Tangled Trails Part 38

"Is there more than one entrance to the Denmark Building?"

"No, sir." The clerk corrected himself. "Well, there's another way out. The Producers & Developers Shale and Oil Company have a suite of offices that run into the Rockford Building. They've built an alley to connect between the two buildings. It's on the fifth floor."

"Is it open? Could a man get out of the Denmark Building now by way of the Rockford entrance?"

"Easiest in the world. All he'd have to do would be to cross the alley bridge, go down the Rockford stairs, and walk into the street."

Kirby wasted no more time. He knew that the man who had tried to murder him had long since made good his getaway by means of the fifth-story bridge between the buildings.

As he walked back to the hotel where he was stopping his eyes and ears were busy. He took no dark-alley chances, but headed for the bright lights of the main streets where he would be safe from any possibility of a second ambush.

His brain was as busy as his eyes. Who had planned this attempt on his life and so nearly carried it to success? Of one thing he was sure.

The a.s.sa.s.sin who had flung the shots at him down the narrow stairway of the Denmark was the one who had murdered his uncle. The motive for the ambuscade was fear. Kirby was too hot on the trail that might send him to the gallows. The man had decided to play safe by following the old theory that dead men tell no tales.

CHAPTER x.x.xII

JACK TAKES OFF HIS COAT

Afterward, when Kirby Lane looked back upon the weeks spent in Denver trying to clear up the mysteries which surrounded the whole affair of his uncle's death, it seemed to him that he had been at times incredibly stupid. Nowhere did this accent itself so much as in that part of the tangle which related to Esther McLean.

From time to time Kirby saw Cole. He was in and out of town. Most of his time was spent running down faint trails which spun themselves out and became lost in the hills. The champion rough rider was indomitably resolute in his intention of finding her. There were times when Rose began to fear that her little sister was lost to her for always. But Sanborn never shared this feeling.

"You wait. I'll find her," he promised. "An' if I can lay my hands on the man that's done her a meanness, I'll certainly give them hospital sharks a job patchin' him up." His gentle eyes had frozen, and the cold, hard light in them was almost deadly.

Kirby could not get it out of his head that James was responsible for the disappearance of the girl. Yet he could not find a motive that would justify so much trouble on his cousin's part.

He was at a moving-picture house on Curtis Street with Rose when the explanation popped into his mind. They were watching an old-fas.h.i.+oned melodrama in which the villain's letter is laid at the door of the unfortunate hero.

Kirby leaned toward Rose in the darkness and whispered, "Let's go."

"Go where?" she wanted to know in surprise. They had seated themselves not five minutes before.

"I've got a hunch. Come."

She rose, and on the way to the aisle brushed past several irritated ladies. Not till they were standing on the sidewalk outside did he tell her what was on his mind.

"I want to see that note from my uncle you found in your sister's desk," he said.

She looked at him and laughed a little. "You certainly want what you want when you want it! Do your hunches often take you like that--right out of a perfectly good show you've paid your money to see?"

"We've made a mistake. It was seein' that fellow in the play that put me wise. Have you got the note with you?"

"No. It's at home. If you like we'll go and get it."

They walked up to the Pioneers' Monument and from there over to her boarding-place.

Kirby looked the little note over carefully. "What a chump I was not to look at this before," he said. "My uncle never wrote it."

"Never wrote it?"

"Not his writin' a-tall."

"Then whose is it?"

"I can make a darn good guess. Can't you?"

She looked at him, eyes dilated, on the verge of a discovery. "You mean--?"

"I mean that J. C. might stand for at least two other men we know."

"Your cousin James?"

"More likely Jack."

His mind beat back to fugitive memories of Jack's embarra.s.sment when Esther's name had been mentioned in connection with his uncle. Swiftly his brain began to piece the bits of evidence he had not understood the meaning of before.

"Jack's the man. You may depend on it. My uncle hadn't anything to do with it. We jumped at that conclusion too quick," he went on.

"You think that she's . . . with him?"

"No. She's likely out in the country or in some small town. He's havin' her looked after. Probably an attack of conscience. Even if he's selfish as the devil, he isn't heartless."

"If we could be sure she's all right. But we can't." Rose turned on him a wistful face, twisted by emotion. "I want to find her, Kirby.

I'm her sister. She's all I've got. Can't you do something?"

"I'll try."

She noticed the hardening of the lean jaw, the tightening of the muscles as the back teeth clenched.

"Don't--don't do anything--rash," she begged.

Her hand rested lightly on his arm. Their eyes met. He smiled grimly.

"Don't worry. Mebbe I'll call you up later tonight and report progress."

He walked to the nearest drug-store and used the telephone freely. At the end of fifteen minutes he stepped out of the booth. His cousin Jack was doing some evening work at the offices where he was now in charge of settling up his uncle's affairs.

Kirby found him there. A man stenographer was putting on his coat to leave, but Jack was still at his desk. He looked up, annoyed.

"Was that you telephoned me?" he asked.

"Yes."

"I told you I'd let you know when I wanted to see you."