James arranged a place of meeting for luncheon next day. The young
cattleman left. He knew from the fidgety manner of Jack that he had
some important business he was anxious to talk over with his brother.




CHAPTER VI

LIGHTS OUT

It was five minutes to ten by his watch when Kirby entered the Paradox
Apartments. The bulletin board told him that his uncle's apartment was
12. He did not take the self-serve elevator, but the stairs. The hall
on the second floor was dark. Since he did not know whether the rooms
he wanted were on this floor or the next he knocked at a door.

Kirby thought he heard the whisper of voices and he knocked again. He
had to rap a third time before the door was opened.

"What is it? What do you want?"

If ever Lane had seen stark, naked fear in a human face, it stared at
him out of that of the woman in front of him. She was a tall, angular
woman of a harsh, forbidding countenance, flat-breasted and
middle-aged. Behind her, farther back in the room, the roughrider
caught a glimpse of a fat, gross, ashen-faced man fleeing toward the
inner door of a bedroom to escape being seen. He was thrusting into
his coat pocket what looked to the man in the hall like a revolver.