“What a dreadful question!  It was—­let me think—­in the afternoon—­the day before—­”

“And you parted from him on the best of 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 Miss Harriman be insulted by you.  Who are you, anyhow?  A man accused of killing my uncle, the man who found his valet dead and is suspected of that crime, too, a fellow who would be lying behind the bars now if my brother hadn’t put up the money to save the family from disgrace.  If we tell all we know, the police will grab you again double-quick.  Yet you have the nerve to come here and make insinuations against the lady who is mourning my uncle’s death.  I’ve a good mind to ’phone for the police right now.”