Midnight, Octavus Roy Cohen [summer reads txt] 📗

laughed aloud as he took her by the arm and piloted her through the traffic. He asked only one question:

"What flavor?"

CHAPTER X A DISCOVERY

If Evelyn Rogers, amply clad as to fur around the neck but somewhat under-dressed as to lace stockings about the legs, had desired to create a sensation among her friends, she more than succeeded. She preceded Carroll into the place, her eyes glowing pridefully, skirted the table at which her friends sat, then stopped abruptly, forcing Carroll to do likewise.

"Mr. Carroll," she said sweetly, "I want to introduce you to my friends." She called them by name. "Girls, this is Mr. Carroll, the famous detective!"

Carroll bowed in his most courtly manner, and assured them that he was delighted to make their acquaintance. He insisted that it was always a pleasure to meet any friends of his very dear friend, Miss Rogers. The girls at the table giggled with embarrassment, and one or two of them made rather pallid attempts at repartee. Then Carroll and the seventeen-year-old found a table in the very center of the floor, even as a boy, recognizing Carroll, appeared at their elbow.

The detective studied the list intently. Apparently there was no subject in the world more vital at that moment than the selection of just the proper concoction. Finally he looked up and shook his head.

"I can't decide," he announced gravely. "They all sound so good! Walnut banana sundae; strawberry glory; peach Melba; chocolate parfait, with whipped cream and cracked walnuts; elegantine fizz—Help me out, please."

She, too, plunged into the labyrinth of toothsome titles. Finally she emerged smiling.

"Have you ever tasted a chocolate fudge-sundae?"

"No-o, I'm afraid not."

"Well, it's just the elegantest thing—vanilla ice-cream with hot fudge poured over it, and as soon as they pour the fudge—it's steaming hot, you know—simply scalding—it forms into a sort of candy, and then when they serve it—"

"I fancy you want one, too, don't you?"

"Oh, goodness me, yes! I always eat chocolate fudge sundaes. They're simply scrumptious—but they do take the edge off one's dinner appetite. Personally, I don't care so very much. I believe we eat too much anyway, don't you, Mr. Carroll? I read in a book once that after you reach a certain point in eating—that is, after you've swallowed just the right number of calories—the rest don't do you a single particle of good. And besides, ice-cream is healthy, and certainly there's nothing with more nourishment in it than chocolate—unless it is raisins. I like raisins well enough—"

Carroll turned to the boy.

"Two chocolate fudge sundaes," he ordered; "and put a few raisins on one of them."

He found the large eyes of the girl turned upon him adoringly.

"Do you know," she said, "that when I said the other day that you were the most wonderful, the most marvelous man in the world, I didn't even know half how wonderful or marvelous you really were?"

"Thanks! And what caused the discovery?"

"The way you acted just now. Why, I'm sure those girls think that you've known me all your life—or that we're engaged, or something!"

Carroll was a trifle startled.

"Engaged?"

"Why not? You don't look like an old man."

The detective chuckled.

"Nor do I feel like one when I'm with you. You're deliciously refreshing."

"And you are—are—exquisite! Do you know, when I'm with you, I feel inspired to great deeds—to noble—er—attainments."

"Really?"

"Uh-huh! Honest to goodness. And did I really help you by what I told you the other day?"

"You certainly did, Miss Rogers. There isn't a doubt of it."

She lowered her voice and leaned confidentially across the table.

"Will you tell me something?"

"Surely?"

"Who really killed Mr. Warren?"

"Eh?"

"Who really did kill him?"

"Why, I'm sure I don't know. I'm trying to find out."

"Oh, pshaw! You can't pull the wool over my eyes! You couldn't have been working on the case this long and not have discovered the—the—malefactor."

"But that's exactly what I have done. Also it's why I rather hoped that you might have a little more information for me."

"Me? Information for you? How wonderful! As if you'd be interested in anything I might know! Although I'm not an absolute fool. Gerald says I am, of course—he's my brother-in-law—but then Gerald isn't anything but an old crab, anyway. Hateful thing! But you don't think I am, do you?"

"No, indeed. Ah, here we are!"

The chocolate fudge sundaes were served, and for a few moments they gave themselves over to the task of enjoying them. It was Evelyn who spoke first.

"What do you want me to tell you?"

"Almost anything. For instance—you knew Roland Warren pretty well, didn't you?"

"Oh, yes, indeed! I've known him forever and ever. He was an awfully nice boy, and crazy about me—simply wild! That is, he was before he died."

"H-m! And you saw a good deal of him?"

"Oceans! He used to call at the house all the time. It was funny, too. Gerald used to think he was the one Roland was coming to see, and Naomi—she's my sister—used to think that he was coming to see her; and all the time I knew that I was the person he was calling on. It's funny, isn't it, how old folks will get those queer ideas?"

"Your sister is so very old?"

"Terribly. She was thirty on her last birthday."

"Horrors! She is ancient, isn't she?"

"Awfully! Although Naomi isn't so bad looking—"

"Your sister couldn't be."

"Aw, quit kidding! But she isn't bad-looking, really. Lord knows she deserves a better husband than she drew. Honestly, when the divine providence was handing out shrubbery, they planted a lemon-tree in his yard just before he was born."

