XIX CHESLEY SYKES UNCOVERS HIS HAND

The night of the day upon which Mary McClure hunted the bird of the coulee, an interesting council was held in the realty office of Reddy Sykes. The councillors comprised McClure, Foyle and the agent himself. They sat about the flat-topped desk, three shadows in the blue fog of the dim lamplight. There were the usual convivial evidences, Foyle having been the first to arrive at that affable condition obtaining in the mazy borderlands of sobriety and inebriety.

"Pards!" said he, smashing the desk with his open hand, "I'm taking yer lead and tickled to do it. Yer shore handing me the whole deck. I'll see that Ford gets his little share all right and a bit over."

"You've tumbled, Foyle," replied Sykes. "You have been mighty apt at getting the hang of things. You have nothing to do but sit tight. I give my cheerful and professional guarantee there isn't a flaw in the deal. If Pullar is fool enough to hold you off we'll turn on the screw and evict him. The law is the prettiest, most efficient automatic instrument invented by the genius of that good fellow, man. The law is behind us everywhere. Don't you do any talking. Meanwhile, mosey around and make yourself generally useful. That bunch of scrub out of Athabasca Landing won't need your tender offices any more. Leave it to Pullar and Son. They are mighty good farmers."

"Ha! That's the big noise!" agreed Foyle, with a chuckle. "I've taken to the climate hereabouts. Got to stay. Doctor's orders. Ha, ha! You'll find Hank Foyle sticking around any old time you want him."

"You're a good sort," commended Sykes warmly. "I'll want the help of a reliable man in a day or two. In fact I'll want you bad, Hank."

"Put it here," cried Foyle, springing to his feet with extended hand. "I'm spoiling for exercise. Used to scrubbing, you know. Anything you want done kind of quiet-like just drop a wink."

"Hank, you're a game sport," was the hearty response. Then he added: "You're a marked man. I'll trail you when I want you. And now, this ends our confab for the present. Rob and I have a pile of work to go through before we get out of here to-night. You are overdue at the Dominion House. Bye, bye!"

Foyle laughed good-naturedly.

"I'll scoot," said he. "And don't forget I'm handy when you want a leg up."

For a considerable time after he left there was silence between the partners. Then McClure fixed his eyes curiously on Sykes. There was something in his companion's eyes he had never seen there before. He instantly realized that something momentous was being debated in the mind of the agent.

"Pulling a bluff on Hank just now?" was his quizz.

"Better have an eye-opener, Rob," was the reply, as he pushed a glass and bottle to his companion's elbow. "You are keen enough on some things and mighty dense on others. I have a surprise for you. In a few days I am pulling down my shingle."

McClure knit his eyebrows in perplexity.

"This is one thing you've been hopelessly opaque on, Rob," said he as he casually filled his own glass. "Did you expect I had come to stay?"

"No-o," was the slow reply. "I knew you had a card up your sleeve. I hold no hand in the game."

Sykes smiled.

"A clear case of cobwebs," observed the other to himself. "You are in this game very much and have been all along. There will be nothing obscure in your mind as to my intentions when I'm through with you to-night. Since the onus of revelation is upon me you will maintain a purely receptive attitude. This is coming to me.

"Now to begin. Here are some photographs. You have heard of John Sykes, millionaire broker? Here he is and there is the mater. This is our hang-out on the Crescent. John Sykes is a rather close relative of mine. Here is the prospectus of Sykes and Sykes, the new partnership replacing John Sykes. I hold a third of the stock, the old man the balance."

Sykes paused while the other was examining the photographs. McClure was visibly impressed. The faces looking at him were handsomely autocratic. John Sykes had a set to his jaw that was familiar.

"They have some class," said he, handing back the photographs. "This looks like the firm may have a pretty tidy turnover."

He continued to make a careful perusal of the prospectus.

"Cold figures," agreed Sykes. "We have the best connections, private wires through to London, New York, etc., all of which means a big place in the financial world. Here are our ratings."

McClure looked them over, his eyes evincing the most intense interest. Before he could speak Sykes thrust into his hand a paper.

"A little bit of Who's Who? Read it over; it will acquaint you with public opinion. It speaks well of us."

As McClure finished he looked up, his eye fascinated by some alluring mental object. Sykes was sitting back nonchalantly in his swivel chair, his partially emptied glass poised in his hand. He observed his companion with a smile.

"What do you make of it all?" was his question.

"It is a great surprise to me and yet—I long ago surmised something like this. I knew of John Sykes as a prominent financier, but had not the faintest idea there was any connection between you."

"There may not be," said Sykes, with a peculiar laugh. "I may be faking. It would be easy to frame up a setting like this."

McClure shook his head.

"You look too much like John Sykes. He is the only man I have ever seen with a jaw like yours."

Sykes laughed silently at the personal allusion as he handed over another photograph.

