"As we were leaving the theater. The lobby was crowded, and we were in the back of the jam. Suddenly I saw her over the heads of the people. She was just getting into an auto that was occupied by a handsome woman with snow-white hair. I wasn't mistaken; it was Virginia. I couldn't get to her. I tried to call to her, but she didn't hear me. I'll never say you were mistaken again, Lefty. Somehow you seem always to be right." Locke scarcely heard these final words. He was thinking rapidly. A sudden ray of hope had struck upon him. Confound it! Where was Stillman? He sprang to the telephone and called the _Blade_ office again. "Jack is the one best bet in this emergency," he said, as he waited for the connections to be made. He got the reporter on the wire, and Stillman stated that he had not been in the office ten minutes, and was about to call Lefty. Could he come up to the Great Eastern right away? Sure. The feeling of depression and helplessness that had threatened to crush Locke began to fall away. The door he had sought, the one door by which there seemed any chance of passing on to success, appeared to be almost within reach of his hand. In her excitement at the theater, Janet had not possessed the presence of mind to call the attention of her friends to the snowy-haired woman, but he knew that she could describe her with some minuteness. "Stillman knows everybody," Lefty said. "It may be clew enough for him." There was a rap on the door. A messenger boy appeared with a telegram. Locke ripped it open and read: Jones sick. Team busted. I'm busted. Signal of distress. How about that five hundred? I knead the dough. Don't shoot! Wire cash. WILEY. "Trouble in another quarter," muttered Lefty, handing the message over to Janet. "How am I going to send him that money? I can't force Weegman to do it. Wiley has a right to demand it. If I don't come across, he'll have a right to call the deal off." "But Jones is sick," said Janet. "Still it was a square bargain, and I mean to stand by it. Jones is sick. He was sick that day in Vienna; that was what ailed him. He showed flashes of form when he braced up, but he was too ill to brace up long. I've wondered what was the explanation, now I have it. Get him on his feet again, and he'll be all right. I've got to hold my grip on Jones somehow." Kennedy and Stillman appeared at the Great Eastern together. First, Lefty showed them the message from Cap'n Wiley. Over it the former manager screwed up his face, casting a sharp look at his successor. "If you can trust this Wiley," he said, "send him two hundred, and tell him to bring Jones north as soon as Jones can travel. Don't worry. Wiley's outfit didn't come under the national agreement, and Jones' name on a Stockings contract ties him up." "But without drawing money from the club I haven't the two hundred to spare now. I can't draw."