"You know who killed Roland Warren?"
"Yes—I know who killed Roland Warren!"
"Who was it?"
Barker's face went white. Leverage and Carroll leaned forward eagerly—nervously. It seemed an eternity before Barker's answer came—but when it did, his words rang with conviction—he uttered a name—
"Mrs. Naomi Lawrence!"
CHAPTER XVIII
"AND NOTHING BUT THE TRUTH—"
Barker's words reverberated through the room—to be succeeded by an almost unnatural stillness; a silence punctured by the ticking of the cheap clock on the mantel, by the crackling of the flames in the grate, by the whistling of the wind around the corners of the gaunt gray stone building which housed the police department.
The accused man looked eagerly upon the faces of the two detectives; then, slowly, his chest expanded with relief: he saw that they believed him.
And Carroll did believe. It was not that he wanted to—he had fought himself mentally away from that conviction time after time; had threshed over every scintilla of evidence, searching futilely for something which would clear this radiant woman whom he had met but once. Carroll's interest—however platonic—was intensely personal. The woman had impressed herself indelibly upon him. It was perhaps her air of game helplessness; perhaps the stark tragedy which he had seen reflected in her eyes when he had first entered her home and saw that she knew why he had come.