Home > Authors Index > William MacLeod Raine > Tangled Trails: A Western Detective Story > This page
Tangled Trails: A Western Detective Story, a novel by William MacLeod Raine |
||
Chapter 13. "Always, Phyllis" |
||
| < Previous |
Table of content |
Next > |
|
________________________________________________
_ CHAPTER XIII. "ALWAYS, PHYLLIS" "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 request of the district attorney's assistant he detailed the conversation and located on a chart shown him the room from which he had seen the fellow emerge. "Would you know him again?"' "Yes." "Do you see him in this room?" Ellis, just off his run, had reached the court-room only a second before he stepped to the stand. Now he looked around, surprised at the lawyer's question. His wandering eye halted at Lane. "There he is." "Which man do you mean?" "The one on the end of the bench." "At what time did this take place?" "Lemme see. About quarter-past ten, maybe." "Which way did he go when he left you?" "Toward Fifteenth Street." "That is all." The lawyer turned briskly toward Kirby. "Mr. Lane, will you take the stand?" Every eye focused on the range rider. As he moved forward and took the oath the scribbling reporters found in his movements a pantherish lightness, in his compact figure rippling muscles perfectly under control. There was an appearance of sunburnt competency about him, a crisp confidence born of the rough-and-tumble life of the outdoor West. He did not look like a cold-blooded murderer. Women found themselves hoping that he was not. The jaded weariness of the sensation-seekers vanished at sight of him. A man had walked upon the stage, one full of vital energy. The assistant district attorney led him through the usual preliminaries. Lane said that he was by vocation a cattleman, by avocation a rough rider. He lived at Twin Buttes, Wyoming. One of the reporters leaned toward another and whispered, "By Moses, he's the same Lane that won the rough-riding championship at Pendleton and was second at Cheyenne last year." "Are you related to James Cunningham, the deceased?" asked the lawyer. "His nephew." "How long since you had seen him prior to your visit to Denver this time?" "Three years." "What were your relations with him?" The coroner interposed. "You need answer no questions tending to incriminate you, Mr. Lane." A sardonic smile rested on the rough rider's lean, brown face. "Our relations were not friendly," he said quietly. A ripple of excitement swept the benches. "What was the cause of the bad feeling between you?" "A few years ago my father fell into financial difficulties. He was faced with bankruptcy. Cunningham not only refused to help him, but was the hardest of his creditors. He hounded him to the time of my father's death a few months later. His death was due to a breakdown caused by intense worry." "You felt that Mr. Cunningham ought to have helped him?" "My father helped him when he was young. What my uncle did was the grossest ingratitude." "You resented it." "Yes." "And quarreled with him?" "I wrote him a letter an' told him what I thought of him. Later, when we met by chance, I told him again face to face." "You had a bitter quarrel?" "Yes." "That was how long ago?" "Three years since." "In that time did your feelings toward him modify at all?" "My opinion of him did not change, but I had no longer any feelin' in the matter." "Did you write to him or hear from him in that time?" "No." "Had you any expectation of being remembered in your uncle's will?" "None whatever," answered Kirby, smiling. "Even if he had left me anything I should have declined to accept it. But there was no chance at all that he would." "Yet when you came to town you called on him at the first opportunity?" "Yes." "On what business?" "I reckon we'll not go into that." Johns glanced at his notes and passed to another line of questioning. "You have heard the testimony of Mr. and Mrs. Hull and of Mr. Ellis. Is that testimony true?" "Except in one point. It lacked only three or four minutes to ten when I knocked at the door an' Mrs. Hull opened it." "You're sure of that?" "Sure. I looked at my watch just before I went into the Paradox Apartments." "Will you tell the jury what took place between you and Mrs. Hull?" "'Soon as I saw her I knew she was scared stiff about somethin'. So was Hull. He was headin' for a bedroom, so I wouldn't see him." The slender, well-dressed woman in the black veil, sitting far over to the left, leaned forward and seemed to listen intently. All over the room there was a stir of quickened interest. "How did she show her fear?" "No color in her face, eyes dilated an' full of terror, hands tremblin'." "And Mr. Hull?" "He was yellow. Color all gone from his face. Looked as though he'd had a shock." "What was said, if anything?" "I asked Mrs. Hull where my uncle's apartment was. That gave her another fright. At least she almost fainted." "Did she say anything?" "She told me where his rooms were. Then she shut the door, right in my face. I went upstairs to Apartment 12." "Where your uncle lived?" "Where my uncle lived. I rang the bell twice an' didn't get an answer. Then I noticed the door was ajar. I opened it, called, an' walked in, shuttin' it behind me. I guessed he must be around an' would be back in a few minutes." "Just exactly what did you do?" "I waited by the table in the living-room for a few minutes. There was a note there signed by S. Horikawa." "We have that note. What happened next? Did your uncle return?" "No. I had a feelin' that somethin' was wrong. I looked into the bedroom an' then opened the door into the small smoking-room. The odor of chloroform met me. I found the button an' flashed on the light." Except the sobbing breath of an unnerved woman no slightest sound could be heard in the court-room but Lane's quiet, steady voice. It went on evenly, clearly, dominating the crowded room by the drama of its undramatic timbre. "My uncle was sittin' in a chair, tied to it. His head was canted a little to one side an' he was lookin' up at me. There was a bullet hole in his forehead. He was dead." The veiled woman in black gasped for air. Her head sank forward and her slender body swayed. "Look out!" called the witness to the woman beside her. Before Kirby could reach her, the fainting woman had slipped to the floor. He stooped to lift her head from the dusty planks--and the odor of violet perfume met his nostrils. "If you'll permit me," a voice said. The cattleman looked up. His cousin James, white to the lips, was beside him unfastening the veil. The face of the woman in black was the original of the photograph Kirby had seen in his uncle's room, the one upon which had been written the words, "Always, Phyllis." _ |
||