ustom, he plunged abruptly into what he
wanted to say. He had discovered that if a man is not given time to
frame a defense, he is likely to give away something he had intended to
conceal.

"Shibo, why did you hide from the police that Mr. Hull was in my
uncle's rooms the night he was killed?"

The janitor shot one slant, startled glance at Kirby before the mask of
impassivity wiped out expression from his eyes.

"You know heap lot about everything. You busy busy all like honey-bee.
Me, I just janitor--mind own business."

"I wonder, now." Kirby's level gaze took the man in carefully. Was he
as simple as he wanted to appear?

"No talk when not have anything to tell." Shibo moved the sprinkler to
another part of the lawn.

Kirby followed him. He had a capacity for patience.

"Did Mr. Hull ask you not to tell about him?"

Shibo said nothing, but he said it with indignant eloquence.

"Did he give you money not to tell? I don't want to go to the police
with this if I can help it, Shibo. Better come through to me."

"You go police an' say I know who make Mr. Cunningham dead?"

"If I have to."

The janitor had no more remarks to make. He lapsed into an angry,
stubborn silence. For nearly half an hour Kirby stayed by his side.
The cattleman asked questions. He suggested that, of course, the
police would soon find out the facts after he went to them. He even
went beyond his brief and implied that shortly Shibo would be occupying
a barred cell.

But the man from the Orient contributed no more to the talk.

CHAPTER XXXI

THE MASK OF THE RED BANDANNA

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. He did not find here the
awkwardness of the inexpert; rather the elaborate imitation of an
amateur ignoramus. Yet he was not sure. He could give no definite
reason for this fancy.

And in the end he tossed it overboard. He would keep the appointment
and see what came of it. Moreover, he would keep it alone--except for
a friend ha