Closing the broken door behind him, he went to the Mansfield’s apartment and asked to use their telephone. On this, he called the police, while the two listened eagerly.
“Why did he do it?” broke out Mrs Mansfield, as the receiver was hung up. “Oh, Doctor, tell us something about it! I’m eaten alive with curiosity.”
Her big blue eyes shone with excitement, which her husband tried to suppress.
“Now, be quiet, Dottie,” he said, laying a hand on her shoulder.
“I won’t be quiet,” and she shook off the hand. “Here’s a great big mystery right in my own house—on my own floor—and you say, ‘be quiet!’ I’ve got a right to know all about it, and I’m going to! I’m going up now, to tell Mrs Conway!”
Her husband held her back forcibly, but Doctor Davenport said, “Of course, it must become known, and if Mrs Mansfield enjoys spreading the news, I suppose she has a right to do so. No one may enter the Gleason rooms, though—understand that.”
“Go on, then, Dottie,” Mansfield said; “maybe you’d better.”
“She’s very excitable,” he sighed, as his wife ran up the stairs.
“She’s better off, unburdening her news, than being thwarted,” said the doctor, indifferently. “Let her do what she likes. What can you tell me, Mr Mansfield, of your neighbor, Gleason?”
“Not much, Doctor. He kept to himself, as far as the people in this house were concerned. We didn’t know him socially—no one in the house did—and though he said good-day, if we met in the halls, it was with a short and unsocial manner.”