eat, 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