talked foolish about what all I was gonna do about it. I wasn't
blowin' off hot air either. If I'd got a good chance at him, or at
Hull either, I would surely have called for a showdown an' gunned him
if I could. But that wasn't what I came to Denver for. I had to
arrange about gettin' my mortgage renewed."

He stopped and took a nervous puff or two at the cigar. Kirby nodded
in a friendly fashion without speaking. He did not want by anything he
might say to divert the man's mind from the track it was following.

"I took a room at the Wyndham because the place had been recommended to
me by a neighbor of mine who knew the landlady. When I went there I
didn't know that either Cunningham or Hull lived next door. That's a
God's truth. I didn't. Well, I saw Hull go in there the very day I
got to town, but the first I knew yore uncle lived there was ten or
maybe fifteen minutes before he was killed. I wouldn't say but what it
was twenty minutes, come to that. I wasn't payin' no attention to
time."

Olson's eyes challenged those of his host. His suspicion was still
smoldering. An unhappy remark, a look of distrust, might still have
dried up the stream of his story. But he found in that steady regard
nothing more damnatory than a keen, boyish interest.

"Maybe you recollect how hot those days were. Well, in my cheap,
stuffy room, openin' on an air-shaft, it was hotter 'n hell with the
lid on. When I couldn't stand it any longer, I went out into the
corridor an' down it to the fire escape outside the window. It was a
lot cooler there. I lit a stogie an' sat on the railin' smokin', maybe
for a quarter of an hour. By-an'-by some one come into the apartment
right acrost the alley from me. I could see the lights come on. It
was a man. I saw him step into what must be the bedroom. He moved
around there some. I couldn't tell what he was doin' because he didn't
switch on the light, but he must 'a' been changin' to his easy coat an'
his slippers. I know that because he came into the room just opposite
the fire escape where I was sittin' on the rail. He threw on the
lights, an' I saw him plain. It was Cunningham, the old crook who had
beat me outa fifteen hundred dollars."

Kirby smoked steadily, evenly. Not a flicker of the eyelids showed the
excitement racing through his blood. At last he was coming close to
the heart of the mystery that surrounded the deaths of his uncle and
his valet.

"I reckon I