The Luminous Face. Wells Carolyn

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СКАЧАТЬ hope and expect to take along, under my wing, one of these little moppy-haired, brief-skirted lassies, that will grace my Seattle home something fine!”

      “Does she know it yet?” drawled Barry and Gleason stared at him.

      “She isn’t quite sure of it, but I am!” he returned with a comical air of determination.

      “You know her pretty well, then,” chaffed Barry.

      “You bet I do! I ought to. She’s my sister’s stepdaughter.”

      “Phyllis Lindsay!” cried Barry, involuntarily speaking the name.

      “The same,” said Gleason, smiling; “and as I’m due there for dinner, I’ll be toddling now to make myself fine for the event.”

      With a general beaming smile of good nature that included all the group, Gleason went away.

      For a few moments no one spoke, and then Monroe began, “As I was saying, there are only three motives for murder – and I stick to that. But you were about to say, Pollard – ?”

      “I was about to say that you have omitted the most frequent and most impelling motive. It doesn’t always result in the fatal stroke, but as a motive, it can’t be beat.”

      “Go on – what is it?”

      “Just plain dislike.”

      “Oh, hate,” said Monroe.

      “Not at all. Hate implies a reason, a grievance. But I mean an ineradicable, and unreasonable dislike – why, simply a case of:

      ‘I do not like you, Doctor Fell,

      The reason why I cannot tell;

      But this I know and know full well,

      I do not like you, Doctor Fell.’

      One Tom Brown wrote that, and it’s a bit of truth, all right!”

      “One Martial said it before your friend Brown,” informed Doctor Davenport. “He wrote:

      ‘Non amo, te, Sabidi,

      nec possum dicere quore;

      Hoc tantum possum dicere,

      non amo te.’

      Which is, being translated for the benefit of you unlettered ones, ‘I do not love thee, Sabidius, nor can I say why; this only can I say, I do not love thee.’ There’s a French version, also.”

      “Never mind, Doc,” Pollard interrupted, “we don’t want your erudition, but your opinion. You say you know psychology as well as physiology; will you agree that a strong motive for murder might be just that unreasonable dislike – that distaste of seeing a certain person around?”

      “No, not a strong motive,” said Davenport, after a short pause for thought. “A slight motive, perhaps, by which I mean a fleeting impulse.”

      “No,” persisted Pollard, “an impelling – a compelling motive. Why, there’s Gleason now. I can’t bear that man. Yet I scarcely know him. I’ve met him but a few times – had little or no personal conversation with him – yet I dislike him. Not detest or hate or despise – merely dislike him. And, some day I’m going to kill him.”

      “Going to kill all the folks you dislike?” asked Barry, indifferently.

      “Maybe. If I dislike them enough. But that Gleason offends my taste. I can’t stand him about. So, as I say, I’m going to kill him. And I hold that the impulse that drives me to the deed is the strongest murder motive a man can have.”

      “Don’t talk rubbish, Manning,” and young Monroe gave him a frightened glance, as if he thought Pollard in earnest.

      “It isn’t altogether rubbish,” said Doctor Davenport, as he rose to go, “there’s a grain of truth in Pollard’s contention. A rooted dislike of another is a bad thing to have in your system. Have it cut out, Pollard.”

      “You didn’t mean it, did you, Manning?”

      Monroe spoke diffidently, almost shyly, with a scared glance at Pollard.

      The latter turned and looked at him with a smile. Then, glaring ferociously, he growled, “Of course I did! And if you get yourself disliked, I’ll kill you, too! Booh!”

      They all laughed at Monroe’s frightened jump, as Pollard Booh’d into his face, and Doctor Davenport said, “Look out, Pollard, don’t scare our young friend into fits! And, remember, Monroe, ‘Threatened men live long?’ I’ve my car – anybody want a lift anywhere?”

      “Take me, will you?” said Dean Monroe, and willingly enough, Doctor Davenport carried the younger man off in his car.

      “You oughtn’t to do it, Pol, you know,” Barry gently remonstrated. “Poor little Monroe thinks you’re a gory villain, and he’ll mull over your fool remarks till he’s crazy – more crazy than he is already.”

      “Let him,” said Pollard, smiling indifferently. “I only spoke the truth – as to that motive, I mean. Don’t you want to kill that Gleason every time you see him?”

      “You make him seem like a cat – with nine or more lives! How can you kill a man every time you see him? It isn’t done!”

      The two men left the Club together, and walked briskly down Fifth Avenue.

      “Going to the Lindsays’ to-night, of course?” asked Barry, as they reached Forty-fifth Street, where he turned off.

      “Yes. You?”

      “Yes. See you later, then. You gather that Gleason has annexed the pretty Phyllis?”

      “Looks like it, doesn’t it? I suppose the announcement will be made to-night at the dinner or the dance.”

      “Suppose so. How I hate to see it that way. I’m in love with that little beauty myself.”

      “Who isn’t?” returned Pollard, smiling, and then Barry turned off in his own street, and Pollard went on down toward his home, a small hotel on West Fortieth.

      Held up for a few moments by the great tide of traffic at Forty-second Street, he glanced at his wrist watch and found it was ten minutes after six. And then, a taxicab passed him, and in it he saw Phyllis Lindsay. She did not see him, however, so, the traffic signal being given, he went on his way.

      CHAPTER II – The Telephone Call

      Every hour of every twenty-four is filled with amazing occurrences and startling episodes. Astonishing incidents and even more startling coincidences are happening every minute of every sixty minutes, but the fact that those most interested are unaware of these deeds is what makes the great cases of mystery.

      Only an omniscient eye that could see all the activities of the few hours following the events just related could pierce the veil of doubt and uncertainty that overhung the ensuing tragedy.

      The first human being to receive news of it was Miss Hester Jordan.

      This capable and efficient young woman was the office nurse of Doctor Davenport, and her position was no sinecure.

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