mind, to catalogue each properly, to test for proper value.

He reached his apartment and found it warm and comfortable. He donned
lounging robe and slippers which the thoughtful Freda had left out for
him, settled himself in an easy chair, lighted a fire which he kept
always ready in the grate and turned out the lights. Then, with his cigar
glowing and great clouds of rich smoke filling the air--he sank into a
revelry of thinking.

Certain disclosures of the evening stood out with startling clarity.
Chief among them was the inevitable belief that Gerald Lawrence had
either killed Roland Warren or else knew who had done so--and how it was
done. Yet Carroll tried not to allow his thoughts and personal prejudices
to run away with him. He knew that now, of all times, he must keep a
tight grip on himself.

Great as was the dislike which he had conceived for Lawrence--an
instinctive repugnance which still obtained--he was grimly determined
that he would not be swayed by his emotions. Therefore he deliberately
reviewed Lawrence's story in the light of its possible truth.

Lawrence claimed that he belonged to that none too rare class of
prominent citizens who once every so often respond to the call of the
wild within them by going to a nearby city where they are not known and
giving themselves over to the dubious delights of a spree. Publication of
this fact alone would prove sufficient to injure Lawrence socially and in
the commercial world. The old case of the Spartan lad--Carroll reflected.
The disgrace lay in being discovered.

Also, it was perfectly plain to Carroll that at the outset of his
conversation Lawrence had been smugly satisfied that he was possessed of
a perfect alibi. It was only under Carroll's merciless grilling that he
had been brought abruptly to realization that he had no alibi whatever.
The same logic applied there, as in Leverage's theory that Barker's
arrest would be an excellent strategic move. All Carroll had to do now
was to arrest Lawrence for Warren's murder--and the burden of proof
would have been shifted from the shoulders of the detective to that of
the suspect. It would then devolve upon Lawrence to prove an alibi that
Carroll knew perfectly well he could not prove--save by merest accident.

But that was a procedure which Carroll abhorred. Those were police
department methods: wholesale arrests in the hope of somewhere in the
net trapping the prey. Such a course was at the bottom--and Car