f terms?"

"Of course."

He leaned toward her ever so little, his eyes level with hers and
steadily fastened upon her. "That's the last time you saw him--until
you went to his rooms at the Paradox the night he was killed?"

She had lifted her hand to pat into place an escaping tendril of hair.
The hand remained lifted. The dark eyes froze with horror. They
stared at him, as though held by some dreadful fascination. From her
cheeks the color ebbed. Kirby thought she was going to faint.

But she did not. A low moan of despair escaped from the ashen lips.
The lifted arm fell heavily to her lap.

Then Kirby discovered that the two in the red room had become three.
Jack Cunningham was standing in the doorway.

His glance flashed to Lane accusingly. "What's up? What are you doing
here?" he demanded abruptly.

The Wyoming man rose. "I've been asking Miss Harriman a question."

"A question. What business have you to ask her questions?" demanded
Jack hotly.

His cousin tried a shot in the dark. "I was asking her," he said, his
voice low and even, "about that visit you and she paid to Uncle James's
rooms the night he was killed."

Kirby knew instantly he had scored a hit. The insolence, the jaunty
confidence, were stricken from him as by a buffet in the face. For a
moment body and mind alike were lax and stunned. Then courage flowed
back into his veins. He came forward, blustering.

"What do you mean? What visit? It's a damned lie."

"Is it? Then why is the question such a knockout to you and Miss
Harriman? She almost fainted, and it certainly crumpled you up till
you got second breath."

Jack flushed angrily. "O' course it shocked her for you to make such a
charge against her. It would frighten any woman. By God, it's an
outrage. You come here and try to browbeat Miss Harriman when she's
alone. You ask her impudent questions, as good as tell her she--she--"

Kirby's eyes were like a glittering rapier probing for the weakness of
his opponent's defense. "I say that she and you were in the rooms of
Uncle James at 9.50 the evening he was killed. I say that you
concealed the fact at the inquest. Why?" He shot his question at the
other man with the velocity of a bullet.

Cunningham's lip twitched, his eye wavered. How much did his cousin
know? How much was he merely guessing?

"Who told you we were there? How do you know it? I don't propose to
answer every wild accusation nor to let