"I don't know that I would. I was frozen stiff, like I told you, sir; and I wasn't thinking of nothin' like that. Besides, the train was makin' a noise; an' me not havin' my thoughts on nothin' but how cold I was, an' how far I had to drive, I mos' prob'ly wouldn't have noticed—although I might have."
"Looks to me," chimed in Leverage, "as if that's where the shift must have taken place; though it beats me—"
Carroll lighted a cigarette. Of the three men, he was the only one who seemed impervious to the cold. Leverage and the taxi-driver were both shivering as if with the ague. Carroll, an enormous overcoat snuggled about his neck, his hands thrust deep into his pockets, his boyish face set with interest, seemed perfectly comfortable. As a matter of fact, the unique circumstances surrounding the murder had so interested him that he had quite forgotten the weather.
"Obviously," he said to Leverage, "it's up to us to find out whether the people at this house here expected a visitor."
"You said it, David; but I haven't any doubt it was a plant, a fake address."
"I think so, too."
"Wait here." The chief started for the dark little house. "I'll ask 'em."
Three minutes later Leverage was back.
"Said nothing doing," he imparted laconically. "No one expected—no one away who would be coming back—and then wanted to know who in thunder I was. They almost dropped dead when I told 'em. No question about it, that address was a stall. This dame had something up her sleeve, and took care to see that your taxi man was given a long drive so she'd have plenty of time to croak Warren."
"Then you think she met him by arrangement, chief?"