Midnight, Octavus Roy Cohen [summer reads txt] 📗

overcoat. Leverage's eyes were turned kindly upon him.

"Where are you going, David!"

"I'm going to play my last trump. If it doesn't uncover something—I throw up my hands. Laugh at me if you will, Eric—rail at me for being chicken-hearted, for playing hunches too strongly—but I have an idea that Mrs. Lawrence did not kill Warren. Don't ask me how or why? I don't know—I admit that frankly. But I've always banked on my knowledge of human nature, Leverage—and my instinct has never yet betrayed me. Just now it is forcing me to give this woman every chance in the world to clear herself. I am hoping that circumstances will allow me to bring this case to a conclusion without making public her connection with it—the elopement she was planning."

"You do believe that part of the story, then: that she was going to elope with Warren?"

"I do. I don't want to—but I'm honest with myself."

"Then," exclaimed Leverage with a slight touch of exasperation in his manner—"who in thunder could have killed Warren if she didn't? And when?"

"That," said Carroll simply, "is what I hope to find out."

"From where?"

"From the lips of Mrs. Lawrence. I'm going to have a talk with her."

Carroll was far from happy during his drive to the Lawrence home. The Warren mystery seemed to be verging on a solution, but in Carroll's breast there was none of the pardonable surge of elation which normally was his under these circumstances. It had been a peculiar case from the first. The dramatis personae had all been of the better type, with the single exception of William Barker—they had been persons against whom the detective was loath to believe ill. And, most eagerly, he had shied from the belief that Mrs. Lawrence was connected in a sinister way with the death of Roland Warren.

Yet he found himself en-route to her home, facing the ordeal of an interview with her—an ordeal for her as well as for him—and one through which he feared she could not safely come. For, frankly as Carroll had admitted to his friend that he hoped to find Naomi innocent—he was yet honest and fearless, and failure of the woman to clear herself meant her arrest. Carroll was determined upon that—yet he dreaded it as a child dreads the dentist—as something painful beyond belief.

He rang the bell—then groaned as Evelyn Rogers greeted him effusively. She ushered him ostentatiously into the parlor and drew up a chair close to his—

"Mr. Carroll—it's just simply scrumptuous of you to call on me informally like this. I can't tell you how tickled I am. I was sitting upstairs, simply bored to extinction. Sis has been a terrible drag on me recently—really you'd have thought there had been a death in the family. Or something! It's been simply graveyardy! And now you come in—like a darling angel—and save me from the willywoggles. You're a dear, and—"

"But—but—I really came to see your sister."

"Oh! pff! That's what poor dear Roland used to say all the time. But I always knew I was the one he wanted to see. Goodness, he was simply crazy about me—but of course Sis never understood that. She hasn't yet realized that I'm grown up."

"Peculiar how blind some folks are. But this time, Miss Rogers—I really do want to chat with your sister. Not that I wouldn't prefer a talk with you. So if you'll tell her I'm here—and would like to see her privately—"

Evelyn rose and started reluctantly toward the door. "I suppose it's up to me to make myself very scarce. But it is simply precious of you to admit you'd rather talk to me. Poor Roland used to say that—but he always said it as though he was kidding. I believe you!"

"I assure you I'm serious."

"I know it. And anyway, I was thinking of running out for a minute—and I suppose this is a good chance. Of course, I'd stay and see you if you wanted—but I suppose you've got something terribly dry to discuss and so—"

She left the room and Carroll heaved a sigh of infinite relief. A few minutes later the hall door swung back and Naomi and Evelyn entered. He was immensely relieved to see that the youngster was cloaked for the street and murmured a few idle words to her before she went. And until the front door banged behind her he remained standing before the fireplace, his eyes focused on the tragic figure of Naomi.

She faced him bravely enough, but in her eyes he read the message of knowledge. There was no need for words between them. She knew why he had come—and he knew that she knew.

"Sit down, please, Mr. Carroll."

He waited until she had seated herself and then followed suit. He controlled his voice with an effort—his words came softly, reassuringly.

"I'm sorry I've come this way, Mrs. Lawrence. I've come—"

"I know why you have come, Mr. Carroll. You need not mince matters."

He drew a long breath. "Isn't it true, Mrs. Lawrence, that you were the woman in the taxi-cab the night Mr. Warren was killed?"

She inclined her head. "Yes."

Carroll fidgeted nervously. "I must warn you to be careful in what you say to me, my friend. I am the detective in charge of this case, and—"

"There is no use in concealment, Mr. Carroll. I have been driven almost crazy since that night. I have almost reached the end of my rope. It was the scandal I have been fighting to avoid—not so much for my own sake as for Evelyn and my husband. Publicity—of this kind—would be very—very—awkward—for both of them."

"I'm sorry—" Carroll hesitated. "If you don't care to talk to me—"

She shrugged slightly. "It makes no difference—now. I'd rather talk to you than someone who might understand less readily—or more harshly."

"I may question you?"

"Yes."

"I regret it—and rest assured that I am trying to find—a way out—for you."

"There is no way out—from the scandal. But that is my own fault—"

Somewhere down the block an auto horn shrieked: in another room of the house an old grandfather's clock chimed sonorously.

