The Short Cut

by Jackson Gregory

  CHAPTER XVII

  "WHERE'S THAT TWENTY-FIVE THOUSAND? WHAT'S THE ANSWER?"

  The little clock in Wayne Shandon's room maintained stoutly in the faceof the gathering gloom outside, in defiance of the lighted lamp uponthe table, that it was still an hour before sunset. The snow was stillfalling steadily, thickly, swept here and there into shifting mounds,choking the mountain passes, robing trees and fence posts andbuildings, each feathery flake adhering where it struck softly asthough it had been a gummed wafer.

  "Garth and I will have to get out to-morrow," Shandon muttered, drawingoff his heavy coat and tossing it to the chair across the room, "orwe'll have to beat it out on snowshoes--I wonder what's keeping Dart?"

  There came a rap at the front door and Shandon, supposing that alreadyhis question was answered, called, "Come in."

  "You never can tell what that little devil will do next," he grunted."Snoop into a man's private business every time he gets the chance andthen stand outside knocking at the door in a day like this. _Come in_."

  Then, when the knocking came again, louder, insistent and imperative,he realised that there was the bare possibility that the thumb latchhad caught and, crossing the room he jerked the door open.

  "Is this Mr. Shandon?"

  The cool, confident voice though a woman's was not Wanda's, and Shandonrealised that he had been a fool to let his heart leap as it had whenhis eyes made out through the murkiness that it was a woman.

  "Yes," he answered, wondering.

  "May I come in?" she asked a little impatiently. "I have come a longway to see you."

  Wondering more than ever he threw the door wide open, showed her theway into the living room and lighted a lamp. There was no fire in theroom but she went quite naturally to the fireplace. He glanced at hersharply, knew that he had never seen her before for he would haveremembered her, understood that she was a woman of the cities, and said,

  "Are you very cold? Just a minute and I'll have a fire going. I camein only a moment before I heard your knock."

  She did not speak until he had gathered an armful of wood from the boxat the side of the fireplace and had flung it upon the blaze that amatch had started from a bit of paper and some pitch pine. Nor did sheseem in haste to speak even then when he stood across the hearthlooking at her. But not for a second had her approving eyes left him;no opportunity had they lost to watch the man's face intently.

  "Where did you come from in all this storm?" he asked curiously.

  "Remotely, from New York. Immediately from El Toyen."

  "Lord!" he ejaculated. "You must be dead. I'll get you something hot,some coffee. We haven't any tea, I'm afraid."

  She laughed coolly, evidently quite at home with him.

  "If a man came in, frozen stiff, would you offer him a cup of tea?"

  "What do you mean?" He had started toward the kitchen, and stopped.

  "I mean brandy, if you've got any. It would do me a lot of good.Wanda Leland just poured some tea down me and I didn't want to shockher."

  Wayne stood frowning at her a moment, a question on his lips. Then hewent to the kitchen and got a bottle and a glass. She had drawn achair close up to the fire when he returned and was leaning back in itluxuriously, her feet thrust out to the blaze.

  "Thanks," she said, taking the glass he handed her. "I am drinking toour better acquaintance."

  She set the glass down upon the arm of her chair, half emptied, andsmiled up at him.

  "I want a good long talk if you can spare the time. Can you?"

  "Of course," he said briefly.

  "It is my particular desire that no one but yourself hears what I haveto say."

  "No one is here except Garth and myself. And Garth hasn't come in fromthe corrals yet."

  "Excellent." Her black eyes flashed from him to the various rudeappointments of the room, flashed back to him. "I am Helga Strawn,"she said abruptly.

  He repeated the name after her in surprise:

  "Helga Strawn?"

  "Yes. Perhaps you guess right away what has brought me West, to youfirst of all?"

  "No," he said. "I don't think that I do."

  "Then I'll tell you. That's what I am here for. Don't begin to thinkthat I saw a picture of you somewhere and fell in love with it."

  The finely chiselled lips, too faultlessly perfect at any time to bewarmly womanly, were suddenly hard. Her eyes had become brilliant,twin spots of colour came into her cheeks.

  "At least you remember my name?"

