u've heard
of Garry Gresham? It's his kid sister."

"So-o! How long has this engagement been known?"

"Couple of months. Pretty soft on both sides; he's got money and so has
she. She's a good scout, too, even if she is a kid."

"How old?"

"Hardly more than twenty; but her family seemed to welcome the match.
Warren and Garry Gresham were pretty good friends. Warren was about
thirty-three or thirty-four, you know. Gossip had it that the family was
going to object because of the difference in ages, but they didn't."

Carroll was silent for a moment.

"Nothing else about him you think might prove interesting?"

"No-o."

"And your idea of the murderer, after what you've heard?"

"The woman in the taxicab killed him."

"When did he get in?"

The reporter threw back his head and laughed.

"What is this--a game? If I knew that I'd have your job, Mr. Carroll.
The dame killed him, all right; and when we find out how she did it, and
when, and how he got in and she got out, we'll have a whale of a story!"

"No theories as to the identity of this woman, have you?"

"Nary one. A chap like Warren--bachelor, unencumbered--is liable to know
a heap of 'em. From what you tell me of the tickets--from the fact that
she was going away with him, I sort of figure you might do a little
social investigating and discover what woman might have been going off
with him."

Eric Leverage had been listening intently. His mind, never swift to work,
yet worked surely. His big voice boomed into the conversation:

"Carroll?"

"Yes?"

"This young fellow says Miss Gresham's family didn't have no objections
to the marriage. It just occurred to me to ask him is he _sure_?"

The reporter flushed.

"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, w