The Signed Letter
Philip Barry stood staring at the paper the detective had handed to
him.
“What foolery is this?” he said, angrily. “I never saw this before.”
“No?” said Prescott, a sarcastic smile on his face. “How’d you write
it then? Blindfolded?”
“So it was you!” Millicent Lindsay cried. “I knew we’d get at the
truth, but I didn’t think you were the criminal, Philip! Oh, you may
as well own up—the proof is positive!”
“Not positive,” Phyllis said, looking at Barry, kindly. “It isn’t sure
that Mr Barry killed Mr Gleason, just because he wrote this note—is
it, Mr Prescott?”
“Looks mighty like it,” the detective returned. “But we’ll listen to
what he has to say. You wrote this?”
“I did not!” and Barry’s eyes flashed ominously. “I tell you I never
saw it before.”
“That is your signature?”
“It looks like it, I admit, but it can’t be, for I never wrote that
letter. Where’d you get it?”
“In Mr Gleason’s desk. At his apartment. As you see, it’s dated the
day before the murder took place, it’s—to say the least—a bit
incriminating. What’s your explanation?”
“I haven’t any—I——”
“Wait a minute, Mr Barry.” Prescott spoke seriously. “Here’s a
threatening note, signed by yourself, written on your Club paper to Mr
Gleason. Unless you can prove that signature forged, I think your
denial of any knowledge of this document cannot be believed.”
“Believe it or not,” Barry stormed, “I tell you I never wrote that. I
never saw it! I don’t know anything about it! I’ve been out
investigating the case, getting evidence and all that, and I came back
here with it and you thrust that thing at me! I tell you it’s a
forgery! Somebody’s trying to get me into this thing—but the game
can’t be worked!”
“Will you sign your name, Mr Barry?” Prescott asked quietly.
“No, I won’t! I deny your right to ask it!”
“But a refusal is a tacit admission——”
“No admission at all! I refuse to do a silly thing like that! The
signature does resemble mine—but it can’t be mine, for I didn’t write
it.”
“Have you any of Mr Barry’s signatures in your possession?” Prescott
asked of Phyllis.
“No,” she said, promptly, and though Prescott doubted her word, he
didn’t say so.
“How silly!” Louis exclaimed. “It’s dead easy to get a signature of
yours, Phil, why not write one now, and have it over with. Of course
the thing is a forgery!”
Apparently seeing the sense of this, Barry went to the desk and dashed
off his name on a sheet of paper.
“There!” he cried, angrily, as he flung it at Prescott.
The detective examined the two, and gave a short whistle.
“Well,” he declared, “if I knew of anybody who could forge as well as
that—I’d get him behind bars as quick as possible! Why, man, the
signatures are identical! As to the typing, that is as personal as
penmanship. Have you a typewriter?”
“No”; growled Barry, looking like a wild beast at bay. “I haven’t.”
“Do you ever use one?”
“No.”
Louis looked up, with such a surprised air, that Prescott said, “Yes,
you do. Whose?”
“Nobody’s,” repeated Barry, now furiously incensed. “You quit these
absurd questions! I won’t answer any more!”
“Why, Phil,” said Phyllis, gently, “don’t get so angry. Mr Prescott is
only trying to find out about this letter.”
“And an important letter it is,” cried Millicent.
She was greatly excited, her eyes flashed and her lips trembled, as
she fairly glared at Barry.
“So you’re the criminal,” she went on, “you killed my brother! Some
need to ask why! Just because you’re in love with Phyllis and you
found Robert was cutting you out! A fine way to remedy matter—to kill
your rival!”
“Oh, Millicent,” Phyllis begged, “don’t jump at conclusions like that!
Even if Phil did write that letter it doesn’t prove he killed Mr
Gleason.”
“No”; Barry said, as if struck with a new view of it all; “even if I
did write that, it proves nothing further.”
“Oho!” said Prescott, “you’re admitting that you wrote it, then?”
“I admit nothing. I deny nothing. I only say——”
“Don’t say anything, Phil,” Louis warned him. “You say too much,
anyway. Prescott’s on the job, let him find out who wrote the letter,
and who signed it.”
“As if there was any doubt;” the detective scoffed. “But, laying aside
the question for the moment, did you say, Mr Barry, that you have been
doing some investigating on your own account?”
“On my own account, and on account of my friends here,” Barry replied,
but his tone and expression betrayed agitation. “I’ve found out who
owns the fur collar.”
“Who?” Prescott asked.
