“Sure we’ll ever know the truth?” asked Monroe.
“Well, if we don’t there’s no harm done. Go ahead, and let it be understood that these are merely thoughts—private opinions and absolutely confidential.”
“All right,” agreed Dean Monroe, “I’ll speak my mind first. I’m all for the chorus girl—and when I say chorus girl, I use the term generically. She may be a Movie Star or a Vaudeville artist. But some chicken of the stage, is my vote. Yet I don’t claim but she did the deed herself—it may well have been her stalwart gentleman friend, who was jealous of the rich man’s friendship with his girl. There’s my opinion.”
“Good enough, too,” appraised Lane. “Moreover, you’ve got the fur collar in evidence. You may be right. You next, Pollard?”
“I’m inclined to think it was somebody from Gleason’s Seattle home. Seems to me there must have been people out there who felt as I did about the man—who really wanted him out of the world; and, too, they may have had some definite grievance—some conventional motive—what are they? Love, hate, money?”
“Revenge is one.”
“All the same, revenge and hate. Well, doesn’t it seem more like a wild Westerner to come there and shoot up his man than for a New Yorker to do it? I don’t take much stock in the chorus girl theory.”
“Wait a bit, Pol,” put in Barry. “Seattle isn’t wild and woolly and cowboyish and bandittish! It’s as civilized as our own fair city, and as little given to deeds of violence as New York itself!”
“Your logic is overwhelming,” Pollard laughed. “Ought to have been a lawyer instead of an artist, Barry! But I stick to my guns—which are the guns of the Westerners who knew Gleason—the inhabitants of Seattle and environs. I may be all wrong, but it seems the most plausible theory to me. Perhaps I’m prejudiced, but I think Seattle is mighty well rid of its leading citizen.”
“Hush up, Manning,” reproved Monroe; “your foolish threat was bad enough when the man was alive, it’s horrid to knock him now he’s dead.”