“No, no, Señor Judge! It is not right that my husband should die,” she cried out in Spanish. “He was made to steal the mare, and the man who hired him to do it and brought all this trouble upon us—he is the one who should die! There he sits over there! Señor Jenkins, Don Rutherford Jenkins! He is the one who made my husband steal the mare, who gave him money to do it, because he had a grudge against Señor Conrad; and he is the one—”
Sheriff Tillinghurst, his hand on her shoulder, was urging her to sit down, her husband was ordering her to stop, and there was a sudden hubbub all over the room. The judge rapped on his desk and threatened to have the room cleared. Jenkins sat quite still, glaring wrathfully at Bancroft. Conrad clenched his fist, his blue eyes blazing as he exploded an oath into Pendleton’s ear; it was his first intimation that the man from Las Vegas had been behind the attempted theft of his mare.
Jenkins was waiting for Bancroft at the door of the bank. “I want to see you at once, in private,” he said curtly, and without a word the banker led the way to his office. “A nice trick you played me,” Jenkins began, his voice hot and sneering. “I thought of going straight to Conrad; and that’s what I ought to have done, to serve you right.”
“Well, why didn’t you?” Bancroft asked, impassively.
Jenkins took quick alarm. Had the young ranchman, with his impetuous loyalty, told his friend what had happened in the Albuquerque hotel? But perhaps Bancroft was only bluffing, in which case he himself could bluff as well as another. “I didn’t because I thought it would be the square thing to see you first, and find out if you have any explanation to offer of that woman’s performance. Unless you can satisfy me you had nothing to do with it, I shall see Conrad and tell him everything he doesn’t know about you before I leave town to-night.”
Bancroft reflected. If Jenkins approached Curtis in that young man’s present mood there was ample likelihood that the blackmailer would never trouble him again. Yet there was the chance that he might say in time to save himself the word that would stay Conrad’s hand. He dared not take the chance.
“I advise you,” he said slowly, “if you value a whole skin, not to go near Curt Conrad while he is in the state of mind in which I just left him. As for Señora Melgares, are you crazy enough to suppose I had anything to do with that?”
“It’s evident, Bancroft, that you put her up to something you were afraid to do yourself. You wanted to put me in a hole, and you got her to do it for you.”
Bancroft made a gesture of annoyance. “Oh, well, if you’ve got no more sabe than that—” he began, but went on quietly, “I give you my word of honor—”