re such memoranda as
he knew or could safely guess at. Some of these he had to change
slightly as to time to make them dovetail into each other.

8.45. Uncle J. leaves City Club.
8.55. Uncle J. reaches rooms.
8.55- 9.10. Gets slippers, etc. Smokes.
8.55- 9.20. Olson watching from W. fire escape.
9.10- 9.30. Hulls in Apt.
9.30- 9.40. _X_.
9.37- 9.42. Approximately time Olson heard shot.
9.20- 9.42. Olson busy on roof, with rope, etc. Then at
window till 9.53.
9.40- 9.53. James in Apt.
9.44- 9.50. Jack and Phyllis in Apt.
9.55-10.05. Wild Rose in rooms.
10.00. I reach rooms.
10.20. Meet Ellis.
10.25. Call police.

That was the time schedule as well as he had been able to work it out.
It was incomplete. For instance, he had not been able to account for
Horikawa in it at all unless he represented _X_ in that ten minutes of
time unaccounted for. It was inaccurate. Olson was entirely vague as
to time, but he could be checked up pretty well by the others. Hull
was not quite sure of his clock, and Rose could only say that she had
reached the Paradox "quite a little after a quarter to ten."
Fortunately his own arrival checked up hers pretty closely, since she
could not have been in the room much more than five minutes before him.
Probably she had been even less than that. James could not have left
the apartment more than a minute or so before Rose arrived. It was
quite possible that her coming had frightened him out.

So far as the dovetailing of time went, there was only the ten minutes
or less between the leaving of the Hulls and the appearance of James
left unexplained. If some one other than those mentioned on his
penciled memoranda had killed Cunningham, it must have been between
half-past nine and twenty minutes to ten. The _X_ he had written in
there was the only possible unknown quantity. By the use of hard work
and common sense he had eliminated the rest of the time so far as
outsiders were concerned.

Kirby put the envelope in his pocket and went out to get some luncheon.

"I'll call it a mornin'," he told himself with a smile.

CHAPTER XXXIX

KIRBY INVITES HIMSELF TO A RIDE

The Twin Buttes man had said he would call it a morning, but he carried
with him to the restaurant the problem that had become the pivot of all
his waking thoughts. He had an appointment to meet a man for lunch,
and he found h