“Ivy Hayes.”
The effect of his announcement was slight on all present, except Louis
Lindsay. He started, looked frightened, began to speak and then
checked himself.
“Well, Louis,” Barry said, “out with it! I know you’re interested in
Miss Hayes—what’s the word?”
“This is the word,” said Louis, and his low voice was intense and
incisive, “if you or anybody else undertakes to drag Ivy Hayes’ name
into this muddle, you’ll have to reckon with me!”
“Oh, come, now,” Prescott smiled, “in the first place, I won’t have my
case called a muddle—next, if Miss Hayes or anybody else is connected
with it in any way, she’s in it already, without having to be dragged
in—as you call it. Go on, Mr Barry, what did you learn from or about
Miss Hayes?”
“I learned that she was in Mr Gleason’s apartment the afternoon of the
murder——”
“She wasn’t!” Louis exclaimed, “She wasn’t!”
“Oh, hush, Louis,” Barry said, contemptuously, “she told me herself
she was.”
“Go on,” said Prescott.
“She left Mr Gleason alive and well, when she departed.”
“At what time?”
“She doesn’t remember exactly—it’s the hardest thing in the world to
make people assert a time. But I gathered it was not far from six
o’clock when she left Gleason’s rooms.”
“That’s getting pretty close to the time of the murder,” Prescott said
thoughtfully.
“Oh, she didn’t kill Gleason,” Barry put in, “He was planning to take
her next day to buy a bracelet—as Ivy said, why would she kill a man
who was about to do that?”
“You innocent!” exclaimed Millicent; “of course, she said that to pull
the wool over your eyes! I don’t believe you did it after all, Phil! I
believe it was that Ivy person! A girl like that wouldn’t leave her
fur collar, unless she went away in a fearful hurry or trepidation.”
“A point, Mrs Lindsay,” and Prescott looked at her admiringly. “It
would indeed denote a preoccupied mind, to leave a fur collar. And she
was there about six, you say. But the man wasn’t killed till nearly
seven.”
“Oh, she didn’t tell the truth about the time,” said Millicent,
nodding her head sagaciously. “I’m surprised she admitted being there
at all—but, I’m told they always slip up on some details.”
“Well, at any rate, there are several matters to be looked into,”
Prescott said, rising to go. “I’m interested in your story of the
Hayes girl, Mr Barry, but I’m even more interested in this letter you
wrote.”
“I didn’t write it, I tell you!”
“I know you tell me so, but I can’t take your word for that. I’m going
to consult a penmanship expert. And, if you’ll take my advice you
won’t try to leave town—for, you’d find it difficult.”
“Meaning I’m to be under surveillance?”
“Oh, well, the matter has to be cleared up,” Prescott shrugged.
“Perfectly ridiculous!” Barry stormed on, after the detective had
gone; “you know, don’t you, Phyllis, I had nothing to do with the
matter?”
“Of course,” Phyllis replied, but her voice was disinterested and her
gaze was far off. “But, look here, Phil, tell me something. When can I
get my money—or some of it?”
“How much?”
“Twenty thousand dollars.”
“Whew! What do you want of all that? Are you mercenary, Phyllis?”
“No; but I want it——”
“Oh, she does!” cried Millicent. “She’s been harping on that all day.
I think it’s disgraceful! She thinks of nothing but that.”
“Oh, no, Millicent,” and Phyllis’ face flushed painfully—“I do want
some ready cash, for an important purpose——”
“And sometimes I go back to my first idea that you killed my brother,”
Mrs Lindsay glared at her stepdaughter.
Millicent Lindsay was becoming more and more nervously unstrung about
her brother’s death. Hers was a super-emotional nature, and combined
with a desperate spirit of revenge, she grew excited every time the
subject was discussed. And as she never lost a possible chance to
discuss it, the state of her nerves was becoming permanently affected.
Not content to leave the matter to detectives, she continually
discovered, or thought she did, new evidence, and promptly changed her
suspicions to correspond. She transferred her accusations from one
suspect to another with remarkable speed and often unjustifiable
assurance.
At present she was quite willing to believe in the guilt of Ivy Hayes
or Philip Barry, or, as she just stated, to turn back to her original
suspicion of Phyllis.
“Oh, Lord,” Barry groaned, “you’re the limit, Millicent! You are quite
capable of believing every one of us killed Gleason! Why do you except
old Pollard from your mind? He said he was going to do it, you know.”
