“How did she act?”

“Kinder nervous like.  Noticin’ her come out I seen the taxi driver when he climbed back into his cab an’ when he started her up.  He picked up Mrs. Lawrence an’ she put the suit-case in front beside him.  Then they drove off.  And that’s all I know sir.”

Carroll rose and walked slowly the length of the room.

“What did you think when you saw Mrs. Lawrence come out of the station alone carrying Mr. Warren’s suit-case?  When she did that and called a taxicab and went off in it alone?”

“Not knowin’ about no killin’, Mr. Carroll—­I thought they’d got together and talked things over an’ decided to call off the elopement!”

“You did—­” Carroll paused.  “And the first time you knew of Warren’s death?”

“Was when I read the newspapers the next morning.”

“Then why,” barked the detective, “did you make the blunt statement that Mrs. Lawrence killed Warren?”

“Because,” said Barker simply, “I believe she did.”

“How could she have killed him?  When and how?”

“That’s easy,” explained Barker quietly.  “If I’m right in thinkin’ that they was goin’ to call off the elopement—­they could have seen that taxi standin’ against the curb and he could have got in without bein’ seen.  It was awful dark where the taxi was standin’ an’ the driver says himself that he was over in the restaurant gettin’ warm.  So what I thought right away was that Warren got in the taxi, an’ she called it.  That was so they wouldn’t be seen gettin’ in together at that time of night.  Then I thought they drove off.  And then—­”

“Yes—­and then?”

“It was while they were alone together in that taxi, that she killed him!”

CHAPTER XIX

LABYRINTH

Long after William Barker left the room—­held in custody under special guard—­David Carroll and Chief of Police Eric Leverage maintained a thoughtful silence.  Leverage wanted to talk—­but refused to be the first to broach the subject which each knew was uppermost in the mind of the other.  And it was Carroll who spoke first—­

“Well, Eric,” he said dully, “you called the turn that time.”

“Reckon I did, David.”

“It looks mighty bad for Mrs. Lawrence—­mighty bad.”  He hesitated.  “I wonder whether Barker told the truth when he said he had been calling on Mrs. Lawrence to apply for a job?”

“Why not?”

“Because when valets or butlers apply for domestic positions they don’t go to the front door, and Barker did on both occasions he visited that house.  No, Leverage—­I don’t think he told the truth there.”

“Then what was he doing at the house?”

“Mmm!  Just struck me, Eric—­that he may have been trying a little private blackmail.”

Leverage arched his eyebrows:  “On Mrs. Lawrence?”