Tangled Trails: A Western Detective StoryRaine, William MacLeod
General
Tangled Trails: A Western Detective Story
Raine, William MacLeod
Detective and mystery stories; Western stories
"I don't know. Probably the company has a record of all calls. If so,
you can find the boy who delivered the message."
"I'll get busy right away."
Foster hesitated, then volunteered another piece of information. "I
don't suppose you know that your uncle sent for me next day and told me
to draft a new will for him and get it ready for his signature."
"Did you do it?"
"Yes. I handed it to him the afternoon of the day he was killed. It
was found unsigned among his papers after his death. The old will
still stands."
"Leaving the property to James and Jack?"
"Yes."
"And the new will?"
"Except for some bequests and ten thousand for a fountain at the city
park, the whole fortune was to go to Jack."
"So that if he had lived twenty-four hours longer James would have been
disinherited."
Foster looked at him out of eyes that told nothing of what he was
thinking. "That's the situation exactly."
Kirby made no further comment, nor did the lawyer.
Within two hours the man from Twin Buttes had talked with the messenger
boy, refreshed his memory with a tip, and learned that the message
Cunningham had sent from the City Club had been addressed to his nephew
Jack.
CHAPTER XXIX
"COME CLEAN, JACK"
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.
"But I'm right busy, too. So I brushed him aside an' walked in."
In dealing with this forceful cousin of his, Jack had long since lost
his indolent insolence of manner. "You can walk out again, then. I'll
not talk," he snapped.
Kirby drew up a chair and seated himself. "When Uncle James sent a
messenger for you to come to his rooms at once on the evening of the
twenty-first, what did he want to tell you?" The steady eyes of the
cattleman bored straight into those of Cunningham.
"Who said he sent a messenger for me?"
"It doesn't matter who just now. There are two witnesses. What did he
want?"
"That's my business."
"So you say. I'm beginnin' to wonder if it isn't the business of the
State of Colorado, too."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean that Uncle sent for you because he had just found out your
brother and Miss Harriman were married."
Jack flashed a startled look at him. It seemed to him his cousin
showed an uncanny knowledge at times. "You think so."
"He wanted to tell you that he was goin' to cut your brother out of his
will an' leave you sole heir. An' he wanted you to let James know it
right away."
Kirby was guessing, but he judged he had scored. Jack got up and began
to pace the room. He was plainly agitated.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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