Chapter 17. In Dry Valley

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_ CHAPTER XVII. IN DRY VALLEY

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 the cigar ashes would have shown that a subtle poison, unknown to the Western world, had caused the victim's heart to stop beating exactly two minutes and twelve seconds after taking the first puff at the cigar. Thus the fictional ethics of the situation would have been correctly met.

But Kirby was only a plain, outdoors Westerner. He did not know the conventional method of procedure. It did not even occur to him at first that Apartment 12 might still have secrets to tell him after the police and the reporters had pawed over it for several days. But his steps turned back several times to the Paradox as the center from which all clues must emanate. He found himself wandering around in that vicinity trying to pick up some of the pieces of the Chinese puzzle that made up the mystery of his uncle's death.

It was on one of these occasions that he and Rose met his cousin James coming out of the apartment house. Cunningham was a man of admirable self-control, but he looked shaken this morning. His hand trembled as it met that of his cousin. In his eyes was the look of a man who has suffered a shock.

"I've been sitting alone for an hour in the room where Uncle James met his death--been arranging his papers," he explained. "It began to get my nerve. I couldn't stand it any longer. The horrible thing kept jumping to my mind." He drew his right hand heavily across his eyes, as though to shut out and brush away the sight his imagination conjured.

His left arm hung limp. Kirby's quick eyes noticed it.

"You've hurt yourself," Lane said.

"Yes," admitted James. "My heel caught on the top step as I started to walk down. I've wrenched my arm badly. Maybe I've broken it."

"Oh, I hope not," Rose said quickly, a warm sympathy in her vibrant young voice. "A broken arm's no fun. I find it an awful nuisance."

The janitor of the Paradox came out and joined them. He was a little Japanese well on toward middle life, a small-featured man with small, neat feet.

"You feelum all right yes now?" he asked, directing his slant, oval eyes toward Cunningham.

"Yes, I've got over the nausea, thanks, Shibo." James turned to the others. "Shibo was at the foot of the stairs when I caught my heel. He gathered up the pieces. I guess I was all in, wasn't I, Shibo?"

The Japanese nodded agreement. "You heap sick for minute."

"I've been worrying a good deal about this business of Uncle James, I suppose. Anyhow, I've had two or three dizzy spells lately. Nothing serious, though."

"I don't wonder. You sit at a desk too much, James. What you need is exercise. If you'd get in the saddle a couple o' hours a day an' do some stiff ridin' you'd quit havin' dizzy spells. Sorry you're hurt, old man. I'll trail along with you to a doctor's."

"Not necessary. I'll be all right. It's only a few blocks to his office. Fact is, I'm feeling quite myself again."

"Well, if you're sure. Prob'ly you've only sprained your arm. By the way, I'd kinda like to go over Uncle's apartment again. Mind if I do? I don't reckon the police missed anything, but you can never tell."

James hesitated. "I promised the Chief of Police not to let anybody else in. Tell you what I'll do. I'll see him about it and get a permit for you. Say, Kirby, I've been thinking one of us ought to go up to Dry Valley and check things up there. We might find out who wrote that note to Uncle. Maybe some one has been making threats in public. We could see who was in town from there last week. Could you go? To-day? Train leaves in half an hour."

Kirby could and would. He left Rose to talk with the tenants of the Paradox Apartments, entrained for Dry Valley at once, and by noon was winding over the hilltops far up in the Rockies.

He left the train at Summit, a small town which was the center of activities for Dry Valley. Here the farmers bought their supplies and here they marketed their butter and eggs. In the fall they drove in their cattle and loaded them for Denver at the chutes in the railroad yard.

There had been times in the past when Summit ebbed and flowed with a rip-roaring tide of turbulent life. This had been after the round-ups in the golden yesterday when every other store building had been occupied by a saloon and the rattle of chips lasted far into the small hours of night. Now Colorado was dry and the roulette wheel had gone to join memories of the past. Summit was quiet as a Sunday afternoon on a farm. Its busiest inhabitant was a dog which lay in the sun and lazily poked over its own anatomy for fleas.

Kirby registered at the office of the frame building which carried on its false front the word HOTEL. This done, he wandered down to the shack which bore the inscription, "Dry Valley Enterprise." The owner of the paper, who was also editor, reporter, pressman, business manager, and circulator, chanced to be in printing some dodgers announcing a dance at Odd Fellows' Hall. He desisted from his labors to chat with the stranger.

The editor was a fat, talkative little man. Kirby found it no trouble at all to set him going on the subject of James Cunningham, Senior. In fact, during his stay in the valley the Wyoming man could always use that name as an "Open Sesame." It unlocked all tongues. Cunningham and his mysterious death were absorbing topics. The man was hated by scores who had been brought close to ruin by his chicanery. Dry Valley rejoiced openly in the retribution that had fallen upon him.

"Who killed him?" the editor asked rhetorically.

