Jack strode up and down the room in a stress of emotion. "You're going to ruin three lives because you're so pigheaded or because you want your name in the papers as a great detective. Is there anything in the world we can do to head you off?"

"Nothin'. And if lives are ruined it's not my fault. I'll promise this: The man or woman I point to as the one who killed Uncle James will be the one that did it. If James is innocent, as you claim he is, he won't have it saddled on him. Shall I tell you the thing that's got you worried? Down in the bottom of your heart you're not dead sure he didn't do it--either one of you."

The young woman took a step toward Kirby, hands outstretched in dumb pleading. She gave him her soft, appealing eyes, a light of proud humility in them.

"Don't do it!" she begged. "He's your own cousin--and my husband. I love him. Perhaps there's some woman that loves you. If there is, remember her and be merciful."

His eyes softened. It was the first time he had seen her taken out of her selfishness. She was one of those modern young women who take, but do not give. At least that had been his impression of her. She had specialized, he judged, in graceful and lovely self-indulgence. A part of her code had been to get the best possible bargain for her charm and beauty, and as a result of her philosophy of life time had already begun to enamel on her a slight hardness of finish. Yet she had married James instead of his uncle. She had risked the loss of a large fortune to follow her heart. Perhaps, if children came, she might still escape into the thoughts and actions that give life its true value.

A faint, sphinxlike smile touched his face. "No use worryin'. That doesn't help any. I'll go as easy as I can. We'll meet in two hours at James's office."

He turned and left the room.

CHAPTER XL

THE MILLS OF THE G.o.dS

Kirby Lane did not waste the two hours that lay before the appointment he had made for a meeting at the office of his cousin James. He had a talk with the Hulls and another with the Chief of Police. He saw Olson and Rose McLean. He even found the time to forge two initials at the foot of a typewritten note on the stationery of James Cunningham, and to send the note to its destination by a messenger.

Rose met him by appointment at the entrance to the Equitable Building and they rode up in the elevator together to the office of his cousin.

Miss Harriman, as she still called herself in public, was there with Jack and her husband.

James was ice-cold. He bowed very slightly to Rose. Chairs were already placed.

For a moment Kirby was embarra.s.sed. He drew James aside. Cunningham murmured an exchange of sentences with his wife, then escorted her to the door. Rose was left with the three cousins.

"I suppose Jack has told you of the marriage of Esther McLean," Kirby said as soon as the door had been closed.

James bowed, still very stiffly.

Kirby met him, eye to eye. He spoke very quietly and clearly. "I want to open the meetin' by tellin' you on behalf of this young woman an'

myself that we think you an unmitigated cur. We are debarred from sayin' so before your wife, but it's a pleasure to tell you so in private. Is that quite clear?"

The oil broker flushed darkly. He made no answer. "You not only took advantage of a young woman's tender heart. You were willin' our dead uncle should bear the blame for it. Have you any other word than the one I have used to suggest as a more fittin' one?" the Wyoming man asked bitingly.

Jack answered for his brother. "Suppose we pa.s.s that count of the indictment, unless you have a practical measure to suggest in connection with it. We plead guilty."

There wag a little gleam of mirth in Kirby's eyes. "You an' I have discussed the matter already, Jack. I regret I expressed my opinion so vigorously then. We have nothin' practical to suggest, if you are referrin' to any form of compensation. Esther is happily married, thank G.o.d. All we want is to make it perfectly plain what we think of Mr. James Cunningham."

James acknowledged this and answered. "That is quite clear. I may say that I entirely concur in your estimate of my conduct. I might make explanations, but I can make none that justify me to myself."

"In that case we may consider the subject closed, unless Miss McLean has something to say."

Kirby turned to Rose. She looked at James Cunningham, and he might have been the dirt under her feet. "I have nothing whatever to say, Kirby. You express my sentiments exactly."

"Very well. Then we might open the door and invite in Miss Harriman.

There are others who should be along soon that have a claim also to be present."

"What others?" asked Jack Cunningham.

"The other suspects in the case. I prefer to have them all here."

"Any one else?"

"The Chief of Police."

James looked at him hard. "This is not a private conference, then?"

"That's a matter of definitions. I have invited only those who have a claim to be present," Kirby answered.

"To my office, I think."

"If you prefer the Chief's office we'll adjourn an' go there."

The broker shrugged. "Oh, very well."

Kirby stepped to the door connecting with an outer office and threw it open. Mr. and Mrs. Hull, Olson, and the Chief of Police followed Phyllis Harriman into the room. More chairs were brought in.

The Chief sat nearest the door, one leg thrown lazily across the other.

He had a fat brown cigar in his hand. Sometimes he chewed on the end of it, but he was not smoking. He was an Irishman, and as it happened open-minded. He liked this brown-faced young fellow from Wyoming--never had believed him guilty from the first. Moreover, he was willing his detective bureau should get a jolt from an outsider.

It might spur them up in future.

"Chief, is there anything you want to say?" Kirby asked.

"Not a wor-rd. I'm sittin' in a parquet seat. It's your show, son."

Kirby's disarming smile won the Chief's heart. "I want to say now that I've talked with the Chief several times. He's given me a lot of good tips an' I've worked under his direction."

The head of the police force grinned. The tips he had given Lane had been of no value, but he was quite willing to take any public credit there might be. He sat back and listened now while Kirby told his story.

"Outside of the Chief every one here is connected closely with this case an' is involved in it. It happens that every man an' woman of us were in my uncle's apartments either at the time of his death or just before or after." Kirby raised a hand to meet Olson's protest. "Oh, I know. You weren't in the rooms, but you were on the fire escape outside. From the angle of the police you may have been in. All you had to do was to pa.s.s through an open window."

There was a moment's silence, while Kirby hesitated in what order to tell his facts. Hull mopped the back of his overflowing neck. Phyllis Cunningham moistened her dry lips. A chord in her throat ached tensely.

"Suspicion fell first on me an' on Hull," Kirby went on. "You've seen it all thrashed out in the papers. I had been unfriendly to my uncle for years, an' I was seen goin' to his rooms an' leavin' them that evening. My own suspicion was directed to Hull, especially when he an'

Mrs. Hull at the coroner's inquest changed the time so as to get me into my uncle's apartment half an hour earlier than I had been there.

I'd caught them in a panic of terror when I knocked on their door.

They'd lied to get me into trouble. Hull had quarreled with Uncle James an' had threatened to go after him with a gun in _two days_ after that time--and it was _just forty-eight hours later he was killed_. It looked a lot like Hull to me.

"I had one big advantage, Chief, a lot of inside facts not open to you," the cattleman explained. "I knew, for instance, that Miss McLean here had been in the rooms just before me. She was the young woman my uncle had the appointment to meet there before ten o'clock. You will remember Mr. Blanton's testimony. Miss McLean an' I compared notes, so we were able to shave down the time during which the murder must have taken place. We worked together. She gave me other important data.

Perhaps she had better tell in her own words about the clue she found that we followed."

Rose turned to the Chief. Her young face flew a charming flag of color. Her hair, in crisp tendrils beneath the edge of the small hat she wore, was the ripe gold of wheat-tips in the shock. The tender blue of violets was in her eyes.

"I told you about how I found Mr. Cunningham tied to his chair, Chief.

I forgot to say that in the living-room there was a faint odor of perfume. On my way upstairs I pa.s.sed in the dark a man and a woman. I had got a whiff of the same perfume then. It was violet. So I knew they had been in the apartment just before me. Mr. Lane discovered later that Miss Harriman used that scent."