Tangled Trails: A Western Detective Story

  CHAPTER XVIII

  "BURNIN' A HOLE IN MY POCKET"

  Cole Sanborn passed through the Welcome Arch at the station carrying animitation-leather suitcase. He did not take a car, but walked upSeventeenth Avenue as far as the Markham Hotel. Here he registered,left his luggage, and made some inquiries over the telephone.

  Thirty minutes later he was shaking hands with Kirby Lane.

  "You dawg-goned old hellamile, what you mean comin' down here an'gettin' throwed in the calaboose?" he demanded, thumping his friend onthe shoulder with a heavy brown fist.

  "I'm sure enough glad to see you, Mr. Champeen-of-the-World," Kirbyanswered, falling into the easy vernacular of the outdoor country."Come to the big town to spend that thousand dollars you won the otherday?"

  "Y'betcha; it's burnin' a hole in my pocket. Say, you blamed ol'horntoad, howcome you not to stay for the finals? Folks was plumbdisappointed we didn't ride it off."

  "Tell you about that later. How long you figurin' to stay in Denver,Cole?"

  "I dunno. A week, mebbe. Fellow at the Empress wants me to go on thatcircuit an' do stunts, but I don't reckon I will. Claims he's got atrained bronc I can show on."

  "Me, I'm gonna be busy as a dog with fleas," said Kirby. "I got tofind out who killed my uncle. Suspicion rests on me, on a man namedHull, on the Jap servant, an' on Wild Rose."

  "On Wild Rose!" exclaimed Cole, in surprise. "Have they gone crazy?"

  "The police haven't got to her yet, old-timer. But their suspicionswill be headed that way right soon if I don't get busy. She thinks herevidence will clear me. It won't. It'll add a motive for me to havekilled him. The detectives will figure out we did it together, Rosean' me."

  "Hell's bells! Ain't they got no sense a-tall?"

  Kirby looked at his watch. "I'm headed right now for the apartmentwhere my uncle was killed. Gonna look the ground over. Wanta comealong?"

  "Surest thing you know. I'm in this to a fare-you-well. Go ahead.I'll take yore dust."

  The lithe, long-bodied man from Basin, Wyoming, clumped along in hishigh-heeled boots beside his friend. Both of them were splendidexamples of physical manhood. The sun tan was on their faces, theripple of health in their blood. But there was this difference betweenthem, that while it was written on every inch of Sanborn that he livedastride a cow-pony, Kirby might have been an irrigation engineer or amining man from the hills. He had neither the bow legs nor theungraceful roll of the man who rides most of his waking hours. Hisclothes were well made and he knew how to carry them.

  As they walked across to Fourteenth Street, Kirby told as much of thestory as he could without betraying Esther McLean's part in it. Hetrusted Sanborn implicitly, but the girl's secret was not his to tell.

  From James Cunningham Kirby had got the key of his uncle's apartment.His cousin had given it to him a little reluctantly.

  "The police don't want things moved about," he had explained. "Theywould probably call me down if they knew I'd let you in."

  "All I want to do is to look the ground over a bit. What the policedon't know won't worry 'em any," the cattleman had suggested.

  "All right." James had shrugged his shoulders and turned over the key."If you think you can find out anything I don't see any objection toyour going in."

  Sanborn applied his shrewd common sense to the problem as he listenedto Kirby.

  "Looks to me like you're overlookin' a bet, son," he said. "What aboutthis Jap fellow? Why did he light out so _pronto_ if he ain't in thisthing?"

  "He might 'a' gone because he's a foreigner an' guessed they'd throw iton him. They would, too, if they could."

  "Shucks! He had a better reason than that for cuttin' his stick. Surehad. He's in this somehow."

  "Well, the police are after him. They'll likely run him down one o'these days. Far as I'm concerned I've got to let his trail go for thepresent. There are possibilities right here on the ground that haven'tbeen run down yet. For instance, Rose met a man an' a woman comin'down the stairs while she was goin' up. Who were they?"

  "Might 'a' been any o' the tenants here."

  "Yes, but she smelt a violet perfume that both she an' I noticed in theapartment. My hunch is that the man an' the woman were comin' from myuncle's rooms."

  "Would she recognize them? Rose, I mean?" asked Sanborn.

  "No: it was on the dark stairs."

  "Hmp! Queer they didn't come forward an' tell they had met a womangoin' up. That is, if they hadn't anything to do with the crime."

  "Yes. Of course there might be other reasons why they must keep quiet.Some love affair, for instance."

  "Sure. That might be, an' that would explain why they went down thedark stairs an' didn't take the elevator."

  "Just the same I'd like to find out who that man an' woman are," Kirbysaid. He lifted his hand in a small gesture. "This is the ParadoxApartments."

  A fat man rolled out of the building just as they reached the steps.He pulled up and stared down at Kirby.

  "What--what--?" His question hung poised.

  "What am I doin' out o' jail, Mr. Hull? I'm lookin' for the man thatkilled my uncle," Kirby answered quietly, looking straight at him.

  "But--"

  "Why did you lie about the time when you saw me that night?"

  Hull got excited at once. His eyes began to dodge. "I ain't got aword to say to you--not a word--not a word!" He came puffing down thesteps and went waddling on his way.

  "What do you think of that prize package, Cole?" asked Lane, his eyesfollowing the man.

  "Guilty as hell," said the bronco buster crisply.

  "I'd say so too," agreed Kirby. "I don't know as we need to look muchfarther. My vote is for Mr. Cass Hull--with reservations."