CHAPTER XLI
ENTER X
Shibo stood on the threshold and sent a swift glance around the room.He had expected to meet James alone. That first slant look of the longeyes forewarned him that Nemesis was at hand. But he faced without aflicker of the lids the destiny he had prepared for himself.
"You write me note come see you now," he said to Cunningham.
James showed surprise. "No, I think not."
"You no want me?"
The Chief's hand fell on the shoulder of the janitor. "_I_ want you,Shibo."
"You write me note come here now?"
"No, I reckon Mr. Lane wrote that."
"I plenty busy. What you want me for?"
"For the murders of James Cunningham and Horikawa." Before the wordswere out of his mouth the Chief had his prisoner handcuffed.
Shibo turned to Kirby. "You tellum police I killum Mr. Cunnin'lam andHorikawa?"
"Yes."
"I plenty sorry I no kill you."
"You did your best, Shibo. Took three shots at ten feet. Rottenshooting."
"Do you mean that he actually tried to kill you?" James asked insurprise.
"In the Denmark Building, the other night, at eleven o'clock. And I'llsay he made a bad mistake when he tried an' didn't get away with it.For I knew that the man who was aimin' to gun me was the same one thathad killed Uncle James. He'd got to worryin' for fear I was followin'too hot a trail."
"Did you recognize him?" Jack said.
"Not right then. I was too busy duckin' for cover. Safety first wasmy motto right then. No, when I first had time to figure on who couldbe the gentleman that was so eager to make me among those absent, Irather laid it to Cousin James, with Mr. Cass Hull second on my list ofsuspects. The fellow had a searchlight an' he flashed it on me. Icould see above it a bandanna handkerchief over the face. I'd seen abandanna like it in Hull's hands. But I had to eliminate Hull. Thegunman on the stairs had small, neat feet, no larger than a woman's.Hull's feet are--well, sizable."
They were. Huge was not too much to call them.
As a dozen eyes focused on his boots the fat man drew them back of therungs of his chair. This attention to personal details of hisconformation was embarrassing.
"Those small feet stuck in my mind," Kirby went on. "Couldn't seem toget rid of the idea. They put James out of consideration, unless, ofcourse, he had hired a killer, an' that didn't look reasonable to me.I'll tell the truth. I thought of Mrs. Hull dressed as a man--an' thenI thought of Shibo."
"Had you suspected him before?" This from Olson.
"Not of the murders. I had learned that he had seen the Hulls comefrom my uncle's rooms an' had kept quiet. Hull admitted that he hadbeen forced to bribe him. I tackled Shibo with it an' threatened totell the police. Evidently he became frightened an' tried to murderme. I got a note makin' an appointment at the Denmark Building ateleven in the night. The writer promised to tell me who killed myuncle. I took a chance an' went." The cattleman turned to Mrs. Hull."Will you explain about the note, please?"
The gaunt, tight-lipped woman rose, as though she had been called on atschool to recite. "I wrote the note," she said. "Shibo made me. Ididn't know he meant to kill Mr. Lane. He said he'd tell everything ifI didn't."
She sat down. She had finished her little piece.
"So I began to focus on Shibo. He might be playin' a lone hand, or hemight be a tool of my cousin James. A detective hired by me saw himleave James's office. That didn't absolutely settle the point. Hemight have seen somethin' an' be blackmailin' him too. That was theway of it, wasn't it?" He turned point-blank to Cunningham.
"Yes," the broker said. "He had us right--not only me, but Jack andPhyllis, too. I couldn't let him drag her into it. The day you saw mewith the strained tendon I had been with him and Horikawa in theapartment next to the one Uncle James rented. We quarreled. I gotfurious and caught Shibo by the throat to shake the little scoundrel.He gave my arm some kind of a jiu-jitsu twist. He was at me every day.He never let up. He meant to bleed me heavily. We couldn't come toterms. I hated to yield to him."
"And did you?"
"I promised him an answer soon."
"No doubt he came to-day thinkin' he was goin' to get it." Kirby wentback to the previous question. "Next time I saw Shibo I took a look athis feet. He was wearin' a pair o' shoes that looked to me mighty likethose worn by the man that ambushed me. They didn't have any cappieces across the toes. I'd noticed that even while he was shootin' atme. It struck me that it would be a good idea to look over hisquarters in the basement. Shibo has one human weakness. He's adevotee of the moving pictures. Nearly every night he takes in a showon Curtis Street. The Chief lent me a man, an' last night we wentthrough his room at the Paradox. We found there a flashlight, abandanna handkerchief with holes cut in it for the eyes, an' in themattress two thousand dollars in big bills. We left them where wefound them, for we didn't want to alarm Shibo."
