Tangled Trails

by Raine, William MacLeod

  "May have been," Kirby corrected. "We haven't any authentic evidence yet as to exactly when my uncle was killed. We're gettin' the time narrowed down. It was between 9.30 and 9.50. We know that."

  "How do you know that?" the professional sleuth asked. "Accordin' to your story you didn't get into the apartment until after ten o'clock. It might 'a' been done any time up till then."

  The eyes of Kirby and Rose met. They had private information about who was in the rooms from about 9.55 till 10.10.

  The cattleman corrected his statement. "All right, say between 9.30 and 10.05. During that time Hull may have shot my uncle. Or Olson may have opened the window while my uncle lay there helpless, killed him, stepped outa the window again, an' slipped down by the fire escape. All he'd have to do then would be to walk into the Wyndham, replace the rope on the roof, an' next mornin' leave for Dry Valley."

  The detective nodded. "If he cut the rope. Lemme find out from the landlady whether it was cut that night."

  "Good. We'll wait for you at the corner."

  Ten minutes later the detective joined them in front of the drug-store where they were standing. The hard eyes in his cold gambler's face were lit up for once.

  "I'll say the man from Missouri has been shown," he said. "I let on to the dame at the Wyndham that I was after a gang of young sneak thieves in the neighborhood. Pretty soon I drifted her to the night of the twenty-third—said they 'd been especially active that night and had used a rope to get into a second story of a building. She woke up. Her clothesline on the roof had been cut that very night. She remembered the night on account of its being the one when Mr. Cunningham was killed. Could the boys have used it to get into the store an' then brought it back? I thought likely."

  "Bully! We're one step nearer than we were. We know Olson was lookin' in the window from the fire escape just outside."

  The detective slapped his thigh. "It lies between Hull and the Swede.

  That's a cinch."

  "I believe it does," agreed Rose.

  Kirby made no comment. He seemed to be absorbed in speculations of his own. The detective was reasoning from a very partial knowledge of the facts. He knew nothing about the relations of James Cunningham to his uncle, nor even that the younger Cunninghams—or at least one of them—had been in his uncle's apartment the evening of his death. He did not know that Rose had been there. Wherefore his deductions, even though they had the benefit of being trained ones, were of slight value in this case.

  "Will you take the key back to the Chief of Police?" Kirby asked him as they separated. "Better not tell him who was with you or what we were doin'."

  "I'm liable to tell him a whole lot," the detective answered with heavy irony. "I'm figurin' on runnin' down this murderer myself if any one asks you."

  "Wish you luck," Kirby said with perfect gravity.

  CHAPTER XXXVI

  A RIDE IN A TAXI

  Kirby was quite right when he said that Hull would go with them. He was on his way downtown when the taxi caught him at Fourteenth and Welton. The cattleman jumped out from the machine and touched the fat man on the arm as he was waddling past.

  "We want you, Hull," he said.

  A shadow of fear flitted over the shallow eyes of the land agent, but he attempted at once to bluster. "Who wants me? Whadjawant me for?"

  "I want you—in that cab. The man who saw you in my uncle's room the night he was killed is with me. You can either come with us now an' talk this thing over quietly or I'll hang on to you an' call for a policeman. It's up to you. Either way is agreeable to me."

  Beads of perspiration broke out on the fat man's forehead. He dragged from his left hip pocket the familiar bandanna handkerchief. With it he dabbed softly at his mottled face. There was a faint, a very faint, note of defiance in his voice as he answered.

  "I dunno as I've got any call to go with you. I wasn't in Cunningham's rooms. You can't touch me—can't prove a thing on me."

  "It won't cost you anything to make sure of that," Kirby suggested in his low, even tones. "I'm payin' for the ride."

  "If you got anything to say to me, right here's a good place to onload it."

  The man's will was wobbling. The cattleman could see that.

  "Can't talk here, with a hundred people passin'. What's the matter, man? What are you afraid of? We're not goin' to hit you over the head with the butt of a six-shooter."

  Hull flung at him a look of startled terror. What did he mean? Or was there anything significant in the last sentence? Was it just a shot in the dark?

