"Yes. Miss Evelyn Rogers. And Good Lord! Leverage, how that girl can talk! She holds all records for conversational distance and speed. She talked me dumb."
Leverage was staring respectfully at Carroll. "If you were the man who was with her, David—you must have seen Barker when he left the house."
"I did."
The face of the chief showed his disappointment: "That's what I get for thinking I had a real surprise up my sleeve. You sit back with that innocent kid face of yours and let me spill all the dope—and then tell me perfectly matter-of-factly that you knew it all the time. How'd you ever get wise to the thing, anyway?"
Carroll was honest. "No thanks to my sagacity, Leverage. One of those pieces of bull luck which I have always contended play an enormous part in solving crime. In the first place Evelyn Rogers came to me the day after Warren was killed to assure me that Miss Gresham had a perfect alibi. This afternoon she lassoed me and dragged me into an ice cream place because she wanted to prove to some of her school companions that we were really friends." Carroll chuckled. "I quaffed freely from the fountain of youth—and enjoyed it awhile. Then I got bored stiff. Took her to the movies—she invited me—and did it only because I've passed beyond the years of adolescence and didn't know how to crawfish out of it. After which—because it seemed the proper thing to do—I volunteered to ride her home in my car. And it was then that I saw Barker leaving the Lawrence home. So you see, Leverage, my knowledge is the result of pure accident—and not at all the fruit of keen perception."
"Well, anyway—Carroll: you knew! And that takes the edge off what I told you."
"Not at all," returned Carroll seriously. "For while what I discovered is perhaps valuable—that combined with the fact that Barker has been there once before: and that on his first visit when Lawrence was probably at home he stayed nearly five times as long as he did when we know that Lawrence was not there—that is of help—or ought to be."
"What do you think of it?"
Carroll hesitated. "I don't know what to think, Eric. I'm afraid I'm thinking about it more than I have any right. We've been so long without anything to work on, that we're liable to let this bit of information throw us off our balance. But of course we'll look more deeply into it."
"How?"