The janitor looked at him without emotion. "You plenty devil man," hesaid.
"We hadn't proved yet that Shibo was goin' it alone," Kirby went on,paying no attention to the interruption. "Some one might be usin' himas a tool. Horikawa's confession clears that up."
Kirby handed to the Chief of Police the sheets of paper found in theapartment where the valet was killed. Attached to these by a clip wasthe translation. The Chief read this last aloud.
Horikawa, according to the confession, had been in Cunningham's roomssponging and pressing a suit of clothes when the promoter came home onthe afternoon of the day of his death. Through a half-open door he hadseen his master open his pocket-book and count a big roll of bills.The figures on the outside one showed that it was a treasury note forfifty dollars. The valet had told Shibo later and they had talked itover, but with no thought in Horikawa's mind of robbery.
He was helping Shibo fix a window screen at the end of the hall thatevening when they saw the Hulls come out of Cunningham's apartment.Something furtive in their manner struck the valet's attention. It wasin the line of his duties to drop in and ask whether the promoter'sclothes needed any attention for the next day. He discovered after hewas in the living-room that Shibo was at his heels. They foundCunningham trussed up to a chair in the smaller room. He wasunconscious, evidently from a blow in the head.
The first impulse of Horikawa had been to free him and carry him to thebedroom. But Shibo interfered. He pushed his hand into the pocket ofthe smoking-jacket and drew out a pocket-book. It bulged with bills.In two sentences Shibo sketched a plan of operations. They would stealthe money and lay the blame for it on the Hulls. Cunningham's owntestimony would convict the fat man and his wife. The evidence of thetwo Japanese would corroborate his.
Cunningham's eyelids flickered. There was a bottle of chloroform onthe desk. The promoter had recently suffered pleurisy pains and hadbeen advised by his doctor to hold a little of the drug against theplace where they caught him most sharply. Shibo snatched up thebottle, drenched a handkerchief with some of its contents, and droppedthe handkerchief over the wounded man's face.
A drawer was open within reach of Cunningham's hand. In it lay anautomatic pistol The two men were about to hurry away. Shibo turned atthe door. To his dismay he saw that the handkerchief had slipped fromCunningham's face and the man was looking at him. He had recoveredconsciousness.
Cunningham's eyes condemned him to death. In their steely depths therewas a gleam of triumph. He was about to call for help. Shibo knewwhat that meant. He and Horikawa were in a strange land. They wouldbe sent to prison, an example made of them because they wereforeigners. Automatically, without an instant of delay, he acted toprotect himself.
Two strides took him back to Cunningham. He reached across his bodyfor the automatic and sent a bullet into the brain of the man bound tothe chair.
Horikawa, to judge by his confession, was thunderstruck. He was anamiable little fellow who never had stepped outside the
law. Now hewas caught in the horrible meshes of a murder. He went to pieces andbegan to sob. Shibo stopped him sharply.
Then they heard some one coming. It was too late to get away by thedoor. They slipped through the window to the fire escape and from itto the window of the adjoining apartment. Horikawa, still sick withfear, stumbled against the rail as he clambered over it and cut hisface badly.
Shibo volunteered to go downstairs and get him some sticking plaster.On the way down Shibo had met the younger James Cunningham as he cameout of the elevator. Returning with first-aid supplies a few minuteslater, he saw Jack and Phyllis.
It was easy to read between the lines that Shibo's will had dominatedHorikawa. He had been afraid that his companion's wounded face wouldlead to his arrest. If so, he knew it would be followed by aconfession. He forced Horikawa to hide in the vacant apartment tillthe wound should heal. Meanwhile he fed him and brought him newspapers.
There were battles of will between the two. Horikawa was terriblyfrightened when he read that his flight had brought suspicion on him.He wanted to give himself up at once to the police. They quarreled.Shibo always gained the temporary advantage, but he saw that under agrilling third degree his countryman would break down. He killedHorikawa because he knew he could not trust him.
This last fact was not, of course, in Horikawa's confession. But thedread of it was there. The valet had come to fear Shibo. He wasconvinced in his shrinking heart that the man meant to get rid of him.It was under some impulse of self-protection that he had written thestatement.
Shibo heard the confession read without the twitching of a facialmuscle. He shrugged his shoulders, accepting the inevitable with thefatalism of his race.
"He weak. He no good. He got yellow streak. I bossum," was hiscomment.