"Probably your sister doesn't agree with your opinion."

"Oh, yes, she does! Of course, she doesn't talk to me about it, but I know she ain't wild about Gerald. How could she be? He's old enough to be her father—forty-two, if he's a minute. Don't think of anything but business and making money. And he's terribly jealous!"

"A very complimentary picture you draw of him."

"If I wrote what I thought about him, I could be arrested for sending it through the mails. Goodness knows, no husband at all is a hundred per cent better than a man like that. Not that he beats Naomi. Fact is, I'd think he was more human if he did. Only time I ever like him is when he flies up in a rage. He swears simply elegantly!"

"Indeed?"

"I love it. And I don't think it's wicked to love swearing, do you? I was reading in a book once something about swearing being a perfectly natural mental reaction, or something—like a safety-valve on a steam-engine. If the engine didn't have the safety-valve, it would blow up. So if it's true that swearing is like that, then there can't be any harm in it; because anything that keeps a person from blowing up must be pretty good, don't you think?"

"It does sound reasonable."

"Not that I swear myself—not out loud, anyway, but sometimes, when I'm right peeved at Gerald or Naomi or somebody, I get in my room and say swear-words right out loud. And I feel ever so much better for it!"

The conversation languished while she again attacked the sundae.
Carroll spoke:

"Have you seen your friend, Miss Gresham, lately?"

"Hazel? I'll say I have—although she's horribly weepy since poor Roland was killed. Of course, I'm not heartless or anything like that; but what's the use of crying all the time when there are just as good fish in the sea as ever were caught? I told her that, but it don't seem to do a single bit of good. She just keeps saying, 'Poor Roland is dead,' just as if I didn't know it as well as she does—him having been crazy about me even before he was about her. I'm sort of afraid it's gone to the poor girl's head. She's simply horribly upset!"

"That's not unnatural, is it?"

"No-o, I suppose not; but it's terribly old-fashioned."

"Does she—discuss the affair much?"

"All the time."

"What does she think about the woman in the taxicab?"

"You mean the woman who killed him?"

"Yes."

"Well!" positively. "If I was that woman, I'd hate to meet Hazel
Gresham—if Hazel knew it!"

"But she has no suspicion of any certain person?"

"Goodness, no! How could she have? Of course, we agreed that it was some vampire; but we can't decide which one. Most of the women we know don't go in for killing men; and a heap of them are married, anyway."

"Anyway?"

"Yes. You wouldn't expect a nice chap like Roland to be eloping with a married woman, would you? Not in real life?"

Carroll with difficulty concealed a smile. The girl was a refreshing mixture of world-old wisdom and almost childish innocence. She was a type new to him, and, as such, absorbingly interesting.

"How about Miss Gresham's brother?" he inquired idly. "How does he take it?"

"Oh, Garry seems all upset, too; but then the more I talk to people, the more I think I'm the only level-headed one in the world. I haven't got a bit excited over it, have I?"

"Not a bit. And now"—Carroll rose and reached for the check—"suppose we go?"

"Where?" she asked naively.

The opening was too obvious.

"Where do you usually go with young gentlemen who meet you down-town in the afternoons?"

"Picture show," she answered frankly. "Wouldn't you just adore to see that picture at the Trianon to-day? They say it's stupendous!"

"Perhaps."

They walked up the street together. On the way they passed Eric Leverage. That gentleman bowed heavily and stood aside in surprise, while an exclamation, rather profane, issued from his lips. David Carroll and a seventeen-year-old girl headed for a picture show! The thing was unbelievable. Leverage shook his head sadly and passed on as Carroll and Evelyn disappeared behind the din of an orchestrion.

The picture proved not at all bad, although Evelyn excited adverse comment from spectators unfortunate enough to be sitting within range of her constant chatter. Apparently there was no stopping her. She talked and talked and talked.

The picture ended eventually, and they left the theater. Night had descended upon the city, and the busy thoroughfare was studded with thousands of lights, which glared coldly through the December chill. Principally because he did not know what else to do, Carroll requested permission to take her home in his car. She accepted with rather disarming alacrity.

Carroll had about run out of conversation, and his ears were tired by the incessant din of the girl's talk. He followed her directions mechanically, and eventually they rounded a corner in the heart of the city's best residential district. Evelyn designated a white house which stood back in a large yard.

"That's it," said she. "You'd better turn first, so you can park against the curb."

Carroll slowed down and swung around. He was tired of the loquacious girl, and anxious to be rid of her; but as he swung his car across the street on the turn, something happened which riveted his attention.

The door of Evelyn's home opened. A man and woman stood framed in the doorway. Then the door closed, and the man descended the steps, moved down the walk to the street, and strode swiftly away. For perhaps three seconds he had been held clearly in the glare of Carroll's headlights.

When the detective spoke, it was with an effort to control his tone, to make his question casual.

"Did you see that man, Miss Rogers?"

"Yes."

"Do you know him?"

"Goodness me, no! He's been here before, though."

Carroll stopped his car at the curb. He assisted Evelyn to the ground.
Then he made a strange request.

"I wonder, Miss Rogers, whether you'd allow me to call on you some evening?"

Evelyn's eyes popped open with the marvel of it.

"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