"Well, sir, I'll be dawged if I know. But if I was guessin' I'd say it was this fellow Hull, the slicker that helped him put through the Dry Valley steal. 'Course it might 'a' been the Jap, or it might 'a' been the nephew from Wyoming, but I'll say it was Hull. We know that cuss Hull up here. He's one bad package, that fat man is, believe me. Cunningham held out on him, an' he laid for the old crook an' got him. Don't that look reasonable to you? It sure does to me. Put a rope round Hull's neck an' you'll hang the man that killed old J. C."

Lane put in an hour making himself _persona grata_, then read the latest issue of the "Enterprise" while the editor pulled off the rest of the dodgers. In the local news column he found several items that interested him. These were:

Jim Harkins is down in Denver on business and won't be home till Monday. Have a good time, Jim.

T. J. Lupton is enjoying a few days vacation in the Queen City. He expects to buy some fancy stock at the yards for breeding purposes. Dry Valley is right in the van of progress.

Art Jelks and Brad Mosely returned from Denver today after a three days' visit in the capital. A good time was had by both. You want to watch them, girls. The boys are both live ones.

Oscar Olson spent a few days in Denver this week. Oscar owns a place three miles out of town on the Spring Creek road.

Casually Kirby gathered information. He learned that Jim Harkins was the town constable and not interested in land; that Lupton was a very prosperous cattleman whose ranch was nowhere near the district promoted by Cunningham; and that Jelks and Mosely were young fellows more or less connected with the garage. The editor knew Olson only slightly.

"He's a Swede--big, fair fellow--got caught in that irrigation fake of Hull and Cunningham. Don't know what he was doin' in Denver," the newspaperman said.

Lane decided that he would see Olson and have a talk with him. Incidentally, he meant to see all the Dry Valley men who had been in Denver at the time Cunningham was killed. But the others he saw only to eliminate them from suspicion. One glance at each of them was enough to give them a clean bill so far as the mystery went. They knew nothing whatever about it.

Lane rode out to Olson's place and found him burning brush. The cattleman explained that he was from Wyoming and wanted to sell some registered Herefords.

Olson looked over his dry, parched crops with sardonic bitterness. "Do I look like I could buy registered stock?" he asked sourly.

Kirby made a remark that set the ranchman off. He said that the crops looked as though they needed water. Inside of five minutes he had heard the story of the Dry Valley irrigation swindle. Olson was not a foreigner. He had been born in Minnesota and attended the public schools. He spoke English idiomatically and without an accent. The man was a tall, gaunt, broad-shouldered Scandinavian of more than average intelligence.

The death of Cunningham had not apparently assuaged his intense hatred of the man or the bitterness which welled out of him toward Hull.

"Cunningham got his! Suits me fine! Now all I ask is that they hang Hull for it!" he cried vindictively.

"Seems to be some doubt whether Hull did it," suggested Kirby, to draw him on.

"That so? Mebbe there's evidence you don't know about." The words had come out in the heat of impulse, shot at Kirby tensely and breathlessly. Olson looked at the man on the horse and Lane could see caution grow on him. A film of suspicion spread over the pupils beneath the heavy, ragged eyebrows. "I ain't sayin' so. All I'm dead sure of is that Hull did it."

Kirby fired a shot point-blank at him. "Nobody can be dead sure of that unless he saw him do it."

"Mebbe some one saw him do it. Folks don't tell all they know." Olson looked across the desert beyond the palpitating heat waves to the mountains in the distance.

"No. That's tough sometimes on innocent people, too."

"Meanin' this nephew of old Cunningham. He'll get out all right."

"Will he? There's a girl under suspicion, too. She had no more to do with it than I had, but she's likely to get into mighty serious trouble just the same."

"I ain't read anything in the papers about any girl," Olson answered sullenly.

"No, it hasn't got to the papers yet. But it will. It's up to every man who knows anything about this to come clean."

"Is it?" The farmer looked bleakly at his visitor. "Seems to me you take a lot of interest in this. Who are you, anyhow?"

"My name is Kirby Lane."

"Nephew of the old man?"

"Yes."

Olson gave a snort of dry, splenetic laughter. "And you're out here sellin' registered Herefords."

"I have some for sale. But that's not why I came to see you."

"Why did you come, then?" asked the Scandinavian, his blue eyes hard and defiant.

"I wanted to have a look at the man who wrote the note to James Cunningham threatenin' to dry-gulch him if he ever came to Dry Valley again."

It was a center shot. Kirby was sure of it. He read it in the man's face before anger began to gather in it.

"I'm the man who wrote that letter, am I?" The lips of Olson were drawn back in a vicious snarl.

"You're the man."

"You can prove that, o' course."

"Yes."

"How?"

"By your handwritin'. I've seen three specimens of it to-day."

"Where?"

"One at the court-house, one at the bank that holds your note, an' the third at the office of the 'Enterprise.' You wrote an article urgin' the Dry Valley people to fight Cunningham. That article, in your own handwritin', is in my pocket right now."

"I didn't tell them to gun him, did I?"

