CHAPTER XL
THE MILLS OF THE GODS
Kirby Lane did not waste the two hours that lay before the appointmenthe had made for a meeting at the office of his cousin James. He had atalk with the Hulls and another with the Chief of Police. He saw Olsonand Rose McLean. He even found the time to forge two initials at thefoot of a typewritten note on the stationery of James Cunningham, andto send the note to its destination by a messenger.
Rose met him by appointment at the entrance to the Equitable Buildingand they rode up in the elevator together to the office of his cousin.Miss Harriman, as she still called herself in public, was there withJack and her husband.
James was ice-cold. He bowed very slightly to Rose. Chairs werealready placed.
For a moment Kirby was embarrassed. He drew James aside. Cunninghammurmured an exchange of sentences with his wife, then escorted her tothe door. Rose was left with the three cousins.
"I suppose Jack has told you of the marriage of Esther McLean," Kirbysaid as soon as the door had been closed.
James bowed, still very stiffly.
Kirby met him, eye to eye. He spoke very quietly and clearly. "I wantto open the meetin' by tellin' you on behalf of this young woman an'myself that we think you an unmitigated cur. We are debarred fromsayin' so before your wife, but it's a pleasure to tell you so inprivate. Is that quite clear?"
The oil broker flushed darkly. He made no answer. "You not only tookadvantage of a young woman's tender heart. You were willin' our deaduncle should bear the blame for it. Have you any other word than theone I have used to suggest as a more fittin' one?" the Wyoming manasked bitingly.
Jack answered for his brother. "Suppose we pass that count of theindictment, unless you have a practical measure to suggest inconnection with it. We plead guilty."
There wag a little gleam of mirth in Kirby's eyes. "You an' I havediscussed the matter already, Jack. I regret I expressed my opinion sovigorously then. We have nothin' practical to suggest, if you arereferrin' to any form of compensation. Esther is happily married,thank God. All we want is to make it perfectly plain what we think ofMr. James Cunningham."
James acknowledged this and answered. "That is quite clear. I may saythat I entirely concur in your estimate of my conduct. I might makeexplanations, but I can make none that justify me to myself."
"In that case we may consider the subject closed, unless Miss McLeanhas something to say."
Kirby turned to Rose. She looked at James Cunningham, and he mighthave been the dirt under her feet. "I have nothing whatever to say,Kirby. You express my sentiments exactly."
"Very well. Then we might open the door and invite in Miss Harriman.There are others who should be along soon that have a claim also to bepresent."
"What others?" asked Jack Cunningham.
"The other suspects in the case. I prefer to have them all here."
"Any one else?"
"The Chief of Police."
James looked at him hard. "This is not a private conference, then?"
"That's a matter of definitions. I have invited only those who have aclaim to be present," Kirby answered.
"To my office, I think."
"If you prefer the Chief's office we'll adjourn an' go there."
The broker shrugged. "Oh, very well."
Kirby stepped to the door connecting with an outer office and threw itopen. Mr. and Mrs. Hull, Olson, and the Chief of Police followedPhyllis Harriman into the room. More chairs were brought in.
The Chief sat nearest the door, one leg thrown lazily across the other.He had a fat brown cigar in his hand. Sometimes he chewed on the endof it, but he was not smoking. He was an Irishman, and as it happenedopen-minded. He liked this brown-faced young fellow fromWyoming--never had believed him guilty from the first. Moreover, hewas willing his detective bureau should get a jolt from an outsider.It might spur them up in future.
"Chief, is there anything you want to say?" Kirby asked.
"Not a wor-rd. I'm sittin' in a parquet seat. It's your show, son."
Kirby's disarming smile won the Chief's heart. "I want to say now thatI've talked with the Chief several times. He's given me a lot of goodtips an' I've worked under his direction."
The head of the police force grinned. The tips he had given Lane hadbeen of no value, but he was quite willing to take any public creditthere might be. He sat back and listened now while Kirby told hisstory.
"Outside of the Chief every one here is connected closely with thiscase an' is involved in it. It happens that every man an' woman of uswere in my uncle's apartments either at the time of his death or justbefore or after." Kirby raised a hand to meet Olson's protest. "Oh, Iknow. You weren't in the rooms, but you were on the fire escapeoutside. From the angle of the police you may have been in. All youhad to do was to pass through an open window."
There was a moment's silence, while Kirby hesitated in what order totell his facts. Hull mopped the back of his overflowing neck. PhyllisCunningham moistened her dry lips. A chord in her throat ached tensely.
