"Here--or let the lady say." Vandeman gave me a queer look and went out. When he was gone, I found Jim Edwards scrabbling for his hat where it had dropped over behind the desk. I put my back against the door and asked, "Is Bronson Vandeman a fatuous fool; or does he take me for one?" "Some men defend their women one way, and some another. Let me out of this, Boyne, before that girl gets here." "She won't come in a hurry," I smiled. "Her husband's pretty free with his promises; but more than likely I'll have to go after her if I want her." "Well?" he looked at me uncomfortably. "Blackmail's a crime, you know, Edwards. A woman capable of it, might be capable of murder." "You've got the wrong word there, Boyne. This wasn't exactly blackmail." "What, then?" "The girl--I never liked her--never thought she was good enough for Worth--but she was engaged to him, and--in this I think she was fighting for her hand." He searched my face and went on cautiously, "You read the diaries. They must have had complaints of her." "They had," I assented. "Anything about money?" I shook my head. "You said there were two entries gone; the first would have told you, I suppose--Before we go further, Boyne, let me make a little explanation to you--for the girl's sake." "Shoot," I said. "It was this way," he sighed. "Thornhill, Ina's father, made fifteen or twenty thousand a year I would say, and the family lived it up. He had a stroke and died in a week's time. Left Mrs. Thornhill with her daughters, her big house, her fine social position--and mighty little to keep it up on. Ina is the eldest. She got the worst of it, because at the first of her being a young lady she was used to having all the money she wanted to spend. The twins were right on her heels; the thing for her to do was to make a good marriage, and make it quick. But she got engaged to Worth; then he went to France. There you were. He might never come back. Tom always hated her; watched her like a hawk; got onto something she--about--" "Out with it," I said. "What? Come down to cases." "Money." He uttered the one word and stood silent. I made a long shot, with, "Mr. Gilbert found she'd been getting money from other men--" "Borrowing, Boyne--they used the word 'borrowed,'" Edwards put in. "It was always Tom's way to summon people as though he had a little private judgment bar, haul them up and lecture them; I suppose he thought he had a special license in her case." "And she went prepared to frame him and bluff him to a standoff. Is that the way you saw it?" "My opinion--what I might think," said Mr. James Edwards of Sunnyvale ranch, "wouldn't be testimony in a court of law. You don't want it, Boyne." "Maybe not," I grunted. "Perhaps I could make as good a guess as you could at what young Mrs. Vandeman's capable of; a dolly face, and behind it the courage of hell." "Boyne," he said, as I left the door free to him, "quit making war on women."