l
that way about it?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

"No. I should have remembered."

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

He shrugged his shoulders.

"If you don't want Hume to know you I most certainly shall not seek to
find 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 smash
Sledge Hume's little game all to flinders. He's counted on you, he's
made sure in some way I don't know. But I am going to know before
long. 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 as
though 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 our
hands 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 ope