Midnight | Page 8

place; though it beats me--"
Carroll lighted a cigarette. Of the three men, he was the only one who
seemed impervious to the cold. Leverage and the taxi-driver were both
shivering as if with the ague. Carroll, an enormous overcoat snuggled
about his neck, his hands thrust deep into his pockets, his boyish face
set with interest, seemed perfectly comfortable. As a matter of fact, the
unique circumstances surrounding the murder had so interested him
that he had quite forgotten the weather.
"Obviously," he said to Leverage, "it's up to us to find out whether the
people at this house here expected a visitor."
"You said it, David; but I haven't any doubt it was a plant, a fake
address."
"I think so, too."
"Wait here." The chief started for the dark little house. "I'll ask 'em."
Three minutes later Leverage was back.
"Said nothing doing," he imparted laconically. "No one expected--no

one away who would be coming back--and then wanted to know who
in thunder I was. They almost dropped dead when I told 'em. No
question about it, that address was a stall. This dame had something up
her sleeve, and took care to see that your taxi man was given a long
drive so she'd have plenty of time to croak Warren."
"Then you think she met him by arrangement, chief?"
"Looks so to me. Only thing is, where did he get in?"
"That's what is going to interest us for some time to come, I'm afraid.
And now suppose we go back to town? I'll drive my car; I'll keep
behind you and Walters, here. You ride together in his cab."
Walters clambered to his seat, and succeeded, after much effort, in
starting his frozen motor. Leverage bulked beside him on the suit-case
of the dead man. The taxi swung cityward, and immediately behind
trailed Carroll in his cozy coupe.
As Carroll drove mechanically through the night, he gave himself over
to a siege of intensive thought. The case seemed fraught with unusual
interest. Already it had developed an overplus of extraordinary
circumstances, and Carroll had a decided premonition that the road of
investigation ahead promised many surprises.
There was every reason why it should. The social prominence of the
dead man, the mysterious disappearance of the handsomely dressed
woman--all the facts of the case pointed to an involved trail.
If it were true that the woman had entered the taxicab alone, that the
man had come in later, and that the murder had been committed by the
woman in the cab before reaching the railroad crossing, the thing must
undoubtedly have been prearranged to the smallest fractional detail.
That being the premise, it was only a logical conclusion that persons
other than the woman and the dead man were involved.
Interesting--decidedly so! But there was nothing to work on. Even the
suit-case clue had vanished into thin air, so far as its value to the police

was concerned.
That suit-case bothered Carroll. He believed Spike's story, and was
convinced that the suit-case which they had examined out on East End
Avenue was the one which the woman had carried from the train to the
taxicab. There again the trail of the dead man and the vanished woman
crossed; else why was she carrying his suit-case?
The journey was over before he knew it. The yellow taxi turned down
the alley upon which headquarters backed, and jerked to a halt before
the ominous brown-stone building. Carroll parked his car at the rear,
assigned some one to stand guard over the body, and the three men,
Leverage carrying the suit-case, ascended the steps to the main room
and thence to the chief's private office.
The warmth of the place was welcome to all of them, and in the
comforting glow of a small grate fire, which nobly assisted the
struggling furnace in its task of heating the spacious structure, Spike
Walters seemed to lose much of the nervousness which he had
exhibited since the discovery of the body. Carroll warmed his hands at
the blaze, and then addressed Leverage.
"How about this case, chief?"
"How about it?"
"You want me to butt in on it?"
"Want you? Holy sufferin' oysters! Carroll, if you didn't work on it, I'd
brain you! You're the only man in the State who could--"
"Soft-pedal the blarney," grinned Carroll. "And now--the suit-case
again."
He dropped to his knees and opened the suit-case. Garment by garment
he emptied it, searching for some clue, some damning bit of evidence,
which might explain the woman's possession of the dead man's
belongings. He found nothing. It was evident that the grip had been

carefully packed for a journey of several days at least; but it was a
man's suit-case, and its contents were exclusively masculine.
Carroll shrugged as he