CHAPTER XXV
JOE FOILS THE PLOTTERS
There was a carriage waiting just outside the ball grounds, a carriagedrawn by one horse. A man whom Joe had never seen before, so far as heknew, held the reins.
"There's the man who wants you," explained the lad who had acted asmessenger.
"Who is he?" asked the young pitcher quickly. "I don't know him. Wheredid he come from? Where did you meet him?"
"I guess he'll tell you all you want to know," said the lad. "All I knowis that I was standing outside the ball grounds after the game, and hegive me that note to bring in to you. I didn't come with him."
"Oh, I see," replied Joe, but he was wondering who the man was, and howthe fellow came to know that he was in Fayetteville.
"Hope I didn't take you away from the game," began the man with what heevidently meant for a pleasant smile. Yet, somehow Joe did not likethat smile. The man seemed to have a shifty glance and Joe mistrustedhim.
"Oh, the game is over," answered the young pitcher. "I didn't play inthe last part. But what is the matter? Is my mother or father ill?"
"It's nothing serious," spoke the man. "No one is ill. I came to get youabout your father's patents."
"Oh!" exclaimed Joe. He felt a sensation of relief until he realized thedanger that threatened his father's inventions. Then he asked: "What'swrong? Is Mr.----" Then he stopped for he did not know whether or not tomention names to this stranger.
"I can't give you any particulars," said the man with another smile."All I can say is that they engaged me to come and get you to savetime."
"Who engaged you?" asked Joe.
"Your father," replied the man. "He sent me off in a hurry and said I'dfind you at this game. I sent you in the note by the lad. Your fatherhad no time to write one, but you are to go to him at once. He wants youto help him about the patent models I think. We'd better hurry."
Joe's suspicions vanished at once. He knew his father was preparing tosend on some models to Washington and now probably some need of hastehad arisen necessitating his aid. He climbed up into the carriage, andthough he noted at the time that the rig did not seem to be from thelocal livery stable, which had only a few, he thought nothing of itthen.
The man flicked the horse with the whip and the animal started off onthe jump. Just outside the ball grounds there was a private road leadinginto the main one. On reaching the chief thoroughfare the man turnednorth whereas, to reach Riverside, he should have gone south.
"Hold on!" cried Joe, "you're going the wrong way."
"Be easy. It's all right," answered the man with a smile. "Your fatherhas taken all his things to a little shop in Denville. He had to havesome changes made in the models I believe, and he wanted to be in amachine shop where he could work quietly. He told me to bring youthere."
Joe remembered that on one or two occasions Mr. Matson had had some workdone in Denville, and once more the suspicions that had arisen werelulled. Joe sank back on the cushions and began thinking of the gamejust played. His arm was getting quite stiff.
"I'll have to attend to it as soon as I get home," he mused. "It won'tdo to have it go back on me just when things are in such good shape. Ifthey keep on I may become the regular pitcher. Sam certainly did poorlyin his part of the game, and I'm not getting a swelled head, either,when I say that." Joe knew he had done good work, considering his sorearm, and he made up his mind to do still better.
The man drove along rapidly, and in about an hour had reached theoutskirts of Denville. He turned down a road that was evidently littleused, to judge by the grass growing in it, and halted the horse in frontof a small building. It did not look like a place where inventors'models would be made. In fact the shack had a forlorn and forsaken airabout it, and Joe looked curiously at it. His suspicions were comingback.
"Where is my father?" he demanded. "I don't see him."
"It's all right now--it's all right," said the man quickly. "Hello inthere!" he called.
The next instant Joe saw a face at the window. Then it disappeared, butthat momentary glance had showed him it was the face of Mr. IsaacBenjamin. In a second it was all clear to him. He had been trapped. Heattempted to spring from the carriage seat.
"I'm on to your game!" he exclaimed to the man.
"Oh, are you? Well, you're not going to get away!" and with that the mangrabbed Joe around the waist, pinning his arms to his sides. Then fromthe little building came running Mr. Benjamin and Mr. Holdney.
"Did you get him all right?" asked the manager of the harvester workseagerly.
"I certainly did," panted the other man, for Joe was struggling to getloose. "Didn't give me any trouble either, until just now."
"Well, I'll make lots of trouble for you, if you don't let me go!" criedJoe.
"Now, young man, take it easy," advised Mr. Benjamin. "We don't intendto do you a bit of harm, and we only brought you to this place to have aquiet talk with you. It's in your father's interest and I hope you'lloverlook the unconventional way we took to get you here. Bring him in,"he added to the man in the carriage and, despite Joe's struggles he waslifted out and carried into the little building. The door was shut andlocked, and he was alone with his three captors.
"What do you want of me?" hotly demanded the lad.
"Now don't get excited and we'll tell you," said Mr. Benjamin. "It'sabout your father's patents."
"Yes," broke in Mr. Holdney, "we want to know where they are. He had noright to take the papers and models away from the harvester works. Thoseinventions are the property of the company and aren't your father's atall. We want----"
"Better let me talk to him," advised Mr. Benjamin. "Now Joe, you can'tunderstand all the ins and outs of this business, for it's verycomplicated. You know that your father is working on certain patentsabout a corn reaper and binder; don't you?"
"Yes," admitted Joe cautiously, "but I'm not going to tell you anythingabout it."
