Tangled Trails Part 35

"I don't know. Probably the company has a record of all calls. If so, you can find the boy who delivered the message."

"I'll get busy right away."

Foster hesitated, then volunteered another piece of information. "I don't suppose you know that your uncle sent for me next day and told me to draft a new will for him and get it ready for his signature."

"Did you do it?"

"Yes. I handed it to him the afternoon of the day he was killed. It was found unsigned among his papers after his death. The old will still stands."

"Leaving the property to James and Jack?"

"Yes."

"And the new will?"

"Except for some bequests and ten thousand for a fountain at the city park, the whole fortune was to go to Jack."

"So that if he had lived twenty-four hours longer James would have been disinherited."

Foster looked at him out of eyes that told nothing of what he was thinking. "That's the situation exactly."

Kirby made no further comment, nor did the lawyer.

Within two hours the man from Twin b.u.t.tes had talked with the messenger boy, refreshed his memory with a tip, and learned that the message Cunningham had sent from the City Club had been addressed to his nephew Jack.

CHAPTER XXIX

"COME CLEAN, JACK"

Jack Cunningham, co-heir with James of his uncle's estate, was busy in the office he had inherited settling up one of the hundred details that had been left at loose ends by the promoter's sudden death. He looked up at the entrance of Lane.

"What do you want?" he asked sharply.

"Want a talk with you."

"Well, I don't care to talk with you. What are you doing here anyhow.

I told the boy to tell you I was too busy to see you."

"That's what he said." Kirby opened his slow, whimsical smile on Jack.

"But I'm right busy, too. So I brushed him aside an' walked in."

In dealing with this forceful cousin of his, Jack had long since lost his indolent insolence of manner. "You can walk out again, then. I'll not talk," he snapped.

Kirby drew up a chair and seated himself. "When Uncle James sent a messenger for you to come to his rooms at once on the evening of the twenty-first, what did he want to tell you?" The steady eyes of the cattleman bored straight into those of Cunningham.

"Who said he sent a messenger for me?"

"It doesn't matter who just now. There are two witnesses. What did he want?"

"That's my business."

"So you say. I'm beginnin' to wonder if it isn't the business of the State of Colorado, too."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean that Uncle sent for you because he had just found out your brother and Miss Harriman were married."

Jack flashed a startled look at him. It seemed to him his cousin showed an uncanny knowledge at times. "You think so."

"He wanted to tell you that he was goin' to cut your brother out of his will an' leave you sole heir. An' he wanted you to let James know it right away."

Kirby was guessing, but he judged he had scored. Jack got up and began to pace the room. He was plainly agitated.

"Look here. Why don't you go back to Wyoming and mind your own business? You're not in this. It's none of your affair. What are you staying here for hounding the life out of James and me?"

"None of my business! That's good, Jack. An' me out on bond charged with the murder of Uncle James. I'd say it was quite some of my business. I'm gonna stick to the job. Make up your mind to that."

"Then leave us alone," retorted Jack irritably. "You act as though you thought we were a pair of murderers."

"If you have nothin' to conceal, why do you block anyway? Why aren't you frank an' open? Why did you steal that record at Golden? Why did James lose the j.a.p's confession--if it was a confession? Why did he get Miss McLean to disappear? Answer those questions to my satisfaction before you talk about me b.u.t.tin' in with suspicions against you."

Jack slammed a fist down on the corner of the desk. "I'm not going to answer any questions! I'll say you've got a nerve! You're the man charged with this crime--the man that's liable to be tried for it.

You've got a rope round your neck right this minute--and you go around high and mighty trying to throw suspicion on men that there's no evidence against."

"You said you had a quarrel with your uncle that night--no, I believe you called it a difference of opinion, at the inquest. What was that disagreement about?"

"Find out! I'll never tell you."

"Was it because you tried to defend James to him--tried to get him to forgive the treachery of his fiancee and his nephew?"

Again Jack shot at him a look of perplexed and baffled wonder. That brown, indomitable face, back of which was so much strength of purpose and so much keenness of apprehension, began to fill him with alarm.

This man let no obstacles stop him. He would go on till he had uncovered the whole tangle they were trying to keep hidden.

"For G.o.d's sake, man, stop this snooping around! You'll get off.

We'll back you. There's nowhere nearly enough evidence to convict you.

Let it go at that," implored Jack.

"I can't do that. I've got to clear my name. Do you think I'm willin'

to go back to my friends with a Scotch verdict hangin' over me? 'He did it, but we haven't evidence enough to prove it.' Come clean, Jack!

Are you and James in this thing? Is that why you want me to drop my investigations?"

"No, of course we're not! But--d.a.m.n it, do you think we want the name of my brother's wife dragged through the mud?"

"Why should it be dragged through the mud--if you're all innocent?"

"Because gossips cackle--and people never forget. If there was some evidence against her and against James--no matter how little--twenty years from now people would still whisper that they had killed his uncle for the fortune, though it couldn't be proved. You know that."