Midnight Part 32

"Why do we know that?"

"Because you know he was killed by a woman!"

"Aa-a-ah! That's what you think, eh?"

"I know a woman killed him."

"You were present?"

"Bah! Trying to trap me--are you? Well, I ain't going to be trapped. I don't know nothin' about it. Like I said from the first."

"But you do know something about it," insisted Carroll icily. "And I'd advise you to come clean with us."

"There ain't nothin' to come clean about."

"You say we know that a woman killed Warren. You seem pretty confident of that yourself. Well, we happen to know that you know who this woman was. Who was she?"

For the first time Barker's eyes shifted. "You know as well as me who she was?"

"Who was she?" Carroll's voice fairly snapped.

"It was--Miss Hazel Gresham!"

Carroll stared at the man. "Listen to me, Barker--you're lying and we know you're lying. You know as well as we do that Miss Gresham was at her own home when Warren was killed. I don't want any more lies! Not one! Now tell us the truth!"

Barker stared first at Carroll--then at Leverage. An expression of doubt crossed his face. It was patent that these men knew more than he had credited them. Finally he shrugged his shoulders--

"Well--Mr. Carroll, that bein' the case--I ain't goin' to stick my head in a noose for n.o.body!"

"You've decided to tell us the truth!"

"I have."

"You know who killed Roland Warren?"

"Yes--I know who killed Roland Warren!"

"Who was it?"

Barker's face went white. Leverage and Carroll leaned forward eagerly--nervously. It seemed an eternity before Barker's answer came--but when it did, his words rang with conviction--he uttered a name--

"_Mrs. Naomi Lawrence_!"

CHAPTER XVIII

"AND NOTHING BUT THE TRUTH--"

Barker's words reverberated through the room--to be succeeded by an almost unnatural stillness; a silence punctured by the ticking of the cheap clock on the mantel, by the crackling of the flames in the grate, by the whistling of the wind around the corners of the gaunt gray stone building which housed the police department.

The accused man looked eagerly upon the faces of the two detectives; then, slowly, his chest expanded with relief: he saw that they believed him.

And Carroll did believe. It was not that he wanted to--he had fought himself mentally away from that conviction time after time; had threshed over every scintilla of evidence, searching futilely for something which would clear this radiant woman whom he had met but once. Carroll's interest--however platonic--was intensely personal.

The woman had impressed herself indelibly upon him. It was perhaps her air of game helplessness; perhaps the stark tragedy which he had seen reflected in her eyes when he had first entered her home and saw that she knew why he had come.

And now, driven into the corner which he had hoped to avoid, his retentive memory brought back a circ.u.mstance well-nigh forgotten. He addressed Barker, his voice soft-hopeless.

"You mean that Mrs. Lawrence was the woman in the taxicab?"

"Yes, sir." The "sir," which Barker used for the first time was respectful.

"Where had she been during the evening--after dark of the night of the--killing?"

"At home--I believe."

"You believe?"

"Yes, sir."

Carroll's eyes lighted. His voice cracked out accusingly: "Don't you _know_ that that is incorrect?"

Barker shook his head. "Why, no, sir. Of course, I ain't sayin' positive that she _was_ at home all evenin', but--"

"As I understand it," said Carroll slowly--"an accommodation train came in just about that time: isn't that a fact?"

"Some train came in then--I don't know which one it was."

"Isn't it a fact that the woman who got into the taxicab had been a pa.s.senger on that train: that she got off with the other pa.s.sengers, carrying a suit-case?"

"There ain't n.o.body can see the pa.s.sengers get off the trains at the Union Station, Mr. Carroll. You go down them steps and approach the waitin' room underground--crossin' under the tracks."

"But you do know that this woman--whoever she was--pa.s.sed through the waiting room with the pa.s.sengers who came on that train, don't you?"

"Yes, sir--she done that, but it don't mean nothin'."

"Why don't it?"

"Well, sir, for one thing--ain't it true that the papers said the suit-case she was carryin' wasn't hers at all. Ain't it a fact that she had Mr. Warren's suit-case?"

"Well?" Carroll saw his last hope glimmering.

"You see, sir--Mr. Warren was meetin' Mrs. Lawrence at the station. He got there with his suit-case at about ten minutes to twelve. She got there about ten or fifteen minutes later--"

"How did she come?"

"On the street car. And when she come out--she was alone and it was his suit-case she was carryin'--the same suit-case he had taken into the station. The one you found in the taxicab."