He went downstairs, and looking in the door, said, “Come on, Prescott, let’s go up to the Lindsays’ and start out right.”
“All right. Wait a minute, come in here, will you? We’ve got word from the photographer, and there are no fingerprints on the revolver or on the telephone except Gleason’s own.”
“What! Suicide? No, not possible, if the fatal shot was fired first.”
“It was. I just called up Doctor Davenport, and he hedged at first, but then he acknowledged it was true. The shot in the shoulder was fired after the man was already dead. Now, what do you make of that! Why, in heaven’s name shoot a dead man?”
Belknap looked thoughtful. “It’s a deep game somebody’s playing,” he said. “We’ve got our work cut out for us. Come along, let’s get busy. Guard everything mighty carefully, Kelly. Don’t let anybody in, but people who belong. Our criminal is a slick one, and no obvious measures go, this time. No fingerprints! Some expert, that murderer!”
Prescott, absorbed in the fingerprint matter, went off to see about it, leaving Belknap to take up the trail alone.
The attorney concluded to go first to Pollard’s, and note for himself the attitude of the man who had threatened Gleason’s life.
He found Manning Pollard in his rooms at the little hotel, and was greeted with courtesy, though with no great cordiality.
“Come in, Mr Belknap,” Pollard said, “I can give you a short interview, but I’ve a piece of important work on hand.”
“I’ll stay only a few minutes,” the other said, ingratiatingly, “but I’d like your help. I know all about that remark of yours concerning your dislike of Mr Gleason. That’s past history—though I may say it will become famous.”
“But why?” broke in Pollard, frowning a little. “You must admit there are lots of people who feel like that——”
“I know, but they don’t put it into words. Just as there are lots of people who would steal if they were sure they’d not be caught. But they don’t, as a rule, advertise this.”
“All right, go ahead. You don’t suspect me of the murder?”
Pollard’s frank glance seemed to compel an honest reply, and Belknap said, “I don’t—but only because it has been proved that it was impossible for you to have been in the vicinity of Gleason’s place at that time.”