"That's not the point. What I'm gettin' at is that the same man wrote the article that wrote the letter to Cunningham."

"Prove it! Prove it!"

"The paper used in both cases was torn from the same tablet. The writin' is the same."

"You've got a nerve to come out here an' tell me I'm the man that killed Cunningham," Olson flung out, his face flushing darkly.

"I'm not sayin' that."

"What are you sayin', then? Shoot it at me straight."

"If I thought you had killed Cunningham I wouldn't be here now. What I thought when I came was that you might know somethin' about it. I didn't come out here to trap you. My idea is that Hull did it. But I've made up my mind you're hidin' somethin'. I'm sure of it. You as good as told me so. What is it?" Kirby, resting easy in the saddle with his weight on one stirrup, looked straight into the rancher's eyes as he asked the question.

"I'd be likely to tell you if I was, wouldn't I?" jeered Olson.

"Why not? Better tell me than wait for the police to third-degree you. If you're not in this killin' why not tell what you know? I've told my story."

"After they spotted you in the court-room," the farmer retorted. "An' how do I know you told all you know? Mebbe you're keepin' secrets, too."

Kirby took this without batting an eye. "An innocent man hasn't anything to fear," he said.

"Hasn't he?" Olson picked up a stone and flung it at a pile of rocks he had gathered fifty yards away. He was left-handed. "How do you know he hasn't? Say, just for argument, I do know somethin'. Say I practically saw Cunningham killed an' hadn't a thing to do with it. Could I get away with a story like that? You know darned well I couldn't. Wouldn't the lawyers want to know howcome I to be so handy to the place where the killin' was, right at the very time it took place, me who is supposed to have threatened to bump him off myself? Sure they would. I'd be tyin' a noose round my own neck."

"Do you know who killed my uncle?" demanded Lane point-blank. "Did you see it done?"

Olson's eyes narrowed. A crafty light shone through the slitted lids. "Hold yore hawsses. I ain't said I knew a thing. Not a thing. I was stringin' you."

Kirby knew he had overshot the mark. He had been too eager and had alarmed the man. He was annoyed at himself. It would take time and patience and finesse to recover lost ground. Shrewdly he guessed at the rancher's state of mind. The man wanted to tell something, was divided in mind whether to come forward as a witness or keep silent. His evidence, it was clear enough, would implicate Hull; but, perhaps indirectly, it would involve himself, too.

"Well, whatever it is you know, I hope you'll tell it," the cattleman said. "But that's up to you, not me. If Hull is the murderer, I want the crime fastened on him. I don't want him to get off scot free. An' that's about what's goin' to happen. The fellow's guilty, I believe, but we can't prove it."

"Can't we? I ain't sure o' that." Again, through the narrowed lids, wary guile glittered. "Mebbe we can when the right time comes."

"I doubt it." Lane spoke casually and carelessly. "Any testimony against him loses force if it's held out too long. The question comes up, why didn't the witness come right forward at once. No, I reckon Hull will get away with it--if he really did it."

"Don't you think it," Olson snapped out. "They've pretty nearly got enough now to convict him."

The rough rider laughed cynically. "Convict him! They haven't enough against him even to make an arrest. They've got a dozen times as much against me an' they turned me loose. He's quite safe if he keeps his mouth shut--an' he will."

Olson flung a greasewood shrub on a pile of brush. His mind, Kirby could see, was busy with the problem before it. The man's caution and his vindictive desire for vengeance were at war. He knew something, evidence that would tend to incriminate Hull, and he was afraid to bring it to the light of day. He worked automatically, and the man on horseback watched him. On that sullen face Kirby could read fury, hatred, circumspection, suspicion, the lust for revenge.

The man's anger barked at Lane. "Well, what you waitin' for?" he asked harshly.

"Nothin'. I'm goin' now." He wrote his Denver address on a card. "If you find there is any evidence against Hull an' want to talk it over, perhaps you'd rather come to me than the police. I'm like you. If Hull did it I want him found guilty. So long."

He handed Olson his card. The man tossed it away. Kirby turned his horse toward town. Five minutes later he looked back. The settler had walked across to the place where he had thrown the card and was apparently picking it up.

The man from Wyoming smiled. He had a very strong hunch that Olson would call on him within a week or ten days. Of course he was disappointed, but he knew the game had to be played with patience. At least he had learned something. The man had in his possession evidence vitally important. Kirby meant to get that evidence from him somehow by hook or crook.

What was it the man knew? Was it possible he could have killed Cunningham himself and be trying to throw the blame of it on Hull? Was that why he was afraid to come out in the open with what testimony he had? Kirby could not forget the bitter hatred of Cunningham the farmer cherished. That hatred extended to Hull. What a sweet revenge to kill one enemy and let the other one hang for the crime!

A detail jumped to his mind. Olson had picked up a stone and thrown it to the rock pile--with his left hand. _

Read next: Chapter 18. "Burnin' A Hole In My Pocket"

Read previous: Chapter 16. The Lady With The Violet Perfume

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