Tangled Trails Part 18

The man-about-town shrugged his well-tailored shoulders. "They have a way, the ladies. Guile, my son, is more potent than force."

"Meaning?"

"Delilah chloroformed Samson's suspicions before she sheared his locks."

Kirby repressed an anger that he knew was worse than futile. "It you knew Miss McLean you couldn't misjudge her so. She thinks an' acts as straight as a man."

"I don't say she did it, old top. I'm merely pointing out that it's possible she did. Point of fact your friend made a hit with me. I'd say she's a game little thoroughbred."

"You an' James will regard what she told you as confidential, of course."

"Of course. We're of your mind, too, though I put her proposition to you. Can't see anything to be gained by airing her story unless it's absolutely necessary on your account. By the way, James wants me to tell you that he thinks you won't have to spend another night at this delightful hotel the city keeps for its guests. Bond has been practically agreed on."

"Fine. Your brother's a brick. We're goin' to run down this business, he an' I, an' drag the truth to light."

A glitter of sardonic mockery shone out of the dark eyes of Cunningham.

"You'll work together fine and Sherlock-Holmes this thing till it's as clear as mud," he predicted.

By the middle of the afternoon Kirby was free. After he had talked over with James a plan of campaign, he called Rose up on the telephone and told her he would be right out to Cherokee Street.

She came to meet him in the stuffy parlor of the boarding-house with hand outstretched.

"Oh, Kirby, I'm so glad to see you and so sorry I was such a horrid little beast last time we met. I'm ashamed of myself. My temper explodes so--and after you came to Denver to help me and gave up so much for me. You'll forgive me, won't you?"

"You know it, Rose," he said, smiling.

"Yes, I do know it," she cried quickly. "That makes it worse for me to impose on you. Now you're in trouble because of me. I should think you'd pretty near hate me."

"We're in trouble together," he corrected. "I thought that was supposed to bring friends closer an' not to drive them apart."

She flashed a quick look at him and changed the subject of conversation. Just now she could not afford to be emotional.

"Are you going back to Twin b.u.t.tes?"

"No. I'm goin' to find out who killed James Cunningham an' bring the man to justice. That's the only way to clear us both before the world."

"Yes!" she cried eagerly. "Let me help you. Let's be partners in it, Kirby."

He already had one partner, but he threw him overboard instantly.

James Cunningham was retired to the position of an adviser.

"Bully! We'll start this very minute. Tell me all you know about what happened the evenin' of the murder."

She told again the story she had confessed to his cousins. He asked questions, pushed home inquiries. When she mentioned the woman who had pa.s.sed her on the stairs he showed a keen interest.

"You say you knew it was a woman with the man by the perfume. What kind of perfume was it?"

"Violet."

"Did you notice a violet perfume any other place that night?"

"In your uncle's living-room."

"Sure?"

"Yes."

"So did I."

"The woman I met on the stairs, then, had just come from your uncle's rooms."

"Looks like it," he nodded in agreement.

"Then we've got to find her. She must have been in his apartment when he was killed." The thought came to Rose as a revelation.

"Or right after."

"All we've got to do is to find her and the man with her, and we've solved the mystery," the girl cried eagerly.

"That's not quite all," said Kirby, smiling at the way her mind leaped gaps. "We've got to induce them to talk, an' it's not certain they know any more than we do."

"Her skirts rustled like silk and the perfume wasn't cheap. I couldn't really see her, but I knew she was well dressed," Rose told him.

"Well, that's somethin'," he said with the whimsical quirk to his mouth she knew of old. "We'll advertise for a well-dressed lady who uses violet perfume. Supposed to be connected with the murder at the Paradox Apartments. Generous reward an' many questions asked."

His badinage was of the surface only. The subconscious mind of the rough rider was preoccupied with a sense of a vague groping. The thought of violet perfume a.s.sociated itself with something else in addition to the darkness of his uncle's living-room, but he did not find himself able to localize the nebulous memory. Where was it his nostrils had whiffed the scent more recently?

"Don't you think we ought to see all the tenants at the Paradox and talk with them? Some of them may have seen people going in or out. Or they may have heard voices," she said.

"That's a good idea. We'll make a canva.s.s of the house."

Her eyes sparkled. "We'll find who did it! When two people look for the truth intelligently they're bound to find it. Don't you think so?"

"I think we'll sure round up the wolf that did this killin'," he drawled. "Anyhow, we'll sleep on his trail for a moon or two."

They shook hands on it.

CHAPTER XVII

IN DRY VALLEY

If Kirby had been a properly authenticated detective of fiction he would have gone to his uncle's apartment, locked the door, measured the rooms with a tape-line, found imprints of fingers on a door panel, and carefully gathered into an envelope the ashes from the cigar his uncle had been smoking. The data obtained would have proved conclusively that Cunningham had come to his death at the hands of a Brahmin of high caste on account of priceless gems stolen from a temple in India. An a.n.a.lysis of the cigar ashes would have shown that a subtle poison, unknown to the Western world, had caused the victim's heart to stop beating exactly two minutes and twelve seconds after taking the first puff at the cigar. Thus the fictional ethics of the situation would have been correctly met.

But Kirby was only a plain, outdoors Westerner. He did not know the conventional method of procedure. It did not even occur to him at first that Apartment 12 might still have secrets to tell him after the police and the reporters had pawed over it for several days. But his steps turned back several times to the Paradox as the center from which all clues must emanate. He found himself wandering around in that vicinity trying to pick up some of the pieces of the Chinese puzzle that made up the mystery of his uncle's death.