  "Helga Strawn? Yes, I remember it. You learned from a mutualacquaintance that I was in New York some time ago. You wrote me then.You are a cousin of Sledge Hume."

  "Not exactly a cousin," she corrected him. "I am not so proud of therelationship as to wish to make it closer than it is. But that doesnot matter. You remember also why I wrote you?"

  "Yes. You said that yourself and Hume had inherited equal interests inthe Dry Lands. That through letters Hume had persuaded you to sellyour interest to him. After you had sold you began to think that hehad japped you. You wanted to know from me what the property wasactually worth."

  "I am glad that you remember. You answered my letter. You told methat you had always considered the land hardly worth paying taxes on."

  "Yes."

  "If I asked you now, that same question, what would you say?"

  He hesitated. The Dry Lands were no whit more valuable to-day thanthey had been last year. But if the scheme Hume was engineering wentthrough it would be a different matter.

  "You have already sold your interest, given the deed, haven't you, MissStrawn? What difference does it make?" he asked bluntly.

  "What if I have?" she countered coolly. "I am not the sort of woman,Mr. Shandon, to sit with my hands in my lap when a man has done a pieceof sharp business with me. I needed the money and like a fool I soldto Hume. And now I know as well as I know anything that he didn't payme a tenth of what the property was worth. Yes, I have given the deed.You think that I am a fool again to come clear across the continentupon a matter that went out of my hands a year ago!" She laughed, herlaugh reminding him unpleasantly of the man of whom they were talking."You see, you don't know me yet."

  "I don't see just how I can be of service to you," he suggested.

  "I'll try to be explicit. I have never had the pleasure of meeting Mr.Hume and yet I think that I could write a very correct character sketchof the gentleman. Egotism and selfishness, two things in most men,just one in Sledge Hume! He is shrewd and hard and his god is gold.Am I right?"

  "Hume is hardly an intimate acquaintance of mine."

  She laughed softly, twisting the brandy glass slowly in her whitefingers.

  "I know enough of the Hume blood," she said presently, "to make a closeguess at the man's character. We are not related, even distantly, fornothing, Mr. Shandon. My mother was a Hume," she added coolly, hermanner again reminding the man strangely of Hume himself. "You see, hechose the wrong woman when he cheated me. It's going to be diamond cutdiamond now."

  Shandon looked at the girl curiously, falling to see what mad hope shecould have of regaining rights that were deeded away a year ago,falling as well to find a reason for her coming all these miles to makea confidant of him.

  "I usually go about things in my own way," she said after one of herbrief pauses. "What I have to say I'll say as it comes to me. In caseyour cousin Garth returns before I have done you can send him away uponany pretext you choose. Tell him we want to talk privately; that willdo as well as anything. Smoke, if you want to," as she saw his eyes goto the mantelpiece where an old black pipe lay. "Maybe it will makeyou patient during my harangue."

  Wayne got his pipe and, lighting it, sat upon the edge of the tablelooking down at her through the smoke.

  "Six months ago," she went on, "I realised that Hume had underpaid me.Why?" She shrugged her shoulders. "I knew his breed. If he offers adollar for a thing it's worth ten. I made investigations through
anagent who came up to Dry Valley from San Francisco. He turned in hisbill on time and that was about all. He was an ordinary man andconsequently a fool. But, blind as a bat himself, he showed me alittle light that set me thinking. A few days ago I came out myself."She snapped her fingers. "It didn't take me that long to get to thebottom of the whole thing."

  "What thing?"

  "The scheme Hume is promoting on the quiet to put water on the DryLands. The water is to come from your river. Are you in on the dealtoo?"

  Her question was as sudden as a sword thrust.

  "No," he answered.

  "Have they made you an offer for the water right?"

  "No."

  "That's funny." She frowned thoughtfully at him a moment, saying in abarely audible tone as though she were thinking aloud, "You don't lookas though you were lying. Well, you expect an offer, don't you?"

  "Yes."

  "And when it comes, coming from Hume, you realise that he'll offer avery small fraction of what it is worth to him?"

  "I suppose so. That's business."

  "And, above all things in the world, Sledge Hume is a business man!Well, I won't ask what you'd do when the offer came, as you'd say thatit was none of my affair. I've seen Ruf Ettinger and learned all heknows."

