Tangled Trails

by Raine, William MacLeod

  "Saw 'em as they passed under the street light about twenty feet from our window. We couldn't 'a' been mistook as to the dude fellow. O' course we don't know Miss Harriman, but the woman walkin' beside the young fellow surely looked like the one that fainted at the inquest when you was testifyin' how you found yore uncle dead in the chair. I reckon when you said it she got to seein' a picture of one of the young fellows gunnin' their uncle."

  "One of them. You just said James wasn't with her."

  "No, he come first. Maybe three-four minutes before the others."

  "What time did he reach the Paradox?"

  "It might 'a' been ten or maybe only five minutes after we left yore uncle's room. The wife an' me was talkin' it over whether I hadn't ought to slip back upstairs and untie yore uncle before they got here. Then he come an' that settled it. I couldn't go."

  "Can you give me the exact time he reached the apartment house?"

  "Well, I'll say it was a quarter to ten."

  "Do you know or are you guessin'?"

  "I know. Our clock struck the quarter to whilst we looked at them comin' down the street."

  "At them or at him?"

  "At him, I mean."

  "Can't stick to his own story," Olson grunted.

  "A slip of the tongue. I meant him."

  "And Jack and the lady were three or four minutes behind him?" Kirby reiterated.

  "Yes."

  "Was your clock exactly right?"

  "May be five minutes fast. It gains."

  "You know they turned in at the Paradox?"

  "All three of 'em. Mrs. Hull she opened the door a mite an' saw 'em go up in the elevator. It moves kinda slow, you know. The heavy-set young fellow went up first. Then two-three minutes later the elevator went down an' the dude an' the young lady went up."

  Kirby put his foot on the cement bench and rested his forearm on his knee. The cattleman's steady eyes were level with those of the unhappy man making the confession.

  "Did you at any time hear the sound of a shot?"

  "Well, I—I heard somethin'. At the time I thought maybe it was a tire in the street blowin' out. But come to think of it later we figured it was a shot."

  "You don't know for sure."

  "Well, come to that I—I don't reckon I do. Not to say for certain sure."

  A tense litheness had passed into the rough rider's figure. It was as though every sense were alert to catch and register impressions.

  "At what time was it you thought you heard this shot?"

  "I dunno, to the minute."

  "Was it before James Cunningham went up in the elevator? Was it between the time he went up an' the other two went up? Or was it after Jack Cunningham an' Miss Harriman passed on the way up?"

  "Seems to me it was—"

  "Hold on." Kirby raised a hand in protest. "I don't want any guesses.

  You know or you don't. Which is it?"

  "I reckon it was between the time yore cousin James went up an' the others followed."

  "You reckon? I'm askin' for definite information. A man's life may hang on this." The cattleman's eyes were ice-cold.

  Hull swallowed a lump in his fat throat before he committed himself.

  "Well, it was."

  "Was between the two trips of the elevator, you mean?"

  "Yes."

  "Your wife heard this sound, too?"

  "Yep. We spoke of it afterward."

  "Do you know anything else that could possibly have had any bearing on my uncle's death?"

  "No, sir. Honest I don't."

  Olson shot a question at the man on the grill. "Did you kill the Jap servant, too, as well as his boss?"

  "I didn't kill either the one or the other, so help me."

  "Do you know anything at all about the Jap's death? Did you see anything suspicious going on at any time?" Kirby asked.

  "No, sir. Nothin' a-tall."

  The rough rider signaled the taxicab, which was circling the lake at the foot of the hill. Presently it came up the incline and took on its passengers.

  "Drive to the Paradox Apartments," Kirby directed.

  He left Hull outside in the cab while he went in to interview his wife.

  The lean woman with the forbidding countenance opened the door.

  Metaphorically speaking, Kirby landed his knockout instantly. "I've come to see you on serious business, Mrs. Hull. Your husband has confessed how he did for my uncle. Unless you tell the whole truth he's likely to go to the death cell."

  She gasped, her fear-filled eyes fastened on him. Her hand moved blindly to the side of the door for support.

