Tangled Trails Part 5

James Cunningham, Junior, introduced him to Kirby as his cousin Jack.

After a few moments of talk the broker reverted to the subject of their previous talk.

"Kirby was just telling me that he has come to Denver to meet Uncle James," he explained to his brother. "Some difficulty with him, I understand."

Jack Cunningham's black eyes fastened on his cousin. He waited for further information. It was plain he was interested.

"I'm not quite sure of my facts," Lane said. "But there's evidence to show that he has ruined a young girl in his office. She practically admits that he's the man. I happen to be a friend of her family, an'

I'm goin' to call him to account. He can't get away with it."

Kirby chanced to be looking at his cousin Jack. What he saw in that young man's eyes surprised him. There were astonishment, incredulity, and finally a cunning narrowing of the black pupils.

It was James who spoke. His face was grave. "That's a serious charge, Kirby," he said. "What is the name of the young woman?"

"I'd rather not give it--except to Uncle James himself."

"Better write it," suggested Jack with a reminiscent laugh. "He's a bit impetuous. I saw him throw a man down the stairs yesterday.

Picked the fellow up at the foot of the flight. He certainly looked as though he'd like to murder our dear uncle."

"What I'd like to know is this," said Lane. "What sort of a reputation has Uncle James in this way? Have you ever heard of his bein' in anything of this sort before?"

"No, I haven't," James said promptly.

Jack shrugged. "I wouldn't pick nunky for exactly a moral man," he said flippantly. "His idea of living is to grab all the easy things he can."

"Where can I see him most easily? At his office?" asked Kirby.

"He drove down to Colorado Springs to-day on business. At least he told me he was going. Don't know whether he expects to get back to-night or not. He lives at the Paradox Apartments," Jack said.

"Prob'ly I'd better see him there rather than at his office."

"Hope you have a pleasant time with the old boy," Jack murmured.

"Don't think I'd care to be a champion of dames where he's concerned.

He's a d.a.m.ned cantankerous old brute. I'll say that for him."

James arranged a place of meeting for luncheon next day. The young cattleman left. He knew from the fidgety manner of Jack that he had some important business he was anxious to talk over with his brother.

CHAPTER VI

LIGHTS OUT

It was five minutes to ten by his watch when Kirby entered the Paradox Apartments. The bulletin board told him that his uncle's apartment was 12. He did not take the self-serve elevator, but the stairs. The hall on the second floor was dark. Since he did not know whether the rooms he wanted were on this floor or the next he knocked at a door.

Kirby thought he heard the whisper of voices and he knocked again. He had to rap a third time before the door was opened.

"What is it? What do you want?"

If ever Lane had seen stark, naked fear in a human face, it stared at him out of that of the woman in front of him. She was a tall, angular woman of a harsh, forbidding countenance, flat-breasted and middle-aged. Behind her, farther back in the room, the roughrider caught a glimpse of a fat, gross, ashen-faced man fleeing toward the inner door of a bedroom to escape being seen. He was thrusting into his coat pocket what looked to the man in the hall like a revolver.

"Can you tell me where James Cunningham's apartment is?" asked Kirby.

The woman gasped. The hand on the doork.n.o.b was trembling violently.

Something clicked in her throat when the dry lips tried to frame an answer.

"Head o' the stairs--right hand," she managed to get out, then shut the door swiftly in the face of the man whose simple question had so shocked her.

Kirby heard the latch released from its catch. The key in the lock below also turned.

"She's takin' no chances," he murmured. "Now I wonder why both her an'

my fat friend are so darned worried. Who were they lookin' for when they opened the door an' saw me? An' why did it get her goat when I asked where Uncle James lived?"

As he took the treads that brought him to the next landing the cattleman had an impression of a light being flashed off somewhere. He turned to the right as the woman below had directed.

The first door had on the panel a card with his uncle's name. He knocked, and at the same instant noticed that the door was ajar. No answer came. His finger found the electric push b.u.t.ton. He could hear it buzzing inside. Twice he pushed it.

"n.o.body at home, looks like," he said to himself. "Well, I reckon I'll step in an' leave a note. Or maybe I'll wait. If the door's open he's liable to be right back."

He stepped into the room. It was dark. His fingers groped along the wall for the b.u.t.ton to throw on the light. Before he found it a sound startled him.

It was the soft faint panting of some one breathing.

He was a man whose nerves were under the best of control, but the cold feet of mice pattered up and down his spine. Something was wrong. The sixth sense of danger that comes to some men who live constantly in peril was warning him.

"Who's there?" he asked sharply.

No voice replied, but there was a faint rustle of some one or some thing stirring.

He waited, crouched in the darkness.

There came another vague rustle of movement. And presently another, this time closer. Every sense in him was alert, keyed up to closest attention. He knew that some one, for some sinister purpose, had come into this apartment and been trapped here by him.

The moments flew. He thought he could hear his hammering heart. A stifled gasp, a dozen feet from him, was just audible.

He leaped for the sound. His outflung hand struck an arm and slid down it, caught at a small wrist, and fastened there. In the fraction of a second left him he realized, beyond question, that it was a woman he had a.s.saulted.

The hand was wrenched from him. There came a zigzag flash of lightning searing his brain, a crash that filled the world for him--and he floated into unconsciousness.

CHAPTER VII

FOUL PLAY

Lane came back painfully to a world of darkness. His head throbbed distressingly. Querulously he wondered where he was and what had taken place.

He drew the fingers of his outstretched hand along the nap of a rug and he knew he was on the floor. Then his mind cleared and he remembered that a woman's hand had been imprisoned in his just before his brain stopped functioning.