The Short Cut

by Jackson Gregory

  CHAPTER XXVI

  THE LAUGHTER OF HELGA STRAWN

  "Will you tell your mistress," Sledge Hume commanded, "that I want tospeak with her immediately? Immediately, do you hear?"

  The capable looking maid favoured him with swift, keen scrutiny,noticed that Endymion, tied to the gate post, was sweating and dustcovered, saw that Hume was dusty from riding and that his eyes werefull of purpose, and went upon her errand. Hume stalked into theliving room where he had grown to be so much at home, and driving hishands into his pockets stood frowning out of the window through whichthe warm fragrant June air came in from the sunny fields.

  With the determination in his eyes there was the unhidden, black angerthat had not been absent from them during the man's waking hours for aweek. The spirit under the hard shell of a cool indifference had beentouched, and was raw and quivering beneath the lashes his fate hadbrought upon him. On the day of the races he had lost five thousanddollars that he could ill afford to lose, and with it counted that hehad lost another five thousand which he had told himself had alwaysbeen as good as his. He had shown men that he was a bad loser, byflying into an ungovernable rage that vented its fury upon Endymionuntil savage voices cried to him to hold his quirt or he would bejerked from the saddle. He had seen that the slow turning tables wereturning at last. He had seen Wayne Shandon, the man always in his way,white and fainting from sheer loss of blood, turn smiling and givehimself up to the sheriff. He had seen Red Shandon the hero of a crowdthat went wild over him; had heard even MacKelvey's rough voice cryingbluntly, "There's a man for you!"

  But anger and hatred, swelling venemously in his heart, had onlyhardened him, making him the more determined. He did not doubt, he didnot fear. Not enough had happened to undermine the man's cold,dominating strength, to alter the essential fact in his mind that hewas Hume and that people who strove against him were fools doomed todefeat. But before he heard the silken rustle of Helga Strawn'sapproach there was to come to him a new sign of the future that wasrushing down upon him.

  As usual Helga kept him waiting. He tapped at the window with a handthat he jerked impatiently from his pocket; he turned, thinking that heheard her steps; he walked back and forth in the room. And thus ithappened that his eyes fell upon a large sheet of paper lying upon thetable, his own name typed in capitals across the top. His frowningeyes read the few lines swiftly:

  "Your tunnel is already one hundred and fifty-three feet upon Shandonproperty. That is far enough."

  There was no signature.

  A child has an instinctive fear of the dark; the thing a man does notunderstand brings from the obscurity of the unknown a certain, vaguedread. Who had written this thing? There was no answer. Why? Noanswer. How did it come here, who could have known that Hume would seeit here? No answer. It was as though a warning, taking form from theinvisible air had fallen from the air before his startled eyes.

  He swept up the paper, crumpling it in his fingers. He had not heardHelga Strawn, did not know that she was in the room until she spokequietly.

  "Is fate relenting? Or are you still playing the losing game?"

  He swung upon her sharply. His eyes, glittering and hard, met herssoftly luminous. He had never seen the woman so radiantly, regallybeautiful, perhaps because he had never seen her so keenly alive as shewas to-day. Although his brain was riotous with other things he couldnot fail to note the superb carriage, the rich gown daringlyfashionable, the warm whiteness of arms and throat, the finelychiselled red lips that were unsmiling.

  "The losing game?" he cried, coming swiftly toward her, stopping onlywhen his tall form towered over her. "By God, no! I have lost a trickhere, a trick there. A man counts upon that sort of thing. Thatlittle shrimp Conway is scared of his life and is for pulling out. I'mglad of it. He'll sell to me before he'll go to Shandon. Let Lelandpull out, too. We'll take him over. I'm going to win, I tell you,Claire Hazleton! We're going to win, you and I. Win big!"

  There was no change in her cool eyes. She swept by him, not turningout an inch to pass, her skirts brushing him, and dropped idly into herchair. He followed, and stood over her again.

  "Shandon is going to be acquitted," she said. "You know that. He'llbe set free in ten days. Then what?"

  "Then we'll take him in with us. We'll get the water and that's all wewant any way you put it. Inside six months we'll be subdividing andgetting our money back."

  She laughed.

  "So you think that Shandon will jump at the chance to go into any sortof partnership with you?"

  "We'll make him," crisply. "He has retained Brisbane, the biggest,highest priced criminal lawyer this side the Rockies. He has clearedup his mortgage but he's had to mortgage again to do it. He's in debtup to his eyes. We'll make him a proposition that will show him theway to clear himself. I tell you, Claire, he'll have to do it."

  "You say _we_," she reminded him, lifting her white shoulders.