"Did you kill him?" asked the Chief.
"I killum both--Cunnin'lam and Horikawa. You kill me now maybe yes."
Officers led him away.
Phyllis Cunningham came up to Kirby and offered him her hand. "You'rehard on James. I don't know why you're so hard. But you've cleared usall. I say thanks awf'ly for that. I've been horribly frightened.That's the truth. It seemed as though there wasn't any way out for us.Come and see us and let's all make up, Cousin Kirby."
Kirby did not say he would. But he gave her his strong grip andfriendly smile. Just then his face did not look hard. He could nottell her why he had held his cousin on the grill so long, that it hadbeen in punishment for what he had done to a defenseless friend of hisin the name of love. What he did say suited her perhaps as well.
"I like you better right now than I ever did before, Cousin Phyllis.You're a good little sport an' you'll do to ride the river with."
Jack could not quite let matters stand as they did. He called on Kirbythat evening at his hotel.
"It's about James I want to see you," he said, then stuck for lack ofwords with which to clothe his idea. He prodded at the rug with thepoint of his cane.
"Yes, about James," Kirby presently reminded him, smiling.
"He's not so bad as you think he is," Jack blurted out.
"He's as selfish as the devil, isn't he?"
"Well, he is, and he isn't. He's got a generous streak in him. Youmay not believe it, but he went on your bond because he liked you."
"Come, Jack, you're tryin' to seduce my judgment by the personalappeal," Kirby answered, laughing.
"I know I am. What I want to say is this. I believe he would havemarried Esther McLean if it hadn't been for one thing. He felldesperately in love with Phyllis afterward. The odd thing is that sheloves him, too. They didn't dare to be above-board about it on accountof Uncle James. They treated him shabbily, of course. I don't denythat."
"You can hardly deny that," Kirby agreed.
"But, damn it, one swallow doesn't make a summer. You've seen theworst side of him all the way through."
"I dare say I have." Kirby let his hand fall on the well-tailoredshoulder of his cousin. "But I haven't seen the worst side of hisbrother Jack. He's a good scout. Come up to Wyoming this fall an'we'll go huntin' up in the Jackson Hole country. What say?"
"Nothing I'd like better," answered Jack promptly.
"We'll arrange a date later. Just now I've got to beat it. Goin'drivin' with a lady."
Jack scored for once. "_She's_ a good scout, too."
"If she isn't, I'll say there never was one," his cousin assented.
CHAPTER XLII
THE NEW WORLD
Kirby took his lady love driving in a rented flivver. It was aColorado night, with a young moon looking down through the cool, rareatmosphere found only in the Rockies. He drove her through the city toBerkeley and up the hill to Inspiration Point.
They talked only in intermittent snatches. Rose had the gift ofcomradeship. Her tongue never rattled. With Kirby she did not need tomake talk. They had always understood each other without words.
But to-night their silences were filled with new and awkwardsignificances. She guessed that an emotional crisis was at hand. Withall her heart she welcomed and shrank from it. For she knew that afterto-night life could never be the same to her. It might be fuller,deeper, happier, but it could not hold for her the freedom she hadguarded and cherished.
At the summit he killed the engine. They looked across the valley tothe hills dimmed by night's velvet dusk.
"We're through with all that back there," he said, and she knew hemeant the tangled trails of the past weeks into which their fate hadled them. "We don't have to keep our minds full of suspicions an' tryto find out things in mean, secret ways. There, in front of us, isGod's world, waitin' for you an' me, Rose."
Though she had expected it, she could not escape a sense of suddenlystilled pulses followed by a clamor of beating blood. She quivered,vibrating, trembling. She was listening to the call of mate to matesounding clear above all the voices of the world.
A flash of soft eyes darted at him. He was to be her man, and themaiden heart thrilled at the thought. She loved all of him sheknew--his fine, clean thoughts, his brave and virile life, the splendidbody that was the expression of his personality. There was a line ofgolden down on his cheek just above where he had shaved. Her warm eyesdared to linger fondly there, for he was still gazing at the mountains.
His eyes came home to her, and as he looked he knew he longed for herin every fiber of his being.
He asked no formal question. She answered none. Under the steadyregard of his eyes she made a small, rustling movement toward him. Heryoung and lissom body was in his arms, a warm and palpitating thing oflife and joy. He held her close. Her eyelashes swept his cheek andsent a strange, delightful tingle through his blood.
Kirby held her head back and looked into her eyes again. Under thestarlight their lips slowly met.
The road lay clear before them after many tangled trails.
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