Midnight. Octavus Roy Cohen
"Well"—to Carroll—"that makes it easier. It's the woman's suit-case, and if we can't find out who she is from that, we're pretty bum, eh?"
"Looks so, Erie. You're satisfied"—this to Walters—"that that is her suit-case?"
"Absolutely. It hasn't been off the front since she handed it to me at the station."
Carroll swung the suit-case to the inside of the cab. It opened readily. Leverage kept his light trained on it as Carroll dug swiftly through the contents. Finally the eyes of the two men met. Carroll's expression was one of frank amazement; Leverage's reflected sheer unbelief.
"It can't be, Carroll!"
"Yet—it is!"
"Sufferin' wildcats!" breathed Leverage. "The suit-case ain't the woman's at all! It's Warren's!"
CHAPTER III
"FIND THE WOMAN"
The thing was incomprehensible, yet true. Not a single article of feminine apparel was contained in the suit-case. Not only that, but every garment therein which bore an identification mark was the property of Roland Warren, the man whose body leered at them from the floor of the taxicab.
The two detectives again inspected the suit-case. An extra suit had been neatly folded. The pockets bore the label of a leading tailor, and the name "Roland R. Warren." The tailor-made shirts and underwear bore the maker's name and Warren's initials. The handkerchiefs were Warren's. Even those articles which were without name or initials contained the same laundry-mark as those which they knew belonged to the dead man.
Carroll's face showed keen interest. This newest development had rather startled him, and made an almost irresistible appeal to his love for the bizarre in crime. The very fact that the circumstances smacked of the impossible intrigued him. He narrowed his eyes and gazed again upon the form of the dead man. Finally he nudged Leverage and designated three initials on the end of the suit-case.
"R.R.W.—Roland R. Warren!" Leverage grunted. "It's his, all right,
Carroll. But just the same there ain't no such animal."
Carroll turned to the dazed Walters.
"Understand what we've just discovered, son?" he inquired mildly.
Spike's teeth were chattering with cold.
"I don't hardly understand none of it, sir. 'Cording to what I make out, that suit-case belongs to the body and not to the woman."
"Right! Now what I want to know is how that could be."
Spike shook his head dazedly.
"Lordy, Mr. Carroll, I couldn't be knowing that."
"You're sure the woman got into your cab alone?"
"Absolutely, sir. She came through the waiting-room alone, carrying that very same suit-case—"
"You're positive it was that suit-case?"
"Yes, sir—that is, as positive as I can be. You see I was on the lookout for a fare, but wasn't expecting one, on account of the fact that this here train was an accommodation, and folks that usually come in on it take street-cars and not a taxi. Well, the minute I seen a good-lookin', well-dressed woman comin' out the door, I sort of noticed. It surprised me first off, because I asked myself what she was doing on that train."
"You thought it was peculiar?"
"Not peculiar, exactly; but sort of—of—interesting."
"I see. Go ahead!"
"Well, she was carrying that suit-case, and she seemed in a sort of a hurry. She walked straight out of the door and toward the curb, and—"
"Did she appear to be expecting some one?"
"No, sir. I noticed that particularly. Sort of thought a fine lady like her would have some one to meet her, which is how I happened to notice that she didn't seem to expect nobody. She come right to the curb and called me. I was parked along the curb on the right side of Atlantic Avenue—headin' north, that is—and I rolled up. She handed me the suit-case and told me to drive her to No. 981 East End Avenue. I stuck the suit-case right where you got it from just now; and while I ain't sayin' nothin' about what happened back yonder in the cab, Mr. Carroll, I'll bet anything in the world that that there suit-case is the same one she carried through the waitin'-room and handed to me."
"H-m! Peculiar. You drove straight out here, Walters?"
"Straight as a bee-line, sir. Frozen stiff, I was, drivin' right into the wind eastward along East End Avenue, and I had to raise the windshield a bit because there was ice on it and I couldn't see nothin'—an' my headlights ain't any too strong."
"You didn't stop anywhere?"
"No, sir. Wait a minute—I did!"
"Where?"
"At the R.L. and T. railroad crossing, sir. I didn't see nor hear no train there, and almost run into it. It was a freight, and travelin' kinder slow. I seen the lights of the caboose and stopped the car right close to the track. I wasn't stopped more'n fifteen or twenty seconds, and just as soon as the train got by, I went on."
"But you did stand still for a few seconds?"
"Yes, sir."
"If any one had got into or out of the cab right there, would you have heard them?"
"I don't know that I would. I was frozen stiff, like I told you, sir; and I wasn't thinking of nothin' like that. Besides, the train was makin' a noise; an' me not havin' my thoughts on nothin' but how cold I was, an' how far I had to drive, I mos' prob'ly wouldn't have noticed—although I might have."
"Looks to me," chimed in Leverage, "as if that's where the shift must have taken place; though it beats me—"
Carroll lighted a cigarette. Of the three men, he was the only one who seemed impervious to the cold. Leverage and the taxi-driver were both shivering as if with the ague. Carroll, an enormous overcoat snuggled about his neck, his hands thrust deep into his pockets, his boyish face set with interest, seemed perfectly comfortable. As a matter of fact, the unique circumstances surrounding the murder had so interested him that he had quite forgotten the weather.
"Obviously," he said to Leverage, "it's up to us to find out whether the people at this house here expected a visitor."
"You said it, David; but I haven't any doubt it was a plant, a fake address."
"I think so, too."
"Wait here." The chief started for the dark little house. "I'll ask 'em."
Three minutes later Leverage was back.
"Said nothing doing," he imparted laconically. "No one expected—no one away who would be coming back—and then wanted to know who in thunder I was. They almost dropped dead when I told 'em. No question about it, that address was a stall. This dame had something up her sleeve, and took care to see that your taxi man was given a long drive so she'd have plenty of time to croak Warren."
"Then you think she met him by arrangement, chief?"
"Looks so to me. Only thing is, where did he get in?"
"That's what is going to interest us for some time to come, I'm afraid. And now suppose we go back to town? I'll drive my car; I'll keep behind you and Walters, here. You ride together in his cab."
Walters clambered to his seat, and succeeded, after much effort, in starting his frozen motor. Leverage bulked beside him on the suit-case of the dead man. The taxi swung cityward, and immediately behind trailed Carroll in his cozy coupe.
As Carroll drove mechanically