razor, laid it
down and shoved his' soapy face toward the speaker.

"Say," spoke he, roughly. "I drives people wherever they wants to go;
but I don't ask no questions."

"It's all right, Mr. Sams," said Ashton-Kirk. "The affair that I'm
looking up happened across the street--at Hume's--second floor of
478."

"Oh!" Sams stared for a moment, then he took up his razor, turned his
back and went on with his shaving. But there was expectancy in his
attitude; and Ashton-Kirk smiled confidently.

"While you were drawn up in Christie Place, waiting for a fare," he
asked, "did you hear or see anything at 478?"

"I saw a light on the second floor--something I never saw before at
that hour. And I saw the Dutchman that keeps the store underneath
shutting up. And I heard somebody laughing upstairs," as a second
thought. "I think that's what made me notice the light."

"Nothing else?"

Sams shaved and considered. He wiped his razor at last, poured some
water in a bowl and doused his face. Then he took up a towel and began
applying it briskly.

The investigator, watching him closely, saw that he was not trying to
recall anything. It was plain that the man was merely calculating the
possibilities of harm to himself and patrons if he told what he knew.

"There has been a murder," said Ashton-Kirk, quietly, thinking to jog
him along.

Sams threw the towel from him and sat down upon the bed.

"A murder!" said he, his eyes and mouth wide open. "Well, what do you
know about that." He sat looking from one to the other of them,
dazedly, for a space; then he resumed: "Say, I thought there was
something queer about that stunt of hers!"

"Tell us about it," suggested Ashton-Kirk, crossing his legs and
clasping one knee with his hands.

The cabby considered once more.

"There's lots of things that a guy like me sees that look off color,"
he said, at length; "but we can't always pass any remarks about them.
It would be bad for business, you see. But this murder thing's a
different proposition, and here's where I tell it all. Last night
while I was waiting in front of McCausland's, I hears an automobile
turn into the street. It was some time after I got there. I wouldn't
have paid much attention to it, but you see there's a fellow been
trying to get my work with a taxicab, and I thought it was him."

"And it wasn't?"

"No, it was a private car--a Maillard, and there was a woman driving
it."

The chair upon which Pendleton sa