CHAPTER IV – Pollard’s Threat

“Of course, you know, Mr Pollard,” Prescott said, “you are incriminating yourself by your refusal to answer my question. No one is as yet under suspicion of crime – indeed, it is not certain that a crime has been committed – but it is my duty to learn all I can of the circumstances of the case, and I must ask you what you meant by a threat to kill Mr Gleason.”

“It wasn’t exactly a threat,” Pollard returned, speaking slowly, and looked decidedly uncomfortable; “it was merely a – a statement.”

“A statement that you would like to – to see him dead?”

“Well, yes, practically that.”

“Why?”

“Because I didn’t like the man. I took a dislike to him the first time I saw him, and I never got over it.”

“But that’s not reason enough to kill a man.”

“I haven’t said I killed him. But I hold it is reason enough. I hold that an utter detestation of seeing a person around, a positive irritation at his mere presence, is a stronger motive for murder than the more obvious ones of jealousy or greed.”

“You weren’t jealous of Mr Gleason?”

Pollard started, the detective had scored that time.

But he replied, quietly. “Not jealous, no.”

“Envious?”

“Your questions are a bit intrusive, but I think I may safely say many men were envious of Mr Gleason.”

“On what grounds?”

“Oh, he was wealthy, important and of a happy, satisfied disposition. Truly an enviable person.”

Pollard’s manner was indifferent and his tone light and flippant. Prescott a judge of human nature and an expert detective, concluded the man was sparring for time, or trying to camouflage his guilt with an effect of careless unconcern in the matter.

“I think, Mr Pollard,” he said, seriously, “I shall have to insist on knowing your whereabouts at the time of Mr Gleason’s death.”

“And I refuse to tell you. But, look here, Mr Prescott, as I understand it, Mr Gleason was found dead in his room, with the door fastened. How do you argue from that a murderer at all? How could he get out and lock the door behind him? Where was the key?”

“Spring catch,” Prescott returned, shortly. “Snapped shut as he closed the door.”

“Oh, come now, Pollard,” said Philip Barry, “say where you were at that time. Six to seven, was it? Why, Pol, you were walking down Fifth Avenue with me. We left the Club together.”

“Did we?” said Pollard. His face was inscrutable. It seemed as if he had made up his mind that no information should be gathered from his words or manner. Prescott, watching him closely thought he had never seen such a strange man, and decided that he was the criminal he sought, and a mighty clever one at that.

Manning Pollard was tall and large, and of fine presence. He would not be called handsome, but he had a well-shaped head, well set on his broad shoulders. His special charm was his smile, which, though rare, was spontaneous and illuminated his face with a real radiance whenever he saw fit to favor his auditors. However, his expression was usually calm and thoughtful, while occasionally it became supercilious and even cynical.

When displeased, Pollard was impossible. He shut up like a clam and preserved a stony silence or blurted out some caustic, almost rude speech.

“Yes, we did,” went on Barry, eagerly. “And I left you at Forty-fourth Street.”

“Did you?” said Pollard, in the same colorless voice.

Now Philip Barry had little love for Manning Pollard. To begin with, they were both in love with the same girl, and – as either of them would have agreed – there was no use in going further than that.

Moreover, they were of widely different temperament. Barry was all artist; dreamy, impractical, full of enthusiasms and a bit visionary. Pollard was a hard-headed business man, successful, rich and influential, but not by any means universally liked, by reason of his sarcastic and cynical outlook. Yet he was polite and courteous of demeanor, and his imperturbable calm and unshakable poise gave him an air of superiority that could not be gainsaid.

Up to a few months ago the two men had been chums – were still – but the advent of Phyllis Lindsay into their circle had made a difference.

For, though many men admired the little beauty, Pollard and Barry were the most favored and each felt an ever-increasing hope that he might win her.

Then along had come Robert Gleason, the brother of Phyllis’ stepmother. He was at the Lindsay home continually, and by some means or for some reason he had persuaded the girl to marry him. At least, he implied that at the Club in the afternoon, and both Pollard and Barry had been greatly disturbed thereby.

But others were also greatly disturbed and the news, which had flown like wildfire, had caused panic in the breasts of several who were to attend the dinner or the dance.

Then had come the dinner, and the unexplained absence of Gleason. They had telephoned his place twice, but could get no response, Phyllis told the detective in the course of his questioning.

“H’m,” Prescott listened; “at what time did you call him up, Miss Lindsay?”

“Why, about seven o’clock, I think. I was dressing for dinner, and I happened to think of something I wanted to ask Mr Gleason, and I called his number. But nobody answered, so I concluded to wait till he arrived to ask him.”

“And the next time? You called him twice?”

“Yes; the next time was when dinner was ready – about eight. He wasn’t here, and I thought it so strange – I – telephoned – ”

“Yourself?” asked Prescott, quickly, scenting unexpected information.

“No – I – I asked one of the guests to do it.”

“Which one?”

“Me.” Pollard smiled at Phyllis. “Miss Lindsay asked me to telephone to Mr Gleason, and I did, but no one answered the call.”

The speaker turned his calm eyes to Prescott, and met the detective’s suspicious gaze.

“You’re sure you called, Mr Pollard,” Prescott asked, his tone plainly indicating his own doubt.

“I have said so,” Pollard replied, and let his own glance wander indifferently aside.

“Well, I don’t believe you!” Prescott was angered at Pollard’s quite evident lack of interest in his inquiries, and he now spoke sharply. “I believe, Mr Pollard, that you know more than you have told regarding this matter, and unless you see fit to become more communicative, I shall have to resort to outside inquiry as to your own movements this evening, prior to your arrival here.”

“That is your privilege,” Pollard said, with an exaggerated politeness.

