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ustom, he plunged abruptly into what he wanted to say. He had discovered that if a man is not given time to frame a defense, he is likely to give away something he had intended to conceal. "Shibo, why did you hide from the police that Mr. Hull was in my uncle's rooms the night he was killed?" The janitor shot one slant, startled glance at Kirby before the mask of impassivity wiped out expression from his eyes. "You know heap lot about everything. You busy busy all like honey-bee. Me, I just janitor--mind own business." "I wonder, now." Kirby's level gaze took the man in carefully. Was he as simple as he wanted to appear? "No talk when not have anything to tell." Shibo moved the sprinkler to another part of the lawn. Kirby followed him. He had a capacity for patience. "Did Mr. Hull ask you not to tell about him?" Shibo said nothing, but he said it with indignant eloquence. "Did he give you money not to tell? I don't want to go to the police with this if I can help it, Shibo. Better come through to me." "You go police an' say I know who make Mr. Cunningham dead?" "If I have to." The janitor had no more remarks to make. He lapsed into an angry, stubborn silence. For nearly half an hour Kirby stayed by his side. The cattleman asked questions. He suggested that, of course, the police would soon find out the facts after he went to them. He even went beyond his brief and implied that shortly Shibo would be occupying a barred cell. But the man from the Orient contributed no more to the talk. CHAPTER XXXI THE MASK OF THE RED BANDANNA It had come by special delivery, an ill-written little note scrawled on cheap ruled paper torn from a tablet. If you want to know who killed Cuningham i can tell you. Meet me at the Denmark Bilding, room 419, at eleven tonight. Come alone. _One who knows_. Kirby studied the invitation carefully. Was it genuine? Or was it a plant? He was no handwriting expert, but he had a feeling that it was a disguised script. There is an inimitable looseness of design in the chirography of an illiterate person. He did not find here the awkwardness of the inexpert; rather the elaborate imitation of an amateur ignoramus. Yet he was not sure. He could give no definite reason for this fancy. And in the end he tossed it overboard. He would keep the appointment and see what came of it. Moreover, he would keep it alone--except for a friend ha
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