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TANGLED TRAILS
TANGLED TRAILS
A Western Detective Story by Author of The Big-Town Round-Up, Gunsight Pass, Etc. Grosset & Dunlap Publishers New York Made in the United States of America Copyright, 1921, by William Macleod Raine All Rights Reserved Third Impression, March, 1922...
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TANGLED TRAILS
TANGLED TRAILS
Esther McLean brought the afternoon mail in to Cunningham. She put it on the desk before him and stood waiting, timidly, afraid to voice her demand for justice, yet too desperately anxious to leave with it unspoken. He leaned back in his swivel chair, his cold eyes challenging her. "Well," he barked harshly. She was a young, soft creature, very pretty in a kittenish fashion, both sensuous and helpless. It was an easy guess that unless fortune stood her friend she was a predestined victim to the
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CHAPTER II
CHAPTER II
"Wild Rose on Wild Fire," shouted the announcer through a megaphone trained on the grand stand. Kirby Lane, who was leaning against the fence chatting with a friend, turned round and took notice. Most people did when Wild Rose held the center of the stage. Through the gateway of the enclosure came a girl hardly out of her teens. She was bareheaded, a cowboy hat in her hand. The sun, already slanting from the west, kissed her crisp, ruddy gold hair and set it sparkling. Her skin was shell pink, a
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CHAPTER III
CHAPTER III
The less expert riders had been weeded out in the past two days. Only the champions of their respective sections were still in the running. One after another these lean, brown men, chap-clad and bow-legged, came forward dragging their saddles and clamped themselves to the backs of hurricane outlaws which pitched, bucked, crashed into fences, and toppled over backward in their frenzied efforts to dislodge the human clothes-pins fastened to them. The bronco busters endured the usual luck of the da
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CHAPTER IV
CHAPTER IV
Kirby put Wild Rose on the morning train for Denver. She had escaped from the doctor by sheer force of will. The night had been a wretched one, almost sleepless, and she knew that her fever would rise in the afternoon. But that could not be helped. She had more important business than her health to attend to just now. Ordinarily Rose bloomed with vitality, but this morning she looked tired and worn. In her eyes there was a hard brilliancy Kirby did not like to see. He knew from of old the fire t
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CHAPTER V
CHAPTER V
With the aid of a tiny looking-glass a young woman was powdering her nose. Lane interrupted her to ask if he might see Mr. Cunningham. "Name, please?" she parroted pertly, and pressed a button in the switchboard before her. Presently she reached for the powder-puff again. "Says to come right in. Door 't end o' the hall." Kirby entered. A man sat at a desk telephoning. He was smooth-shaven and rather heavy-set, a year or two beyond thirty, with thinning hair on the top of his head. His eyes in re
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CHAPTER VI
CHAPTER VI
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?" I
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CHAPTER VII
CHAPTER VII
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. Who was she? What was she doing here? And what under heaven had hit him hard enough to put the lights out so instantly? He s
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CHAPTER VIII
CHAPTER VIII
Kirby Lane stood with fascinated eyes looking down at the glove, muscles and brain alike paralyzed. The receiver was in his hand, close to his ear. A voice from the other end of the wire drifted to him. "Number, please." Automatically he hung the receiver on the hook. Dazed though he was, the rough rider knew that the police were the last people in the world he wanted to see just now. All his life he had lived the adventure of the outdoors. For twelve months he had served at the front, part of t
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CHAPTER IX
CHAPTER IX
From a booth in a drug-store on Sixteenth Street Kirby telephoned the police that James Cunningham had been murdered at his home in the Paradox Apartments. He stayed to answer no questions, but hung up at once. From a side door of the store he stepped out to Welton Street and walked to his hotel. He passed a wretched night. The distress that flooded his mind was due less to his own danger than to his anxiety for Rose. His course of action was not at all clear to him in case he should be identifi