  He did not answer; he had suddenly resolved to see the drift of HelgaStrawn's thoughts before he did a great deal of talking.

  "I have learned," came another of her abrupt thrusts, "that you andHume are about as friendly as a cat and a dog."

  He merely looked at her enquiringly, drawing thoughtfully at his pipe.She smiled, turned from him back to the fire, settling a little morecomfortably in her chair.

  "Hume is a crook." She said it calmly, dispassionately, positively."It is in his blood. He couldn't help it if he tried. He isn't thekind to try. The deal he put over with me may have been nothing butclever business. On the other hand, considering that I was a relative,considering that there was going to be plenty of boodle for everybody,some people might say that there was an element of dishonesty in it.But what I am getting at is that the man in unscrupulous. Now, he's inthe biggest business deal of his life. Chances in that sort of thingfor crooked work are many. Ergo, Mr. Shandon, it's a fair bet thatstarting with a crooked deal he has gone on playing a crooked game. Doyou begin to see why I'm here?"

  "Blackmail?" he said bluntly.

  "Yes," she said coolly. "There's no use quarrelling over a name."

  "If you imagine that I know anything about the man's private history--"

  "You've quarrelled openly with him. Everybody knows about it. Whatwas the reason for your quarrel?"

  "Really, Miss Strawn---"

  "Why can't you talk to me as if I were a man?" she flared out at him,the sudden heat from a woman who had been ice a moment ago taking himby surprise. "I'm not dragging my sex into this like a buckler to hidebehind. Why can't you say it's none of my damned business, if you feelthat way about it?"

  "I shouldn't put it quite so strong," he replied. "If you will go onand show me how I can be of any service to you, anything in my line--"

  "Consequently excluding blackmail!" she laughed, her mood like iceagain. "When you quarrelled with Hume a year ago you called him acrook, didn't you?"

  "Your investigations seem to have been made very painstakingly," hecountered.

  "For one of your reputation you are surprisingly noncommittal," shesaid. "Will you tell me this: So far as you know is there a woman inSledge Hume's life?"

  "So far as I know there is not. He doesn't impress me as the sort ofman to lose either his heart or his head over a woman."

  "That sort of man," she replied swiftly, "very often surprises peoplewho think that they understand human nature, and don't! Now I come toone of my reasons in coming to see you. I saw you one day at the GrandCentral Station with a friend of mine, a Mr. Maddox. I was uncertainwhether he had pointed me out to you or not, told you who I was. Didhe?"

  "No. I should have remembered."

  "Thank you. That's the first pretty thing you've said! Well, no harmis done in making sure. I'm making sure of every little point as I goalong, Mr. Shandon. I didn't want there to be a possibility of any onehere knowing who I am. It is my own business and I hope that I am notasking overmuch if I request you not to tell any one that I am HelgaStrawn."

  He shrugged his shoulders.

  "If you don't want Hume to know you I most certainly shall not seek tofind or take advantage of an opportunity to tell him."

  "Thank you again. Now, for the other part of my business with you.You are in a position to stand pat and by just doing nothing smashSledge Hume's little game all to flinders. He's counted on you, he'smade sure in some way I don't know. But I am going to know beforelong. And I'm going to get Sledge Hume just where I want him! How?Wait and see. I'm going to get back the property he cheated me out of.How? I don't know and I don't care. And then--"

  She rose swiftly, her eyes blazing, her head lifted triumphantly asthough already she had met the success she had set out to find.

  "And then, Wayne Shandon, you and I and Ruf Ettinger can take into ourhands the thing that Sledge Hume has already half created for us!There is a fortune in it for every one of us."

  "I've told Ruf Ettinger already--" he began.

  The door opened suddenly and Mr. Dart came into the room.

  "Say, Red," he began with an important air, "I want to see you aminute, private. Hazel will excuse us, won't you?" with a rare smileand an abbreviated bow after Mr. Dart's best manner.

  "Hazel?" frowned Shandon.

  "Sure," grinned Dart. "We got chummy as twins riding over, didn't we?Come on, Red. This here is urgent."

  "It will have to wait, Dart. Miss--"

  "Hazleton," prompted Helga.

