stumbled upon the truth about his alibi—even if I didn’t know it myself at the time.”
She jerked around to face her brother.
“Is that on the level?” she asked him.
He sneered at her, and went on feeling with the fingers of one hand the spot on his jaw where my fist had landed.
“I’ll say all I’ve got to say to my lawyer,” he repeated.
“You will?” she shot back at him. “Well, I’ll say what I’ve got to say right now!”
She flung around to face me again.
“Madden is not my brother at all! My name is Ives. Madden and I met in St. Louis about four years ago, drifted around together for a year or so, and then came to Frisco. He was a con man—still is. He made Mr. Gantvoort’s acquaintance six or seven months ago, and was getting him all ribbed up to unload a fake invention on him. He brought him here a couple of times, and introduced me to him as his sister. We usually posed as brother and sister.
“Then, after Mr. Gantvoort had been here a couple times, Madden decided to change his game. He thought Mr. Gantvoort liked me, and that we could get more money out of him by working a fancy sort of badger-game on him. I was to lead the old man on until I had him wrapped around my finger—until we had him tied up so tight he couldn’t get away—had something on him—something good and strong. Then we were going to shake him down for plenty of money.
“Everything went along fine for a while. He fell for me—fell hard. And finally he asked me to marry him. We had never figured on that.