for his
forbearance was quite plain now. He had been protecting himself, not
her.

The man's relation to Esther proved him selfish and without principle.
He had been willing to let his dead uncle bear the odium of his
misdeed. Yet beneath the surface of his cold manner James was probably
swept by heady passions. His love for Phyllis Harriman had carried him
beyond prudence, beyond honor. He had duped the uncle whose good-will
he had carefully fostered for many years, and at the hour of his
uncle's death he had been due to reap the whirlwind.

The problem sifted down to two factors. One was the time element. The
other was the temperament of James. A man may be unprincipled and yet
draw the line at murder. He may be a seducer and still lack the
courage and the cowardice for a cold-blooded killing. Kirby had
studied his cousin, but the man was more or less of a sphinx to him.
Behind those cold, calculating eyes what was he thinking?

Only once had he seen him thrown off his poise. That was when Kirby
and Rose had met him coming out of the Paradox white and shaken, his
arm wrenched and strained. He had been nonplussed at sight of them.
For a moment he had let his eyes mirror the dismay of his soul. The
explanation he had given was quite inadequate as a cause.

Twenty-four hours later Kirby had discovered the dead body of the
Japanese valet Horikawa. The man had been dead perhaps a day. More
hours than one had been spent by Kirby pondering on the possible
connection of his cousin's momentary breakdown and the servant's death.
_Had James come fresh from the murder of Horikawa_?

It was possible that the Oriental might have held evidence against him
and threatened to divulge it. James, with the fear of death in his
heart, might have gone each day into the apartment where the man was
lurking, taking to him food and newspapers. They might have quarreled.
The strained tendons of Cunningham's arm could be accounted for a good
deal more readily on the hypothesis of a bit of expert jiu-jitsu than
on that of a fall downstairs. There were pieces in the puzzle Kirby
could not fit into place. One of them was to find a sufficient cause
for driving Horikawa to conceal himself when there was no evidence
against him of the crime.

The time element was tremendously important in the solution of the
mystery of Cunningham's death. Kirby had studied this a hundred times.
On the back of an envelope he jotted down once mo