Miss Harriman was a vision of sheathed loveliness. The dark, long-lashed eyes looked out at Kirby with appealing wistfulness. When she moved, the soft lines of her body took on a sinuous grace. From her personality there seemed to emanate an enticing aura of sex mystery.
She gave Kirby her little gloved hand. "I'm glad to meet you, Mr. Lane," she said, smiling at him. "I've heard all sorts of good things about you from James—and Jack."
She did not offer her hand to Sanborn, perhaps because she was busy buttoning one of the long gloves. Instead, she gave him a flash of her eyes and a nod of the carefully coiffured head.
Kirby said the proper things, but he said them with a mind divided. For his nostrils were inhaling again the violet perfume that associated itself with his first visit to his uncle's apartment. He did not start. His eyes did not betray him. His face could be wooden on occasion, and it told no stories now. But his mind was filled with racing thoughts. Had Phyllis Harriman been the woman Rose had met on the stairs? What had she been doing in Cunningham's room? Who was the man with her? What secret connected with his uncle's death lay hidden back of the limpid innocence of those dark, shadowed eyes? She was one of those women who are forever a tantalizing mystery to men. What was she like behind the inscrutable, charming mask of her face?
Lane carried this preoccupation with him throughout the afternoon. It was still in the hinterland of his thoughts when he returned to his cousin's office.
His entrance was upon a scene of agitated storm. His cousin was in the outer office facing a clerk. In his eyes there was a cold fury of anger that surprised Kirby. He had known James always as self-restrained to the point of chilliness. Now his anger seemed to leap out and strike savagely.
"Gross incompetence and negligence, Hudson. You are discharged, sir. I'll not have you in my employ an hour longer. A man I have trusted and found wholly unworthy."
"I'm sorry, Mr. Cunningham," the clerk said humbly. "I don't see how I lost the paper, if I did, sir. I was very careful when I took the deeds and leases out of the safe. It seems hardly possible—"
"But you lost it. Nobody else could have done it. I don't want excuses. You can go, sir." Cunningham turned abruptly to his cousin. "The sheets of paper with the Japanese writing have been lost. This man, by some piece of inexcusable carelessness, took them with a bundle of other documents to my lawyer's office. He must have taken them. They were lying with the others. Now they can't be found anywhere."
"Have you 'phoned to your lawyer?" asked Kirby.