  "And I mean you and I," he returned bluntly. "I've come here to dosome straight talking." There leaped up into his eyes a light she hadnever seen there until now, a quick colour ran into his cheeks. "Iwant you to marry me, Claire."

  Perhaps the woman's pulse quickened. Certainly no change in herexpression, no quiver of a muscle, no deepened breathing told that asupreme moment had come into her life, a moment she had long andunceasingly striven for.

  "Do you?" she asked indifferently. "Why?"

  "Because," he cried, "you are like no other woman in all the world.Because the things that I want are the things that you want. Becausewe should be a man and a woman, mated, to take our places in the worldand hold them. Where there is man's work I can do it; where there iswoman's work you can do it. We are young; in ten years' time we canrise to whatever we care to set our eyes upon. Why do I want you?Just because in brain and in body you are the woman in the world fittedto occupy the place that shall be my wife's."

  "Other men have asked me to marry them," she said coolly. "I thinkthat all of them have said something about love."

  "And I love you," he told her. "A man cannot come to care for a womanwithout her knowing it. I don't come to you bleating about a breakingheart, because you are no fool and I am no fool. If you were the kindto care about a lot of sentimental rot you wouldn't be the woman youare, you wouldn't be the woman I'd want. I'd be good to you. I'd giveyou the power that a beautiful woman with a strong, rich husband cancome to have in San Francisco, in New York, in London if you like.When I rise you'll rise with me. I'll have men know that my wife shallhave the place, above the heads of their wives, that she wants. AndI'll be proud of you!"

  Then he got his answer as seldom a woman has answered a man. Shelifted her eyes to his, she put back her head with the tossing regalgesture he knew so well, her lips parted slowly--and she laughed.Laughed at him in a sudden mirth of leaping scorn, that was hard andcruel, that mocked and sneered at him, that took supreme toll of thesupreme moment. Laughed as she saw the light quiver and die in hiseyes, as the colour faded from his cheeks and ran back red.

  "Love me!" she cried scornfully. "You'd be proud of me! Why? Whenyou answered you forgot to tell the truth, Mr. Hume. Because you needme, because you are beaten now and must come hiding a whimper under bigwords, come to a woman who holds you so in the hollow of her hand thatshe can break you so utterly that your own overweening conceit cannotfind the fragments with the microscope of a distorted vanity! Love meas you'd love any other fine thing just because it was yours. Becauseyou'd use me, because you see that such a wife as I could be would bebut a stone for you to stand on to climb up a little higher. And youthink that of all men in the world I should choose a man like _you_ forhusband?"

  She jeered openly at him, disdaining to see the red anger flaring inhis eyes. She remembered the reason that had brought her to him in thebeginning and a savage gladness in her rejoiced at finding the victoryall that she had yearned for. Her dominant blood was seething to thesurface. And it was Hume
blood.

  "Listen to me a minute," she cried sharply as he was about to speak."You've come for straight talk to-day, you say. Let us have it then.You have gone your way boastfully, arrogantly, unscrupulously and ithas been the fool's way. You are playing the losing game and it isn'teven in you to lose like a man. You have stared at the glitter of goldso long that you have gone blind looking at it. Your own infallibilityhas loomed so large before you that you have lost your sanity. I saylisten to me!" her voice ringing with its command. "I am going to tellyou something. I am going to tell you why I came to you, why Isuffered you day after day to come to me. And what I came for I amgoing to get. You are going to give it to me!"

  She had sprung to her feet, twin spots of colour upon her white cheeks,her eyes blazing.

  "You told me that you had paid five thousand dollars to Helga Strawnfor her interest in the Dry Lands! Liar! You paid her twenty-fivethousand!"

  "Well?" he snarled harshly. "What of it?"

  "You laughed about it. You said that she was a fool like most women.Like all women, was what you thought! And women were made just for youto tread upon and sneer at. You did not know that I knew a great dealmore about Helga Strawn than you ever guessed!"

  "You--know--Helga--Strawn!"

  The words beat at her like stinging, separate blows. And now it hadcome into his eyes, the thing that had never been there, the thing thatwould never die out of the man's soul while life clung to him,--fear.

  "I know you, to the last spot you think you've covered up," she ran onswiftly. "So well that I know I am about to stir you into one of yourmad fits of rage. And I am not afraid to do it. You'd kill me if youdared, but you won't dare. For after all I think that in yourbraggadocio way you are a coward, Sledge Hume."

  "You cat!" he flung at her with an attempt at his old manner.