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CHAPTER X
CHAPTER X
The story of the Cunningham mystery, as it was already being called, filled the early editions of the afternoon papers. The "Times" had the scoop of the day. It was a story signed by Chuck Ellis, who had seen the alleged murderer climb down by a fire escape from the window of Cunningham's bedroom and had actually talked with the man as he emerged from the alley. His description of the suspect tallied fairly closely with that of Mrs. Hull, but it corrected errors in regard to weight, age, and col
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CHAPTER XI
CHAPTER XI
If Kirby had been playing his own hand only he would have gone to the police and told them he was the man who had been seen leaving the Paradox Apartments by the fire escape. But he could not do this without running the risk of implicating Wild Rose. Awkward questions would be fired at him that he could not answer. He decided not to run away from arrest, but not to surrender himself. If the police rounded him up, he could not help it; if they did not, so much the better. He made two more attempt
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CHAPTER XII
CHAPTER XII
"Your name?" "Cass Hull." "Business?" "Real estate, mostly farm lands." "Did you know James Cunningham, the deceased?" asked Johns. "Yes. Worked with him on the Dry Valley proposition, an irrigation project." "Ever have any trouble with him?" "No, sir—not to say trouble." Hull was already perspiring profusely. He dragged a red bandanna from his pocket and mopped the roll of fat that swelled over his collar. "I—we had a—an argument about a settlement—nothin' serious." "Did he throw you out of his
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CHAPTER XIII
CHAPTER XIII
"Chuck" Ellis, reporter, testified that on his way home from the Press Club on the night of the twenty-third, he stopped at an alley on Glenarm Street to strike a light for his cigar. Just as he lit the match he saw a man come out from the window of a room in the Paradox Apartments and run down the fire escape. It struck him that the man might be a burglar, so he waited in the shadow of the building. The runner came down the alley toward him. He stopped the man and had some talk with him. At the
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CHAPTER XIV
CHAPTER XIV
The rest of the coroner's inquest was anticlimax. Those who had come to tickle their palates with excitement tasted only one other moment of it. "According to your own story you must have been in your uncle's apartment at least a quarter of an hour, Mr. Lane," said the prosecuting attorney. "What were you doing there all that time?" "Most of the time I was waitin' for him to return." "Why did you not call up the police at once, as soon as you found the crime had been committed?" "I suppose I los
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CHAPTER XV
CHAPTER XV
As Rose saw the hand of the law closing in on Kirby, she felt as though an ironic fate were laughing in impish glee at this horrible climax of her woe. He had sacrificed a pot of gold and his ambition to be the champion rough rider of the world in order to keep her out of trouble. Instead of that he had himself plunged into it head first. She found herself entangled in a net from which there was no easy escape. Part, at least, of the evidence against Kirby, or at least the implication to be draw
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CHAPTER XVI
CHAPTER XVI
"I won't have it," Kirby said flatly. "If Miss McLean tells her story to the district attorney he'll probably arrest her. It'll come out about her sister an' the papers will run scare-heads. No need of it a-tall. Won't hurt me to stay here a few days if I have to." Jack, dapper and trim, leaned on his cane and watched his cousin. He felt a reluctant admiration for this virile cousin so picturesquely competent, so clean-cut and four-square of mind. Was he in love with the Wild Rose from Wyoming,
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CHAPTER XVII
CHAPTER XVII
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 analysis of
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CHAPTER XVIII
CHAPTER XVIII
Cole Sanborn passed through the Welcome Arch at the station carrying an imitation-leather suitcase. He did not take a car, but walked up Seventeenth Avenue as far as the Markham Hotel. Here he registered, left his luggage, and made some inquiries over the telephone. Thirty minutes later he was shaking hands with Kirby Lane. "You dawg-goned old hellamile, what you mean comin' down here an' gettin' throwed in the calaboose?" he demanded, thumping his friend on the shoulder with a heavy brown fist.
