Doolin skimmed down the column, read:
R. F. Winfield, prominent motion-picture executive, who was one of the party in the private room, said that he could not identify any of the killers. He said it all happened too quickly to be sure of any of them, and explained his presence in the company of the notorious gangsters as the result of his desire for first-hand information about the underworld in connection with a picture of that type which he is supervising. The names of others in the party are being withheld...
Under a sub-head Doolin read:
H. J. Coleman and his companion, Miss Mazie Decker, were in the corridor leading to the private room when the killers entered. Miss Decker said she could positively identify two of them. Coleman, who is nearsighted, was equally positive that he could not...
An hour and a half later, Doolin left the Bulletin Building. He had gone carefully through the December file, and up to the middle of January. He had called into service the City Directory, telephone book, Dun & Bradstreet, and the telephone, and he had wheedled all the inside dope he could out of a police-reporter whom he knew casually.
He stood on the wide stone steps and looked at the sheet of paper on which he had scrawled notes. It read:
People in private room and corridor who might be able to identify killers of Riccio and Conroy: Winfield. Dead. Coleman. Dead. Martha Grainger. Actress. In show, in N. Y. Betty Crane. Hustler. Died of pneumonia January 4th. Isabel Dolly. Hustler and extra-girl. Was paralyzed drunk during shooting; probably not important. Can’t locate. Mazie Decker. Taxi-dancer. Works at Dreamland on Sixth and Hill. Failed to identify killers from rogues-gallery photographs. Nelson Halloran. Man-about-town. Money. Friend of Winfield’s. Lives at Fontenoy, same apartment-house as Winfield.
Doolin folded and creased the sheet of paper. He wound it abstractedly around his forefinger and walked down the steps, across the sidewalk to a cab. He got into the cab and sat down and leaned back.
The driver slid the glass, asked: “Where to?”
Doolin stared at him blankly, then laughed. He said: “Wait a minute,” spread the sheet of paper across his knee. He took a stub of pencil out of his pocket and slowly, thoughtfully, drew a line through the first five names; that left Mazie Decker and Nelson Halloran.