"Perhaps you will after you hear all I have to say," went on Mr.Benjamin. "Now, it's like this: Your father is unduly alarmed about thesafety of his rights in the patents, and I will admit that he has somerights. For some reason he saw fit to take his models and papers awayfrom the shop at the harvester works where he was engaged on them."
Joe smiled--well he knew why his father had removed the valuable modelsand papers.
"What we want," said Mr. Benjamin, "is to get access to those models. Wewant to see them for a short time, and also look over the papers. Nowyou can fix that for us if you will."
"Why don't _you_ ask my father?" inquired Joe.
"We have, but----" began Mr. Holdney.
"He won't listen to reason," put in Mr. Benjamin. "He thinks we woulddeprive him of his rights." Joe thought so too, but he said nothing."Now if you can quietly get those models and papers and let us have alook at them they will be returned to you without fail," said themanager. "Your father's rights will be fully protected. It may seemstrange to you for us to make this proposition in this way, and bringyou here as we have done, but it was necessary."
"Suppose I refuse?" asked Joe.
"Then we'll----" began Mr. Holdney, in blustering tones.
"Now, now, easy," cautioned Mr. Benjamin. "The consequences may bedisastrous for your father," he said quietly. "I am doing this for hisown good. He will not hear of showing the models, but if you can getthem for us it will save much trouble and annoyance for--well, for allof us. If you don't, your father may lose all he possesses and bewithout a position. I know what inventors are. They can only see onething at a time. It is a simple thing that we ask of you. Will you doit? Now, you needn't answer at once. Take a little time to think itover. Go in that room there and wait. We'll give you half an hour. If bythat time you don't decide to help us we'll----"
"We'll _make_ you!" exclaimed Mr. Holdney. "I've got too much money tiedup in this to see it lost by the obstinacy of a boy."
"Well, if you refuse, we will have to take other measures," said Mr.Benjamin, with a shrug of his shoulders.
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Joe's heart was beating fast. He did not know what to do. Beingpractically kidnapped after he had worked so hard in the game, his fearsfor his father aroused, it is no wonder that he could not think clearly.He welcomed the chance to go off quietly by himself, but never for amoment did he think of betraying his father. Only for an instant did heplace any confidence in what the wily manager had said. Then he knewthere must be a trick in it all.
"But if I let them trap me it's my own fault," thought Joe. "I've got tothink up some way of escape."
"Well?" asked the manager as Joe hesitated.
"I--I'll think it over," answered the young pitcher.
"All right. You can go in that room," and Mr. Benjamin opened the doorof an apartment leading out of the main one.
Joe cast a quick glance about it as the door closed behind him. He notedthat it was not locked, but that with three men in the outer room theboy knew he could not escape that way.
"And I'm going to escape if I can," he told himself. "I don't need anymore time to think over what I'm going to do. They shan't have a glanceat dad's models and papers."
A rapid survey of the room showed him that it had but one window andthat was heavily barred. He raised the sash softly and tried the bars.They were rusty but held firmly in the wood.
"No use trying that way," murmured Joe. He heard the hum of voices inthe outer room and listened at the keyhole.
"Don't you think he can get away?" he heard the man who had brought himto the place ask the others.
"I don't believe he'll try," was the answer from Mr. Benjamin. "Afterall, we couldn't hope to keep him a prisoner long. There would be toomuch hue and cry over it. All I expect is that he'll be so worried andfrightened that he'll tell us what we want to know."
"Oh, you've got another think coming," whispered Joe.
He walked back to the window once more and, as he crossed the room hesaw what looked like a trap door in the floor. Kneeling down he appliedhis nose to the crack. There came up the damp, musty smell of a cellar.
"That's it!" cried Joe. "If I can get that door up I can drop into thecellar even if there aren't any stairs, and I guess I can get out of thecellar. But can I get that door up?"
There was no ring to lift it by, and no handle, but Joe was aresourceful lad and in an instant his knife was out. With the big bladeinserted in the crack he managed to raised the door a trifle. Heendeavored to hold the advantage he had gained until he could take outthe knife blade and insert it again farther down, but the door slippedthrough his fingers.
"I've got to get some way of holding it up after each time I pry," hethought. A hurried search through his pockets brought to light part of abroken toe plate. He had had a new one put on for the Academy game, andhad thrust the broken piece in the pocket of his trousers.
"This ought to do it," he reasoned, and it did, for with the aid of thatJoe was able to hold up and raise the trap door. The damp, musty smellwas stronger now, and Joe was glad to see, in the dim darkness of thecellar, a flight of steps. "They're pretty rotten, but I guess they'llhold me," he murmured.
The next instant he was going down them, and he let the trap door fallsoftly into place over his head. It was so dark in the cellar now thathe could see nothing, but when his eyes became accustomed to theblackness he saw the dim light of an outer window.
It was the work of but a moment to scramble through it, and a fewseconds later Joe was running away from the place of his briefcaptivity.
"I guess I won't give you an answer to-day," he murmured as he lookedback.
He heard a shout and saw Mr. Benjamin rush out. Then our hero caughtsight of the horse and carriage and like a flash he made for it. Jumpingin he called to the animal and was soon galloping down the road whilethe shouts behind him became fainter and fainter.
"This is the time I fooled you!" cried Joe exultantly, as he urged onthe horse.