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CHAPTER XIX
CHAPTER XIX
The men from Wyoming stepped into the elevator and Kirby pressed the button numbered 3. At the third floor they got out and turned to the right. With the Yale key his cousin had given him Kirby opened the door of Apartment 12. He knew that there was not an inch of space in the rooms that the police and the newspaper reporters had not raked as with a fine-tooth comb for clues. The desk had been ransacked, the books and magazines shaken, the rugs taken up. There was no chance that he would discove
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CHAPTER XX
CHAPTER XX
The rough riders gravitated back to the fire escape. Kirby had studied the relation of his uncle's apartment to the building opposite. He had not yet examined it with reference to the adjoining rooms. "While we're cuttin' trail might as well be thorough," he said to his friend. "The miscreant that did this killin' might 'a' walked out the door or he might 'a' come through the window here. If he did that last, which fork of the road did he take? He could go down the ladder or swing across to the
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CHAPTER XXI
CHAPTER XXI
Cole grinned whimsically at his friend. "Do we light out now or wait for the cops?" he asked. "We wait. They'd probably find out, anyhow, that we'd been here." Five minutes later a patrol wagon clanged up to the Paradox. A sergeant of police and two plainclothes men took the elevator. The sergeant, heading the party, stopped in the doorway of the apartment and let a hard, hostile eye travel up and down Lane's six feet. "Oh, it's you," he said suspiciously. Kirby smiled. "That's right, officer. W
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CHAPTER XXII
CHAPTER XXII
Miss Phyllis Harriman had breakfasted earlier than usual. Her luxuriant, blue-black hair had been dressed and she was debating the important question as to what gown she would wear. The business of her life was to make an effective carnal appeal, and she had a very sure sense of how to accomplish this. A maid entered with a card, at which Miss Harriman glanced indolently. A smile twitched at the corners of her mouth, but it was not wholly one of amusement. In the dark eyes a hint of adventure sp
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CHAPTER XXIII
CHAPTER XXIII
It was essential to Kirby's plans that he should be at liberty. If he should be locked up in prison even for a few days the threads that he had begun to untangle from the snarl known as the Cunningham mystery would again be ensnared. He was not sure what action James would take at his brother's demand that he withdraw from the bond. But Lane had no desire to embarrass him by forcing the issue. He set about securing a new bond. He was, ten minutes later, in the law offices of Irwin, Foster &a
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CHAPTER XXIV
CHAPTER XXIV
By appointment Kirby met Rose at Graham & Osborne's for luncheon. She was waiting in the tower room for him. "Where's Esther?" he asked. Rose mustered a faint smile. "She's eating lunch with a handsomer man." "You can't throw a stone up Sixteenth Street without hittin' one," he answered gayly. They followed the head waitress to a small table for two by a window. Rose walked with the buoyant rhythm of perfect health. Her friend noticed, as he had often done before, that she had the grace
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CHAPTER XXV
CHAPTER XXV
Kirby heard his name being paged as he entered his hotel. "Wanted at the telephone, sir," the bell-hop told him. He stepped into a booth and the voice of Rose came excited and tremulous. It was less than ten minutes since he had left her at the door of her boarding-house. "Something's happened, Kirby. Can you come here—right away?" she begged. Then, unable to keep back any longer the cry of her heart, she broke out with her tidings. "Esther's gone." "Gone where?" he asked. "I don't know. She lef
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CHAPTER XXVI
CHAPTER XXVI
Kirby's efforts to find James Cunningham after dinner were not successful. He was not at his rooms, at the Country Club, or at his office. Nor was he at a dinner dance where he was among the invited guests, a bit of information Rose had gathered from the society columns of the previous Sunday's "News." His cousin reached him at last next morning by means of his business telephone. An appointment was arranged in five sentences. If James felt any surprise at the delegation of three which filed in
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CHAPTER XXVII
CHAPTER XXVII
Kirby stared down at the document in front of him. He could scarcely believe the evidence flashed by his eyes to his brain. It was the document he had asked the county recorder at Golden to send him—and it certified that, on July 21, James Cunningham and Phyllis Harriman had been united in marriage at Golden by the Reverend Nicodemus Rankin. This knocked the props from under the whole theory he had built up to account for the disappearance of Esther McLean. If Esther were not the widow of his un
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CHAPTER XXVIII
CHAPTER XXVIII
The words of the preacher's little wife were like a bolt from a sunny heaven. Kirby could not accept them without reiteration. Never in the wildest dreams of the too vivid imagination of which his cousin had accused him had this possibility occurred to him. "Do you mean that this man—the younger one—is the husband of Phyllis Harriman?" His finger touched the reproduction of his cousin's photograph. "Yes. He's the man my husband married her to on the twenty-first of July." "You're quite sure of t
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CHAPTER XXIX
CHAPTER XXIX
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. "
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CHAPTER XXX
CHAPTER XXX
Kirby had been bluffing when he said he had evidence to prove that James was in his uncle's rooms the very hour of the murder. But he was now convinced that he had told the truth. James had been there, and his brother Jack knew it. The confession had been written in his shocked face when Kirby flung out the charge. But James might have been there and still be innocent, just as was the case with him and Rose. The cattleman wanted to find the murderer, but he wanted almost as much to find that Jam
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CHAPTER XXXI
CHAPTER XXXI
It had come by special delivery, an ill-written little note scrawled on cheap ruled paper torn from a tablet. If you want to know who killed Cuningham i can tell you. Meet me at the Denmark Bilding, room 419, at eleven tonight. Come alone. One who knows . Kirby studied the invitation carefully. Was it genuine? Or was it a plant? He was no handwriting expert, but he had a feeling that it was a disguised script. There is an inimitable looseness of design in the chirography of an illiterate person.