"You admit that you were the woman in the taxicab?"

"Yes. Certainly."

"Do you admit that you killed Roland Warren?"

Her startled eyes flashed to his. The color drained from her cheeks. Her answer was almost inaudible—

"No!"

"You did not kill him?" Carroll was impressed with the nuance of truth in her answer.

"No—I did not kill him."

"But when you got into the taxicab—isn't it a fact that he was already there?"

"Yes—he was there, Mr. Carroll. But he was already dead!"

CHAPTER XX A CONFESSION

"—Already dead!" Carroll did not know if his lips framed the words or if the walls of the room had echoed. He was startled at a time when he fancied that there could be no further surprise in store for him. He found himself eyeing the woman and he wondered that he gave credence to her statement.

Naomi was sitting straight, large black eyes dilated, hands gripping the arms of the chair tightly, lips slightly parted. Even under the stress of the moment Carroll was actually conscious of her feminine allure; unable to free himself of her hypnotic personality. She spoke—but he scarcely heard her words through his chaos of thought.

"He was dead—before I got into the taxi-cab."

He saw that she was fighting to impress upon him the truth of her well-nigh unbelievable statement, that every atom of her brain strove desperately to convince him. And then she relaxed suddenly, as though from too great strain, and a shudder passed over her.

"I knew—I knew—"

"You knew what, Mrs. Lawrence?"

"I knew that you would not believe me. Oh! it's true—this story I am telling you. But I knew no one could believe it—it stretches one's credulity too far. That is why I have kept silent through all these days which have passed—that and a desire to save Evelyn and my husband."

"You love your husband?" Carroll bit his lips. The question had slipped out before he realized that he had formed the words. But she did not evade the issue—

"I despise him, Mr. Carroll. But he has played square with me—more so than I have with him. And publication of this would hurt him—"

"Because he cares for you?"

"No. But because he is proud: because he is jealous of his personal possessions—of which I am one."

"I see—And Mr. Warren—?"

She spread her hands in a helpless, hopeless gesture. "What's the use, Mr. Carroll? Why, should I wrack myself with the story when you do not even believe the reason upon which it is based? If you only believed me when I tell you that when I got into the taxicab Roland had already been killed—"

"I do believe that," returned Carroll gently.

She inbreathed sharply, then her eyes narrowed a trifle. "Do you mean that—or is it bait to make me talk?"

"I can not do more than repeat my statement. I believe what you have told me."

She held his eyes for a moment, then slowly hers shrank from the contact.
"You are telling me the truth," she ventured.

"And if you will tell me the whole story, Mrs. Lawrence—I shall see what
I can do for you."

"What is there to do for me? There is no way to keep my name from it—my name and the story of the mistake which I made—was willing to make."

"Good God! No."

"If we—" he used the pronoun unconsciously—"can establish that, there may be some way of keeping the details from the public. Suppose you start at the beginning—and tell me what there is to tell?"

She hesitated. "Everything?"

"Everything—or nothing. A portion of the story will not help either of us. Of course you don't have to—"

Impulsively she leaned forward. "There is something about you, Mr. Carroll, which makes me trust you. I feel that you are a friend rather than an enemy."

He bowed gratefully. "Thank you."

"It really began shortly after my marriage to Mr. Lawrence—" she had started her story before she knew it. "I knew that I had made a mistake. He is nearly thirteen years older than I—a man of icy disposition, a nature which is cruel in its frigidity. I am not that—that kind of a woman, Mr. Carroll. I should not have married that type of man.

"He was good enough to me in his own peculiar way. I have a little money of my own: he is wealthy. He liked to dress me up and show me off. He was liberal with money—if not with kindness—when there was trouble in my family. After my parents died he allowed Evelyn to live with us. They have never liked one another—the more reason why I am grateful to him for allowing her to remain in the house.

"That is the life we have led together. We have long since ceased to have anything in common. He has kept to himself and I have remained alone. So far as the world knew—our home life was tranquil. Unbearably so—to a nature like mine which loves love—and life.

"I grew to hate my husband as a man much as I admired him in certain ways for his brain and his achievement. Our individualities are millions of miles apart. There was no oneness in our married life. And gradually he learned that I hated him—and he became contemptuous. That stung my pride. He didn't care. I felt—felt unsexed!

"No need to go into further detail. Sufficient to say that I became desperate for a little affection, a little kindness, a little recognition of the fact that I am a woman—and a not entirely unattractive one. It was about then that I met Roland Warren.

"I wonder if you understand women, Mr. Carroll? I wonder if it is possible for you to comprehend their psychological reactions? Because if you cannot—you will never understand what Roland Warren meant to me. You will never understand the condition which has led to—this tragedy."

She paused and Carroll nodded. "You can trust me to understand."

"I believe you do. I believe you understand something of what was going on within me when Roland came into my life. In the light of what has transpired, the fact that I was neglected by my husband seems absurd—trivial. But it is not absurd—it is not trivial!

"Mr. Warren was kind to me. He was attentive—courteous—I believe that he really loved me. I may have been fooled, of