Tangled Trails: A Western Detective Story

  CHAPTER XIV

  A FRIEND IN NEED

  The rest of the coroner's inquest was anticlimax. Those who had cometo tickle their palates with excitement tasted only one other moment ofit.

  "According to your own story you must have been in your uncle'sapartment at least a quarter of an hour, Mr. Lane," said theprosecuting attorney. "What were you doing there all that time?"

  "Most of the time I was waitin' for him to return."

  "Why did you not call up the police at once, as soon as you found thecrime had been committed?"

  "I suppose I lost my head an' went panicky. I heard some one at thedoor, an' I did not want to be found there. So I ran into the bedroom,put out the light, an' left by the fire escape."

  "Was that the conduct one would expect of an innocent man?"

  "It was the action of an innocent man."

  "You don't look like a man that would lose his head, Mr. Lane."

  A smile lit the brown face of the witness. "Perhaps I wouldn't where Icome from, but I'm not used to city ways. I didn't know what to do.So I followed my instinct an' bolted. I was unlucky enough to be seen."

  "Carry a gun, Mr. Lane?"

  "No." He corrected himself. "Sometimes I do on the range."

  "Own one, I suppose?"

  "Two. A .45 and a .38."

  "Bring either of them to Denver?"

  "No, sir."

  "Did you see any gun of any kind in your uncle's rooms--either arevolver or an automatic?"

  "I did not."

  "That's all, sir."

  The jury was out something more than an hour. The news of the verdictwas brought to Kirby at the city jail by his cousin James.

  "Jury finds that Uncle James came to his death from the effect ofeither a blow on the head by some heavy instrument, or a bullet firedat close quarters by some unknown person," James said.

  "Good enough. Might have been worse for me," replied Kirby.

  "Yes. I've talked with the district attorney and think I can arrangefor bond. We're going to take it up with the court to-morrow. Myopinion is that the Hulls did this. All through his testimony thefellow sweated fear. I've put it in the hands of a private detectiveagency to keep tabs on him."

  The cattleman smiled ruefully. "Trouble is I'm the only witness totheir panic right after the murder. Wish it had been some one else.I'm a prejudiced party whose evidence won't count for much. You'reright. They've somethin' to do with it. In their evidence theyshifted the time back thirty-five minutes so as to get me intoApartment 12 that much earlier. Why? If I could answer that question,I could go a long way toward solvin' the mystery of who killed UncleJames an' why he did it."

  "Probably. As I see it, we have three leads to go on. One is that theguilty man is Hull. A second possibility is the unknown man from DryValley. A third is Horikawa."

  "How about Horikawa? Did you know him well?"

  "One never knows an Oriental. Perhaps I'm prejudiced because I used tolive in California, but I never trust a Japanese fully. His sense ofright and wrong is so different from mine. Horikawa is a quiet littlefellow whose thought processes I don't pretend to understand."

  "Why did he run away if he had nothin' to conceal?"

  "Looks bad. By the way, a Japanese house-cleaner was convictedrecently of killing a woman for whom he was working. He ran away, too,and was brought back later."

  "Well, I don't know a thing about Japs except that they're goodworkers. But there's one thing about this business that puzzles me.This murder doesn't look to me like a white man's job. An American badman kills an' is done with it. But whoever did this aimed to torturean' then kill, looks like. If not, why did they tie him up first?"

  James nodded, reflectively. "Maybe something in what you say.Orientals strike me as being kind of unhuman, if you know what I mean.Maybe they have the red Indian habit of torture in Japan."

  "Never heard of it if they have, but I've got a kinda notion--picked itup in my readin'--that Asiatics will go a long way to square a grudge.If this Horikawa had anything against Uncle James he might have plannedthis revenge an' taken the two thousand dollars to help his getaway."

  "Yes, he might."

  "Anyhow, I've made up my mind to one thing. You can 'most always getthe truth when you go after it good an' hard. I'm goin' to find outwho did this thing an' why."

  James Cunningham looked into his cousin's face. A strong man himself,he recognized strength in another. Into the blue-gray eyes of the manfrom Twin Buttes had come a cold steely temper that transformed thegay, boyish face. The oil broker knew Lane had no love for his uncle.His resolution was probably based on a desire to clear his own name.

  "I'm with you in that," he said quietly, and his own dark eyes werehard as jade. "We'll work this out together if you say so, Kirby."

  The younger man nodded. "Suits me fine." His face softened. "Youmentioned three leads. Most men would have said four. On the face ofit, of the evidence at hand, the guilty man is sittin' right heretalkin' with you. You know that the dead man an' I had a bitterfeelin' against each other. You know there was a new cause of troublebetween us, an' that I told you I was goin' to get justice out of himone way or another. I'm the only man known to have been in his roomslast night. Accordin' to the Hulls I must 'a' been there when he waskilled. Then, as a final proof of my guilt, I slide out by the fireescape to get away without bein' seen. I'll say the one big leadpoints straight to Kirby Lane."

  "Yes, but there's such a thing as character," James answered. "It'swritten in your face that you couldn't have done it. That's why thejury said a person unknown."

  "Yes, but the jury didn't know what you knew, that I had a fresh causeof quarrel with Uncle James. Do you believe me absolutely? Don't youwaver at all?"

  "I don't think you had any more to do with it than I had myself,"answered the older cousin instantly, with conviction.

  Kirby gave him his hand impulsively. "You'll sure do to ride the riverwith, James."