  "I'll go on back to the Paradox. If you want to see me, why, there's as good a place as any."

  "We're choosin' the place, Hull, not you. You'll either step into that cab or into a patrol wagon."

  Their eyes met and fought. The shallow, protuberant ones wavered. "Oh, well, it ain't worth chewin' the rag over. I reckon I'll go with you."

  He stepped into the cab. At sight of Olson he showed both dismay and surprise. He had heard of the threats the Dry Valley man had been making. Was he starting on a journey the end of which would be summary vengeance? A glance at Lane's face reassured him. This young fellow would be no accomplice at murder. Yet the chill at his heart told him he was in for serious trouble.

  He tried to placate Olson with a smile and made a motion to offer his hand. The Scandinavian glared at him.

  The taxicab swung down Fourteenth, across the viaduct to Lake Place, and from it to Federal Boulevard.

  Hull moistened his lips with his tongue and broke the silence. "Where we goin'?" he asked at last.

  "Where we can talk without bein' overheard," Kirby answered.

  The cab ran up the steep slope to Inspiration Point and stopped there.

  The men got out.

  "Come back for us in half an hour," the cattleman told the driver.

  In front and below them lay the beautiful valley of Clear Creek.

  Beyond it were the foothills, and back of them the line of the Front

  Range stretching from Pike's Peak at the south up to the Wyoming line.

  Grey's and Long's and Mount Evans stood out like giant sentinels in the

  clear sunshine.

  Hull looked across the valley nervously and brought his eyes back with a jerk. "Well, what's it all about? Whadjawant?"

  "I know now why you lied at the inquest about the time you saw me on the night my uncle was killed," Kirby told him.

  "I didn't lie. Maybe I was mistaken. Any man's liable to make a mistake."

  "You didn't make a mistake. You deliberately twisted your story so as to get me into my uncle's apartment forty minutes or so earlier than I was. Your reason was a good one. If I was in his rooms at the time he was shot, that let you out completely. So you tried to lie me into the death cell at Cañon City."

  Hull's bandanna was busy. "Nothin' like that. I wouldn't play no such a trick on any man. No, sir."

  "You wouldn't, but you did. Don't stall, Hull. We've got you right."

  The rancher from Dry Valley broke in venomously. "You bet we have, you rotten crook. I'll pay you back proper for that deal you an' Cunningham slipped over on me. I'm gonna put a rope round yore neck for it. I sure am. Why, you big fat stiff, I was standin' watchin' you when you knocked out Cunningham with the butt of yore gun."

  From Hull's red face the color fled. He teetered for a moment on the balls of his feet, then sank limply to the cement bench in front of him. He tried to gasp out a denial, but the words would not come. In his throat there was only a dry rattle.

  He heard, as from a long distance, Lane's voice addressing him.

  "We've got it on you, Hull. Come through an' come clean."

  "I—I—I swear to God I didn't do it—didn't kill him," he gasped at last.

  "Then who did—yore wife?" demanded Olson.

  "Neither of us. I—I'll tell you-all the whole story."

  "Do you know who did kill him?" Kirby persisted.

  "I come pretty near knowing but I didn't see it d
one."

  "Who, then?"

  "Yore cousin—James Cunningham."

  CHAPTER XXXVII

  ON THE GRILL

  In spite of the fact that his mind had at times moved toward his cousin

  James as the murderer, Kirby experienced a shock at this accusation.

  He happened to glance at Olson, perhaps to see the effect of it upon

  him.

  The effect was slight, but it startled Kirby. For just an instant the Dry Valley farmer's eyes told the truth—shouted it as plainly as words could have done. He had expected that answer from Hull. He had expected it because he, too, had reason to believe it the truth. Then the lids narrowed, and the man's lip lifted in a sneer of rejection. He was covering up.

  "Pretty near up to you to find some one else to pass the buck to, ain't it?" he taunted.

  "Suppose you tell us the whole story, Hull," the Wyoming man said.

  The fat man had one last flare of resistance. "Olson here says he seen me crack Cunningham with the butt of my gun. How did he see me? Where does he claim he was when he seen it?"

