“I saw him throw Mr. Warren’s body into the taxicab.  It was then that I turned and fled toward the station.

“I can’t tell you how I felt.  At a time like that one doesn’t pause to analyze one’s emotional reactions.  I was conscious of horror—­of that and the idea that I must save myself.  And then the thought struck me that perhaps Mr. Warren was not dead.  Perhaps he was only badly wounded.  If that were the case I knew that he would freeze to death in the cab.  It was necessary to get to him—­

“By that time I had reached the waiting room.  I saw his suit-case—­and then, Mr. Carroll—­I thought of something else:  something which made it imperative that I get to Mr. Warren—­” She stopped suddenly.  Carroll—­eyes wide with interest—­motioned her on.

“You thought of something—­something which made it necessary for you to get to him?”

“Yes.  I remembered that he had in his pocket the check for my suit-case!  He had checked it himself that day.  I realized in a flash that there would be a police investigation—­and the minute that checkroom stub was found, the detectives would have followed it up.  They would have discovered my suit-case.  My name would then have been indelibly linked with his—­in—­in that way—­

“So there were two reasons why I knew I must get into that taxicab:  to recover the suit-case check—­and to either assure myself that he was dead, or else take him where he could get expert medical attention.  Almost before I knew what I was doing I seized his suit-case, which he had left on the floor of the waiting room.  I left the station along with several passengers who had come in on the local train.  I called the taxicab—­I told him to drive me to some place on East End Avenue—­gave him some address which I knew was a long distance away—­so that I would have time to learn if he was dead—­and if he wasn’t, to get him to a doctor’s; and if he was, to find the check—­the finding of which in his pocket would have connected me with the affair.

“He was dead!” She paused—­choked—­and went on gamely.  “I got out of the taxicab when it slowed down at a railroad crossing.  I walked half the distance back to town, then caught the last street car home—­”

Her voice died away.  Carroll relaxed slowly.  Then a puzzled frown creased his forehead—­

“The man who did the actual shooting,” he said quietly—­“have you the slightest idea as to his identity?”

“No.”  Her manner was almost indifferent:  the strain was over—­she was hardly conscious of what she was saying.  “He was smaller than Mr. Warren—­a man of about my husband’s size—­”

She stopped abruptly!  Carroll’s gaze grew steely—­he made a note of the expression of horror in her eyes.

“About your husband’s size!” he repeated softly.

CHAPTER XXI

CARROLL DECIDES

For a moment she was silent.  It was patent that she was groping desperately for the correct thing to say.  And finally she extended a pleading hand—­