CHAPTER XXI
JAMES LOSES HIS TEMPER
Cole grinned whimsically at his friend.
"Do we light out now or wait for the cops?" he asked.
"We wait. They'd probably find out, anyhow, that we'd been here."
Five minutes later a patrol wagon clanged up to the Paradox. Asergeant of police and two plainclothes men took the elevator. Thesergeant, heading the party, stopped in the doorway of the apartmentand let a hard, hostile eye travel up and down Lane's six feet.
"Oh, it's you," he said suspiciously.
Kirby smiled. "That's right, officer. We've met before, haven't we?"
They had. The sergeant was the man who had arrested him at thecoroner's inquest. It had annoyed him that the authorities had laterreleased the prisoner on bond.
"Have you touched the body or moved anything since you came?" thesergeant demanded.
"No, sir, to both questions, except the telephone when I used it toreach headquarters."
The officer made no answer. He and the detectives went into thebedroom, examined the dead valet's position and clothes, made a tour ofthe rooms, and came back to Lane.
"Who's your friend?" asked the sergeant superciliously.
"His name is Cole Sanborn."
"The champion bronco buster?"
"Yes."
The sergeant looked at Sanborn with increased respect. His eyes wentback to Kirby sullenly.
"What you doing here?"
"We were in my uncle's apartment lookin' things over. We stepped outon the fire escape an' happened to notice this window here was open alittle. It just came over me that mebbe we might discover someevidence here. So I got in by the window, saw the body of the Jap, an'called my friend."
"Some one hire you to hunt up evidence?" the officer wanted to knowwith heavy sarcasm.
"I hired myself. My good name is involved. I'm goin' to see themurderer is brought to justice."
"You are, eh?"
"Yes."
"Well, I'll say you could find him if anybody could."
"You're entitled to your opinion, sergeant, just as I am to mine, butbefore we're through with this case you'll have to admit you've beenwrong."
Lane turned to his friend. "We'll go now, Cole, if you're ready."
The sergeant glared at this cool customer who refused to be appalled atthe position in which he stood. He had half a mind to arrest the managain on the spot, but he was not sure enough of his ground. Not verylong since he had missed a promotion by being overzealous. He did notwant to make the same mistake twice.
The Wyoming men walked across to Seventeenth Street and down it to theEquitable Building. James Cunningham was in his office.
He looked up as they entered, a cold smile on his lips.
"Ah, my energetic cousin," he said, with his habitual touch of irony."What's in the wind now?"
Kirby told him. Instantly James became grave. His irony vanished. Inhis face was a flicker almost of consternation at this follow-upmurder. He might have been asking himself how much more trouble wascoming.
"We'll get the writing translated. You have it with you?" he said.
His eyes ran over the pages Lane handed him. "I know a Jap we can getto read it for us, a reliable man, one who won't talk if we ask him notto."
The broker's desk buzzer rang. He talked for a moment over thetelephone, then hung up again.
"Sorry," Cunningham said, "I'm going to be busy for an hour or two.Going to lunch with Miss Phyllis Harriman. She was Uncle James'sfiancee, perhaps you know. There are some affairs of the estate to bearranged. I wonder if you could come back later this afternoon. Sayabout four o'clock. We'll take up then the business of thetranslation. I'll get in touch with a Japanese in the meantime."
"Suits me. Shall I leave the writing here?"
"Yes, if you will. Doesn't matter, of course, but since we have itI'll put it in the safe."
"How's the arm?" Kirby asked, glancing at the sling his cousin wore.
"Only sprained. The doctor thinks I must have twisted it badly as Ifell. I couldn't sleep a wink all night. The damned thing pained so."
James looked as though he had not slept well. His eyes were shadowedand careworn.
They walked together as far as the outer office. A slender, dark youngwoman, beautifully gowned, was waiting there. James introduced her tohis cousin and Sanborn as Miss Harriman. She was, Kirby knew at once,the original of the photograph he had seen in his uncle's rooms.
