Midnight Part 20

"You mean you want to come and call on _me_? Some _evening_?"

"If you will allow me."

"Allow you? Why, David Carroll--I think you're simply--simply--_grandiloquent_! When will you come?"

"If your sister will permit--"

"Bother Sis! To-morrow night?"

"Yes, to-morrow night."

She executed a few exuberant dance steps.

"Oh, what'll the girls say when I tell 'em?"

Carroll climbed thoughtfully back into his car. He saw Evelyn enter the house, but his thoughts were not with her. He was thinking of the man who had just left.

Carroll never forgot faces, and he had recognized the visitor.

The man was William Barker, former valet to Roland Warren!

CHAPTER XI

LOOSE ENDS

Carroll's forehead was seamed with thought as he turned his car townward and sent it hurtling through the frosty air. He drove mechanically, scarcely knowing what he was doing.

He was frankly puzzled, enormously surprised and not a little startled.

The afternoon had been at first amusing, then interesting--then utterly boring. Evelyn's chatter had put him in a state of mental coma--a lethargy from which he had been rudely aroused at sight of William Barker leaving the residence of Evelyn Rogers' sister.

There was something sinisterly significant in what he had seen. Not for a moment did he entertain the idea that Barker had been seeking employment. Negativing that possibility was the cold statement of the disinterested young girl that Barker had been there before, and, too, the fact that Barker was leaving from the front door instead of through the servant's door.

Obviously, then, Barker's mission had little to do with the matter of domestic employment. And now that he had stumbled upon something tangible--something definite--certain salient facts which had come to him through the haze of girlish chatter began to stand out and a.s.sume proper significance.

For instance there was her constant repet.i.tion of the fact that Roland Warren had been a frequent visitor at the Lawrence home. That might mean nothing: it might mean a great deal. Certainly it was indicative of a close friends.h.i.+p between the dead man and the members of that household.

He paid little heed to the girl's protestations that Warren had been in love with her. No expert in the ways of the rising generation, Carroll yet knew that no man of Warren's maturity had unleashed his affections on a girl who yet lacked several years of womanhood. The dead man had been too much of an epicure in femininity for such as that.

But Carroll knew that in that house there was another woman: Naomi Lawrence--Evelyn's sister. And while Evelyn had dismissed the sister with a few words, Carroll remembered that the girl had described her as being "not so bad looking" and had also said that Mrs. Lawrence fancied that when Warren called at the house, he was calling on her.

There, too, was the matter of Gerald Lawrence to be considered. Evelyn insisted that Gerald was "an old crab" and also that he was of an exceedingly jealous disposition. If that were true, then his jealousy, coupled with a possible intimacy between Mrs. Lawrence and Warren might have been ample motive for the taxicab tragedy.

It was all rather puzzling. Carroll's mind leaped nimbly from one mental trail to another. He held himself in check, afraid that his deductions were proceeding too swiftly. He was acutely conscious of the danger of jumping too avidly on this single tangible clue which had come to him after four days of fruitless search. There was danger, and he knew it, of attaching untoward importance to a combination of circ.u.mstances which under other conditions might not have excited him in the slightest degree.

It was there that the case bewildered him--and he was not slow in confessing his bewilderment. Up to this moment there had been an appalling dearth of physical clues--of things upon which a line of investigation could be intelligently based. And he knew that now something had turned up, he must watch himself lest the circ.u.mstance a.s.sume unreasonable and unwarranted proportions.

The somber outline of police headquarters bulked in the night. Carroll swung down the alley, shut off his motor and entered. He found Leverage in his office and settled at once to a discussion of developments. But when he would have spoken Leverage cut him off. Leverage had news--and Leverage was frankly proud of the fact that he had news.

"Just got an interesting report from Cartwright," he announced.

"Regarding Barker?" Carroll hitched his chair forward eagerly.

"Yes."

"What is it?"

"Yesterday afternoon at five o'clock William Barker went to the residence of Mr. and Mrs. Gerald Lawrence. He was in the house eighteen minutes."

"Why wasn't this told me last night?"

"Cartwright didn't think anything of it. He included it in his report which was turned in to me this morning."

"Why did he think it was unimportant?"

"Said he thought Barker was probably looking for a job."

"And he doesn't think so now?"

"No-o. That is: he thinks circ.u.mstances make an investigation worth while. You see, just a few minutes ago Barker went to the Lawrence home again. This time he was there four minutes."

"Does Cartwright know who was at home at that time?"

"He thinks so. He says a maid let Barker in and that apparently Mrs.

Lawrence let him out. A young girl--whom Cartwright believes to be Mrs.

Lawrence's sister--drove up just as Barker was leaving. She was in the car with some man--but he didn't get out. Then, just a minute ago, Gerald Lawrence reached home. So the idea is that Mrs. Lawrence was alone with the servants when Barker called."

"And yet he only remained four minutes?"

"That's what Cartwright 'phoned." Leverage paused. "What do you make of it, Carroll?"

"Off-hand," answered the youthful-appearing detective, "I'd say that Barker had called to see _Mr_. Lawrence."

"Why?"

"We'll suppose Lawrence was home on the occasion of Barker's first visit--do you know whether he was?"

"No. I asked. Cartwright doesn't know. Couldn't stay, you know--because he was under orders to follow Barker. Tonight he sent Reed after Barker and he watched the Lawrence house."

"Good. If it is so that Lawrence was at home when Barker called yesterday evening and Barker then remained eighteen minutes; whereas this afternoon, when we know that no one but Mrs. Lawrence was there--and he remained but four minutes--it is fairly reasonable to suppose that he was calling to see Mr. Lawrence."

"I think you're right, Carroll."

"I'm not at all convinced about that. But if we're proceeding along lines of pure logic, that is the answer."

"How about the man who drove up with the kid sister?"