“Oh, Lord,” Barry groaned, “you’re the limit, Millicent! You are quite capable of believing every one of us killed Gleason! Why do you except old Pollard from your mind? He said he was going to do it, you know.”
“Yes; that’s why I know he didn’t! If he had intended it, he wouldn’t have said so.”
“I say, Mill, you do have flashes of insight,” Louis said, “that’s the way I look at it.”
“But I saw Pollard down in the vicinity of Gleason’s place today,” said Barry. “Now, what was he doing down there?”
“Drawn back to the scene of his crime!” Louis chaffed. “They say that’s always done. No; Phil, you can’t hang anything on Pollard. Prescott checked up his movements at once. Also, I want you to drop Ivy Hayes’ name. For my sake, old chap, do let up on that. Now, what about yourself? Explain that letter, boy.”
“I can’t,” Barry looked troubled.
“Oh, bosh. Why not own up you wrote it, but you didn’t mean murder and didn’t commit murder. That’s the truth, you know.”
“No, Louis—I didn’t write it.”
“’Scuse me, but your tone and look are not those of a man telling the pure unvarnished. Now, I know that nobody on this green earth could have written that signature but Philip Barry himself. And I also recognize the typewriter you used. As Prescott says, typing is as traceable as penmanship, and that note was written on the machine in the writing room at the Club. It’s been there for years, and we all write on it now and then. So you see, Phil, you’d better be careful what you say.”
“Be quiet,” Phyllis warned them; “here comes Mr Pollard; I don’t suppose you want him to hear this.”