  "I have two men working out yonder," she said coolly. "If I called tothem--" She shrugged her shoulders. "I want to tell you all that youare hungering to know even while you are afraid to hear it. HelgaStrawn got your check for five thousand dollars. She got, also, aWells Fargo order from Sacramento for twenty thousand. Sent by afictitious Arnold Wentworth. Ah!"

  For he had cried out sharply, his face was dead white, his eyes werefilled with horror. His premonition had come.

  "Who committed the crime you charged Wayne Shandon with?" she demandedfearlessly. "Who killed Arthur Shandon and robbed him of twenty-fivethousand dollars? If Helga Strawn came into court and told all thatshe knows do you realise what a jury would say about it?"

  "The things you are saying are lies," he cried back at her, driving hishands into his pockets that she might not see that they were shaking.

  He stared after her in wonder as she went swiftly to the table andunlocked a drawer. He wondered more as she snatched out a folded paperand brought it to him.

  "Sign that," she said curtly. "Get it witnessed before a notary andsend it to me and Helga Strawn will forget what she knows."

  A glance showed him the significance of the document. It was a deed,properly drawn, needing but his own signature to return to Helga Strawnthe lands he had bought from her.

  "So," he sneered, "you are trying a little blackmail, are you? You area spy and Helga Strawn's agent, I suppose?"

  Again she laughed at him.

  "I attend to my own business, my dear cousin," her voice very like his."If you hadn't been a fool you'd have known that I was Helga Strawn sixmonths ago. Blackmail? Call it what you like. It is your one chanceto save your neck. I know that in one of your mad fits of anger youkilled Arthur Shandon. I know that you took his money. And I am notthe only one in the country who knows or suspects it. Your chance isslim enough as it is, Mr. Hume. Don't make it worse."

  Blow after blow until the man set his muscles like iron to keep hisbody from shaking as his soul shook. This was the greatest shock ofall because it struck at the keynote of his nature, this knowledge thata woman had tricked him, that she had played with him, that now sheheld him as she said so bluntly, in the hollow of her hand.

  "You traitress!" he cried hoarsely. "You miserable traitress!"

  And Helga Strawn laughed.

  "It will take you a couple of hours to ride into El Toyon," she said."That will give you time to think it over. If you decide to sign thedeed and send it to me to-night I'll do my part. If I don't get thedeed to-night I'll go into town in the morning for a talk with thedistrict attorney. I think I've got you where I want you, Mr. Hume."

  The things which Hume said to her she accepted indifferently. She hadnever known that a man could find such words to utter to a woman. Whenshe has listened long enough she turned and went out of the room, goingupstairs and standing by her window where she could see him as he wentout. As she saw him striding down the walk toward his horse, jammingthe deed into his pocket as he went, her eyes suddenly grew wet, andshe stamped her foot angrily.

  "Of all men living I hate you most!" she cried passionately. And then,softly, more softly than any one had ever heard her speak, "And youcome closer to being a man than any man I ever knew. I wonder--"

  The fury within him demanding some sort of expression found it in theswift stride that carried him blindly down the walk. He came almost ata run to his horse. Endymion, mindful of the unprovoked blows andtearing spurs of a week ago, distrustful, afraid, whirled, rearing andplunging, and broke the reins that had been tossed over the post.Hume, venting upon a trifle the wrath that seethed within him, shoutedangrily, cursing the horse that dashed by him.

  The horse, seeing his way through the gate shut off, turned and dashedaround the house, seeking a break in the yard fence. Hume ran afterhim, still cursing. The two men who were working in the yard lay downtheir rakes and shovels and came up. The three of them cornered thefrightened brute. But when Hume, his hand outstretched for thedangling, broken rein, came within half a dozen feet, Endymion,snorting his fear, plunged by him, racing into another corner.

  Again they closed about him, again he plunged through, mad with fear,making the madness in Sledge Hume a speechless, raging fury. A thirdtime they tried, and as the big horse shot by Hume's temper masteredhim as it had mastered him once before.

  "God damn you!" he shouted wildly. "Take that!"

  As he shouted he jerked his revolver from his pocket and fired. Fired,saw the big animal stagger and fired again.

  He went to the stable for one of Helga's horses. His hands wereshaking as he saddled and got the bit into the animal's mouth. With nolook behind him he mounted, spurred out into the road and galloped offtoward El Toyon.

  Helga Strawn from her window coolly ordered the two men to put thewounded horse out of his misery and to drag him where she could not seehim, But her eyes did not tarry with them, did not leave the big bulkof Sledge Hume until it had disappeared around a bend In the road.Then she went to her mirror and stood looking at herself with large,luminous eyes.

  "I wonder," she whispered, "if he did love me, after all?"

  She could never know. She knew that she could never know. And shewent and threw herself, face down, on her bed.