The Wyoming men walked across to Seventeenth Street and down it to the
Equitable Building.  James Cunningham was in his office.

He looked up as they entered, a cold smile on his lips.

“Ah, my energetic cousin,” he said, with his habitual touch of irony.  “What’s in the wind now?”

Kirby told him.  Instantly James became grave.  His irony vanished.  In his face was a flicker almost of consternation at this follow-up murder.  He might have been asking himself how much more trouble was coming.

“We’ll get the writing translated.  You have it with you?” he said.

His eyes ran over the pages Lane handed him.  “I know a Jap we can get to read it for us, a reliable man, one who won’t talk if we ask him not to.”

The broker’s desk buzzer rang.  He talked for a moment over the telephone, then hung up again.

“Sorry,” Cunningham said, “I’m going to be busy for an hour or two.  Going to lunch with Miss Phyllis Harriman.  She was Uncle James’s fiancee, perhaps you know.  There are some affairs of the estate to be arranged.  I wonder if you could come back later this afternoon.  Say about four o’clock.  We’ll take up then the business of the translation.  I’ll get in touch with a Japanese in the meantime.”

“Suits me.  Shall I leave the writing here?”

“Yes, if you will.  Doesn’t matter, of course, but since we have it I’ll put it in the safe.”

“How’s the arm?” Kirby asked, glancing at the sling his cousin wore.

“Only sprained.  The doctor thinks I must have twisted it badly as I fell.  I couldn’t sleep a wink all night.  The damned thing pained so.”

James looked as though he had not slept well.  His eyes were shadowed and careworn.

They walked together as far as the outer office.  A slender, dark young woman, beautifully gowned, was waiting there.  James introduced her to his cousin and Sanborn as Miss Harriman.  She was, Kirby knew at once, the original of the photograph he had seen in his uncle’s rooms.

Miss Harriman was a vision of sheathed loveliness.  The dark, long-lashed eyes looked out at Kirby with appealing wistfulness.  When she moved, the soft lines of her body took on a sinuous grace.  From her personality there seemed to emanate an enticing aura of sex mystery.

She gave Kirby her little gloved hand.  “I’m glad to meet you, Mr. Lane,” she said, smiling at him.  “I’ve heard all sorts of good things about you from James—­and Jack.”

She did not offer her hand to Sanborn, perhaps because she was busy buttoning one of the long gloves.  Instead, she gave him a flash of her eyes and a nod of the carefully coiffured head.