Tangled Trails Part 17

"It was quite a little past a quarter to ten when I reached his rooms."

"Did you meet any one going up or coming down?" asked James.

"A man and a woman pa.s.sed me on the stairs."

"A man and a woman," repeated Jack, almost in a whisper. His att.i.tude was tense. His eyes burned with excitement.

"Was it light enough to tell who they were?" James asked. His cold eyes did not lift from hers until she answered.

"No. It was entirely dark. The woman was on the other side of the man. I wouldn't have been sure she was a woman except for the rustle of her skirts and the perfume."

"Sure it wasn't the perfume you use yourself that you smelled?"

"I don't use any."

"You stick to it that you met a man and a woman, but couldn't possibly recognize either of them," James Cunningham said, still looking straight at her.

She hesitated an instant. Somehow she did not quite like the way he put this. "Yes," she said steadily.

"You didn't take the elevator up, then?"

"No. I'm not used to automatic elevators. I rang when I got to the door. n.o.body answered, but the door was wide open. I rang again, then went in and switched on the light. There didn't seem to be anybody in.

I didn't feel right about it. I wanted to go. But I wouldn't because I thought maybe he--your uncle--was trying to dodge me. I looked into the bedroom. He wasn't there. So after a little I went to a door into another room that was shut and knocked on it. I don't know why I opened it when no answer came. Something seemed to move my hand to the k.n.o.b. I switched the light on there."

"Yes?" James asked, gently.

The girl gulped. She made a weak, small gesture with her hand, as though to push from her mind the horrible sight her eyes had looked upon. "He was dead, in the chair, tied to it. I think I screamed.

I'm not sure. But I switched off the light and shut the door. My knees were weak, and I felt awf'lly queer in the head. I was crazy to get away from the place, but I couldn't seem to have the power to move.

I leaned against the door, weak and limp as a small puppy. Then I heard some one comin' up the stairs, and I knew I mustn't be caught there. I switched off the lights just as some one came to the landing outside."

"Who was it? Did he come in?" asked Jack.

"He rang and knocked two or three times. Then he came in. I was standing by the table with my hand on some kind of heavy metal paperweight. His hand was groping for the light switch. I could tell that. He must have heard me, for he called out, 'Who's there?' In the darkness there I was horribly frightened. He might be the murderer come back. If not, of course he'd think I had done it. So I tried to slip by him. He jumped at me and caught me by the hand. I pulled away from him and hit hard at his face. The paper-weight was still in my hand and he went down just as though a hammer had hit him. I ran out of the room, downstairs, and out into the street."

"Without meeting anybody?"

"Yes."

"You don't know who it was you struck?"

"Unless it was Kirby."

"Jove! That explains the bruise on his chin," Jack cried out. "Why didn't he tell us that?"

The color flushed the young woman's cheeks. "We're friends, he and I.

If he guessed I was the one that struck him he wouldn't tell."

"How would he guess it?" asked James.

"He knew I meant to see your uncle--meant to make him do justice to Esther. I suppose I'd made wild threats. Besides, I left my glove there--on the table, I think. I'd taken it off with some notion of writing a note telling your uncle I had been there and that he had to see me next day."

"The police didn't find a woman's glove in the room, did they?" James asked his brother.

"Didn't hear of it if they did," Jack replied.

"That's it, you see," explained Rose. "Kirby would know my glove. It was a small riding-gauntlet with a rose embroidered on it. He probably took it with him when he left. He kept still about the whole thing because I was the woman and he was afraid of gettin' me into trouble."

"Sounds reasonable," agreed James.

"That's how it was. Kirby's a good friend. He'd never tell on me if they hanged him for it."

"They won't do that, Miss McLean," the older brother a.s.sured her.

"We're going to find who did this thing. Kirby and I have shaken hands on that. But about your story. I don't quite see how we're going to use it. We must protect your sister, too, as well as my cousin. If we go to the police with your evidence and ask them to release Kirby, they'll want to arrest you."

"I know," she nodded wisely, "and of course they'd find out about Esther then and the papers would get it and scatter the story everywhere."

"Exactly. We must protect her first. Kirby wouldn't want anything done that would hurt her. Suppose we put it up to him and see what he wants to do."

"But we can't have him kept in jail," she protested.

"I'll get him out on bond; if not to-day, tomorrow."

"Well," she agreed reluctantly. "If that's the best we can do."

Rose would have liked to have paid back Kirby's generosity in kind. If her sister had not been a factor of the equation she would have gone straight to the police with her story and suffered arrest gladly to help her friend. But the circ.u.mstances did not permit a heroic gesture. She had to take and not give.

CHAPTER XVI

THE LADY WITH THE VIOLET PERFUME

"I won't have it," Kirby said flatly. "If Miss McLean tells her story to the district attorney he'll probably arrest her. It'll come out about her sister an' the papers will run scare-heads. No need of it a-tall. Won't hurt me to stay here a few days if I have to."

Jack, dapper and trim, leaned on his cane and watched his cousin. He felt a reluctant admiration for this virile cousin so picturesquely competent, so clean-cut and four-square of mind. Was he in love with the Wild Rose from Wyoming, whose spirit also was like a breath from the sweet hill pines? Or was his decision only the expression of a native chivalry that went out to all his friends and perhaps to all women?

"They'd certainly arrest her," Jack commented. "From a lawyer's point of view there's every reason why they should. Motive for the crime, sufficient; intention to force the victim to make reparation or punish him, declared openly; opportunity to commit it, confessed; presence on scene and eagerness to escape being seen there, admitted. The case against her is stronger than the one against you." He offered this last with a smile decorously but not wholly concealed.

"Yet she couldn't possibly have done it!" the cattleman replied.

"Couldn't she? I wonder." The Beau Brummel stroked his bit of mustache, with the hint of insolence his manner often suggested.

"Not possible," said Lane forcefully. "Uncle James was a big, two-fisted fighter. No slip of a girl could have overpowered him an'

tied him. It's not within reason." He spoke urgently, though still in the low murmur both the cousins were using in order not to be overheard.

Jack put a neat, highly polished boot on the desk of the sergeant of police. "Ever hear of a lady called Delilah?" he asked lightly.

"What about her?" In Kirby's quiet eye there was a warning.