CHAPTER LV.A BEAUTIFUL BINGLE.
In the eighth inning Manhattan betrayed dangerous symptoms, for she made a run and filled the bases, with two men out. Kates then struck out the last batter.
But the score was now four to two. Jones urged his men to get after Hogan without delay, and they responded in a promising manner. In a sharp batting rally, they drove in a score, but a fancy double play cut short their chances of tying or taking the lead.
Manhattan abated none of its fierceness when the ninth opened. The first batter landed on Kates for a safe single. Following this, came a fierce drive that got away from Tucker, and two men were on bases.
A moment later Sam hit a batter on the hip, and the sacks were filled.
Marone coached jubilantly, announcing his belief that something like a dozen runs would be chalked down to Manhattan’s credit in the ninth.
It was the critical point of the game, and Kates got the rattles at last. Try as he might, he could not find the plate, and, as a result, he walked the next batter, forcing in a run.
“It’s all off,” announced Bill Toleman, to his companions in the stand. “He couldn’t find the rubber now to save his life.”
Dagett seized Toleman’s wrist.
“Look!” he said. “What’s that mean?”
“What?”
“Merriwell——”
“By Jove! Kates is going to the bench!” exclaimed Ditson. “Who’ll pitch?”
“Merriwell,” said Poland. “He’s going into the box as sure as fate.”
“But he has a lame shoulder,” snickered Dagett.
“He’s let Kates lose the game,” said Toleman, “and now he’s going to show off. It’s too late for him to do anything.”
“That’s right,” nodded Ditson. “The game is over. Merriwell ought to be batted after sitting on the bench and letting those fellows have their own way.”
Mike Marone stood, hands on his hips, and laughed as Dick walked out to pitch.
“Like to limber up a little, Merriwell?” he inquired. “Give you all the time you want.”
“Thanks for your generosity,” said Dick. “I don’t believe I’ll bother to limber up.”
“Wow! wow! wow!” barked O’Mora. “He don’t have to limber up! He thinks we’re easy.”
Dick received the ball, and toed the slab in a position to pitch with his left hand. He could not use his right, but he hoped to check the enemy, just the same. The first ball delivered was so wild that it came near getting past Buckhart, who stopped it by a marvelous sidelong leap.
“Wow! wow! wow!” came again from O’Mora. “What do you think of that? Better use your other hand, Merriwell. You can’t find the pan with your left.”
“Everybody run!” shouted Marone. “Score on the first passed ball!”
“There won’t be any,” muttered Buckhart, as he resumed his position behind the bat and gave Dick a signal.
The next ball pitched by Dick came over the plate. It looked good to the batter, but he simply popped up an easy fly that was taken by Otis Fitch.
“Don’t try to kill the ball!” shouted Marone. “Don’t try to knock the cover off! You can all hit it!”
“Sure you can hit it,” said Buckhart, in a low tone; “but hitting it safe is what counts.”
When Dick had fooled the next batter with two elusive benders, it began to look as if hitting the ball was not such an easy thing, after all. Forced into a corner, the batter finally lifted a high foul, which Buckhart got under and gathered in.
“That’s two, partner,” laughed the Texan, as he tossed the ball to Dick. “Why, they couldn’t hit you safely if you pitched with your feet.”
“Get in there, now,” urged Marone, as O’Mora trotted to the plate. “A little single is all we want. A little safety is the goods. You know where to put it, Mat.”
But suddenly Dick bored over a fast one, and O’Mora literally threw himself off his feet in the effort to get against it.
“Wow! wow! wow!” he yapped, as he picked himself up. “Where’d you get that speed, Merriwell? How can you do it with your little left? Be gentle! be gentle! Give me a chance to look at the ball when it comes over.”
“All right,” said Dick. “How’s this?”
He lobbed up a slow one, and O’Mora nearly broke his back reaching out to hit the ball before it was anywhere near the plate.
Marone snapped at the batter, and O’Mora shook his head with a comical look of dismay.
“I won’t strike out!” he muttered to himself. But that was precisely what he did do. Dick worked with all the craft at his command, and finally led O’Mora into reaching for a nasty curve which he could not touch.
Yale came to bat in the last of the ninth, with the score four to two against them.
“We’ve got to have two to tie and three to win,” said Dick cheerfully. “Here’s where we get them.”
But the wrong end of the batting list was up. Jones was to be followed by Spratt, Bigelow, and Fitch, the three weakest hitters on the team.
“Get to first, Blessed,” urged Merriwell. “Get there somehow.”