"Here," said he, "is a picture the mater insisted on having."

It was a likeness of himself and his mother.

"I'll complete this personal art exhibition by troubling you to run through this folio."

It was a set of athletic photographs, splendid pictures of an eight-oared crew. In the first a superb figure stood before him holding a long scull. In the second the athlete was seated in a single shell, his sculls poised for the long sweep. There were others of the "Eight" in various poses of rest and action, several with the setting of foreign regattas. One caught the crew sweeping along the Thames. The athlete was Sykes.

"McClure!" said he seriously, "I had a fairly free fling in the younger days. But I kept the going under hand. Do you think the type of physical man you see there would go very far wrong?"

McClure laughed in some embarrassment.

"No use putting such a decision up to me," said he. "But you shape up prime in your racing stumps."

"That will do," commented Sykes with a grin. "The art display is over. You may think this irrelevant to the business in hand. Perhaps it is. At any rate keep everything you have learned in the back of your head while I spiel a bit.

"You are right in your guess. I am not in Pellawa to push petty finance. I am here hunting the biggest game that runs. We have been associated in some rustic ventures and they have not all come through. Forget it. These have been trivial undertakings. Study that Who's Who? and you'll find that I get every big thing I go after. I am after the biggest thing right now I have ever set out to lift. You probably can tell me what it is."

McClure shook his head.

"I am not guessing to-night," said he, holding Sykes' glance.

"Then prepare for a sweeping away of all cobwebs. My sole object in this visit to Pellawa, Rob, is your daughter, Miss Mary McClure. I have been playing the game for that stake right through. The time has come for a show-down. It is up to us to deal a new hand. I have approached your girl from every conceivable angle. She is obdurate. There is a mighty good reason. She is the victim of a silly infatuation. She has a local rube."

McClure sprang to his feet.

"It's a lie!" was the swift retort.

Sykes smiled darkly, shaking his head.

"No, Rob, this is not hearsay. This is personal knowledge. I hold the facts and I will lay them before you—later. There is this infatuation. These youthful attachments seldom result in happy matrimonial alliances. This amour is no more promising than any other. It is not disturbing and need have no undesirable results if we act quickly. I am willing to accept Mary on any terms and by means of any expedient. I offer her everything a woman could desire. Give me your complete co?peration in my plan to gain my purpose and I promise you unheard-of compensation. Just a moment!"

He lifted his hand silencing McClure, who was about to speak.

"I have told you to listen while I spiel. That is the only thing for you to do yet. I want you to be confident of this. With Mary as my wife, she will gain everything and lose nothing. For yourself it means a chance that does not come to one man in a million.

"I have watched you, Rob McClure, as you went to it in this world of small farmers. You are too big a man for Pellawa. Don't misunderstand me. I do not propose to flatter you. What I am about to propose is frankly my own project to gain my personal purposes. Were it not for this I certainly would not dream of handing out the deal I am going to offer you. But the fact remains. You have the gray matter to come through if you decide to avail yourself of this opportunity. You will be at home in the big financial world. Take a look at that rating."

He handed his companion a certified document.

"A third of that is mine. That gets me into seven figures. What is your own rating, land and all?"

McClure calculated swiftly.

"Roughly, seventy-five thousand."

"Rather a difference! However, it is not your fault. It is your fate. You have done wonderfully well. But you have been playing a small game. I had the luck to be reared in a bigger world. The pater assures me that I have added a million to the total during my university years when I had been supposedly engaged in the serious task of reading law. You may think this egotism or even bluff. Perhaps it is."

McClure read the fellow's face. He was instantly convinced of the truth of his words. He was silent.

"Now, Rob!" said Sykes, levelling at the other a glance at once piercing and calculating. "Take in what I am about to say. It means tremendous things for you. At the same time what may seem remarkable to you is as nothing to me compared with the big thing I am out after. Help me to get this thing and—— But wait a minute. My rating upsets yours thirty to one. How would a ratio of fifty-fifty place you? Think in the totals. A million and a quarter! You will never reach that in this little world of Pellawa. Never. Yet that would be commensurate with your sheer ability. Are you ready to take in that dream? Listen, Rob McClure! It is yours now, to-day. I have an immense mellon. I will cut that mellon exactly in half and give you one half for the hand of Mary McClure. I offer you a partnership on the basis of fifty-fifty. To show that I mean business, I will give half the legal grip even before Mary becomes my wife. The balance after. There shall be this one stipulation only. The partnership is conditioned on the fact that Mary joins hands with me in a legal marriage."

Sykes ceased to talk.

McClure was mute, the great eyes darting flames. Sykes knew that the crucial moment had arrived. For months he had fostered this friendship, spun his web. Would the victim break through the mesh and go free? The farmer looked at him, his face convulsed in conflict. At one instant the eagerness of an overmastering ambition looked out craftily; the next it was swept with a mighty anger. While the fierce debate raged, Sykes addressed him in a low, steadying voice.