  CHAPTER XXXVIII

  A FULL MORNING

  But only for an instant. A faint color dribbled back into her yellow cheeks. He could almost see courage flowing again into her veins.

  "That's a lie," she said flatly.

  "I don't expect you to take my word. Hull is in front of the house here under guard. Come an' see if you doubt it."

  She took him promptly at his suggestion. One look at her husband's fat, huddled figure and stricken face was enough.

  "You chicken-hearted louse," she spat at him scornfully.

  "They had evidence. A man saw us," he pleaded.

  "What man?"

  "This man." His trembling hand indicated Olson. "He was standin' on the fire escape acrost the alley."

  She had nothing to say. The wind had died out of the sails of her anger.

  "We're not goin' to arrest Hull yet—not technically," Kirby explained to her. "I'm arrangin' to hire a private detective to be with him all the time. He'll keep him in sight from mornin' till night. Is that satisfactory, Hull? Or do you prefer to be arrested?"

  The wretched man murmured that he would leave it to Lane.

  "Good. Then that's the way it'll be." Kirby turned to the woman. "Mrs. Hull, I want to ask you a few questions. If you'll kindly walk into the house, please."

  She moved beside him. The shock of the surprise still palsied her will.

  In the main her story corroborated that of Hull. She was not quite sure when she had heard the shot in its relation to the trips of the elevator up and down. The door was closed at the time. They had heard it while standing at the window. Her impression was that the sound had come after James Cunningham had ascended to the floor above.

  Kirby put one question to the woman innocently that sent the color washing out of her cheeks.

  "Which of you went back upstairs to untie my uncle after you had run away in a fright?"

  "N-neither of us," she answered, teeth chattering from sheer funk.

  "I understood Mr. Hull to say—"

  "He never said that. Y-you must be mistaken."

  "Mebbeso. You didn't go back, then?"

  The monosyllable "No" came quavering from her yellow throat.

  "I don't want you to feel that I'm here to take an advantage of you, Mrs. Hull," Kirby said. "A good many have been suspected of these murders. Your husband is one of these suspects. I'm another. I mean to find out who killed Cunningham an' Horikawa. I think I know already. In my judgment your husband didn't do it. If he did, so much the worse for him. No innocent person has anything to fear from me. But this is the point I'm makin' now. If you like I'll leave a statement here signed by me to the effect that neither you nor your husband has confessed killing James Cunningham. It might make your mind a little easier to have it."

  She hesitated. "Well, if you like."

  He stepped to a desk and found paper and pen. "I'll dictate it if you'll write it, Mrs. Hull."

  Not quite easy in her mind, the woman sat down and took the pen he offered.

  "This is to certify—" Kirby began, and dictated a few sentences slowly.

  She wrote the statement, word for word as he gave it, using her left hand. The cattleman signed it. He left the paper with her.

  After the arrangement for the private detective to watch Hull had been made, Olson and Lane walked together to the hotel of the latter.

  "Co
me up to my room a minute and let's talk things over," Kirby suggested.

  As soon as the door was closed, the man from Twin Buttes turned on the farmer and flung a swift demand at him.

  "Now, Olson, I'll hear the rest of your story."

  The eyes of the Swede grew hard and narrow. "What's bitin' you? I've told you my story."

  "Some of it. Not all of it."

  "Whadjamean?"

  "You told me what you saw from the fire escape of the Wyndham, but you didn't tell what you saw from the fire escape of the Paradox."

  "Who says I saw anything from there?"

  "I say so."

  "You tryin' to hang this killin' on me?" demanded Olson angrily.

  "Not if you didn't do it." Kirby looked at him quietly, speculatively, undisturbed by the heaviness of his frown. "But you come to me an' tell the story of what you saw. So you say. Yet all the time you're holdin' back. Why? What's your reason?"

  "How do you know I'm holdin' back?" the ranchman asked sulkily.

  Kirby knew that in his mind suspicion, dread, fear, hatred, and the desire for revenge were once more at open war.

