When the crooks climb to the 17th floor and pull the rope in after the climb, you can see that the rope is way too short to have reached the 17th floor.
Early in the story two crooks are shown climbing to the 17th floor of a building. Superman suddenly shows up to nab the safe-cracker (the other criminal has conveniently gone out of the office and is not seen again). Superman could not have known where to go to catch this person as no information in prior scenes gave any clues as to where the burglary was to take place.
When Lois Lane is explaining to Superman how short handed the Planet is, she says, "With Clark still missing," but moments later says, "Mr. Kent is trying to get a hold of Jimmy [to] take him off the feature till Clark gets back," instead of "Mr. White".