cket Kirk took out a small flat leather case and a thin-edged tool
from that. Working with the smooth efficiency of the expert, he loosened
the door moulding near the lock and inserted the tool blade until it
found the bolt. This he eased back, turned the door handle and, a moment
later, was standing in a small living room tastefully furnished in
modern woods.

His first action was to enter the tiny kitchen and unbolt the door
leading to the rear porch. In case Alma Dakin arrived at an inopportune
moment, he could be half way down the outer steps while she was still
engaged with the front door lock. Since he had pressed the moulding back
into place, there would be nothing to indicate his presence.

* * * * *

Within ten minutes Kirk had ransacked every inch of the living room in
search of something, anything, that would point to Alma Dakin as being
more than a nine-to-five secretary. And while he found nothing, no one,
not even the girl who lived here, could tell that an intruder had been
at work.

The bedroom seemed even less promising at first. Dresser drawers gave up
only the pleasantly personal articles of the average young woman. Miss
Dakin, it turned out, was almost indecently fond of frothy undergarments
and black transparent nightgowns--interesting but not at all important
to the over-all problem.

Kirk, his search completed, sat down on the edge of the bed's footboard
and totaled up what he had learned. It didn't take long, for he knew
absolutely no more about Alma Dakin than he had before entering her
apartment. No personal papers, no letters from a yearning boy friend in
the old home town, no savings or checking-account passbook. Not even a
scrawled line of birthday or Christmas greetings on the fly leaves of
the apartment's seven books.

To Kirk's trained mind, the very lack of such things, the fact that Alma
Dakin lived in a vacuum, was highly significant. It smacked of her
having something to hide--and his already strong suspicion of her was
solidified into certainty of her guilt. But certainty was a long way
from rock-ribbed evidence--and that was something he must have to
proceed further.

He was ready to leave when it dawned on him that he had not yet looked
under the bed. Kneeling, he pushed up the hanging edge of the green
batik spread and peered into the narrow space. Nothing, not even a
decent accumulation of dust. The light from the window was too faint,
howe