  "I'll tell you what you did that night," answered Kirby, without the least trace of doubt in voice or manner. "When Mrs. Hull pulled down the blind, you ran up to the roof an' cut down the clothes-line. You went back to the fire escape, fixed up some kind of a lariat, an' flung the loop over an abutment stickin' from the wall of the Paradox. You swung across to the fire escape of the Paradox. There you could see into the room where Cunningham was tied to the chair."

  "How could I if the blind was down?"

  "The blind doesn't fit close to the woodwork of the window. Lookin' in from the right, you can see the left half of the room. If you look in from the other side, you see the other part of it. That's just what you did."

  For the moment Olson was struck dumb. How could this man know exactly what he had done unless some one had seen him?

  "You know so much I reckon I'll let you tell the rest," the

  Scandinavian said with uneasy sarcasm.

  "Afraid you'll have to talk, Olson. Either to me or to the Chief at headquarters. You've become a live suspect. Figure it out yourself. You threaten Cunningham by mail. You make threats before people orally. You come to Denver an' take a room in the next house to where he lives. On the night he's killed, by your own admission, you stand on the platform a few feet away an' raise no alarm while you see him slugged. Later, you hear the shot that kills him an' still you don't call the officers. Yet you're so interested in the crime that you run upstairs, cut down the clothes-line, an' at some danger swing over to the Paradox. The question the police will want to know is whether the man who does this an' then keeps it secret may not have the best reason in the world for not wanting it known."

  "What you mean—the best reason in the world?"

  "They'll ask what's to have prevented you from openin' the window an' steppin' in while my uncle was tied up, from shootin' him an' slippin' down the fire escape, an' from walkin' back upstairs to your own room at the Wyndham."

  "Are you claimin' that I killed him?" Olson wanted to know.

  "I'm tellin' you that the police will surely raise the question."

  "If they do I'll tell 'em who did," the rancher blurted out wildly.

  "I'd tell 'em first, it I were in your place. It'll have a lot more weight than if you keep still until your back's against the wall."

  "When I do you'll sit up an' take notice. The man who shot Cunningham is yore own cousin," the Dry Valley man flung out vindictively.

  "Which one?"

  "The smug one—James."

  "You saw him do it?"

  "I heard the shot while I was on the roof. When I looked round the edge of the blind five minutes later, he was goin' over the papers in the desk—and an automatic pistol was there right by his hand."

  "He was alone?"

  "At first he was. In about a minute his brother an' Miss Harriman came into the room. She screamed when she saw yore uncle an' most fainted. The other brother, the young one, kinda caught her an' steadied her. He was struck all of a heap himself. You could see that. He looked at James, an' he said, 'My God, you didn't—' That was all. No need to finish. O' course James denied it. He'd jumped up to help support Miss Harriman outa the room. Maybe a coupla minutes later he came back alone. He went right straight back to the desk, found inside of three seconds the legal document I told you I'd seen his uncle reading glanced it over, turned to the back page, jammed the paper back in the cubby-hole, an' then switched off the light. A minute later the light was switched off in the big room, too. Then I reckoned it was time to beat it down the fire escape. I did. I went back into the Wyndham carryin' the clothes-line under my coat, walked upstairs without meetin' anybody, left the rope on the roof, an' got outa the house without being seen."

  "That's the whole story?" Kirby said.

  "The whole story. I'd swear it on a stack of Bibles."

  "Did you fix the rope for a lariat up on the roof or wait till you came back to the fire escape?"

  "I fixed it on the roof—made the loop an' all there. Figured I might be seen if I stood around too long on the platform."

  "So that you must 'a' been away quite a little while."

  "I reckon so. Prob'ly a quarter of an hour or more."

  "Can you locate more definitely the exact time you heard the shot?"

  "No, I don't reckon I can."

  Kirby asked only one more question.

  "You left next mornin' for Dry Valley, didn't you?"

  "Yes. None o' my business if they stuck Hull for it. He was guilty as sin, anyhow. If he didn't kill the old man, it wasn't because he didn't want to. Maybe he did. The testimony at the inquest, as I read the papers, left it that maybe the blow on the head had killed Cunningham. Anyhow, I wasn't gonna mix myself in it."

