their faces. Did they know more about the murder than they pretended?
When he had mentioned his uncle's name the woman had been close to
collapse, though, of course, he could not be sure that had been the
reason. To his mind there flashed the memory of the note he had seen
on the table. The man had called on Cunningham and left word he might
call again. Was it possible the Hulls had just come down from the
apartment above when he had knocked on their door? If so, how did the
presence of Rose fit into the schedule?

Lane pounced on the fear and the evasion of the Hulls as an out for
Wild Rose. It was only a morsel of hope, but he made the most of it.

The newspaper was inclined to bring up stage the mysterious man who had
called up the police at 10.25 to tell them that Cunningham had been
murdered in his rooms. Who was this man? Could he be the murderer?
If so, why should he telephone the police and start immediately the
hunt after him? If not the killer, how did he know that a crime had
been committed less than an hour before?

As soon as he had eaten breakfast, Kirby walked round to the
boarding-house on Cherokee Street where Wild Rose was staying with her
sister. Rose was out, he learned from the landlady. He asked if he
might see her sister. His anxiety was so great he could not leave
without a word of her.

Presently Esther came down to the parlor where the young man waited for
her. Lane introduced himself as a friend of Rose. He was worried
about her, he said. She seemed to him in a highly wrought-up, nervous
state. He wondered if it would not be well to get her out of Denver.