As Kirby had expected, he was selected as the probable assassin.  A reporter had interviewed Mr. and Mrs. Cass Hull, who occupied the apartment just below that of the murdered man.  They had told him that a young man, a stranger to them, powerfully built and dressed like a prosperous ranchman, had knocked on their door about 9.20 to ask the way to the apartment of Cunningham.  Hull explained that he remembered the time particularly because he happened to be winding the clock at the moment.

A description of Lane was given in a two-column “box.”  He read it with no amusement.  It was too deadly accurate for comfort.

The supposed assassin of James Cunningham is described by Mrs. Cass Hull as dressed in a pepper-and-salt suit and a white, pinched-in cattleman’s hat.  He is about six feet tall, between 25 and 30 years old, weighing about 200 or perhaps 210 pounds.  His hair is a light brown and his face tanned from the sun.

His age and his weight were overstated, and his clothes were almost a khaki brown.  Otherwise Mrs. Hull had given a very close description of him, considering her state of mind at the moment when she had seen him.

There was one sentence of the story he read over two or three times.  Hull and his wife agreed that it was about 9.20 when he had knocked on their door, unless it was a printer’s error or the reporter had made a mistake.  Kirby knew this was wrong.  He had looked at his watch just before he had entered the Paradox Apartment.  He had stopped directly under a street globe, and the time was 9.55.

Had the Hulls deliberately shifted the time back thirty-five minutes?  If so, why?  He remembered how stark terror had stared out of both their faces.  Did they know more about the murder than they pretended?  When he had mentioned his uncle’s name the woman had been close to collapse, though, of course, he could not be sure that had been the reason.  To his mind there flashed the memory of the note he had seen on the table.  The man had called on Cunningham and left word he might call again.  Was it possible the Hulls had just come down from the apartment above when he had knocked on their door?  If so, how did the presence of Rose fit into the schedule?

Lane pounced on the fear and the evasion of the Hulls as an out for Wild Rose.  It was only a morsel of hope, but he made the most of it.

The newspaper was inclined to bring up stage the mysterious man who had called up the police at 10.25 to tell them that Cunningham had been murdered in his rooms.  Who was this man?  Could he be the murderer?  If so, why should he telephone the police and start immediately the hunt after him?  If not the killer, how did he know that a crime had been committed less than an hour before?

As soon as he had eaten breakfast, Kirby walked round to the boarding-house on Cherokee Street where Wild Rose was staying with her sister.  Rose was out, he learned from the landlady.  He asked if he might see her sister.  His anxiety was so great he could not leave without a word of her.