“It is my duty also,” Prescott retorted, “and I shall begin right now. You say you left Mr Pollard on Fifth Avenue, Mr Barry?”

“Yes,” was the reply.

“At what time?”

“About six o’clock.”

“It was ten minutes past,” Pollard volunteered, still with the air of superior knowledge that exasperated Prescott almost beyond bounds.

“Did 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, sir.” The woolly-headed one rolled his eyes in enjoyment of his sudden importance. “I knows he did, kase I watched after him.”

“Why did you look after him?”

“No reason, p’tikler. Only kase he’s such a fine gentleman. I most allus looks at him march down the hall. He marches like a – a platoon.”

“He does? And he marched straight to his room?”

“Yessuh.”

“When did you bring him down again?”

“’Bout an hour later, all dressed up in his glad raggses. Just like he is now.”

“Just so. Now, during that hour do you know that Mr Pollard didn’t leave his room? Didn’t go down stairs again?”

“Not in my car, he didn’t. And he always uses my car.”

“Ask the other boy.” Prescott gave this order shortly. The scene was getting on his nerves. Pollard, quiet, calm, but superior. The clerk, ready to enjoy the detective’s discomfiture, if he failed to prove the point he was evidently trying hard to make. Black Bob, the elevator boy, his white teeth all in evidence, and his admiration for Pollard equally plain to be seen. And even the telephone girl, smirking from her switchboard nearby.

All of these were in sympathy with Pollard, and Prescott felt himself a rank outsider. But he persevered.

Joe, the other elevator boy, declared he had not carried Mr Pollard up or down that evening, and the clerk said there were but two cars.

“Go on, Mr Prescott,” Pollard adjured him. “I have prepared no air-tight alibi.”

“Did any one here see Mr Pollard in his room,” the detective asked in desperation, and to his surprise a bellhop piped out, “I did.”

“You did!” and Prescott turned to him. “How did you happen to do so?”

“He rang, and I went up there, and he gave me a letter to mail for him. It was a wide letter, too wide to go in the chute.”

“Did you mail it?”

“I put it with the stuff for the postman to take. He hasn’t been round yet.”

“Get the letter.”

The bellhop did so, while the others looked on.

It was a large, square envelope addressed to a business firm downtown.

“Your writing, Mr Pollard?” said Prescott, not knowing, in fact, just what to say.

“Yes,” said Pollard, glancing at it. “Open it, if you want to. It’s not private business.”

“No; I don’t want to. It looks very much as if you were in your room during the hour between six and seven.”

“It does have that appearance,” said Pollard, “but I make no claims.”

“He telephoned twice,” vouchsafed the girl at the switchboard.

“He did!” Prescott wheeled on her.

“Once not very long after he came in – maybe fifteen or twenty minutes after.”

“To whom?”

“To a Cleaning Establishment. I remember, because I couldn’t get them – the shop was closed. And then, he telephoned again for a taxi, when he was ready to go out.”

“At what time?”

“About half-past seven – or maybe a little earlier.”

“Earlier,” said the doorman, who had drawn near again. “Not more’n twenty past. I put him in the taxi myself. And it wasn’t as late as half past.”

“Where did he drive to?”

“I don’t know. He ’most always gives the driver a slip of paper with the numbers on it – ’specially if he’s going to more than one address. He did this tonight.”

“Where’s that taxi man?” asked Prescott, feeling his last prop being pulled from under him.

“He’s outside now,” said the doorman. “He’s waiting for a man upstairs.”

“Call him in.”

The taxi driver looked at Pollard, nodded respectfully, and replied to Prescott’s queries by saying that Mr Pollard did give him a memorandum of the places he wanted to go to, and that they were, first, the Hotel Astor, where he went in for a moment, and came back with some theater tickets which he was putting in his pocket.

“How do you know he had theater tickets?”

“Well, he had a little pink envelope, and he often does get tickets there. Next, he stopped at Bard’s, the Florist’s, and brought out a small square box with him, and next I took him up to a house on Park Avenue, and he stayed there, and I came back.”

“All right, Mr Pollard, my duty is done.” The detective looked a respectful apology. “But I had to find out all this. And remember you did make a surprising statement.”

“Surprising to you, perhaps. But my friends, who know my eccentricities, weren’t surprised at it.”

“No? Well, if it’s your habit to threaten to kill people you don’t like – ”

“I’d rather you didn’t call it a threat. To my mind, a threat is spoken to the intended victim.”

“I don’t know,” Prescott gazed thoughtfully at the speaker. “Can’t you threaten – ”

“But I didn’t threaten. I merely said I should kill Gleason some day. It’s too late, now, to make good my promise, and you’ve satisfied yourself – or, haven’t you? – that I didn’t do it?”

“Yes, I’m satisfied. You couldn’t be here at home and in a taxicab doing errands, between six-fifteen and seven-forty-five, and have any chance to get away long enough to get yourself down to Washington Square and do up that murder business, too.”

“It does look that way,” Pollard agreed. “You’ve checked me up pretty thoroughly. Now do you want me any further? For, though I’m as good-natured and patient as the average man, I have something else to do with my time when you’re through with me.”

“Of course, of course. But, I say, Mr Pollard, can you give me a hint which way to look?”

“Sorry, but I can’t.”

The two had drawn aside from the hotel desk, and were by themselves in an alcove of the lobby. Prescott, eagerly trying to learn something further from his vindicated suspect – Pollard, calm and polite, but quite evidently wishing to get away about his business.

“You don’t suspect anybody?”

“No; you see I knew Mr Gleason but slightly. I didn’t like him, but I assure you I didn’t kill him. And I don’t know who did.”