Carroll shook his head.  “You know I don’t like to answer questions of that sort.”

“But you can tell me—­”

“No-o.  It might start your mind working along lines parallel to mine—­and I prefer to have you buck me.  But, in perfect honesty, I’ll tell you that I’m all at sea.  I couldn’t conscientiously make an arrest now.”

“Well—­I’m willing to air my opinions,” volunteered the Chief.  “And I’m telling you that if it was up to me to make an arrest to-day I’d nab Mr. Gerald Lawrence—­and haul in William Barker for good measure.”

“M-m-m!” Carroll nodded approvingly.  “Sounds reasonable.  How about the woman?”

“That’s what’s got me puzzled.  I’ve worked on that end of it, and I’ve had several of my best men circulating around trying to gather dope from the gossip shops—­but there doesn’t seem to be a clue from this end.  Anyway—­I don’t believe Warren was killed by the woman in the taxi!”

Carroll was genuinely impressed.  “You don’t?”

“No.  Don’t believe any woman—­I don’t care who—­would have killed him under those circumstances.”

“You mean you believe the woman in the taxi had nothing to do with it?”

“I don’t mean anything of the kind.  I know darn well she had something to do with it—­but I don’t believe she did the actual killing.  That’s why I’d arrest this bird Lawrence and also William Barker.  They either killed the man or they know all about it.”

“But,” suggested Carroll slowly, “suppose we admit that your theory is correct—­and I’ve thought of it myself:  how and where was that body put into the taxicab?”

Leverage shrugged:  “That’s where you come in, Carroll.  I ain’t the sort of thinker who can puzzle out something like that.  Of course I’d say the only place the shift could have been made was when the taxi stopped at the R. L. & T. railroad crossing—­and every time I think that it strikes me I must be wrong.  Because any birds working a case like that couldn’t have counted on such a break in luck.”

“It might have been,” suggested Carroll, “that two men entered the cab at that crossing:  Warren and another—­both alive, and the killing might have occurred between then and the time the cab reached number 981 East End Avenue.”

“Might have—­yes.  But something tells me it didn’t.  It’s asking too much—­”

“Then what do you think happened?”

“I don’t think.  There just simply isn’t anything you can think about an affair like that.  You either know everything or you don’t know a thing!”

“I think you’re about right, Leverage.  And now—­let’s run over the list we have in front of us.  Spike Walters—­the taxi driver—­comes first.  What about him?”

Leverage rubbed his chin.  “Funny about Spike, Carroll—­I think the kid’s story is true.”

“So do I.”

“But unless there’s some other answer to this affair—­it’s damned hard to believe that the body could have been dumped into that cab, or that the killing could have occurred there, without Spike knowing about it.  Ain’t that a fact?”