  "I was standin' on the fire escape of the Wyndham across the alley—about ten or fifteen feet away. I heard every word that was said by Cunningham an' yore wife. Oh, I've got you good."

  Hull threw up the sponge. He was caught and realized it. His only chance now was to make a clean breast of what he knew.

  "Where shall I begin?" he asked weakly, his voice quavering.

  "At the beginning. We've got plenty of time," Kirby replied.

  "Well, you know how yore uncle beat me in that Dry Valley scheme of his. First place, I didn't know he couldn't get water enough. If he give the farmers a crooked deal, I hadn't a thing to do with that. When I talked up the idea to them I was actin' in good faith."

  "Lie number one," interrupted Olson bitterly.

  "Hadn't we better let him tell his story in his own way?" Kirby suggested. "If we don't start any arguments he ain't so liable to get mixed up in his facts."

  "By my way of figurin' he owed me about four to six thousand dollars he wouldn't pay," Hull went on. "I tried to get him to see it right, thinkin' at first he was just bull-headed. But pretty soon I got wise to it that he plain intended to do me. O' course I wasn't goin' to stand for that, an' I told him so."

  "What do you mean when you say you weren't goin' to stand for it. My uncle told a witness that you said you'd give him two days, then you'd come at him with a gun."

  The fat man mopped a perspiring face with his bandanna. His eyes dodged. "Maybe I told him so. I don't recollect. When he's sore a fellow talks a heap o' foolishness. I wasn't lookin' for trouble, though."

  "Not even after he threw you downstairs?"

  "No, sir. He didn't exactly throw me down. I kinda slipped. If I'd been expectin' trouble would I have let Mrs. Hull go up to his rooms with me?"

  Kirby had his own view on that point, but he did not express it. He rather thought that Mrs. Hull had driven her husband upstairs and had gone along to see that he stood to his guns. Once in the presence of Cunningham, she had taken the bit in her own teeth, driven to it by temper. This was his guess. He knew he might be wrong.

  "But I knew how violent he was," the fat man went on. "So I slipped my six-gun into my pocket before we started."

  "What kind of a gun?" Kirby asked.

  "A sawed-off .38."

  "Do you own an automatic?"

  "No, sir. Wouldn't know how to work one. Never had one in my hands."

  "You'll get a chance to prove that," Olson jeered.

  "He doesn't have to prove it. His statement is assumed to be true until it is proved false," Kirby answered.

  Hull's eyes signaled gratitude. He was where he needed a friend badly.

  He would be willing to pay almost any price for Lane's help.

  "Cunningham had left the door open, I reckon because it was hot. I started to push the bell, but Mrs. Hull she walked right in an' of course then I followed. He wasn't in the sittin'-room, but we seen him smokin' in the small room off'n the parlor. So we just went in on him.

  "He acted mean right from the start—hollered at Mrs. Hull what was we doin' there. She up an' told him, real civil, that we wanted to talk the business over an' see if we couldn't come to some agreement about it. He kep' right on insultin' her, an' one thing led to another. Mrs. Hull she didn't get mad, but she told him where he'd have to head in at. Fact is, we'd about made up our minds to sue him. Well, he went clean off the handle then, an' said he wouldn't do a thing for us, an' how we was to get right out."

  Hull paused to wipe the small sweat beads from his forehead. He was not enjoying himself. A cold terror constricted his heart. Was he slipping a noose over his own head? Was he telling more than he should? He wished his wife were here to give him a hint. She had the brains as well as the courage and audacity of the family.

  "Well, sir, I claim self-defense," Hull went on presently. "A man's got no call to stand by an' see his wife shot down. Cunningham reached for a drawer an' started to pull out an automatic gun. Knowin' him, I was scared. I beat him to it an' lammed him one over the head with my gun. My idea was to head him off from drawin' on Mrs. Hull, but I reckon I hit him harder than I'd aimed to. It knocked him senseless."

  "And then?" Kirby said, when he paused.

  "I was struck all of a heap, but Mrs. Hull she didn't lose her presence of mind. She went to the window an' pulled down the curtain. Then we figured, seein' as how we'd got in bad so far, we might as well try a bluff. We tied yore uncle to the chair, intendin' for to make him sign a check before we turned him loose. Right at that time the telephone rang."