"Rob," said he considerately, "this is a fairly sizable proposition. Don't make a snap decision and regret—anything. Keep the lid on a little longer. You have not yet heard all. You have not learned who is the rube that has fascinated Mary. Perhaps you already know or can guess?"

"I will not guess," he flung out fiercely. "There is nothing in it. If there had been, Mary would have let me know long ago. She has never hinted such an attachment."

"You are logical, Rob. But you are wrong. You have hit the wrong premise. Sometimes a good girl is induced into a clandestine amour. It has often happened. It has happened now. Unsympathetic parents are not auspicious persons in which to confide the tender sentiments. The parent might have a positive hostility to the dear object of one's regard. This is pointedly true in your own case. I know there is no love lost between you. And now you know the party."

McClure leaned forward, a sudden intelligence flashing a wild light in his eye.

"You don't mean——?"

McClure read Sykes' cold, bright eyes. He understood.

"It is Ned Pullar?"

"Pullar's the man, Ned Pullar," was the deliberate agreement.

Slowly the indecision vanished from McClure's face and in its place appeared a black resolution. A malignant light darted from his eyes. Seizing the neck of the black bottle before him, he clutched it menacingly, as if about to hurl it at his companion.

"Rather be excused," said Sykes, lifting a defensive hand. "Remember I am not Pullar."

Banging the bottle on the desk, McClure whirled about and began pacing about the room, muttering vengeful execration, oblivious apparently of the other's presence.

At this moment of his fell triumph, the real Sykes looked forth once more. A repulsive delight played in his eyes and they shut to, in a sort of gloating muse. While the evil light glittered through the lashes, an unsightly grin contorted his face, drawing slowly to a wolfish snarl about mouth and nose. The face was grotesque and hideous to look upon. Could he have trained one rational, though fleeting glance upon that unspeakable face, McClure would surely have been forewarned. But he was blind with rage. Out of the fury of that fatal moment flew the foul bird of a pitiless resolution. He chuckled balefully. At the sound Sykes laughed softly. Ripping out an oath McClure whirled about. Thrusting his head forward he searched Sykes' face with blazing eyes. He was too slow, however. The malign thing had hidden itself with swift adroitness. What he saw was the open, sympathetic countenance of a gentleman.

"I want the facts," challenged McClure. "What do you know?"

Dissembling his intensity of interest, Sykes divulged what information he deemed expedient to his purpose. The effect on McClure was powerfully cumulative.

"Look here," said the agent finally, picking up a photograph of the eight-oared crew. "You did not detect this party."

McClure looked surprised to recognize the face of Ned Pullar.

"Our coach selected Pullar for number seven to hold my oar," explained Sykes. "Until Pullar caught the place we had trouble holding balance. With his arrival the kink smoothed out magically and we went overseas a wonder crew. He held my stroke. Pullar is the only man who ever did. You have not yet realized what this man Pullar is capable of. He takes the inside every time and sets a killing pace. He'll beat you out now like he faded you in the threshing game unless you take my way to kill him. I'll come across with the specific code any time you want it. You must act swiftly and stick it. The stake is big. For me, it means one thing only—Mary McClure. For Mary, it means a brilliant chance. For you it means a flying start in the big world where big men hold the throttle. For both you and me it means the smashing of Pullar."

He paused. The two men eyed each other, McClure with flaming, searching glance, Sykes with steady, persistent gaze and eyes that poured upon the other the mesmeric power of will.

"I have had my say," said Sykes quietly, holding that compelling glance. "I have been straight. It is up to you."

For a long time there was silence in the room. Then McClure spoke slowly, weighing each word, held from a full committal by some sudden instinct of caution.

"I believe you, Sykes," was his low-voiced admission. "At present I don't see anything against your plan. But it is a big thing, and you have rushed it up to me. I want time to think. I'll not say just now whether I'll hook up with your offer or not. I have a stipulation to hand you before we go ahead. You must see the chit yourself and make her a fair proposition. Put it straight to her and make it as rosy as you can. If she throws you down I'll probably take a hand."

Sykes nodded his head in reluctant acquiescence.

"Very well," said he. "I'll meet you. I'll talk to the little girl, though I know it will do no good. It may stampede her into some decision that will queer our game. She is no fool."

"I insist," said McClure firmly. "Get busy. In the meantime I'll catch my feet. For to-night I have had enough."

Seizing his hat, McClure took his abrupt departure.

As he shut the door Sykes put out the lamp. Taking a cigarette from his pocket he struck a match and proceeded to light it. In the red glow his face seemed to float out of the black pall of the night, an impish thing from the pit. The grin of the wolf snarled off the lips as they opened to emit a soft, chuckling laugh.