The Luminous Face

“I’m glad to see you, Mr Lane,” Millicent cried, as Lane entered; “do help Phyllis and me. These men are saying awful things to us!”

“To me,” Phyllis corrected. “They’ve nothing against you, Millicent.”

Phyllis looked exhausted. Apparently, she had had all she could stand of the detectives’ grilling, and she was at the end of her self-control.

“You must excuse me a few minutes,” she exclaimed, starting up, and without another word she left the room.

“You were rather blunt, Prescott,” Belknap said. “You must remember Miss Lindsay is a delicate, sheltered young lady, and unaccustomed to hear such rough speech as you gave her.”

“No matter,” said Prescott, doggedly. “If she killed Gleason, such talk is none too bad for her. And if she didn’t, it can’t hurt her.”

“What!” cried Lane. “Miss Lindsay kill Mr Gleason! Man, you must be crazy!”

“Oh, no, not that,” Prescott said, quietly. “But when a young lady goes to a man’s rooms half an hour before he is killed, when she at that interview learns for the first time that she is heiress to half his fortune, when she is overheard in altercation with the man a very short time before he is shot, when no other person is seen there at the time or anywhere near it, when the young lady doesn’t care much for the man, when he wants to marry her – and she knows if she refuses she’ll lose the inheritance – well, isn’t that about enough?”

“First,” asked Lane, “are your statements all proved facts?”

“Facts don’t have to be proved,” Prescott flared back. “But my statements are facts, as you mostly know, yourself. We have Miss Hayes’ word for it that Miss Lindsay was at Mr Gleason’s about six.”

“She says she wasn’t,” Millicent broke in, angrily.

“Now, look here, Mrs Lindsay,” said Belknap, “the very day of the crime you accused Miss Lindsay. Why do you now try to defend her?”

“Oh, she never did it,” wailed Millicent. “Never! Never! When I said she did, I was out of my head. Just at first, you know, I was so stunned I scarcely knew what I was saying.”

“Well, you know now. Was Miss Lindsay here at home at six o’clock that night?”

“I don’t know – ”

“You do know. Answer.”

“Well, then, she wasn’t – but that doesn’t prove she was down in Washington Square!”

“Leave us to do the proving. You answer questions.”

“Now, don’t frighten the lady,” Lane advised, frowning at the detective’s manner. “She will answer your questions – or I will.”

“All right, then, you answer. What does Miss Lindsay want twenty thousand dollars for – and in a hurry, too?”

“Does she want that sum?”

“She does; and she’s bound to get it. Wants her inheritance right off. What for, I say?”

“And I say, I don’t know,” Lane replied. “But there are lots of things the modern young woman wants money for – ”

“Yes, but if they’re right and proper things, why won’t she tell what they are? No matter if they’re extravagances or foolish luxuries, why not say so? But if the destination of that twenty thousand can’t be told – it’s clear there’s something wrong about it.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning nothing but that. Something wrong – something shady – something that must be covered up. Therefore, she had to have the money at once. Therefore, she went to Robert Gleason for it. Therefore, he told her he would give it to her on one condition – marriage.”

“Hold on, Prescott, do you know this?” Lane demanded.

Prescott jerked a finger toward Millicent Lindsay.

“She knows it,” he said. “She knows that for weeks Miss Lindsay had kept Gleason dangling – waiting for her answer. Then, when the young lady discovers she can get the money by the man’s death – and as she really abhors him and doesn’t want to marry him – and as the opportunity offers – ”

“What opportunity?”

“The fact that she’s there alone with him in his rooms, his pistol conveniently at hand, and nobody about – ”

“Oh, you’re romancing! That girl! She couldn’t do it!”

“You know she could, Mr Lane,” Belknap interposed. “You say that because you don’t want to think it. But the only thing that would positively disprove it would be for Miss Lindsay to tell where she was at the time. This she refuses to do.”

“Yes, and Manning Pollard refused to tell where he was – ”

“But we found out where he was, without his telling us. To prove where a man was by outside witnesses, many of them, is proof, when his own statement is far from proof. Now if we could check up Miss Lindsay as we did Mr Pollard, that would settle her question. But we can’t.”

“Where was she?” Lane asked of Millicent.

“I don’t know, I’m sure. She came home just in time to dress for the dinner-party. But I don’t know what time it was.”

“That’s the trouble,” Prescott said, despairingly. “Nobody ever knows what time anything happened. The only thing we are sure of is that Gleason was still alive and telephoning at quarter to seven, and even at that, that nurse may have been mistaken.”

“Not she,” said Lane. “She’s most accurate.”

“Then, we’re fairly sure of Miss Hayes’ evidence, for the simple reason that we’ve no cause for doubt in her case. She says she left the Gleason place, by the back entrance, at six o’clock. And, she says Miss Lindsay was with Gleason at that time. Now, the puzzle fits into place. Miss Lindsay remained for a time, trying to persuade Gleason to give her this large sum of money, and when he refused – that is, unless she would marry him, she became desperate, and the tragedy resulted.”

“Straight story,” said Lane, “but little to back it save your imagination. What’s to prevent Miss Lindsay going away and somebody else coming and committing the deed? Plenty of time between six and quarter of seven.”

“Not likely. The people of the house were coming in then, and an arriving man would have been noticed. Oh, I don’t say it would have been impossible – but we’ve no shadow of evidence for it. And, if so, where did Miss Lindsay go from there at six o’clock, that she didn’t get home until seven or thereabouts?”

“You don’t know that it was as late as seven – ”

“No! I tell you I can’t fix the time of anything. Nobody seems to have had a timepiece going that night – which is suspicious in itself!”

“What about Philip Barry?” Lane asked this quietly. “I thought you were sure of his guilt.”

“It all fits in,” said Prescott, slowly. “Mr Barry and Miss Lindsay are in love with each other – ”

“Now how do you know that?” and Lane looked at the detective sharply.

“I gathered it from lots of sources. Barry’s letter to Gleason for one.”

“But that only proves that Mr Barry admired Miss Lindsay. Not that his regard was returned.”

“Oh, well, that doesn’t matter. Say they were friends, then. Say they were in cahoots. Say the money was wanted by Mr Barry, and together they planned to get it from Gleason – in one way or another.”