hen the woman a man is most likely to elope with is the girl he's
engaged to marry?"

Silence--several seconds of it. Carroll spoke:

"Miss Gresham, you mean?"

"Sure, David--sure! I'm not sayin' she was the woman, mind you. I'm not
sayin' anything except that if I'm right in thinkin' that maybe her
folks weren't as crazy about this guy Warren as they seemed--if I'm
right in that, maybe they was plannin' to take matters in their own
hands and elope."

"It's possible."

"Sure, it's possible, and--"

"But, chief," interrupted the reporter who had done most of the talking,
"why should Miss Gresham kill Warren?"

"I didn't say she did, did I?"

"If she was the woman in the taxi--"

"If! Sure--_if!_ All I mentioned that for was to show you we might as
well start thinking close to home before we go to beatin' through the
bushes to follow a cold trail."

The reporters left, and Carroll smiled at Leverage.

"Good idea, Eric--about Miss Gresham."

"'Tain't a hunch," said Leverage. "It just made good talkin'."

"I'm glad you did it, anyway."

"What is thare about it that you like?"

"Those newspaper chaps will play it up. Maybe they won't intend to,
but they'll play it up, just the same; and it won't take us long
either to connect Miss Gresham with the crime or to link up an
iron-clad alibi for her."

"H-m! Not bad! You know, Carroll"--and Leverage smiled frankly--"I'm
always makin' these fine suggestions an' pullin' good stunts, an' never
knowin' whether they're good or not until somebody tells me."

"A good many folks are like that, Eric, but they don't admit it
afterward."

"Neither do I--publicly."

Leverage rose and yawned.

"It's me for the hay, Carroll. I'm played out; and I have a hunch that
to-morrow I'm going to be busy as seven little queen bees--and you, too."

Carroll reached for his overcoat.

"A little bit of thinking things over isn't going to hurt me, either.
Good night!"

Thirty minutes later Carroll reached his apartment, and a half-hour after
that he was sleeping soundly. The following morning he waked "all over,"
as was his habit, and turned his eyes to gaze through the window.

During the night the sleety drizzle had ceased, and the sun streamed
with brilliant coldness upon a city which shone in a glare of ice.
Leafless trees stretched their ice-covered tentacles into the cold,
penetrating air; pedestrians and horses slipped on the glassy pavements;
automobiles either skidded