"Suspicion fell first on me an' on Hull," Kirby went on. "You've seenit all thrashed out in the papers. I had been unfriendly to my unclefor years, an' I was seen goin' to his rooms an' leavin' them thatevening. My own suspicion was directed to Hull, especially when he an'Mrs. Hull at the coroner's inquest changed the time so as to get meinto my uncle's apartment half an hour earlier than I had been there.I'd caught them in a panic of terror when I knocked on their door.They'd lied to get me into trouble. Hull had quarreled with UncleJames an' had threatened to go after him with a gun in _two days_ afterthat time--and it was _just forty-eight hours later he was killed_. Itlooked a lot like Hull to me.
"I had one big advantage, Chief, a lot of inside facts not open toyou," the cattleman explained. "I knew, for instance, that Miss McLeanhere had been in the rooms just before me. She was the young woman myuncle had the appointment to meet there before ten o'clock. You willremember Mr. Blanton's testimony. Miss McLean an' I compared notes, sowe were able to shave down the time during which the murder must havetaken place. We worked together. She gave me other important data.Perhaps she had better tell in her own words about the clue she foundthat we followed."
Rose turned to the Chief. Her young face flew a charming flag ofcolor. Her hair, in crisp tendrils beneath the edge of the small hatshe wore, was the ripe gold of wheat-tips in the shock. The tenderblue of violets was in her eyes.
"I told you about how I found Mr. Cunningham tied to his chair, Chief.I forgot to say that in the living-room there was a faint odor ofperfume. On my way upstairs I passed in the dark a man and a woman. Ihad got a whiff of the same perfume then. It was violet. So I knewthey had been in the apartment just before me. Mr. Lane discoveredlater that Miss Harriman used that scent."
"Which opened up a new field of speculation," Kirby went on. "We beganto run down facts an' learned that my cousin James had secretly marriedMiss Harriman at Golden a month before. My uncle had just learned thenews. He had a new will made by his lawyer, one that cut James offwithout a cent an' left his property to Jack Cunningham."
"That will was never signed," Jack broke in quickly.
Kirby looked at Jack and smiled cynically. "No, it was never signed.Your brother discovered that when he looked the will over at Uncle'sdesk a few minutes after his death."
James did not wink an eye in distress. The hand of the woman sittingbeside him went out instantly to his in a warm, swift pressure. Shewas white to the lips, but her thought was for the man she loved andnot for herself. Kirby scored another mark to her credit.
"Cumulative evidence pointed to James Cunningham," continued Kirby."He tried to destroy the proof of his marriage to Miss Harriman. Helater pretended to lose an important paper that might have cleared upthe case. He tried to get me to drop the matter an' go back toWyoming. The coil wound closer round him.
"About this time another factor attracted my attent
ion. I had the goodluck to unearth at Dry Valley the man who had written threatenin'letters to my uncle an' to discover that he was stayin' next door tothe Paradox the very night of the murder. More, my friend Sanborn an'I guessed he had actually been on the fire escape of the Wyndham an'seen somethin' of importance through the window. Later I forced astatement from Olson. He told all he had seen that night."
Kirby turned to the rancher from Dry Valley and had him tell his story.When he had finished, the cattleman made comment.
"On the face of it Olson's story leaves in doubt the question of whoactually killed my uncle. If he was tellin' the whole truth, hisevidence points either to the Hulls or my cousin James. But it wasquite possible he had seen my uncle tied up an' helpless, an' hadhimself stepped through the window an' shot him. Am I right, Chief?"
The Chief nodded grimly. "Right, son."
"You told me you didn't think I did it," Olson burst out bitterly.
"An' I tell you so again," Kirby answered, smiling. "I was mentionin'possibilities. On your evidence it lies between my cousin James an'the Hulls. It was the Hulls that had tied him up after Cass Hullknocked him senseless. It was Hull who had given him two days more tolive. And that's not all. Not an hour an' a half ago I had a talkwith Mrs. Hull. She admitted, under pressure, _that she returned to myuncle's apartment again to release him from the chair_. She was alonewith him, an' he was wholly in her power. She is a woman with apassionate sense of injury. What happened then nobody else saw."
Mrs. Hull opened her yellow, wrinkled lips to speak, but Kirby checkedher. "Not yet, Mrs. Hull. I'll return to the subject. If you wishyou can defend yourself then."
He stopped a second time to find the logical way of proceeding with hisstory. The silence in the room was tense. The proverbial pin couldhave been heard. Only one person in the room except Kirby knew wherethe lightning was going to strike. That person sat by the door chewingthe end of a cigar impassively. A woman gave a strangled little sob ofpent emotion.
"I've been leaving Horikawa out of the story," the cattleman went on."I've got to bring him in now. He's the hinge on which it all swings._The man or woman that killed my uncle killed Horikawa too_."
James Cunningham, sitting opposite Kirby with his cold eyes steadilyfixed on him, for the first time gave visible sign of his anxiety. Itcame in the form of a little gulping sound in his throat.
