everage. "But where does it get us?"

"Just this far," explained Carroll. "Unless Barker was applying for a
position at the Lawrences--where they not only do not employ a male
servant, but have never employed one--he was not seeking employment
anywhere. He has been taking life pretty easy, all of which is
indicative of a supply of money from outside. And I fancy that Mrs.
Lawrence would pay a pretty fancy price to have her name left out of this
rotten scandal."

Leverage held Carroll with his eyes: "Do you believe Barker's
story, David?"

"Believe it? Why, yes. Most of it anyway."

"You believe Mrs. Lawrence was the woman in the taxicab?"

"I've got to believe it."

"Do you believe she killed him?"

"Evidence points to that answer, Leverage. You see, Barker's story
impressed me this way: it is the only sane, logical solution of the
killing which has yet been advanced. Neither of us has ever yet hit upon
an answer to the puzzle of the body in the taxicab. What Barker tells us
is perfectly plausible--" Carroll paused--

"You see," he continued, "from the first I have maintained that Mrs.
Lawrence is a decent woman--innately decent. I will even admit that her
domestic life was so miserably unbearable that she would entertain the
idea of eloping with Warren: that she went so far as to attempt to carry
that idea into execution. But I am also ready--and eager, too, if you
will, to believe that when she reached the stepping off place she must
have reneged. That woman couldn't have done anything else.

"We are fairly well satisfied--from Barker's own story--that there had
been nothing wrong in the relations between Warren and Mrs. Lawrence up
to that night. But we are pretty sure that they met at the station to go
away together. What is more reasonable than to presume that she lost her
nerve at the eleventh hour: that, unhappy as she was at home, she was
unable to take the step which would forever make her a social outcast?

"Very well. If that is true, we have them at the station at midnight. The
weather is the worst of the year. They are standing in the dark
passageway between the main waiting room and the baggage room. No light
is on the corner of Jackson street. They see only one taxicab on duty.
For all they know--the last street car has passed. They conceive the idea
of making a single taxicab do double duty--and, knowing that the driver
is across the street drinking coffee and getting warm--Warren gets into
t