  "Sure," put in Dart. "Her uncle used to know my aunt in Poughkeepsie.Come on, Red."

  "Dart," cried Shandon, "you get out! We are busy."

  Dart went slowly back to the door, to the surprise of Shandon who knewso well the little man's tenacity.

  "Oh, well," he said mournfully from across the room. "Only Wandasaid--"

  "You will excuse me a moment?" Wayne asked hurriedly. Dart, alreadyoutside was grinning broadly.

  "What is it?" queried Shandon.

  "Whatever it is it'll keep until we get where we can talk," was thedogged answer. "There's nobody in the bunk house. Come on."

  He hastened down the steps, Wayne following him. Only when they werein the bunk house, the door closed, the lamp lighted, did Dart speak.

  "First thing," he said abruptly, "Hazel's name begins with an H, butshe spells it Helga!"

  "You little weasel! Well, what about it? And what about Miss Leland?"

  "Wanda's part will keep. Gee, Red, she's some swell dame, thatEgyptian skirt, take it from me! She's got Macbeth's frau of the fairytale faded to a finish, ain't she?"

  "Look here, Dart . . ."

  "It's cold weather," interrupted Dart. "Keep your undershirt on, Red.When your brother Archie mortgaged the Bar L-M . . ."

  "What fool's nonsense are you talking, Dart?" demanded Shandon."Arthur never mortgaged--"

  "Uhuh. I thought you didn't know about it. Now I'm here to tell yousomething you ought to know. I guess the Weak Sister forgot to tellyou about it. Archie mortgaged the Bar L-M, he socked a plaster worthtwenty-five thousand dollars on it, _the day before somebody put himout_. Get that?"

  Wayne stared at him wonderingly. Suddenly he shot out his two handsand gripped Dart's shoulders, jerking the little man toward himthreateningly.

  "What's your game, you little crook? You lie to me and I'll come soclose to killing you we'll both be sorry."

  "Listen to that now," sighed Dart. "When one pal tries to wise anotherup--"

  "Talk fast," said Shandon sternly. "What are you talking about?"

  "Give me a chance to breathe and I'll spit it out. Your brothermortgaged the outfit for twenty-five thousand. Yo
u never heard aboutit. Some guy who was wise croaked him. Where's the twenty-fivethousand? What's the answer?"

  "Good God!" muttered Shandon.

  Dart, suddenly released, moved a little further away and smoothed hiscoat collar.

  "The mortgage was held by a man I used to call a pal," he volunteeredfurther. "I don't call him that any longer. I mean old Mart."

  "Martin Leland! You mean to tell me that Martin Leland held a mortgageover the Bar L-M for twenty-five thousand dollars and that I neverheard of it?"

  "Yep," answered Dart lightly. "And three months ago he foreclosed.Funny, ain't it?"

  "It's impossible. It's one of your fool lies, Dart."

  "When I tell a lie, Red, I don't tell that kind. The whole thing wasrecorded nice and proper. All you got to do is go to the courthouseand look it up. I'd go for you, only the jail's in the basement andjails always give me a cold. Or, you can go ask the Weak Sister.He'll know about it. You gave him your power of attorney, didn't you?Oh, he'll know, all right."

  The two men stared at each other fixedly, the eyes of one frowning andpenetrating, those of the other round and innocent.

  "I believe you are telling the truth," said Shandon slowly. "I don'tsee why you'd lie about a thing like this-- How do you know anythingabout it?" he asked suddenly.

  "How do I know Hazel's name is Helga?" smiled Dart. "There's tricks inevery trade, Red."

  "If this thing is true--"

  "Go talk to the Weak Sister," said Dart briefly.

  Wayne swung about and without reply went swiftly down toward thecorrals. Suddenly he stopped and came back.

  "You didn't tell me what Miss Leland said," he said shortly.

  Dart laughed in great amusement.

  "She didn't say anything. She's sore as a goat, though, Red. ThisHelga business sort of got on her nerves."

  Then Shandon went hurriedly toward the corrals.

  "Me," mused Dart, on his way to entertain Miss Helga Strawn during whatmight be a period of lonely waiting for her, "I'm almostchicken-hearted enough to feel sorry for the Weak Sister!"