not a word--not a word!" He came puffing down the
steps and went waddling on his way.

"What do you think of that prize package, Cole?" asked Lane, his eyes
following the man.

"Guilty as hell," said the bronco buster crisply.

"I'd say so too," agreed Kirby. "I don't know as we need to look much
farther. My vote is for Mr. Cass Hull--with reservations."

CHAPTER XIX

A DISCOVERY

The men from Wyoming stepped into the elevator and Kirby pressed the
button numbered 3. At the third floor they got out and turned to the
right. With the Yale key his cousin had given him Kirby opened the
door of Apartment 12.

He knew that there was not an inch of space in the rooms that the
police and the newspaper reporters had not raked as with a fine-tooth
comb for clues. The desk had been ransacked, the books and magazines
shaken, the rugs taken up. There was no chance that he would discover
anything new unless it might be by deduction.

Wild Rose had reported to him the result of her canvass of the tenants.
One or two of them she had missed, but she had managed to see all the
rest. Nothing of importance had developed from these talks. Some did
not care to say anything. Others wanted to gossip a whole afternoon
away, but knew no more than what the newspapers had told them. The
single fact that stood out from her inquiries was that those who lived
in the three apartments nearest to Number 12 had all been out of the
house on the evening of the twenty-third. The man who rented the rooms
next those of Cunningham had left for Chicago on the twenty-second and
had not yet returned to Denver.

Cole took in the easy-chairs, the draperies, and the soft rugs with an
appreciative eye. "The old boy believed in solid comfort. You
wouldn't think to look at this that he'd spent years on a bronc's back
buckin' blizzards. Some luxury, I'll say! Looks like one o' them
palaces of the vamp ladies the movies show."

Kirby wasted no time in searching the apartment for evidence. What
interested him was its entrances and its exits, its relation to
adjoining rooms and buildings. He had reason to believe that, between
nine o'clock and half-past ten on the night of the twenty-third, not
less than eight persons in addition to Cunningham had been in the
apartment. How had they all managed to get in and out without being
seen by each other?

Lane talked aloud, partly to clear his own thought and partly to put
the situation before