“Forgive me, Phyllis, I forgot myself. Well, Mr Prescott, I can only say you’ll have to solve your mystery on the evidence you find; for I assure you Mr Gleason would fit into almost any theory.”
Prescott questioned Dean Monroe next, remembering what Lane had told him over the telephone.
But, though interested, Monroe told nothing definitely suggestive, and at last Prescott said, directly, “Do you know anything, Mr Monroe, that makes you suspect that Mr Gleason might have been killed by an intruder?”
“Why—why, no,” stammered the young artist, quite palpably prevaricating.
“I think you do, and I must remind you that I have a right to demand the truth.”
“Well, then,” Monroe looked positively frightened, “then—I say, Manning, maybe it’ll be better for me to speak out—I heard somebody say to-day, that he meant to—to kill Gleason.”
“Indeed,” and Prescott, accustomed as he was to surprises, stared wonderingly at the speaker. “And who said that?”
But Monroe obstinately shook his head and spoke no word.
Philip Barry raised his head with a jerk and looked straight at Manning Pollard.
Pollard’s face was white, and his voice not quite steady, but he stated, “I said it.”