The Fifth Ace Part 24

"My cousin?" Vernon closed his book, and rose. "I haven't the least idea, I a.s.sure you. I ran out to Mineola myself, with an aviator chap I know."

He had paused, looking down at his interrogator, and at the expression in his eyes the latter half rose also, then sank back.

"And just what am I to infer?" Wiley spoke through set teeth.

"Anything you like, my dear fellow. Help yourself."

"Ah! You're going to renege, are you? You're prepared to take the consequences?"

"You've guessed it." Vernon nodded. "I'm off the dirty work, Starr.

You'll have to do your own sleuthing in future."

"You realize what it means? I've never bluffed in my life, Vernon, and I'll push this thing to the limit!"

"Go as far as you like." Vernon waved his hand airily. Then his expression hardened. "But whatever happens, leave my cousin out of your future plans. Do you understand? Play your game with men if you like, but leave the women of my family alone."

"Indeed?" This time Wiley rose, and the two looked levelly into each other's eyes. "When you go up for forgery you won't be in a position to interfere with any game I choose to play. I've told you this was a straight business proposition, Vernon, there is no use getting melodramatic about it. I've taken a lot of insolence from you, and I'm prepared to teach you a lesson."

"And I am always willing to learn, my dear Starr. It's up to you." He bowed formally, and, turning on his heel, left the room.

For a time Wiley communed with himself. The worm had turned, with a vengeance, and the maneuver was beyond his comprehension. In spite of his declaration anent a bluff, he was not prepared to push the matter of the check to the end he had threatened. A scandal was farthest from his desire and other considerations were involved; his matrimonial ambitions not the least of them, if he antagonized the Halstead family.

Then, too, what could have been back of Vernon's sudden independence?

Was it an idle bluff, or had the young scamp managed in some way to protect himself?

The conclusion of his cogitations led him to the telephone and a half hour later found him confronting Mason North in the latter's home, much as Willa had done on the previous night.

"Sorry to have disturbed you, Mr. North, but this is a strictly confidential matter, and rather urgent. I have your a.s.surance that it will go no farther?"

"Certainly!" Mason North was suspiciously affable. "Take a seat and try one of these cigars. They're made especially for me in Porto Rico and I know you to be a connoisseur. You were saying----?"

"I have a check in my possession signed presumably by you." Wiley chose his words with evident care. "It was made payable to bearer and of course I do not know whether it changed hands or not before reaching me. I wish to insinuate nothing, but I should like your a.s.surance that the signature is genuine before depositing it."

"You have it with you?" the attorney asked crisply.

Wiley nodded, and, taking an oblong slip of paper from his bill-case, he presented it for the older man's inspection.

"Um! Four thousand dollars, eh? The signature looks all right to me, but I don't quite recall making it out. I have my old stubs here in the desk, and if you will wait I'll look it up."

Secure in the outcome, Wiley was more than willing to wait. He sat with a half smile on his face, puffing at his fragrant cigar and formulating his next move, when the storm should break.

But the other's voice cut short his pleasant reflections and the words themselves brought him up standing.

"Yes. Here we are! I gave that check to young Halstead. It is quite correct; 'four thousand'. Little matter of an inheritance. I--I trust he hasn't been speculating, but I suppose I must not ask, eh? Sad young dog, Vernon!"

"It was a business transaction of rather a private nature, but I can a.s.sure you that Vernon was not a loser by it." Wiley's tone was quiet, but he had gone white to the lips "I would not have doubted the signature, except for the fact that I thought it an unusually large sum to be payable to bearer, and, as I said, I did not know to whom it had been issued originally. I am sorry to have troubled you."

He took his leave amid the other's cordial protestations, with outward composure, but his expression changed savagely as he descended the steps of the house and started up the Avenue.

The attorney's att.i.tude had not deceived him for a moment. Someone had checkmated him, that was plain; had disclosed the truth and persuaded North to shield Vernon. Could that young man have confessed voluntarily and thrown himself on the attorney's mercy rather than play the game? But such a step would have involved courage of a sort, and he was sure Vernon did not possess enough of that commodity to carry him so far. Someone must have interceded for him--but who?

Then an inspiration came and under its goad Wiley almost cursed aloud.

That girl, again! He recalled Vernon's swift, unaccountable championship of his cousin at the club an hour before. That was the answer, of course! The young cub had double-crossed him and placed himself in Willa's hands--and incidentally landed his erstwhile tyrant in the same position.

So be it. He would carry the game into the enemy's camp and then, if necessary, arbitrate. Wiley had fought many duels with the fair s.e.x, but never a financial one before, and the prospect was not without an element of sport. She had outwitted him at the start and borne off the spoils, but he would wrest them from her, and tame her into the bargain.

The morning dawned clear and crisply cold, and Willa started upon her early gallop in the Park with every nerve a-tingle and the blood racing in her veins. Her perplexities were forgotten, her slow, waiting game put aside and she gave herself up joyously to the influences of the hour. After all, it was good to be alive!