Miss Harriman was a vision of sheathed loveliness. The dark,long-lashed eyes looked out at Kirby with appealing wistfulness. Whenshe moved, the soft lines of her body took on a sinuous grace. Fromher personality there seemed to emanate an enticing aura of sex mystery.
She gave Kirby her little gloved hand. "I'm glad to meet you, Mr.Lane," she said, smiling at him. "I've heard all sorts of good thingsabout you from James--and Jack."
She did not offer her hand to Sanborn, perhaps because she was busybuttoning one of the long gloves. Instead, she gave him a flash of hereyes and a nod of the carefully coiffured head.
Kirby said the proper things, but he said them with a mind divided.For his nostrils were inhaling again the violet perfume that associateditself with his first visit to his uncle's apartment. He did notstart. His eyes did not betray him. His face could be wooden onoccasion, and it told no stories now. But his mind was filled withracing thoughts. Had Phyllis Harriman been the woman Rose had met onthe stairs? What had she been doing in Cunningham's room? Who was theman with her? What secret connected with his uncle's death lay hiddenback of the limpid innocence of those dark, shadowed eyes? She was oneof those women who are forever a tantalizing mystery to men. What wasshe like behind the inscrutable, charming mask of her face?
Lane carried this preoccupation with him throughout the afternoon. Itwas still in the hinterland of his thoughts when he returned to hiscousin's office.
His entrance was upon a scene of agitated storm. His cousin was in theouter office facing a clerk. In his eyes there was a cold fury ofanger that surprised Kirby. He had known James always asself-restrained to the point of chilliness. Now his anger seemed toleap out and strike savagely.
"Gross incompetence and negligence, Hudson. You are discharged, sir.I'll not have you in my employ an hour longer. A man I have trustedand found wholly unworthy."
"I'm sorry, Mr. Cunningham," the clerk said humbly. "I don't see how Ilost the paper, if I did, sir. I was very careful when I took thedeeds and leases out of the safe. It seems hardly possible--"
"But you lost it. Nobody else could have done it. I don't wantexcuses. You can go, sir." Cunningham turned abruptly to his cousin."The sheets of paper with the Japanese writing have been lost. Thisman, by some piece of inexcusable carelessness, took them with a bundleof other documents to my lawyer's office. He must have taken them.They were lying with the others. Now they can't be found anywhere."
"Have you 'phoned to your lawyer?" asked Kirby.
"'Phoned and been in person. They are nowhere to be found. They oughtto turn up somewhere. This clerk probably dropped them. I've sent anadvertisement to the afternoon papers."
Kirby was taken aback at this unexpected mischance, but there was nouse wasting nerve energy in useless fretting. He regretted having leftthe papers with James, for he felt that in them might be the key to themystery of the Cunningham case. But he had no doubt that his cousinwas more distressed about the loss than he was. He comforted himselfwith the reflection that a thorough search would probably restore them,anyhow.
He asked Hudson a few questions and had the man show them exactly wherehe had picked up the papers he took to the lawyer. James listened, hisanger still simmering.
Kirby took his cousin by the arm and led him into the inner office.
"Frankly, James, I think you were partly to blame," he said. "You musthave laid the writing very close in the safe to the other papers.Hadn't you better give Hudson
another chance before you fire him?" Hisdisarming smile robbed both the criticism and the suggestion of anyoffense they might otherwise have had.
In the end he persuaded Cunningham to withdraw his discharge of theclerk.
"He doesn't deserve it," James grumbled. "He's maybe spoiled ourchance of laying hands on the man who killed Uncle. I can't get overmy disappointment."
"Don't worry, old man," Lane said quietly. "We're goin' to rope an'hogtie that wolf even if Horikawa can't point him out to us with hisdead hand."
Cunningham looked at him, and again the faint, ironic smile ofadmiration was in evidence. "You're confident, Kirby."
"Why wouldn't I be? With you an' Rose McLean an' Cole Sanborn an' Iall followin' the fellow's trail, he can't double an' twist enough tomake a getaway. We'll ride him down sure."
"Maybe we will and maybe we won't," the oil broker replied. "I'd giveodds that he goes scot free."
"Then you'd lose," Kirby answered, smiling easily.