Kirby said the proper things, but he said them with a mind divided.  For his nostrils were inhaling again the violet perfume that associated itself with his first visit to his uncle’s apartment.  He did not start.  His eyes did not betray him.  His face could be wooden on occasion, and it told no stories now.  But his mind was filled with racing thoughts.  Had Phyllis Harriman been the woman Rose had met on the stairs?  What had she been doing in Cunningham’s room?  Who was the man with her?  What secret connected with his uncle’s death lay hidden back of the limpid innocence of those dark, shadowed eyes?  She was one of those women who are forever a tantalizing mystery to men.  What was she like behind the inscrutable, charming mask of her face?

Lane carried this preoccupation with him throughout the afternoon.  It was still in the hinterland of his thoughts when he returned to his cousin’s office.

His entrance was upon a scene of agitated storm.  His cousin was in the outer office facing a clerk.  In his eyes there was a cold fury of anger that surprised Kirby.  He had known James always as self-restrained to the point of chilliness.  Now his anger seemed to leap out and strike savagely.

“Gross incompetence and negligence, Hudson.  You are discharged, sir.  I’ll not have you in my employ an hour longer.  A man I have trusted and found wholly unworthy.”

“I’m sorry, Mr. Cunningham,” the clerk said humbly.  “I don’t see how I lost the paper, if I did, sir.  I was very careful when I took the deeds and leases out of the safe.  It seems hardly possible—­”

“But you lost it.  Nobody else could have done it.  I don’t want excuses.  You can go, sir.”  Cunningham turned abruptly to his cousin.  “The sheets of paper with the Japanese writing have been lost.  This man, by some piece of inexcusable carelessness, took them with a bundle of other documents to my lawyer’s office.  He must have taken them.  They were lying with the others.  Now they can’t be found anywhere.”

“Have you ’phoned to your lawyer?” asked Kirby.

“’Phoned and been in person.  They are nowhere to be found.  They ought to turn up somewhere.  This clerk probably dropped them.  I’ve sent an advertisement to the afternoon papers.”

Kirby was taken aback at this unexpected mischance, but there was no use wasting nerve energy in useless fretting.  He regretted having left the papers with James, for he felt that in them might be the key to the mystery of the Cunningham case.  But he had no doubt that his cousin was more distressed about the loss than he was.  He comforted himself with the reflection that a thorough search would probably restore them, anyhow.

He asked Hudson a few questions and had the man show them exactly where he had picked up the papers he took to the lawyer.  James listened, his anger still simmering.

Kirby took his cousin by the arm and led him into the inner office.