“Yes; that’s why I know he didn’t! If he had intended it, he wouldn’t
have said so.”
“I say, Mill, you do have flashes of insight,” Louis said, “that’s the
way I look at it.”
“But I saw Pollard down in the vicinity of Gleason’s place today,”
said Barry. “Now, what was he doing down there?”
“Drawn back to the scene of his crime!” Louis chaffed. “They say
that’s always done. No; Phil, you can’t hang anything on Pollard.
Prescott checked up his movements at once. Also, I want you to drop
Ivy Hayes’ name. For my sake, old chap, do let up on that. Now, what
about yourself? Explain that letter, boy.”
“I can’t,” Barry looked troubled.
“Oh, bosh. Why not own up you wrote it, but you didn’t mean murder and
didn’t commit murder. That’s the truth, you know.”
“No, Louis—I didn’t write it.”
“’Scuse me, but your tone and look are not those of a man telling the
pure unvarnished. Now, I know that nobody on this green earth could
have written that signature but Philip Barry himself. And I also
recognize the typewriter you used. As Prescott says, typing is as
traceable as penmanship, and that note was written on the machine in
the writing room at the Club. It’s been there for years, and we all
write on it now and then. So you see, Phil, you’d better be careful
what you say.”
“Be quiet,” Phyllis warned them; “here comes Mr Pollard; I don’t
suppose you want him to hear this.”
“Why not?” said Louis, but Barry checked him with a look as Pollard
came in.
“May I come?” he said, as he greeted the women. “I’m starving for a
cup of tea, and you asked me to come informally and unbidden——”
“Of course we did,” Phyllis smiled; “sit down, tea is imminent.”
“I’ve been writing my head off all day,” Pollard went on, as he took
an easy chair. “Haven’t even been out for a breath of air——”
“Why—” Phyllis was about to say that Barry had seen him down near the
Gleason home, but she stopped herself in time. She had no wish to trip
up Phil Barry—indeed, her feelings prompted her to shield him—but
surely, surely, he had falsified in this instance! Why?
There was but one answer. Barry was trying to make Pollard again
suspected. Notwithstanding Barry’s insistence on Pollard’s alibi, a
stray hint, such as he had given about seeing him down town, made
things questionable again.
Quickly changing the subject, Phyllis made the conversation general,
and though the Gleason matter cropped up now and then, other topics
were mentioned.
Also, Phyllis returned to her great desire to get some of her
inheritance at once.
“Why, surely you can,” Pollard said; “how much do you want? Can’t I
advance you some?”
“No; I want twenty thousand dollars, and I don’t want to say what
for.”
Like a flash, Pollard’s mind went back to that afternoon—the day of
the murder—when he saw Phyllis pass him in a taxicab. He had been
standing, he remembered, in the corner of Fifth Avenue and
Forty-second Street, and he distinctly saw Phyllis, and a strange man
with her. She had not seen him—of that he was sure—and now, as she
voiced this strange desire, he wondered what in the world she had been
up to.
“I’m not asking what you want all that for,” he said, with a kindly
smile, “but maybe you’d care to say.”
“No; I wouldn’t.” Her face was pink, but her voice was calm and her
glance at him steady. “I will say, however, that it is for a purpose
which no one could disapprove of——”
“Then why not tell?” Millicent exclaimed. “That’s Phyllis all over, Mr
Pollard; she’d make a mystery out of nothing! If her purpose is a good
one, why keep it so secret? I’ll tell you why; only because Phyllis
loves to create a sensation! She loves to be wondered at and thought
important.”
“Oh, Millicent, what nonsense!” Phyllis blushed painfully now.
“Let up, Mill,” Louis said; “my sister is not like that. I can easily
understand why she might want a round sum of money, for a perfectly
good reason, yet not want to tell everybody all about it. And she
ought to have it, too. Lane could give it to her, if he chose——”
“He says he can’t,” Phyllis said.
“I’ll be glad to lend it to you,” Pollard told her, “as soon as I can
get it together. I’ve stocks I can sell——”
“Don’t you do it, Mr Pollard,” said Millicent. “Phyllis can wait.
There’s no such desperate haste—or, if there is——”
“Hush, Millicent!” Louis spoke sternly. “You’re going to insinuate
something about Phyllis and the—the affair—and I won’t have it!”
“Oh, Mr Pollard,” Millicent broke forth, “you haven’t heard about Phil
Barry’s note, have you?”
