about this signed paper if you don't want me to."
"I want you to, sir," returned Matt earnestly. "I believe Mr. Tomlinson has too much confidence in me to take any stock in that thing."
"You're going to Kansas?"