  Kirby said nothing. He looked out of the window of his room without seeing anything. His thoughts were focused on the problem before him.

  The other man stirred uneasily. "Think I did it?" he asked.

  The cattleman brought his gaze back to the Dry Valley settler. "You?

  Oh, no! You didn't do it."

  There was such quiet certainty in his manner that Olson drew a deep breath of relief. "By Jupiter, I'm glad to hear you say so. What made you change yore mind?"

  "Haven't changed it. Knew that all the time—well, not all the time. I was millin' you over in my mind quite a bit while you were holdin' out on me. Couldn't be dead sure whether you were hidin' what you knew just to hurt Hull or because of your own guilt."

  "Still, I don't see how you're sure yet. I might 'a' gone in by the window an' gunned Cunningham like you said."

  "Yes, you might have, but you didn't. I'm not goin' to have you arrested, Olson, but I want you to stay in Denver for a day or two until this is settled. We may need you as a witness. It won't be long. I'll see your expenses are paid while you're here."

  "I'm free to come an' go as I please?"

  "Absolutely." Kirby looked at him with level eyes. He spoke quite as a matter of course. "You're no fool, Olson. You wouldn't stir up suspicion against yourself again by runnin' away now, after I tell you that my eye is on the one that did it."

  The Swede started. "You mean—now?"

  "Not this very minute," Kirby laughed. "I mean I've got the person spotted, at least I think I have. I've made a lot of mistakes since I started roundin' up this fellow with the brand of Cain. Maybe I'm makin' another. But I've a hunch that I'm ridin' herd on the right one this time."

  He rose. Olson took the hint. He would have liked to ask some questions, for his mind was filled with a burning curiosity. But his host's manner did not invite them. The rancher left.

  Up and down his room Kirby paced a beat from the window to the door and back again. His mind was busy dissecting, analyzing, classifying. Some one had once remarked that he had a single-track mind. In one sense he had. The habit of it was to follow a train of thought to i
ts logical conclusion. He did not hop from one thing to another inconsequently.

  Just now his brain was working on his cousin James. He went back to the first day of his arrival in Denver and sifted the evidence for and against him. A stream of details, fugitive impressions, and mental reactions flooded through.

  For one of so cold a temperament James had been distinctly friendly to him. He had gone out of his way to find bond for him when he had been arrested. He had tried to smooth over difficulties between him and Jack. But Kirby, against his desire, found practical reasons of policy to explain these overtures. James had known he would soon be released through the efforts of other cattlemen. He had stepped in to win the Wyoming cousin's confidence in order that he might prove an asset rather than a liability to his cause. The oil broker had readily agreed to protect Esther McLean from publicity, but the reason for his forbearance was quite plain now. He had been protecting himself, not her.

  The man's relation to Esther proved him selfish and without principle. He had been willing to let his dead uncle bear the odium of his misdeed. Yet beneath the surface of his cold manner James was probably swept by heady passions. His love for Phyllis Harriman had carried him beyond prudence, beyond honor. He had duped the uncle whose good-will he had carefully fostered for many years, and at the hour of his uncle's death he had been due to reap the whirlwind.

  The problem sifted down to two factors. One was the time element. The other was the temperament of James. A man may be unprincipled and yet draw the line at murder. He may be a seducer and still lack the courage and the cowardice for a cold-blooded killing. Kirby had studied his cousin, but the man was more or less of a sphinx to him. Behind those cold, calculating eyes what was he thinking?

  Only once had he seen him thrown off his poise. That was when Kirby and Rose had met him coming out of the Paradox white and shaken, his arm wrenched and strained. He had been nonplussed at sight of them. For a moment he had let his eyes mirror the dismay of his soul. The explanation he had given was quite inadequate as a cause.

  Twenty-four hours later Kirby had discovered the dead body of the Japanese valet Horikawa. The man had been dead perhaps a day. More hours than one had been spent by Kirby pondering on the possible connection of his cousin's momentary breakdown and the servant's death. Had James come fresh from the murder of Horikawa?