Tangled Trails Part 41

Kirby smoked steadily, evenly. Not a flicker of the eyelids showed the excitement racing through his blood. At last he was coming close to the heart of the mystery that surrounded the deaths of his uncle and his valet.

"I reckon I saw red for a minute," Olson continued. "If I'd been carryin' a gun I might 'a' used it right there an' then. But I hadn't one, lucky for me. He sat down in a big easy-chair an' took a paper from his pocket. It looked like some kind of a legal doc.u.ment. He read it through, then stuck it in one o' the cubby-holes of his desk.

I forgot to say he was smokin', an' not a stogie like I was, but a big cigar he'd unwrapped from silver paper after takin' it from a boxful."

"He lighted the cigar after coming into the small room," Kirby said, in the voice of a question.

"Yes. Didn't I say so? Took it from a box on a stand near the chair.

Well, when he got through with the paper he leaned back an' kinda shut his eyes like he was thinkin' somethin' over. All of a sudden I saw him straighten up an' get rigid. Before he could rise from the chair a woman came into the room an' after her a man.

"The man was Ca.s.s Hull."

CHAPTER x.x.xIV

FROM THE FIRE ESCAPE

"The woman--what was she like?"

"She was tall an' thin an' flat-chested. I didn't know her at the time, but it must 'a' been Hull's wife."

"You said you didn't know what time this was," Kirby said.

"No. My old watch had quit doin' business an' I hated to spend the money to get it fixed. The mainspring was busted, a jeweler told me."

"Who spoke first after they came into the room?"

"Yore uncle. He laid the cigar down on the stand an' asked them what they wanted. He didn't rise from the chair, but his voice rasped when he spoke. It was the woman answered. She took the lead all through.

'We've come for a settlement,' she said. 'An' we're goin' to have it right now.' He stiffened up at that. He come back at her with, 'You can't get no shot-gun settlement outa me.' Words just poured from that woman's mouth. She roasted him to a turn, told how he was crooked as a dog's hind leg an' every deal he touched was dirty. Said he couldn't even be square to his own pardners, that he couldn't get a man, woman, or child in Colorado to say he'd ever done a good act. Believe me, she laid him out proper, an' every word of it was true, 'far as I know.

"Well, sir, that old reprobate uncle of yours never batted an eye. He slid down in his chair a little so's he could be comfortable while he listened. He grinned up at her like she was some kind of specimen had broke loose from a circus an' he was interested in the way it acted.

That didn't calm her down none. She rip-r'ared right along, with a steady flow of words, mostly adjectives. Finally she quit, an' she was plumb white with anger. 'Quite through?' yore uncle asked with that ice-cold voice of his. She asked him what he intended to do about a settlement. 'Not a thing,' he told her. 'I did aim to give Hull two thousand to get rid of him. But I've changed my mind, ma'am. You can go whistle for it.'"

"Two thousand! Did he say two thousand?"

Kirby leaned forward eagerly.

"That's what he said. Two thousand," answered Olson.

"Then that explains why he drew so much from the bank that day."

"I had it figured out so. If the woman hadn't come at him with that acid tongue of hers he'd intended to buy Hull off cheap. But she got his gorge up. He wouldn't stand for her line of talk."

"What took place then?" the cattleman questioned.

"Still without rising from the chair, Cunningham ordered them to get out. Hull was standin' kinda close to him. He had his back to me.

Cunningham reached out an' opened a drawer of the stand beside him.

The fat man took a step forward. I could see his gun flash in the light. He swung it down on yore uncle's head an' the old man crumpled up."

"So it was Hull killed him, after all," Kirby said, drawing a long breath of relief.

Then, to his surprise when he thought about it later, a glitter of malicious cunning lit the eyes of the rancher.

"That's what I'm tellin' you. It was Hull. I stood there an' saw just what I've been givin' you."

"Was my uncle senseless then?"

"You bet he was. His head sagged clear over against the back of the chair."

"What did they do then?"

"That's where I drop out. Mrs. Hull stepped straight to the window. I crouched down back of the railin'. It was dark an' she didn't see me.

She pulled the blind down. I waited there awhile an' afterward there was the sound of a shot. That would be when they sent the bullet through the old man's brain."

"What did you do?"

"I didn't know what to do. I'd talked a lot of wild talk about how Cunningham ought to be shot or strung up to a pole. If I went to the police with my story, like enough they 'd light on me as the killer. I milled the whole thing over. After a while I went into a public booth downtown an' 'phoned to the police. You recollect maybe the papers spoke about the man who called up headquarters with the news of Cunningham's death."

"Yes, I recollect that all right."

Kirby did not smile. He did not explain that he was the man. But he resolved to find out whether two men had notified the police of his uncle's death. If not, Olson was lying in at least one detail. He had a suspicion that the man had not given him the whole truth. He was telling part of it, but he was holding back something. A sly and furtive look in his eyes helped to build this impression in the mind of the man who listened to the story.

"You didn't actually see Hull fire the shot that killed my uncle, then?"

Olson hesitated, a fraction of a second. "No."

"You don't know that it was he that fired it."

"No, it might 'a' been the woman. But it ain't likely he handed her the gun to do it with, is it? For that matter I don't know that the crack over the head didn't kill Cunningham. Maybe it did."

"That's all you saw?"

Again the almost imperceptible hesitation. Then, "That's all," the Dry Valley rancher said sullenly.

"What kind of a gun was it?" Kirby asked.

"Too far away. Couldn't be sure."

"Big as a.45?"

"Couldn't 'a' been. The evidence was that it was done with an automatic."

"The evidence was that the wound in the head was probably made by a bullet from an automatic. We're talkin' now about the blow _on_ the head."

"What are you drivin' at?" the rancher asked, scowling. "He wouldn't bring two different kinds of gun with him. That's a cinch."

"No; but we haven't proved yet he fired the shot you heard later. The chances are all that he did, but legally we have no evidence that somebody else didn't do it."