“The lady of the violet perfume an’ her escort were here,” Kirby went on.  “At least she was—­most prob’ly he was, too.  It’s a cinch the Hulls were in the rooms.  They were scared stiff when I saw ’em a little later.  They lied on the witness stand so as to clear themselves an’ get me into trouble in their place.  Olson backs up the evidence.  He good as told me he’d seen Hull in my uncle’s rooms.  If he did he must ‘a’ been present himself.  Then there’s the Jap Horikawa.  He’d beat it before the police went to his room to arrest him at daybreak the mornin’ after the murder.  How did he know my uncle had been killed?  It’s not likely any one told him between half-past ten an’ half-past five the next mo’nin’.  No, sir.  He knew it because his eyes had told him so.”

“I’ll say he did,” agreed Sanborn.

“Good enough.  That makes eight of us that came an’ went.  We don’t need to figure on Rose an’ me.  I came by the door an’ went by the fire escape.  She walked upstairs an’ down, too.  The violet lady an’ the man with her took the stairs down.  We know that.  But how about Hull an’ Olson an’ the Jap?  Here’s another point.  Say it was 9.50 when Rose got here.  My uncle didn’t reach his rooms before nine o’clock.  He changed his shoes, put on a smokin’-jacket, an’ lit a cigar.  He had it half smoked before he was tied to the chair.  That cuts down to less than three quarters of an hour the time in which he was chloroformed, tied up to the chair, an’ shot, an’ in which at least six people paid a visit here, one of the six stayin’ long enough to go through his desk an’ look over a whole lot o’ papers.  Some o’ these people were sure enough treadin’ close on each other’s heels an’ I reckon some were makin’ quick getaways.”

“Looks reasonable,” Cole admitted.

“I’ll bet I wasn’t the only man in a hurry that night an’ not the only one trapped here.  The window of the den was open when I came.  Don’t you reckon some one else beat it by the fire escape?"’

“Might’ve.”

They passed into the small room where James Cunningham had met his death.  Broad daylight though it was, Kirby felt for an instant a tightening at his heart.  In imagination he saw again the gargoyle grin on the dead face upturned to his.  With an effort he pushed from him the grewsome memory.

The chair in which the murdered man had been found was gone.  The district attorney had taken it for an exhibit at the trial of the man upon whom evidence should fasten.  The littered papers had been sorted and most of them removed, probably by James Cunningham, Junior.  Otherwise the room remained the same.

The air was close.  Kirby stepped to the window and threw it up.  He looked out at the fire escape and at the wall of the rooming-house across the alley.  Denver is still young.  It offers the incongruities of the West.  The Paradox Apartments had been remodeled and were modern and up to date.  Adjoining it was the Wyndham Hotel, a survival of earlier days which could not long escape the march of progress.