“Did he throw you out of his room and down the stairs?”

“No, sir, nothin’ like that a-tall.  We might ‘a’ scuffled some, kinda in fun like.  Prob’ly it looked like we was fightin’, but we wasn’t.  My heel caught on a tread o’ the stairs an’ I fell down.”  Hull made his explanation eagerly and anxiously, dabbing at his beefy face with the handkerchief.

“When did you last see Mr. Cunningham alive?”

“Well, sir, that was the last time, though I reckon we heard him pass our door.”

In answer to questions the witness explained that Cunningham had owed him, in his opinion, four thousand dollars more than he had paid.  It was about this sum they had differed.

“Were you at home on the evening of the twenty-third—­that is, last night?”

The witness flung out more signals of distress.  “Yes, sir,” he said at last in a voice dry as a whisper.

“Will you tell what, if anything, occurred?”

“Well, sir, a man knocked at our door.  The woman she opened it, an’ he asked which flat was Cunningham’s.  She told him, an’ the man he started up the stairs.”

“Have you seen the man since?”

“No, sir.”

“Didn’t hear him come downstairs later?”

“No, sir.”

“At what time did this man knock?” asked the lawyer from the district attorney’s office.

Kirby Lane did not move a muscle of his body, but excitement grew in him, as he waited, eyes narrowed, for the answer.

“At 9.20.”

“How do you know the time so exactly?”

“Well, sir, I was windin’ the clock for the night.”

“Sure your clock was right?”

“Yes, sir.  I happened to check up on it when the court-house clock struck nine.  Mebbe it was half a minute off, as you might say.”

“Describe the man.”

Hull did, with more or less accuracy.

“Would you know him if you saw him again?”

“Yes, sir, I sure would.”

The coroner flung a question at the witness as though it were a weapon,
“Ever carry a gun, Mr. Hull?”

The big man on the stand dabbed at his veined face with the bandanna. 
He answered, with an ingratiating whine.  “I ain’t no gunman, sir. 
Never was.”

“Ever ride the range?”

“Well, yes, as you might say,” the witness answered uneasily.

“Carried a six-shooter for rattlesnakes, didn’t you?”

“I reckon, but I never went hellin’ around with it.”

“Wore it to town with you when you went, I expect, as the other boys did.”

“Mebbeso.”

“What caliber was it?”

“A .38, sawed-off.”

“Own it now?”

The witness mopped his fat face.  “No, sir.”

“Don’t carry a gun in town?”

“No, sir.”

“Ever own an automatic?”

“No, sir.  Wouldn’t know how to fire one.”

“How long since you sold your .38?”