“I took up the receiver an’ listened.  Then I said, ‘Hello!’ Fellow at the other end said, ‘This you, Uncle James?’ Kinda grufflike, I said, ‘Yes.’  Then, ‘James talkin’,’ he said.  ‘We’re on our way over now.’  I was struck all of a heap, not knowin’ what to say.  So I called back, ‘Who?’ He came back with, ‘Phyllis an’ I.’  I hung up.”

“And then?”

“We talked it over, the wife an’ me.  We didn’t know how close James, as he called himself, was when he was talkin’.  He might be at the drug-store on the next corner for all we knew.  We were in one hell of a hole, an’ it didn’t look like there was any way out.  We decided to beat it right then.  That’s what we did.”

“You left the apartment?”

“Yes, sir.”

“With my uncle still tied up?”

Hull nodded.  “We got panicky an’ cut our stick.”

“Did anybody see you go?”

“The Jap janitor was in the hall fixin’ one of the windows that was stuck.”

“Did he say anything?”

“Not then.”

“Afterward?”

“He come to me after the murder was discovered—­next day, I reckon it was, in the afternoon, just before the inquest—­and said could I lend him five hundred dollars.  Well, I knew right away it was a hold-up, but I couldn’t do a thing.  I dug up the money an’ let him have it.”

“Has he bothered you since?”

Hull hesitated.  “Well—­no.”

“Meanin’ that he has?”

Hull flew the usual flag of distress, a red bandanna mopping a perspiring, apoplectic face.  “He kinda hinted he wanted more money.”

“Did you give it to him?”

“I didn’t have it right handy.  I stalled.”

“That’s the trouble with a blackmailer.  Give way to him once an’ he’s got you in his power,” Kirby said.  “The thing to do is to tell him right off the reel to go to Halifax.”

“If a fellow can afford to,” Olson put in significantly.  “When you’ve just got through a little private murder of yore own, you ain’t exactly free to tell one of the witnesses against you to go very far.”

“Tell you I didn’t kill Cunningham,” Hull retorted sullenly.  “Some one else must ‘a’ come in an’ did that after I left.”

“Sounds reasonable,” Olson murmured with heavy sarcasm.

“Was the hall lit when you came out of my uncle’s rooms?” Kirby asked suddenly.

“Yes.  I told you Shibo was workin’ at one of the windows.”

“So Shibo saw you and Mrs. Hull plainly?”

“I ain’t denyin’ he saw us,” Hull replied testily.

“No, you don’t deny anything we can prove on you,” the Dry Valley man jeered.

“And Shibo didn’t let up on you.  He kept annoyin’ you afterward,” the cattleman persisted.

“Well, he—­I reckon he aims to be reasonable now,” Hull said uneasily.

“Why now?  What’s changed his views?”