“What did he do?”

“Wrote a note and called for a messenger to deliver it.”

“Who to?” Kirby asked colloquially.

“I don’t know.  Probably the company has a record of all calls.  If so, you can find the boy who delivered the message.”

“I’ll get busy right away.”

Foster hesitated, then volunteered another piece of information.  “I don’t suppose you know that your uncle sent for me next day and told me to draft a new will for him and get it ready for his signature.”

“Did you do it?”

“Yes.  I handed it to him the afternoon of the day he was killed.  It was found unsigned among his papers after his death.  The old will still stands.”

“Leaving the property to James and Jack?”

“Yes.”

“And the new will?”

“Except for some bequests and ten thousand for a fountain at the city park, the whole fortune was to go to Jack.”

“So that if he had lived twenty-four hours longer James would have been disinherited.”

Foster looked at him out of eyes that told nothing of what he was thinking.  “That’s the situation exactly.”

Kirby made no further comment, nor did the lawyer.

Within two hours the man from Twin Buttes had talked with the messenger boy, refreshed his memory with a tip, and learned that the message Cunningham had sent from the City Club had been addressed to his nephew Jack.

CHAPTER XXIX

“COME CLEAN, JACK”

Jack Cunningham, co-heir with James of his uncle’s estate, was busy in the office he had inherited settling up one of the hundred details that had been left at loose ends by the promoter’s sudden death.  He looked up at the entrance of Lane.

“What do you want?” he asked sharply.

“Want a talk with you.”

“Well, I don’t care to talk with you.  What are you doing here anyhow.  I told the boy to tell you I was too busy to see you.”

“That’s what he said.”  Kirby opened his slow, whimsical smile on Jack.  “But I’m right busy, too.  So I brushed him aside an’ walked in.”

In dealing with this forceful cousin of his, Jack had long since lost his indolent insolence of manner.  “You can walk out again, then.  I’ll not talk,” he snapped.

Kirby drew up a chair and seated himself.  “When Uncle James sent a messenger for you to come to his rooms at once on the evening of the twenty-first, what did he want to tell you?” The steady eyes of the cattleman bored straight into those of Cunningham.

“Who said he sent a messenger for me?”

“It doesn’t matter who just now.  There are two witnesses.  What did he want?”

“That’s my business.”

“So you say.  I’m beginnin’ to wonder if it isn’t the business of the State of Colorado, too.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that Uncle sent for you because he had just found out your brother and Miss Harriman were married.”