is guest waiting for him inside the door.

The restaurant was an inconspicuous one on a side street. Kirby had
chosen it for that reason. The man who stepped into the booth with him
and sat down on the opposite seat was Hudson, the clerk whom James had
accused of losing the sheets of paper with the Japanese writing.

"I've got it at last," he said as soon as he was alone. "Thought he
never would go out and leave the key to the private drawer inside the
safe. But he left the key in the lock--for just five minutes--while
Miss Harriman came to see him about something this morning. He walked
out with her to the elevator. I ducked into his office. There was the
key in the drawer, and in the drawer, right at the bottom under some
papers, I found what I wanted."

He handed to Kirby the sheets of paper found in the living-room of the
apartment where Horikawa had been found dead.

The cattleman looked them over and put them in his pocket. "Thought he
wouldn't destroy them. He daren't. There might come a time when the
translation of this writing would save his life. He couldn't tell what
the Jap had written, but there might be a twist to it favorable to him.
At the same time he daren't give it out and let any one translate it.
So he'd keep it handy where nobody could get at it but himself."

"I reckon that just about evens the score between me and Mr. James
Cunningham," the clerk said vindictively. "He bawled me out before a
whole roomful of people when he knew all the time I hadn't lost the
papers. I stood it, because right then I had to. But I've dug up a
better job and start in on it Monday. He's been claiming he was so
anxious to get these sheets back to you. Well, I hope he's satisfied
now."

"He had no right to keep 'em. They weren't his. I'll have 'em
translated, then turn the sheets over to the police if they have any
bearing on the case. Of course they may be just a private letter or
something of that sort."

The clerk went on to defend himself for what he had done. Cunningham
had treated him outrageously. Besides, they weren't his papers. He
had no business to hold back evidence in a murder case because it did
not suit him to have it made public. Didn't Mr. Lane think he had done
right in taking the papers from the safe when he had a chance?

Mr. Lane rather dodged the ethics of the case of Hudson. He had, of
course, instigated the theft of the papers. He was entitled to them.
James had