“No, he hasn’t,” said Barry, looking daggers at Millicent; “but, of
course, he soon will, so I’ll tell it myself. Why, Pol, a note has
been discovered among Gleason’s papers, signed by me.”
“Well, did you sign it?”
“Never! But——”
“If you didn’t sign it, why bother? Experts nowadays can tell
positively a forgery from a real signature. You’re all right. But what
was the note? Of any importance?”
“Oh, it contained what might be looked upon as a threat against
Gleason’s life.”
Pollard smiled involuntarily.
“We’re in the same boat, then, Phil. You know I’m accused of
threatening the same thing.”
“Yes, but you did threaten it—I heard you. And you were just talking
foolishly. But this written matter is different. The thing said if
Gleason didn’t let Phyllis alone, I’d do for him.”
“Why, internal evidence, then, proves you never wrote it. You wouldn’t
express yourself in that way in a thousand years.”
“I haven’t quoted it verbatim. That’s only the gist of it.”
“Oh, well; tell me more. Is it all written by you—apparently?”
“No; but it’s on that typewriter—over at the Club—you know——”
“I know,” Pollard looked serious now. “A note written on that old
junk-heap, and signed by you—I don’t get it, Phil.”
“Of course you don’t, Pol, I don’t myself! There’s a conspiracy
against me, I believe! Somebody——”
“Oh, come, now, Barry, what sort of talk is that? You had no animosity
against Gleason——”
“Oh, didn’t I? Well, then, I did—very much so!”
“Phil, stop!” cried Phyllis. “Don’t you see you oughtn’t to say such
things? Please don’t.”
“It doesn’t matter, here among ourselves,” said Pollard, “but speak
out, Phil; say where you were at the time of the murder. Quash all
possibility of suspicion at once. I used that bravado stunt, and
though it’s all right now—yet it made him a lot of bother. I wouldn’t
do it again, nor advise any one else to.”
“Do what again?” asked Millicent.
“Oh, that smarty-cat business of not telling where I was at the hour
of the crime. Of course, being right there at home, I knew they’d have
to prove it, but it was sheer, silly bravado that made me refuse to
speak plainly and tell my own story. And, now, that the case is
farther along, I’ll tell you, Phil, you make a mistake if you try that
fool game. Speak up, man, where were you?”
“Why,” Barry spoke slowly, “I left the Club with you.”
“I know you did. We walked together down to your street,
Forty-fourth—and then you turned off and I went on down home. What
did you do next?”
“Nothing. Just dressed for dinner.”
“Hold on, there was a long time in there. We parted about six, and
dinner was at eight. Dressing all the time?”
“Yes—yes, I think so. Or in my room, anyway.”
“Anybody see you?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Let up Pollard, I won’t be quizzed!”
“I’m not quizzing you, old chap, but I’m warning you that others will.
What you tell me about this letter, doesn’t sound good to me. I don’t
say you wrote it, but I do say the experts will know—and if they
prove it on you—the letter I mean—you’ll be questioned, and mighty
closely, too.”
“But I didn’t do anything—I’m not afraid of being questioned.”
“All right, son. Neither was I. And when they questioned my hotel
people they were satisfied of my innocence. If you’re fixed like that,
you’re all right, too.”
Barry looked thoughtful. Pollard watched him, though not seeming to do
so. This letter business sounded queer to them all.
Phyllis and Louis watched Barry in silence, but Millicent exclaimed:
“Did you do it, Phil? Oh, say you didn’t. I can’t stand suspense—tell
me the truth.”
“No, Millicent, of course, I didn’t kill your brother,” Barry said;
“nor did I write him a letter saying I would do anything——”
“That’s enough, Barry,” Pollard said, cordially. “I wouldn’t ask you
myself, but since you make that statement, that’s all I want to know.
Now, about that money, Miss Phyllis. I’m sure I can get it for you
inside of forty-eight hours. Will that do?”
“Yes,” and Phyllis gave him a grateful look. “I hate to ask you, but
Mr Lane only laughs when I talk to him, and tells me not to be
impatient.”
“Most girls are impatient,” Pollard smiled. “Very well, then, I’ll
bring it to you day after tomorrow—or tomorrow, if possible.”
And then, to their surprise, Prescott returned, and asked Barry to go
with him to the District Attorney’s office, which, perforce, and with
a bad grace, Philip Barry did.
“Oh, say you think he is innocent,” Phyllis begged of Pollard, after
Barry’s departure.
“I would say so,” Pollard returned, “but if that note is proved to be
from him, it looks a little dubious.”