The thought came to Rose as a revelation.

"Or right after."

"All we've got to do is to find her and the man with her, and we've
solved the mystery," the girl cried eagerly.

"That's not quite all," said Kirby, smiling at the way her mind leaped
gaps. "We've got to induce them to talk, an' it's not certain they
know any more than we do."

"Her skirts rustled like silk and the perfume wasn't cheap. I couldn't
really see her, but I knew she was well dressed," Rose told him.

"Well, that's somethin'," he said with the whimsical quirk to his mouth
she knew of old. "We'll advertise for a well-dressed lady who uses
violet perfume. Supposed to be connected with the murder at the
Paradox Apartments. Generous reward an' many questions asked."

His badinage was of the surface only. The subconscious mind of the
rough rider was preoccupied with a sense of a vague groping. The
thought of violet perfume associated itself with something else in
addition to the darkness of his uncle's living-room, but he did not
find himself able to localize the nebulous memory. Where was it his
nostrils had whiffed the scent more recently?

"Don't you think we ought to see all the tenants at the Paradox and
talk with them? Some of them may have seen people going in or out. Or
they may have heard voices," she said.

"That's a good idea. We'll make a canvass of the house."

Her eyes sparkled. "We'll find who did it! When two people look for
the truth intelligently they're bound to find it. Don't you think so?"

"I think we'll sure round up the wolf that did this killin'," he
drawled. "Anyhow, we'll sleep on his trail for a moon or two."

They shook hands on it.

CHAPTER XVII

IN DRY VALLEY

If Kirby had been a properly authenticated detective of fiction he
would have gone to his uncle's apartment, locked the door, measured the
rooms with a tape-line, found imprints of fingers on a door panel, and
carefully gathered into an envelope the ashes from the cigar his uncle
had been smoking. The data obtained would have proved conclusively
that Cunningham had come to his death at the hands of a Brahmin of high
caste on account of priceless gems stolen from a temple in India. An
analysis of the cigar ashes would have shown that a subtle poison,
unknown to the Western world, had caused the victim's heart to stop
beating exactly two minutes and twelve seconds after taking the first
puff at the cigar. Thus the fictional et