It was on one of these occasions that he and Rose met his cousin James coming out of the apartment house. Cunningham was a man of admirable self-control, but he looked shaken this morning. His hand trembled as it met that of his cousin. In his eyes was the look of a man who has suffered a shock.
"I"ve been sitting alone for an hour in the room where Uncle James met his death--been arranging his papers," he explained. "It began to get my nerve. I couldn"t stand it any longer. The horrible thing kept jumping to my mind." He drew his right hand heavily across his eyes, as though to shut out and brush away the sight his imagination conjured.
His left arm hung limp. Kirby"s quick eyes noticed it.
"You"ve hurt yourself," Lane said.
"Yes," admitted James. "My heel caught on the top step as I started to walk down. I"ve wrenched my arm badly. Maybe I"ve broken it."
"Oh, I hope not," Rose said quickly, a warm sympathy in her vibrant young voice. "A broken arm"s no fun. I find it an awful nuisance."
The janitor of the Paradox came out and joined them. He was a little j.a.panese well on toward middle life, a small-featured man with small, neat feet.
"You feelum all right yes now?" he asked, directing his slant, oval eyes toward Cunningham.
"Yes, I"ve got over the nausea, thanks, Shibo." James turned to the others. "Shibo was at the foot of the stairs when I caught my heel.
He gathered up the pieces. I guess I was all in, wasn"t I, Shibo?"
The j.a.panese nodded agreement. "You heap sick for minute."
"I"ve been worrying a good deal about this business of Uncle James, I suppose. Anyhow, I"ve had two or three dizzy spells lately. Nothing serious, though."
"I don"t wonder. You sit at a desk too much, James. What you need is exercise. If you"d get in the saddle a couple o" hours a day an" do some stiff ridin" you"d quit havin" dizzy spells. Sorry you"re hurt, old man. I"ll trail along with you to a doctor"s."
"Not necessary. I"ll be all right. It"s only a few blocks to his office. Fact is, I"m feeling quite myself again."
"Well, if you"re sure. Prob"ly you"ve only sprained your arm. By the way, I"d kinda like to go over Uncle"s apartment again. Mind if I do?
I don"t reckon the police missed anything, but you can never tell."
James hesitated. "I promised the Chief of Police not to let anybody else in. Tell you what I"ll do. I"ll see him about it and get a permit for you. Say, Kirby, I"ve been thinking one of us ought to go up to Dry Valley and check things up there. We might find out who wrote that note to Uncle. Maybe some one has been making threats in public. We could see who was in town from there last week. Could you go? To-day? Train leaves in half an hour."
Kirby could and would. He left Rose to talk with the tenants of the Paradox Apartments, entrained for Dry Valley at once, and by noon was winding over the hilltops far up in the Rockies.
He left the train at Summit, a small town which was the center of activities for Dry Valley. Here the farmers bought their supplies and here they marketed their b.u.t.ter and eggs. In the fall they drove in their cattle and loaded them for Denver at the chutes in the railroad yard.
There had been times in the past when Summit ebbed and flowed with a rip-roaring tide of turbulent life. This had been after the round-ups in the golden yesterday when every other store building had been occupied by a saloon and the rattle of chips lasted far into the small hours of night. Now Colorado was dry and the roulette wheel had gone to join memories of the past. Summit was quiet as a Sunday afternoon on a farm. Its busiest inhabitant was a dog which lay in the sun and lazily poked over its own anatomy for fleas.
Kirby registered at the office of the frame building which carried on its false front the word HOTEL. This done, he wandered down to the shack which bore the inscription, "Dry Valley Enterprise." The owner of the paper, who was also editor, reporter, pressman, business manager, and circulator, chanced to be in printing some dodgers announcing a dance at Odd Fellows" Hall. He desisted from his labors to chat with the stranger.
The editor was a fat, talkative little man. Kirby found it no trouble at all to set him going on the subject of James Cunningham, Senior. In fact, during his stay in the valley the Wyoming man could always use that name as an "Open Sesame." It unlocked all tongues. Cunningham and his mysterious death were absorbing topics. The man was hated by scores who had been brought close to ruin by his chicanery. Dry Valley rejoiced openly in the retribution that had fallen upon him.