Although the captain felt that it might not do any good, he stalked forth and smote the ball a terrific crack that landed him on the initial sack.
“Hit and run, Spratt—that’s the game,” murmured Merriwell, as Jack walked out to the pan.
But Spratt simply lifted a high infield fly that was captured by Marone.
“Looks bad, partner,” whispered Buckhart, in Dick’s ear.
Merriwell made no reply. Claxton and Tucker were coaching. Bouncer Bigelow, looking pale and shaking like a jellyfish, walked out and swung with all his might at the first ball pitched by Hogan. The ball struck on the under side of the bat, shot down to the ground, and twisted off to one side with a queer, toplike motion.
Without the remotest idea as to what he had done, Bigelow hurled the bat straight up into the air and let himself out for first, while Jones went to second. It was a lucky stab, for the ball, after threatening to roll foul, stopped inside the base line, and Bouncer got a safe hit in this manner.
“Two to tie and three to win, Fitch,” said Dick, as the next batter left the bench.
Fitch had not touched the ball for the day. Hogan regarded the fellow as an easy mark. Otis surprisedevery one by smashing a hot grounder toward Marone, who made a startling stop, but juggled the ball and permitted the bases to fill. It was Merriwell’s turn to strike.
“Two to tie and three to win, partner,” said Buckhart, as Dick picked out a bat. “You’ve got to do it for us! You’ve got to save this game! Give us a bingle.”
Dick forgot his lame shoulder. He forgot everything except the necessity of getting a clean hit. After missing one of Hogan’s curves, he found the ball with a sharp, snapping swing, and lined it far into right field.
The Yale stand rose with a roar as it was seen that Hanley could not touch that long line drive. The ball struck the ground and went bounding away, away to the far extremity of the field, while man after man romped joyously over the plate. Dick had won the game by this beautiful bingle.
When Merriwell entered his room, followed by Jones and Buckhart, he discovered that everything was in disorder. The drawers of his desk had been pulled out and their contents emptied on the floor. This was likewise the case with his dresser.
“Hello!” he cried. “What’s this mean? Some one has been here while I was gone.”
A moment later he had reached the private drawer which he always kept locked. One glance showed him that it had been pried open and the lock broken. The contents of this drawer, however, had not been scattered upon the floor. Everything was there—everything save one thing.
The confession of Mike Lynch was gone.
It was about the time when Merriwell made this discoverythat Duncan Ditson entered his own room and found Bern Wolfe waiting for him there.
“Hello!” exclaimed Dunc, in surprise. “Forgot about you in the excitement. Say, do you know what happened? Well, Merriwell went into that game and won it with a corking hit in the ninth inning. Isn’t that just his luck?”
“Don’t talk to me about luck!” snarled Wolfe. “I’m sore! I’m disgusted!”
“Eh? What’s happened? Did you try to get hold of that confession?”
“Try?” rasped Bern, producing an envelope and flinging it on the study table. “I should say I did! There it is!”
“There it is? Then what’s the matter? What ails you?”
Wolfe caught up the envelope, and drew forth the sheets of paper it contained.
“What ails me?” he hissed. “Just take a look at this! Here’s that valuable confession!”
He spread out the sheets of paper, and Ditson gazed at them in surprise, for apparently there was not a line of writing upon them.
“Confession?” muttered Duncan. “What are you talking about? There’s nothing there.”
“There was once. Look here—look close. Here, you can see the faintest tracing of a word. There, you can see part of another word. There was writing on this paper once. Why, I can even see a bit of my own signature down in this corner, but it’s gone. It’s faded. It’s no good to any one now.”
Looking intently at the paper, Ditson was able to make out the faint tracing of a few detached words upon it.
Suddenly Duncan smote his clenched right fist into his left palm.
“Well, if that wasn’t a slick trick on the part of Lynch!” he cried. “He wrote his confession with sympathetic ink.”
“With what? Sympathetic ink?”
“Yes. That’s ink that will fade and vanish entirely, a few days after it is used. I was with him when he bought it. He told me he had a girl to whom he was writing letters, and, as he feared she might not destroy his letters, he was taking care to use the kind of ink that would prevent those epistles from ever rising like ghosts to haunt and confuse him. Wolfe, we’re a couple of blamed fools!”
THE END.
THE END.
THE END.
No. 150 of theMerriwell Seriesis entitled “Dick Merriwell’s Best Work,” by Burt L. Standish. Admirers of Mr. Standish will find this story up to his usual high standard—and this is the highest praise we can give it.