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CHAPTER XXXII
CHAPTER XXXII
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 cham
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CHAPTER XXXIII
CHAPTER XXXIII
When Rose heard from Esther next day she and Kirby took the Interurban for Golden. Esther had written that she wanted to see her sister because Cole was going to take her back to Wyoming at once. The sisters wept in each other's arms and then passed together into Esther's bedroom for an intimate talk. The younger sister was still happy only in moments of forgetfulness, though she had been rescued from death in life. Cole had found her comfortably situated at a farmhouse a mile or two back from t
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CHAPTER XXXIV
CHAPTER XXXIV
"The woman—what was she like?" "She was tall an' thin an' flat-chested. I didn't know her at the time, but it must 'a' been Hull's wife." "You said you didn't know what time this was," Kirby said. "No. My old watch had quit doin' business an' I hated to spend the money to get it fixed. The mainspring was busted, a jeweler told me." "Who spoke first after they came into the room?" "Yore uncle. He laid the cigar down on the stand an' asked them what they wanted. He didn't rise from the chair, but
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CHAPTER XXXV
CHAPTER XXXV
From ten thousand bulbs the moving-picture houses of Curtis Street were flinging a glow upon the packed sidewalks when Kirby came out of the hotel and started uptown. He walked to the Wyndham, entered, and slipped up the stairs of the rooming-house unnoticed. From the third story he ascended by a ladder to the flat roof. He knew exactly what he had come to investigate. From one of the windows of the fourth floor at the Paradox he had noticed the clothes-line which stretched across the Wyndham ro
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CHAPTER XXXVI
CHAPTER XXXVI
Kirby was quite right when he said that Hull would go with them. He was on his way downtown when the taxi caught him at Fourteenth and Welton. The cattleman jumped out from the machine and touched the fat man on the arm as he was waddling past. "We want you, Hull," he said. A shadow of fear flitted over the shallow eyes of the land agent, but he attempted at once to bluster. "Who wants me? Whadjawant me for?" "I want you—in that cab. The man who saw you in my uncle's room the night he was killed
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CHAPTER XXXVII
CHAPTER XXXVII
In spite of the fact that his mind had at times moved toward his cousin James as the murderer, Kirby experienced a shock at this accusation. He happened to glance at Olson, perhaps to see the effect of it upon him. The effect was slight, but it startled Kirby. For just an instant the Dry Valley farmer's eyes told the truth—shouted it as plainly as words could have done. He had expected that answer from Hull. He had expected it because he, too, had reason to believe it the truth. Then the lids na
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CHAPTER XXXVIII
CHAPTER XXXVIII
But only for an instant. A faint color dribbled back into her yellow cheeks. He could almost see courage flowing again into her veins. "That's a lie," she said flatly. "I don't expect you to take my word. Hull is in front of the house here under guard. Come an' see if you doubt it." She took him promptly at his suggestion. One look at her husband's fat, huddled figure and stricken face was enough. "You chicken-hearted louse," she spat at him scornfully. "They had evidence. A man saw us," he plea
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CHAPTER XXXIX
CHAPTER XXXIX
The Twin Buttes man had said he would call it a morning, but he carried with him to the restaurant the problem that had become the pivot of all his waking thoughts. He had an appointment to meet a man for lunch, and he found his guest waiting for him inside the door. The restaurant was an inconspicuous one on a side street. Kirby had chosen it for that reason. The man who stepped into the booth with him and sat down on the opposite seat was Hudson, the clerk whom James had accused of losing the
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CHAPTER XL
CHAPTER XL
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 ele
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CHAPTER XLI
CHAPTER XLI
Shibo stood on the threshold and sent a swift glance around the room. He had expected to meet James alone. That first slant look of the long eyes forewarned him that Nemesis was at hand. But he faced without a flicker of the lids the destiny he had prepared for himself. "You write me note come see you now," he said to Cunningham. James showed surprise. "No, I think not." "You no want me?" The Chief's hand fell on the shoulder of the janitor. " I want you, Shibo." "You write me note come here now
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CHAPTER XLII
CHAPTER XLII
Kirby took his lady love driving in a rented flivver. It was a Colorado night, with a young moon looking down through the cool, rare atmosphere found only in the Rockies. He drove her through the city to Berkeley and up the hill to Inspiration Point. They talked only in intermittent snatches. Rose had the gift of comradeship. Her tongue never rattled. With Kirby she did not need to make talk. They had always understood each other without words. But to-night their silences were filled with new an
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