"Who killed him?" the editor asked rhetorically.
"Well, sir, I"ll be dawged if I know. But if I was guessin" I"d say it was this fellow Hull, the slicker that helped him put through the Dry Valley steal. "Course it might "a" been the j.a.p, or it might "a" been the nephew from Wyoming, but I"ll say it was Hull. We know that cuss Hull up here. He"s one bad package, that fat man is, believe me.
Cunningham held out on him, an" he laid for the old crook an" got him.
Don"t that look reasonable to you? It sure does to me. Put a rope round Hull"s neck an" you"ll hang the man that killed old J. C."
Lane put in an hour making himself _persona grata_, then read the latest issue of the "Enterprise" while the editor pulled off the rest of the dodgers. In the local news column he found several items that interested him. These were:
Jim Harkins is down in Denver on business and won"t be home till Monday. Have a good time, Jim.
T. J. Lupton is enjoying a few days vacation in the Queen City. He expects to buy some fancy stock at the yards for breeding purposes.
Dry Valley is right in the van of progress.
Art Jelks and Brad Mosely returned from Denver today after a three days" visit in the capital. A good time was had by both. You want to watch them, girls. The boys are both live ones.
Oscar Olson spent a few days in Denver this week. Oscar owns a place three miles out of town on the Spring Creek road.
Casually Kirby gathered information. He learned that Jim Harkins was the town constable and not interested in land; that Lupton was a very prosperous cattleman whose ranch was nowhere near the district promoted by Cunningham; and that Jelks and Mosely were young fellows more or less connected with the garage. The editor knew Olson only slightly.
"He"s a Swede--big, fair fellow--got caught in that irrigation fake of Hull and Cunningham. Don"t know what he was doin" in Denver," the newspaperman said.
Lane decided that he would see Olson and have a talk with him.
Incidentally, he meant to see all the Dry Valley men who had been in Denver at the time Cunningham was killed. But the others he saw only to eliminate them from suspicion. One glance at each of them was enough to give them a clean bill so far as the mystery went. They knew nothing whatever about it.
Lane rode out to Olson"s place and found him burning brush. The cattleman explained that he was from Wyoming and wanted to sell some registered Herefords.
Olson looked over his dry, parched crops with sardonic bitterness. "Do I look like I could buy registered stock?" he asked sourly.
Kirby made a remark that set the ranchman off. He said that the crops looked as though they needed water. Inside of five minutes he had heard the story of the Dry Valley irrigation swindle. Olson was not a foreigner. He had been born in Minnesota and attended the public schools. He spoke English idiomatically and without an accent. The man was a tall, gaunt, broad-shouldered Scandinavian of more than average intelligence.
The death of Cunningham had not apparently a.s.suaged his intense hatred of the man or the bitterness which welled out of him toward Hull.
"Cunningham got his! Suits me fine! Now all I ask is that they hang Hull for it!" he cried vindictively.
"Seems to be some doubt whether Hull did it," suggested Kirby, to draw him on.
"That so? Mebbe there"s evidence you don"t know about." The words had come out in the heat of impulse, shot at Kirby tensely and breathlessly. Olson looked at the man on the horse and Lane could see caution grow on him. A film of suspicion spread over the pupils beneath the heavy, ragged eyebrows. "I ain"t sayin" so. All I"m dead sure of is that Hull did it."
Kirby fired a shot point-blank at him. "n.o.body can be dead sure of that unless he saw him do it."
"Mebbe some one saw him do it. Folks don"t tell all they know." Olson looked across the desert beyond the palpitating heat waves to the mountains in the distance.
"No. That"s tough sometimes on innocent people, too."
"Meanin" this nephew of old Cunningham. He"ll get out all right."
"Will he? There"s a girl under suspicion, too. She had no more to do with it than I had, but she"s likely to get into mighty serious trouble just the same."
"I ain"t read anything in the papers about any girl," Olson answered sullenly.
"No, it hasn"t got to the papers yet. But it will. It"s up to every man who knows anything about this to come clean."
"Is it?" The farmer looked bleakly at his visitor. "Seems to me you take a lot of interest in this. Who are you, anyhow?"
"My name is Kirby Lane."