“The woman in the taxicab killed him.”

“When did he get in?”

The reporter threw back his head and laughed.

“What is this—­a game?  If I knew that I’d have your job, Mr. Carroll.  The dame killed him, all right; and when we find out how she did it, and when, and how he got in and she got out, we’ll have a whale of a story!”

“No theories as to the identity of this woman, have you?”

“Nary one.  A chap like Warren—­bachelor, unencumbered—­is liable to know a heap of ’em.  From what you tell me of the tickets—­from the fact that she was going away with him, I sort of figure you might do a little social investigating and discover what woman might have been going off with him.”

Eric Leverage had been listening intently.  His mind, never swift to work, yet worked surely.  His big voice boomed into the conversation: 

“Carroll?”

“Yes?”

“This young fellow says Miss Gresham’s family didn’t have no objections to the marriage.  It just occurred to me to ask him is he sure?”

The reporter flushed.

“Why, no, chief; not sure.  You never can be sure about things like that; but so far as the public knew—­”

“That’s it, exactly.  How do we know, though, but what they were sore as a pup over it, and just kept their traps closed because they didn’t want any gossip?  S’posin’ they were trying to break things off, an’ makin’ it pretty uncomfortable for the girl?  S’pose that, eh?”

“Yes,” argued the reporter.  “Suppose all of that.  Where does it get you?”

“It gets you just here”—­Leverage talked slowly, heavily, tapping his spatulate fingers on the table to emphasize his points—­“we know this bird was going to elope with some skirt.  All right!  Now I ask this—­why go all around the block, looking for some one he might have been mixed up with, when the woman a man is most likely to elope with is the girl he’s engaged to marry?”

Silence—­several seconds of it.  Carroll spoke: 

“Miss Gresham, you mean?”

“Sure, David—­sure!  I’m not sayin’ she was the woman, mind you.  I’m not sayin’ anything except that if I’m right in thinkin’ that maybe her folks weren’t as crazy about this guy Warren as they seemed—­if I’m right in that, maybe they was plannin’ to take matters in their own hands and elope.”

“It’s possible.”

“Sure, it’s possible, and—­”

“But, chief,” interrupted the reporter who had done most of the talking, “why should Miss Gresham kill Warren?”

“I didn’t say she did, did I?”

“If she was the woman in the taxi—­”

“If!  Sure—­if! All I mentioned that for was to show you we might as well start thinking close to home before we go to beatin’ through the bushes to follow a cold trail.”

The reporters left, and Carroll smiled at Leverage.

“Good idea, Eric—­about Miss Gresham.”