Midnight Part 8

CHAPTER V

MISS EVELYN ROGERS

Carroll was more than amused; he was keenly interested. He motioned his visitor to a chair and seated himself opposite, regarding her quizzically.

She was not exactly the type of person he had antic.i.p.ated encountering in a murder investigation. From the tip of her pert little hat to the toes of her ultra-fashionable shoes she was expressive of the independent rising generation--a generation wiser in the ways of the world than that from which it was sprung--a generation strangely bereft of genuine youth, yet charming in an entirely modern and unique manner.

She was obviously a young person of italics, a human exclamation-point, enthusiastic, irrepressible. She sat fidgeting in her chair, trying her best to convince the detective that she was a woman grown.

"I'm Evelyn Rogers," she gushed. "I'm the sister of Naomi Lawrence--you know her, of _course_. She's one of the city's social leaders. Of course, she's kind of frumpy and _terribly_ old. She must be--why, I suppose she's every bit of thirty! And that's simply _awful!"_

"I'm thirty-eight," smiled Carroll.

"No?"

"Yes, indeed."

"Well, you don't look it. You don't look a day over twenty-two, and I think men who are really grown up and yet look like boys are simply _adorable!_ I do, really. And I simply _despise_ boys of twenty-two who try to look like thirty-eight. Don't you?"

"M-m! Not always."

"Well, _I_ do! They're always putting on airs and trying to make us girls think they're full-grown. I just simply haven't time to waste with them.

I feel so _old!"_

"I haven't a doubt of it, Miss Rogers. And now--I believe you came to tell me something about the Warren case?"

"Oh, yes, indeed--just _lots!_ But do you know"--she stared at him with frank approval--"I'm terribly tickled with the way you look. You may not believe it, but I've always been _atrociously_ in love with you."

"No?"

"Yes, indeed! You're such a _wonderful_ man--having your name in the papers all the time. Oh, I've read about everything you've done!

That's how I learned so much about detectiving--or isn't that what you call it?"

"Detecting?"

"That's it. You know I always was simply _incorrigible_ in making up words when I couldn't think of the right one. Don't you think it's a lot of trouble sometimes--thinking of just the right word in the right place?"

"Sometimes. But about the Warren case?"

"Oh, yes, certainly! I'm always getting off my subject, ain't I? I mean--am I not? Bother grammar, anyway. It's a terrible bore, don't you think?"

"Yes, Miss Rogers. And now--"

"Back to that awful crime again, aren't you? It's simply sugary the way you great detectives stick to one subject. I can do it, too, when I have to. I took some lessons once in power of will--concentration and all that sort of thing. It made me feel wickedly old; but I learned a great deal about keeping my mind on one subject all the time. You know, it doesn't matter what you concentrate on--even if it's only making biscuits, or something messy and domestic like that--it does you good. It trains you not to waste words, and to store up your mental energy, and all that sort of thing. And all the time I was studying that course, I was thinking how perfectly glorious modern science is. Just suppose Shakespeare had been able to concentrate like us moderns can! His plays would have been utterly _marvelous_, wouldn't they?"

"I suppose they would. And now let's try concentrating on the Warren case."

"That's what I've been leading up to. You see, I knew Mr. Warren very well. In fact, he was awfully friendly with me. To tell you the strict truth, and absolutely in confidence, I really believe he was in love with me!"

"No?"

"Yes, truly! We women have a way of knowing when a man is in love with us. He used to be around at the house all the time. Of course, he pretended that he came around because he liked Sis and Gerald--"

"Gerald?"

"That's Mr. Lawrence. He's my brother-in-law--Sis's husband.

Insufferably old-timy. Don't think of anything but business. Used to look at me through his horn-rimmed gla.s.ses and say I was entirely too young to be receiving attentions from a man as old as Mr. Warren; but he didn't know. I'm not young, really, you know. Of course, I'm not twenty yet, but a girl can be under twenty and yet be a woman, can't she?"

"Yes"--dryly--"especially after she learns to concentrate."

"And as intimately as I knew Roland--that's Mr. Warren, you know--of course I didn't call him Roland to his face. Not that he didn't want me to, but then Sis and Gerald would have disapproved--old frumps! Knowing him so intimately, and really believing that he was in love with me--although, of course, the minute he became engaged to Hazel Gresham I didn't even flirt with him any more--not the least little tiny harmless bit well, I find it excruciatingly hard to believe that he is dead!"

"He is--quite. We're trying to discover who killed him."

"I know it. That's what I came to see you about."

"So you did. I'd quite forgotten--"

"You ought to learn to concentrate, Mr. Carroll. It's really ridiculously easy after you've studied it a little bit. Now if I had been you, and you had been I--me--I never would have forgotten what you came to see me about. Of course, I know you didn't forget, really; but the chances are that you were interested talking, and absolutely failed to remember that poor boy."

"What poor boy?"

"Roland Warren."

Carroll with difficulty concealed a smile.

"I see! And now that I've remembered him again, suppose you tell me what you know about him and the case?"

"It's princ.i.p.ally about what I read in the papers this morning. Really, Mr. Carroll, there ought to be a law against newspapers printing such ridiculous things!"

"As what, for instance?"

"That thing they had in there this morning. Why, the way they mentioned Hazel Gresham, you'd have thought that they thought _she_ was the woman who killed Roland--the woman in the taxicab."

Carroll's eyes narrowed slightly. The faint smile still played about his lips.

"You don't think she was?"

"Oh, Mr. Carroll! Please, _please_, don't be so irresistibly _absurd_!

Why in the world should Hazel kill the man she was engaged to?"

"I don't know."

"And besides, what does _she_ know about killing some one? That is the most bizarre idea I have ever heard in all my life. Besides, she couldn't have killed him, anyway."

"Why not?"

"Even if she'd wanted to, she couldn't; and I'm sure she didn't want to.