Her mount was fresh, but she rode him hard until she had taken the edge off his spirits and he was willing enough to drop into the easy, loping canter for which she had originally chosen him from her cousins' stable.

Her clear, pale cheeks bore an unwonted flush and her eyes were dancing when she came face to face with Starr Wiley around a bend in the bridle path. Willa would have pa.s.sed him with a gay little nod, but he reined in his horse and, wheeling, fell into pace beside her.

"May I take the trail for a little way with you?" he asked. "Glorious morning, isn't it?"

"Yes." She smiled, but the brightness had fled from her face and her eyes narrowed as she gave him a side-long glance. "I didn't know you were given to an appreciation of them, though. What brings you out so early?"

"Do you want a confession? It was with the hope of meeting you that I came. One can see you alone so seldom in these crowded days, and I want to grasp every opportunity. Can you blame me?"

"Your judgment, perhaps. My cousin is a far more attractive spectacle than I, Mr. Wiley."

"Still unkind!" he exclaimed ruefully. "I have told you, I have explained and you will not believe me? Willa, you cannot have forgotten the other evening, you know what I feel toward you. You permitted me to tell you and you said that at least I might hope.

Don't taunt me, dear! It's scarcely fair, is it?"

"I gave you no a.s.surance, Mr. Wiley." Her eyes opened very wide upon him. "You were well supplied with that. I was careful not to commit myself in any way, if you remember. You were in my cousin's house and I listened to learn just how far your effrontery would carry you. It was scarcely an open game, I admit, but it was your deal and you weren't playing exactly fair yourself, were you?"

"I was sincere." His voice shook, but not with tenderness. "You led me on; you played with me from the first!"

"On the contrary, I refused to play with you at all, but you would not be convinced. Let us understand each other, Mr. Wiley. Your protestations are distasteful to me, and there is no longer need of pretense between us. I will be civil when occasion requires, but friendship between us would be an impossibility, and I beg that you will not force me to be more rude to you than you have made necessary now."

"So," he remarked quietly. "We have done with pretense, have we? I will meet your frankness, then. I have offered you all that a man can offer a woman in devotion, but you have thrust it from you. Now I have another kind of a proposition to discuss with you, and I am prepared to offer terms. I want to know where you have secreted Tia Juana; I want an interview with her. If she, of her own volition, refers me to you as I antic.i.p.ate and gives you power of attorney to act for her, we can perhaps come to an agreement which will be to our mutual advantage."

"That sounds interesting," Willa remarked. "What makes you think I know where Tia Juana is?"

"I thought we had done with pretense?" he reminded her. "I know of the little house on the Parkway, and the beautiful rich young lady who hired it and installed the fierce old Spanish woman and the hunchback there. I know, too, of their hasty departure, and all that happened before in Mexico. You played a very shrewd game, my dear Miss Murdaugh, but your disinterested charity toward Tia Juana is open to question; a legal question, perhaps, if it comes to that, involving undue influence and a dummy t.i.tle."

"a.s.suming that I know what you are talking about, don't you think you are taking a great deal for granted?" asked Willa. "I do not admit that I know where Tia Juana is, but in the event that you discover her, what a.s.surance have you that she will receive you? There is a strain of Indian in her blood as well as Spanish. She does not forget, and do you think your treatment of Jose would inspire her with any confidence in your good faith or with any desire to deal with you except in retribution?"

"Nevertheless, she is the princ.i.p.al I intend to interview. You give me no credentials as her authorized agent, and whether she cares to deal with me or not is a matter I mean to put to the test. It lies between her and me, and I fancy I shall have no difficulty in opening her eyes to much that will be to her advantage, to which she has been kept heretofore in the dark."

"Would you, if you could? I doubt it. However, by all means make your proposition to her when you have found her, Mr. Wiley. That's the first thing, isn't it? You can't hazard your bet until you have picked your number, can you?" Whimsically, she imitated the croupier's sing-song whine "Make your play, gentlemen! The wheel is about to spin!"

"You vixen!" he muttered wrathfully. Then he controlled himself with an almost visible effort and half turned in his saddle. "Will you permit me to give you a bit of purely disinterested advice? Don't go in for the financial game on your own; you are bound to lose. In your proper sphere you are invincible, but it is a social one. When you pit yourself against men in a contest for financial supremacy your chief weapon, that of s.e.x, is turned against you. Make no mistake! I shall find Tia Juana, I shall obtain her order to treat with you, and you will come to an agreement with me on my own terms. You cannot afford to reject them if you would. You have not the slightest inkling of their nature now, that is a card I am holding in reserve, but when you learn what an indemnity you will be called upon to pay in the event of a refusal, you will jump at the bargain, my dear Billie."

He uttered the old name deliberately, and she flushed.

"I am Willa Murdaugh, if you don't mind."

"Are you?" he asked significantly. "The clock struck twelve for another Cinderella, you may remember, and all the jewels and gorgeous apparel disappeared, as well as the pumpkin coach. I doubt if there would be a fallen slipper or a fairy prince to put it on again if the old story came to be rewritten to-day."