Midnight

ving their menacing, ice-crusted arms. The December gale, sweeping westward, shrieked through

rned out and scorched the flesh of his fingers. His jaw dropped, his eyes widened. He opened his lips and tried to speak, but closed them again without having uttered a sound save a choking

other match, found it, and lighted it within the ca

awled in an ugly, inhuman heap on the floor, head resting against the cushioned seat of the cab, was the figure of a man. There was no d

ivering while he did so, shivering with fear and with the terrific cold of the night. He could not qu

made. The big coat, open at the top, was flung back. Beneath, Spike discerned a gray tweed-and on the breast of the gray tweed

lt hopelessly alone. Not a pedestrian; not a light. The house

nal run of the night for the car-sheds at East E

. He must do something-something

. He was with the body.

ested for the m

dn't do it. The woman h

as she? How had she managed to leave the taxicab? When

an-straight down East End Avenue, turning neither to right nor left. The utte

loomed the shadow which was No. 981 East End Avenue-the address given by the woman when she entered the cab.

n-a young man-comes face to face with murder for the first time, making its acquaintance on a freezing

, for he would be convicting himself when the body was found. It would be traced to him in some way-he knew that. He was already determined to

headquarters that a murder had been done? Alarm the neighborhood, and identify himself with the crim

him. He thought then of taking the body in to headquarters; but he feared that his cab might be stopped en rou

groped his way across the icy street and pressed the bell-button

vering violently despite the blanket-robe which enfolded him, appeared in the hallway. He flashed on the po

at do yo

shed his terrible loneliness, steadied him as nothing else could have done. He was surprised at his o

r the Yellow and White Taxicab Company. My cab is No. 92,381. I have a m

Cold as the house was, from the standpoint of the man within, its

, then started nervously as central answered and

station,

lic

ld the householder. "Hello! Pol

pause, then

ellow and White Taxi Com

. There's a dea

the other end bec

ead

es

is

. That's why

id he d

led himself w

erstand? He ha

at headquarters, and the little househo

ad-killed. It is very peculiar. I can't explain ove

versation at the other end, then the voice barked back at him:

and Sergeant Dan O'Leary was a good deal of an institution on the city's force. He

d up from the chess-board, annoyed at this interruption of a game which had been

chief, but there's hell

everage looked up. So, too, did the boyish, clea

chess with ye, chief-an' him naturally int

chief phlegmatically. "I have yo

ritated at the cold rec

he said slowly. "It's murder

leasant drawl seemed to

it, Mr.

e was forgotten. Leverage was a policeman first and a chess-player second-a ve

he dope,

dding. In a few graphic words he outlined hi

rage was slipping into his enormo

ting out there

smiled a

new coupé has a hea

was his greatest asset. He had a way of stepping into a case before the principals knew he was there, and of solving it in a manne

iercest winter; a remark, forcedly jocular, from the chief, that murderers might be considerate enough to pick better weather for the practice of their profession-and that

ulled up. He told his story briefly and concisely. Leverage inspected the young man closely, made note of his license nu

alk to him a

d with the police department. There's a few things you tell

owess; but now that he was face to face with him, he found himself liking the chap. Not only that, but he was conscious of a sen

, I'll be glad to tell

, that the passenger yo

was a

, it was

you s

ldn't very well be mi

was a man in woman's cl

ll sm

do you

sir. It was a woma

positi

if what you think was so, sir-that it was a woman dressed up like a man-and if he had

ow about the suit-case

e front beside me, where

ion and the time you got here a man got into the taxicab, was

Spike simply. "

d to believ

lice." Chief Leverage was shivering u

vid," he suggested, nodding toward the

shed a pocket-torch in the face of the dead man. Then he u

d Lo

" questioned C

I do. Why, man, th

nd Warren! No

sonovagun! Sa-a-ay, something surely has been started h

s,

he suit-case is

s,

the woman's suit-case, and if we can't find ou

tisfied"-this to Walters-"

off the front since she hand

ight trained on it as Carroll dug swiftly through the contents. Finally the eyes of the two

't be,

-it

everage. "The suit-case ain't th