"Cole Sanborn and I found Horikawa in the room where he had beenkilled. The doctors thought he must have been dead about a day. Justa day before this time Miss McLean an' I met James Cunningham comin'out of the Paragon. He was white an' shaking. He was sufferin' fromnausea, an' his arm was badly strained. He explained it by sayin' hehad fallen downstairs. Later, I wondered about that fall. I'm stillwonderin'. Had he just come out of the apartment where Horikawa washidin'? Had the tendons of that arm been strained by a jiu-jitsutwist? _And had he left Horikawa behind him dead on the bed?_"
James, white to the lips, looked steadily at his cousin. "A veryingenious theory. I've always complimented you on your imagination,"he said, a little hoarsely, as though from a parched throat.
"You do not desire to make any explanation?" Kirby asked.
"Thanks, no. I'm not on trial for my life here, am I?" answered theoil broker quietly, with obvious irony.
His wife was sobbing softly. The man's arm went round her andtightened in wordless comfort.
From his pocket Kirby drew the envelope upon which he had a few hoursearlier penciled the time schedule relating to his uncle's death.
"One of the points that struck me earliest about this mystery was thatthe man who solved it would have to work out pretty closely the timeelement. Inside of an hour ten people beside Uncle James were in hisrooms. They must 'a' trod on each other's heels right fast, I figured.So I checked up the time as carefully as I could. Here's the scheduleI made out. Mebbe you'd like to see it." He handed the envelope toJames.
Jack rose and looked over his brother's shoulder. His quick eye randown the list. "I get the rest of it," he said. "But what does _X_mean?"
"_X_ is the ten minutes of Uncle's time I can't account for. Some ofus were with him practically every other minute. _X_ is the wholeunknown quantity. It is the time in which he was prob'ly actuallykilled. It is the man who _may_, by some thousandth chance, havestepped into the room an' killed him while none of us were present,"explained Kirby.
"If there is such an unknown man you can cut the time down to fiveminutes instead of ten, providing your schedule is correct," James cutin. "For according to it I was there part of the time and Mrs. Hullpart of the rest of it."
"Yes," agreed his cousin.
"But you may have decided that Mrs. Hull is _X_ or that I am," jeeredJames. "If so, of course that ends it. No need for a judge or jury."
Kirby turned to the man by the door. "Chief, one of the queer thingsabout this mystery is that all the witnesses had somethin' to conceal.Go right through the list, an' it's true of every one of us. I'mtalkin' about the important witnesses, of course. Well, Cole an' Ifound a paper in the living-room of the apartment where Horikawa waskilled. It was in Japanese. I ought to have turned it over to you,but I didn't. I was kinda playin' a lone hand. At that time I didn'tsuspect my cousin James at all. We were workin' together on thisthing. At least I thought so. I found out better later. I took thepaper to him to get it translated, thinkin' maybe Horikawa might havewritten some kind of a confession. James lost that paper. Anyhow, heclaimed he did. My theory is that Horikawa had some evidence againsthim. He was afraid of what that paper would tell."
"Unfortunately for your theory it was a clerk of mine who lost thepaper. I had nothing to do with it," James retorted coldly. "No doubtthe paper has been destroyed, but not by me. Quite by accident, Ijudge."
His cousin let off a bomb beneath the broker's feet. "You'll be gladto know that the paper wasn't destroyed," he said. "I have it, with atranslation, in my pocket at the present moment."
James clutched the arms of his chair. His knuckles grew white with thestrain. "Where--where did you find it?" he managed to say.
"In the most private drawer of your safe, where you hid it," Kirbyreplied quietly.
Cunningham visibly fought for his composure. He did not speak until hehad perfect self-control. Then it was with a sneer.
"And this paper which you allege you found in my safe--after a burglarywhich, no doubt, you know is very much against the law--does it convictme of the murder of my uncle?"
The tension in the room was nerve-shattering. Men and women suspendedbreathing while they waited for an answer.
"On the contrary, it acquits you of any guilt whatever in the matter."
Phyllis Cunningham gave a broken little sob and collapsed into herhusband's arms. Jack rose, his face working, and caught his brother bythe shoulder. These two had suffered greatly, not only because oftheir fear for him, but because of the fear of his guilt that hadpoisoned their peace.
James, too, was moved, as much by their love for him as by the suddenrelief that had lifted from his heart. But his pride held himoutwardly cold.
"Since you've decided I didn't do it, Mr. Lane, perhaps you'll tell usthen who did," he suggested presently.
There came a knock at the door.
A whimsical smile twitched at the corners of Kirby's mouth. He did notoften have a chance for dramatics like this.
"Why, yes, that seems fair enough," he answered.
"He's knockin' at the door now. Enter _X_."