  "Did you answer the call?"

  "Yes, sir. It kept ringing. Finally the wife said to answer it, pretendin' I was Cunningham. We was kinda scared some one might butt in on us. Yore uncle had said he was expectin' some folks."

  "What did you do?"

  "I took up the receiver an' listened. Then I said, 'Hello!' Fellow at the other end said, 'This you, Uncle James?' Kinda grufflike, I said, 'Yes.' Then, 'James talkin',' he said. 'We're on our way over now.' I was struck all of a heap, not knowin' what to say. So I called back, 'Who?' He came back with, 'Phyllis an' I.' I hung up."

  "And then?"

  "We talked it over, the wife an' me. We didn't know how close James, as he called himself, was when he was talkin'. He might be at the drug-store on the next corner for all we knew. We were in one hell of a hole, an' it didn't look like there was any way out. We decided to beat it right then. That's what we did."

  "You left the apartment?"

  "Yes, sir."

  "With my uncle still tied up?"

  Hull nodded. "We got panicky an' cut our stick."

  "Did anybody see you go?"

  "The Jap janitor was in the hall fixin' one of the windows that was stuck."

  "Did he say anything?"

  "Not then."

  "Afterward?"

  "He come to me after the murder was discovered—next day, I reckon it was, in the afternoon, just before the inquest—and said could I lend him five hundred dollars. Well, I knew right away it was a hold-up, but I couldn't do a thing. I dug up the money an' let him have it."

  "Has he bothered you since?"

  Hull hesitated. "Well—no."

  "Meanin' that he has?"

  Hull flew the usual flag of distress, a red bandanna mopping a perspiring, apoplectic face. "He kinda hinted he wanted more money."

  "Did you give it to him?"

  "I didn't have it right handy. I stalled."

  "That's the trouble with a blackmailer. Give way to him once an' he's got you in his power," Kirby said. "The thing to do is to tell him right off the reel to go to Halifax."

  "If a fellow can afford to," Olson put in significantly. "When you've just got through a little private murder of yore own, you ain't exactly free to tell one of the witnesses against you to go very far."

  "Tell you I didn't kill Cunningham," Hull retorted sullenly. "Some one
else must 'a' come in an' did that after I left."

  "Sounds reasonable," Olson murmured with heavy sarcasm.

  "Was the hall lit when you came out of my uncle's rooms?" Kirby asked suddenly.

  "Yes. I told you Shibo was workin' at one of the windows."

  "So Shibo saw you and Mrs. Hull plainly?"

  "I ain't denyin' he saw us," Hull replied testily.

  "No, you don't deny anything we can prove on you," the Dry Valley man jeered.

  "And Shibo didn't let up on you. He kept annoyin' you afterward," the cattleman persisted.

  "Well, he—I reckon he aims to be reasonable now," Hull said uneasily.

  "Why now? What's changed his views?"

  The fat man looked again at this brown-faced youngster with the single-track mind who never quit till he got what he wanted. Why was he shaking the bones of Shibo's blackmailing. Did he know more than he had told? It was on the tip of Hull's tongue to tell something more, a damnatory fact against himself. But he stopped in time. He was in deep enough water already. He could not afford to tell the dynamic cattleman anything that would make an enemy of him.

  "Well, I reckon he can't get blood from a turnip, as the old sayin' is," the land agent returned.

  Kirby knew that Hull was concealing something material, but he saw he could not at the present moment wring it from him. He had not, in point of fact, the faintest idea of what it was. Therefore he could not lay 'hold of any lever with which to pry it loose. He harked back to another point.

  "Do you know that my cousin and Miss Harriman came to see my uncle that night? I mean do you know of your own eyesight that they ever reached his apartment?"

  "Well, we know they reached the Paradox an' went up in the elevator.

  Me an' the wife watched at the window. Yore cousin James wasn't with

  Miss Harriman. The dude one was with her."

  "Jack!" exclaimed Kirby, astonished.

  "Yep."

  "How do you know? How did you recognize them?"