Tangled Trails Part 37

"I'd like to know what happened in my uncle's rooms when Mr. Hull was up there--say about half-past nine, mebbe a little before or a little after."

"He claims to have a witness," Hull managed to get out from a dry throat.

"A witness of what?" snapped the woman.

"That--that I--was in Cunningham's rooms."

For an instant the woman quailed. A spasm of fear flashed over her face and was gone.

"He'll claim anything to get outa the hole he's in," she said dryly.

Then, swiftly, her anger pounced on the Wyoming man. "You get outa my house. We don't have to stand yore impudence--an' what's more, we won't. Do you hear? Get out, or I'll send for the police. I ain't scared any of you."

The amateur detective got out. He had had the worst of the bout. But he had discovered one or two things. If he could get Olson to talk, and could separate the fat, flabby man from his flinty wife, it would not be hard to frighten a confession from Hull of all he knew.

Moreover, in his fear Hull had let slip one admission. s.h.i.+bo, the little janitor, had some evidence against him. Hull knew it. Why was s.h.i.+bo holding it back? The fat man had practically said that s.h.i.+bo had seen him come out of Cunningham's rooms, or at least that he was a witness he had been in the apartment. Yet he had withheld the fact when he had been questioned by the police. Had Hull bribed him to keep quiet?

The cattleman found s.h.i.+bo watering the lawn of the parking in front of the Paradox. According to his custom, he plunged abruptly into what he wanted to say. He had discovered that if a man is not given time to frame a defense, he is likely to give away something he had intended to conceal.

"s.h.i.+bo, why did you hide from the police that Mr. Hull was in my uncle's rooms the night he was killed?"

The janitor shot one slant, startled glance at Kirby before the mask of impa.s.sivity wiped out expression from his eyes.

"You know heap lot about everything. You busy busy all like honey-bee.

Me, I just janitor--mind own business."

"I wonder, now." Kirby's level gaze took the man in carefully. Was he as simple as he wanted to appear?

"No talk when not have anything to tell." s.h.i.+bo moved the sprinkler to another part of the lawn.

Kirby followed him. He had a capacity for patience.

"Did Mr. Hull ask you not to tell about him?"

s.h.i.+bo said nothing, but he said it with indignant eloquence.

"Did he give you money not to tell? I don't want to go to the police with this if I can help it, s.h.i.+bo. Better come through to me."

"You go police an' say I know who make Mr. Cunningham dead?"

"If I have to."

The janitor had no more remarks to make. He lapsed into an angry, stubborn silence. For nearly half an hour Kirby stayed by his side.

The cattleman asked questions. He suggested that, of course, the police would soon find out the facts after he went to them. He even went beyond his brief and implied that shortly s.h.i.+bo would be occupying a barred cell.

But the man from the Orient contributed no more to the talk.

CHAPTER x.x.xI

THE MASK OF THE RED BANDANNA

It had come by special delivery, an ill-written little note scrawled on cheap ruled paper torn from a tablet.

If you want to know who killed Cuningham i can tell you. Meet me at the Denmark Bilding, room 419, at eleven tonight. Come alone.

_One who knows_.

Kirby studied the invitation carefully. Was it genuine? Or was it a plant? He was no handwriting expert, but he had a feeling that it was a disguised script. There is an inimitable looseness of design in the chirography of an illiterate person. He did not find here the awkwardness of the inexpert; rather the elaborate imitation of an amateur ignoramus. Yet he was not sure. He could give no definite reason for this fancy.

And in the end he tossed it overboard. He would keep the appointment and see what came of it. Moreover, he would keep it alone--except for a friend hanging under the left arm at his side. Kirby had brought no revolver with him to Denver. Occasionally he carried one on the range to frighten coyotes and to kill rattlers. But he knew where he could borrow one, and he proceeded to do so.

Not that there was any danger in meeting the unknown correspondent.

Kirby did not admit that for a moment. There are people so const.i.tuted that they revel in the mysterious. They wrap their most common actions in hints of reserve and weighty silence. Perhaps this man was one of them. There was no danger whatever. n.o.body had any reason to wish him serious ill. Yet Kirby took a .45 with him when he set out for the Denmark Building. He did it because that strange sixth sense of his had warned him to do so.

During the day he had examined the setting for the night's adventure.

He had been to the Denmark Building and scanned it inside and out. He had gone up to the fourth floor and looked at the exterior of Room 419.

The office door had printed on it this design:

THE GOLD HILL MILLING & MINING COMPANY

But when Kirby tried the door he found it locked.

The Denmark Building is a little out of the heart of the Denver business district. It was built far uptown at a time when real estate was booming. Adjoining it is the Rockford Building. The two dominate a neighborhood of squat two-story stores and rooming-houses. In dull seasons the offices in the two big landmarks are not always filled with tenants.

The elevators in the Denmark had ceased running hours since. Kirby took the narrow stairs which wound round the elevator shaft. He trod the iron treads very slowly, very softly. He had no wish to advertise his presence. If there was to be any explosive surprise, he did not want to be at the receiving end of it.

He reached the second story, crossed the landing, and began the next flight. The place was dark as a midnight pit. At the third floor its blackness was relieved slightly by a ray of light from a transom far down the corridor.

Kirby waited to listen. He heard no faintest sound to break the stillness. Again his foot found the lowest tread and he crept upward.

In the daytime he had laughed at the caution which had led him to borrow a weapon from an acquaintance at the stockyards. But now every sense shouted danger. He would not go back, but each forward step was taken with infinite care.

And his care availed him nothing. A lifted foot struck an empty soap box with a clatter to wake the seven sleepers. Instantly he knew it had been put there for him to stumble over. A strong searchlight flooded the stairs and focused on him. He caught a momentary glimpse of a featureless face standing out above the light--a face that was nothing but a red bandanna handkerchief with slits in it for eyes--and of a pair of feet below at the top of the stairway.

The searchlight winked out. There was a flash of lightning and a crash of thunder. A second time the pocket flash found Kirby. It found him crouched low and reaching for the .45 under his arm. The booming of the revolver above reverberated down the pit of the stairway.

Arrow-swift, with the lithe ease of a wild thing from the forest, Kirby ducked round the corner for safety. He did not wait there, but took the stairs down three at a stride. Not till he had reached the ground floor did he stop to listen for the pursuit.

No sound of following footsteps came to him. By some miracle of good luck he had escaped the ambush. It was characteristic of him that he did not fly wildly into the night. His brain functioned normally, coolly. Whoever it was had led him into the trap had lost his chance.

Kirby reasoned that the a.s.sa.s.sin's mind would be bent on making his own safe escape before the police arrived.

The cattleman waited, crouched behind an out-jutting pillar in the wall of the entrance. Every minute he expected to see a furtive figure sneak past him into the street. His hopes were disappointed. It was nearly midnight when two men, talking cheerfully of the last gusher in, the Buckburnett field, emerged from the stairway and pa.s.sed into the street. They were tenants who had stayed late to do some unfinished business.

There was a drug-store in the building, cornering on two streets.

Kirby stepped into it and asked a question of the clerk at the prescription desk.