She was not exactly the type of person he had anticipated encountering in
a murder investigation. From the tip of her pert little hat to the toes
of her ultra-fashionable shoes she was expressive of the independent
rising generation--a generation wiser in the ways of the world than that
from which it was sprung--a generation strangely bereft of genuine youth,
yet charming in an entirely modern and unique manner.

She was obviously a young person of italics, a human exclamation-point,
enthusiastic, irrepressible. She sat fidgeting in her chair, trying her
best to convince the detective that she was a woman grown.

"I'm Evelyn Rogers," she gushed. "I'm the sister of Naomi Lawrence--you
know her, of _course_. She's one of the city's social leaders. Of course,
she's kind of frumpy and _terribly_ old. She must be--why, I suppose
she's every bit of thirty! And that's simply _awful!"_

"I'm thirty-eight," smiled Carroll.

"No?"

"Yes, indeed."

"Well, you don't look it. You don't look a day over twenty-two, and I
think men who are really grown up and yet look like boys are simply
_adorable!_ I do, really. And I simply _despise_ boys of twenty-two who
try to look like thirty-eight. Don't you?"

"M-m! Not always."