“I’ve often thought,” he said, “in a case like this, how much simpler things would be if the murdered man could talk.”

“H-m!” rejoined the practical Leverage.  “If he could, he wouldn’t be dead.”

“Perhaps you’re right.  And following that to a logical conclusion, if he were not dead we wouldn’t be particularly interested in what he had to say.”

“All of which ain’t got a heap to do with the fact that your work is cut out for you, Carroll.  You’re dead sure about that ticket dope, ain’t you?  I ain’t used to traveling in drawing-rooms myself.”

“It’s straight enough, Leverage.  The railroad company won’t allow a single passenger to occupy a drawing-room—­that is, they demand two tickets.  If you, for instance, were traveling alone, and desired a drawing-room, you’d be compelled to have two tickets for yourself.  That being so, it is plain that Warren there didn’t intend making this trip to New York alone.  If he had, he would have had the two tickets along with the drawing-room check.  I am certain that two tickets were bought, because the railroad men won’t sell a drawing-room with a single ticket.  It is obvious, then, that he bought two tickets and gave the other one to the person who was to make the trip with him.”

“The woman, of course!”

“What woman?”

“The woman in the fur coat—­the one who got into the taxicab.”

“Perhaps; but she came in on the accommodation train after the New York train was due to leave.  The fast train was late.”

“So was the accommodation.  They are due to make connection.”

“That’s true.  If we can find that ticket—­”

“We’ll have found the woman, and when we find her the case will end.”

“Probably—­”

The door opened, and Sergeant O’Leary entered.

“The coroner, sorr—­him an’ a reporter from each av the mornin’ papers.”

“Show the coroner in first,” ordered Carroll.  “Let the newspapermen wait.”

“Yis, sorr.  They seem a bit impatient, sorr.  They say they’re holdin’ up the city edition for the news, sorr.”

“Very good.  Tell them Chief Leverage says the story is worth waiting for.”

The coroner—­a short, thick-set man—­entered and heard the story from Leverage’s lips.  He made a cursory examination and nodded to Carroll.

“Inquest in the morning, Mr. Carroll.  Meanwhile, I reckon you want to let them newspapermen in.”

The two reporters entered and listened popeyed to the story.  They telephoned a bulletin to their offices, and were assured of an hour’s leeway in phoning in the balance of the story.  They were quivering with excitement over what promised to be, from a newspaper standpoint, the juiciest morsel of sensational copy with which the city had been blessed for some time.

To them Carroll recounted the story as he knew it, concealing nothing.