“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.”
CHAPTER V—Mrs Mansfield’s Story
“Distrust the obvious, Prescott,” said Belknap, didactically. “It is the astute detective’s weak point that he cannot see beyond the apparent—the evident—the obvious.”
“Oh, yes,” Prescott sniffed; “distrust the obvious is as hackneyed a phrase as Cherchez la femme! and about as useful in our every day work. You make a noise like a Detective Story.”
“And they’re the Big Noise, nowadays,” Belknap returned, unruffled.
“All the same,” and Prescott spoke doggedly, “when a guy says he’s going to kill somebody, and that somebody is found croaked a few hours later, seems to me——”
“Seems to me, your guy is the last person in the world to suspect. It’s the obvious——”