“This explains Mr Barry seeing Pollard over in Brooklyn—it was you, I suppose.”
“I suppose so. What are you going to do with me?”
“Hold you for the present, but if your story is true, you’re merely a dupe. How come you here now?”
“Manning came down to my place about an hour ago, and said for me to come right up here and personate him again for an hour or so, and then he said he’d never trouble me again.”
“You came willingly?”
“Oh, the poor chap was so upset, seemed in danger, and said I could save his life by doing this.”
“You have. Of course he’s miles away by now. What a mess—oh, what a mess!”
Prescott was disgusted. First that such a gigantic hoax had been put over on him, and second that he had utterly lost all chance to catch the perpetrator thereof.
“You put it over neatly enough,” Prescott growled, looking at the man, Taylor.
“Yes, but I nearly muffed it. While I was dressing here that night, some guy called up to know Robert Gleason’s address. I hadn’t a notion, but I chanced to see a little address book on the desk, and I soon found it.”