Midnight Part 7

"Why, no, chief; not sure. You never can be sure about things like that; but so far as the public knew--"

"That's it, exactly. How do we know, though, but what they were sore as a pup over it, and just kept their traps closed because they didn't want any gossip? S'posin' they were trying to break things off, an' makin' it pretty uncomfortable for the girl? S'pose that, eh?"

"Yes," argued the reporter. "Suppose all of that. Where does it get you?"

"It gets you just here"--Leverage talked slowly, heavily, tapping his spatulate fingers on the table to emphasize his points--"we know this bird was going to elope with some skirt. All right! Now I ask this--why go all around the block, looking for some one he might have been mixed up with, when the woman a man is most likely to elope with is the girl he's engaged to marry?"

Silence--several seconds of it. Carroll spoke:

"Miss Gresham, you mean?"

"Sure, David--sure! I'm not sayin' she was the woman, mind you. I'm not sayin' anything except that if I'm right in thinkin' that maybe her folks weren't as crazy about this guy Warren as they seemed--if I'm right in that, maybe they was plannin' to take matters in their own hands and elope."

"It's possible."

"Sure, it's possible, and--"

"But, chief," interrupted the reporter who had done most of the talking, "why should Miss Gresham kill Warren?"

"I didn't say she did, did I?"

"If she was the woman in the taxi--"

"If! Sure--_if!_ All I mentioned that for was to show you we might as well start thinking close to home before we go to beatin' through the bushes to follow a cold trail."

The reporters left, and Carroll smiled at Leverage.

"Good idea, Eric--about Miss Gresham."

"'Tain't a hunch," said Leverage. "It just made good talkin'."

"I'm glad you did it, anyway."

"What is thare about it that you like?"

"Those newspaper chaps will play it up. Maybe they won't intend to, but they'll play it up, just the same; and it won't take us long either to connect Miss Gresham with the crime or to link up an iron-clad alibi for her."

"H-m! Not bad! You know, Carroll"--and Leverage smiled frankly--"I'm always makin' these fine suggestions an' pullin' good stunts, an' never knowin' whether they're good or not until somebody tells me."

"A good many folks are like that, Eric, but they don't admit it afterward."

"Neither do I--publicly."

Leverage rose and yawned.

"It's me for the hay, Carroll. I'm played out; and I have a hunch that to-morrow I'm going to be busy as seven little queen bees--and you, too."

Carroll reached for his overcoat.

"A little bit of thinking things over isn't going to hurt me, either.

Good night!"

Thirty minutes later Carroll reached his apartment, and a half-hour after that he was sleeping soundly. The following morning he waked "all over,"

as was his habit, and turned his eyes to gaze through the window.

During the night the sleety drizzle had ceased, and the sun streamed with brilliant coldness upon a city which shone in a glare of ice.

Leafless trees stretched their ice-covered tentacles into the cold, penetrating air; pedestrians and horses slipped on the gla.s.sy pavements; automobiles either skidded dangerously or set up an incessant rattle with their chains.

Carroll glanced at his watch. It showed nine o'clock. He started with surprise. Then he reached for the newspapers on the table at the side of his bed, and spread open the front pages.

They had evidently been made up anew with the breaking of the Warren murder story. Eight-column streamers shrieked at him from both front pages. He read the stories through, and smiled with satisfaction. Just as he had antic.i.p.ated, both reporters, hungry for some definite clue upon which to work, had seized upon the possibility of Hazel Gresham being the mysterious woman in the taxicab. Not that they said so openly, but they said enough to make the public know that the detectives in charge of the case were likely to investigate her movements on the previous night.

Carroll stepped into a shower, then dressed quickly and ate a light breakfast served him by his maid, Freda. Before he finished, the doorbell rang, and Freda announced that there was a lady to see him.

"A lady?"

Freda shrugged.

"She ain't bane nothin' but a girl, sir, Mr. Carroll--just a little girl."

"Show her in."

In two minutes Freda returned, and behind her came the visitor. Carroll concealed a smile at sight of her. She was a little thing--sixteen or seventeen years old, he judged--a fluffy, blond girl quivering with vivacity; the type of girl who is desperately reaching for maturity, entirely forgetful of the charms of her adolescence. He rose and bowed in a serious, courtly manner.

"You wish to see me?"

"Yes, sir, I _do_. Is _this_ Mr. Carroll--the famous detective?"

"I am David Carroll--yes."

She inspected him with frank approval.

"Why, you don't look any more than a boy! I thought you were old and had whiskers--and--and--everything horrid."

"I'm glad you're pleasantly surprised. What can I do for you?"

"Oh, it isn't what you can do for me--it's what I can do for you!"

"And that is?"

"I came to tell you all about this terrible Warren murder case."

"_You_ came to tell _me_ about it?"

"Why, yes," she retorted smilingly. "You see, I know just _heaps_ about the whole thing!"