“Yes,” interrupted Leverage, “and we know that Warren was planning to make a trip with someone else!”

“Exactly!”

“Which makes it pretty clear,” finished Leverage positively, “that Mrs. Lawrence was the woman in the taxicab!”

CHAPTER XVII

BARKER ACCUSES

The men looked at each other in silence for a minute.  Leverage was sorry for Carroll—­sorry because he knew that Carroll was disappointed, that the boyish detective had hoped against hope that the trail would lead to some person other than the flaming creature who was Gerald Lawrence’s wife.

It was not that Carroll had become infatuated with her.  It was merely that he liked her—­liked her sincerely—­and was sorry for her.

The conclusions to be inevitably reached from the premise that Naomi was the woman in the taxicab were none too pleasant.  In the first place there was the matter of morals involved.  It had been pretty well established that the dead man had planned a trip to New York with someone:  there was the fact that he had purchased a drawing room and two railroad tickets—­only one of which later had been found in his pockets at midnight that night.

Then there was the circumstance of Mrs. Lawrence packing her suit-case and taking it, or sending it, from the house during the day—­and its reappearance a couple of days later.  It also explained her willingness that Evelyn spend the night with Hazel Gresham.  Knowing that she, Naomi, was going to leave her home before midnight, she had not wanted her youthful sister to spend the balance of the night alone—­and so had sent her to the house of a friend.  That much was clear—­

“It’s hell!” burst out Carroll.

“You said it.”

“Suppose she was the woman in the taxicab—?”

“Yes—­suppose she was:  it doesn’t prove that she killed Warren?”

“No—­but it proves something a good deal worse, Leverage.  It proves that she was going to elope with him.”

“It may—­we don’t know!”

“We don’t know anything.  But there is a certain logic which is irrefutable—­and, confound it! man—­what are we going to do now?”

Leverage refused to meet his friend’s eyes.  “We-e-ll, David—­suppose you tell me what you think we should do?”

“We ought to—­but it’s rotten!  Absolutely rotten!”

“Trouble with you, David,” said Leverage kindly—­“is that you’re too damned human!”

“I can’t help it.  It isn’t my fault.  And if I was sure that Naomi Lawrence was the woman in that taxi, I’d arrest her immediately.  But I’m not sure, Leverage—­and neither are you.  Let’s admit that it’s a ten to one bet—­we’re still not positive.  And I wonder if you realize what her arrest would mean?”

“What?”

“We can’t arrest a woman of her prominence socially without a reason—­and a darned good reason.  Therefore, when we arrest her we have to tell the public why we’re doing it.  And what do we tell ’em?  That she was—­or might have become—­Warren’s light-o’-love!  That she was going to elope with him!”