The Fifth Ace Part 25

"What do you mean?" Willa turned to him, startled in spite of herself.

He shrugged.

"I will tell you when the time comes to drive our bargain, and I have an idea that it will not be deferred long. You cannot conceal Tia Juana indefinitely, and I shall have more able tools to aid me in my search than the one you so cleverly removed a day or two ago."

"I?" Willa's tone was mechanical, her thoughts centered on his implied threat and what it might portend. "What tool?"

"Vernon," he responded tersely. "He is to be congratulated on his fortunate choice of a confidante. When he told you of our visit to the empty house, close on your heels----"

"You weren't; you were just over my head!" she retorted. "Vernon told me nothing. It was unnecessary, because I heard it all. I scarcely listened, though, for it reminded me so forcibly of another secret interview of yours that my mind wandered. It was a much more significant occasion, Mr. Wiley, with results so far-reaching that they have not yet culminated."

"Indeed?" He frowned. "I must confess I don't recall----"

"It was an interview at night, out in the open, beneath the stars!"

Her voice trembled with sudden pa.s.sion. "It took place near a garage, and you did not know a listener crouched in the shrubbery. The man you met and bargained with there was Juan de Soria, agent of El Negrito, and the next night El Negrito himself came down from the hills! What price did you pay for that raid, Mr. Wiley; that raid which was to force United States intervention and protection of the leases of its citizens, yours in particular?"

"You are mad!" he cried hoa.r.s.ely, but she would not be silenced.

"What did you pay in pesos for that slaughter? What will you yet be called upon to pay in vengeance by those who were spared? Don't be too confident of success in your bargaining, Mr. Wiley, until the final reckoning!"

For a moment there was silence, then with an obvious effort he laughed harshly.

"You are disposed to be highly melodramatic, my dear Billie, but unfortunately your att.i.tude is without justification. No such interview as you describe took place. I suppose it is useless for me to a.s.sure you of this, but it must have existed solely in the imagination of your informant--if you had such an informant! I will leave you now, but I beg that you will reflect upon the bargain I have offered you. Wild accusations will not serve to turn the point at issue, and for your own sake I advise you to think well. Au revoir!"

He bent to the saddle in a mocking obeisance and his horse leaped forward beneath the touch of the spurs.

Willa watched until he had disappeared between the leafless trees, then slowly moved off down a side-path.

She had warned him now. Her cards were on the table and he knew the strength of the hand she held against him. But what of his own? To what length would he, could he go in the contest which from that moment would be to the death between them? What did his vague threat mean?

CHAPTER XIV

THE KNIGHT ERRANT ONCE MORE

"We'll be late," Angie observed as she and Willa waited in the drawing-room for the rest of the family. It was the first remark she had voluntarily addressed to her cousin since she had come upon the tete-a-tete in the library. "Not that I care, of course, these dinners are always stupid, but the Erskines are so horribly particular. I've heard that the Bishop was late once and they went in without him."

Willa smiled.

"I wonder who will be there?"

"The same old crowd, I suppose," Angie shrugged. "For heaven's sake, Willa, if they send you in again with Harrington Chase, don't monopolize him as you did at the Wadleighs'. It's horribly bad form; I wonder that mother didn't tell you."

"Did I monopolize him? I wasn't conscious of it," Willa said reflectively. "He interests me."

"Evidently!" Angie sneered. "So do a few others, I imagine, but you shouldn't show it so plainly. I admit that you've gotten on very well so far, but your methods are horribly crude, still."

"My methods?" Willa was honestly puzzled. "I wasn't aware that I had any. When people bore me I let them alone; but those I find interesting for one reason or another I listen to. Is it crude to discriminate?"

Angie bit her lip.

"You can be very simple and nave when you want to!" she burst out.

"But do reserve it for outsiders, and spare us! I know you for what you are: sly and sneaking and mean! Your cheap, common little airs and graces don't deceive me, they only disgust me more and more! I wish Mr. North had left you where he found you, with your gamblers and horse-thieves and roustabouts!"

"So do I," Willa retorted frankly. "They were men, anyway. You are unjust because you are hurt, and I am sorry for you. I wish you could understand, but I am afraid you will not believe me. Mr. Wiley----"

"Will you kindly leave his name out of this discussion?" demanded Angie. "I am not in the least jealous, I a.s.sure you! He is nothing to me, I merely object to the underhand way you maneuvered to receive him alone. That sort of thing may be all right where you came from, but it is a little bit too raw to put in practice here."

The appearance of the others brought the quarrel to a close and they went out to the waiting limousine in a constrained silence. Mrs.

Halstead glanced from her daughter's flushed face to Willa's pale one, and her lips tightened. Had Angie been foolish enough to betray herself to this interloper?

Willa was sincerely distressed. There had never been any real congeniality between the two girls, but her heart ached for the other's evident suffering. Her own conscience was not quite clear for she had permitted Wiley to show his hand without stopping to think of Angie, so determined had she been to learn the depths to which this man would descend in his ruthless self-seeking. She had weighed her cousin shrewdly and she did not believe her capable of deep and lasting affection, yet she shuddered at the thought of any girl's heart in Starr Wiley's keeping.

They were late, as Angie had prophesied. The Erskine drawing-room was crowded, and Willa stared about blankly, her mind still burdened with her cousin's resentment. Then all at once she became conscious of a tall figure which disengaged itself from a nearby group and came eagerly forward.

Mechanically she held out her hand, and a voice sounded in her ears which drove all else from her thoughts and sent the hot-blood flooding her cheeks and neck in a crimson tide.

"We meet again, Miss Murdaugh. I told you that it would be soon!"

She found herself looking up into Kearn Thode's eyes, and the wonder of it held her dumb. As unconscious as a child of the instinctive movement, she extended both hands, and he caught and pressed them tightly for a moment before releasing them.

"Mr. Thode! I had almost given up hope." The words sprang to her lips. "I thought you would come before and I used to look about for you everywhere we went at first. It was silly, of course, for I knew that you had your work to do down there, but it would have been nice to see a really familiar face."

The young engineer, too, flushed.

"I meant to come before, but I was delayed----" He broke off. "Was it so awful then, the first plunge? May I remind you that you have fulfilled my prophecy? Just to look at you now makes me half believe those Limasito days were a dream!"

"They're still real to me," Willa said gravely. "They are the only real things and real people I have known. All this up here--oh! it's very pleasant, of course, and new and amusing, but it doesn't reach deep down. It doesn't seem to mean anything."

"So soon?" He raised his eyebrows in whimsical dismay. "My sister wrote me of your success and I was very glad. I knew it would not change you, but I did not think the glamour would wear off so quickly."

"Your sister?" Willa cried. "I'm so sorry that I only met her once.

She dined with us, but since then I have not seen her. I should like to have known her better."

"She called twice, but you were not at home. After that she went South and she has only just returned. May I bring her to call to-morrow?"

"I shall be delighted," Willa paused, regarding him with a little, puzzled frown. "Do you know you have changed, somehow, Mr. Thode? You are ever so much thinner, and pale beneath your tan, and you look--oh, almost as if you had been suffering! Am I imagining things, or have you been ill?"

"I had an accident just after you left Limasito. It was nothing serious, just a slight concussion, but it laid me up for some weeks,"

Thode replied easily. "That is what delayed my work and prevented my return before."

He looked beyond her as he spoke, and his face darkened swiftly.

Willa, noting the transition, glanced over her shoulder to see Starr Wiley, smiling and urbane, standing just within the doorway.

"Another reminder of Limasito," she remarked. "A most unwelcome one.

But tell me about your accident. I am so sorry----"