The Luminous Face. Wells Carolyn

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СКАЧАТЬ any one present see Mr Pollard between that time and his arrival here for dinner?” Prescott looked about the room.

      No one responded, and the detective said, curtly:

      “Where do you live, Mr Pollard?”

      “At the Hotel Crosby, Fortieth Street, near Fifth Avenue,” and this time Pollard gave his questioner one of his best smiles, which had the effect of embarrassing him greatly.

      But with determination, he took up the telephone and called the hotel.

      “Ask for the doorman,” said Pollard, helpfully.

      Prescott did, and learned that Mr Pollard was out. “Had he been in?” “Yes, he had come in soon after six o’clock, and had left again, later, in a taxicab.”

      Nothing more definite could be learned, and Prescott hung up the receiver, conscious only of a great desire to get down to the hotel and ask questions before Pollard could get there himself.

      But first, he must look into other matters, and he turned his attention to the guests who sat round, all looking decidedly uncomfortable and some very much scared.

      “Now look here, Mr Prescott,” said Pollard, with the air of one humoring a spoiled child, “you have your duty to do – we all comprehend that. But can’t you satisfy yourself regarding the innocence of most of these men and women, and let them go home? I assume there will be no dance this evening, and the troublesome circumstance of sending away the guests who are yet expected will be about all Miss Lindsay – and her brother,” he added, with a sudden remembrance of the unhelpful Louis – “can cope with. I will await your pleasure, as you seem to have picked me out for suspicion, but do get through with these others.”

      Angry at this good advice, coming from the man he was questioning, and embarrassed because it was really good advice, Prescott began, a little sulkily, to take the names and addresses of many of them, and inform them they were free to leave. He detained any he thought might be useful to him, and among them he held Barry and Dean Monroe.

      This matter took some time, especially as Prescott was twice interrupted by telephone.

      Mrs Lindsay and Louis had retired to their rooms, and Phyllis, at the helm of the situation, proved herself a staunch and capable upholder of the dignity of the Lindsay family.

      “Send away all you can, please, Mr Prescott,” she requested. “Mr Pollard is right; I have my hands full. I will give the doorman, who is from the caterer’s, instructions to explain the situation and admit none of the evening guests. But, I daresay some intimate friends will insist on coming in. Shall I allow it?”

      “Better not, Miss Lindsay. You see, there’s no use giving the thing more publicity than you have to. The reporters will come, of course. Will you see them?”

      “Oh, goodness, no! Let some of the men do that. Mr Pollard, won’t you?”

      “I’d prefer Mr Monroe should,” interrupted Prescott, and winced under Pollard’s smile.

      “Oh, Manning,” said Dean Monroe, “why do you act like that! You make people suspect you, whether they want to or not.”

      “Suspect all you like, Dean,” came the quiet reply; “if I’m innocent, suspicion can’t hurt me. If I’m guilty, I ought to be suspected.”

      “You did say you intended to kill Gleason,” Monroe repeated, staring at Pollard. “It’s queer he should be killed right afterward.”

      “Mighty queer,” agreed Pollard. “But are you sure he was murdered?”

      “Yes,” said Prescott. “Inspector Gale told me over the telephone just now, that further investigation proves it is a murder case. I think, Mr Pollard, I’ll ask you to go with me right now to your hotel. I want to check up your story.”

      “But I haven’t told you any story,” said Pollard.

      “Well, then,” Prescott shrugged impatiently, “I’ll check up the story you didn’t tell! Come along. Anybody got a car I can borrow?”

      Nobody had, as the guests had all expected to remain the whole evening. So Prescott called a taxicab, and soon the two started for Pollard’s hotel.

      “You’re a queer guy,” the detective said, the semi-darkness in the cab giving him greater freedom of speech.

      “As how?” asked Pollard, quietly.

      “Well, first, saying you proposed to kill a man.”

      “I’m not unique. I’ve often heard people say, ‘I’d like to kill him!’ or ‘I wish he was dead!’”

      “Yes, but they don’t mean it.”

      “How do you know I meant it?”

      “I don’t, for sure, but I’m going to find out. If you haven’t got an air-tight alibi – it’s going to be trouble for yours!”

      “I haven’t any alibi. Guilty people prepare alibis.”

      “That’s all right. You’re cute enough to fix an alibi that don’t look to be fixed! But I’ll see through it. Here we are. Come along.”

      “A little less dictating, please, Mr Prescott. Remember, I’m not under arrest.”

      “Not yet – but soon!” was the retort as the two men entered the small, but exclusive, hotel where Manning Pollard made his home.

      The doorman bowed, pleasantly, but not obsequiously, and Prescott went straight to the desk.

      “I want to learn,” he said, straightforwardly, “all you can tell me of the movements of Mr Pollard tonight between six and seven o’clock.”

      The clerk at the desk smiled at Pollard and gazed inquiringly at the other.

      “Better tell him, Simpson,” said Pollard; “he’s a detective, and he’s a right to ask. I’m under a cloud – I think I may call it that – and he’s going to – well, clear me.”

      Pollard’s smile flashed out, and the desk clerk, in his turn, smiled at the investigator.

      “Go ahead, sir,” he agreed, “what do you want to know?”

      “What time did Mr Pollard come in this afternoon?”

      “What time, Henry?” the clerk asked the doorman.

      “’Bout quarter past six,” was the reply. “I come on at six, and I’d been here a bit before Mr Pollard came along.”

      “What did he do?” went on Prescott, a little less certain of his convictions.

      “Went up in the elevator.”

      “Same elevator boy on now?”

      “Yes, sir. The car’s up. Be down in a minute.”

      It was; and the elevator boy related that he had taken Mr Pollard up as soon as he came into the hotel.

      “Went right to his room, did he?”

      “Yes, СКАЧАТЬ