The Luminous Face
“No, Zizi, my child, I’m not crazy. And, as a matter of fact, I suppose
you’re not, either. Now, what do you mean by thinking you saw Pollard
in New Hampshire when I know he was here in New York?”
“First, you tell me what you mean by thinking he was here in New York
when I saw him in Coggs’ Hollow?”
“Saw him? and talked with him?”
“No; I didn’t see him to speak to—but I saw him.”
“Where was he?”
“Walking along the street.”
“Did he see you?”
“Yes.”
“Did he speak to you, or bow?”
“Oh, no; he doesn’t know me!”
“How do you know him?”
“I don’t. But I’ve seen his picture—both in the paper and at Miss
Lindsay’s, and, as you know yourself, he’s unmistakable. Nobody could
take any one else for Manning Pollard! Why, that face is of a type not
often seen. And his physique, and his big, square shoulders—why,
Penny, I know it was he.”
“Well, Ziz, I don’t say it wasn’t, but we must puzzle out how he got
up there and why he went.”
“What have you done here while I was away?”
“I’ve found out all about the Barry letter for one thing.”
“Tell me.”
“A cleverly contrived thing. It was originally written in vanishing
ink and Barry signed it in real ink. Then, when the vanishing ink
vanished, the perpetrator of the precious scheme filled in the typed
letter above the signature.”
“Clever! What was the original document?”
“It was a testimonial or something of the sort to a Club servant. Head
Steward, or somebody, and this testimonial was arranged for him. Barry
remembers being asked to sign and remembers signing. Then he forgot
all about it.”
“Weren’t others to sign?”
“Barry thought so, but the matter was never carried on.”
“H’m. Who asked Barry to sign?”
“Dean Monroe.”
“How he continues to crop up! Is he the murderer?”
“Now, look here, Zizi, we’re up against an enormously interesting
case. It’s simple up to a certain point, and then it’s inexplicable.
The murderer is one of the cleverest men on this planet. For, look. He
arranged that letter deliberately, fixed up the Club servant scheme,
to get Philip Barry’s signature on a blank sheet of paper. Having
that, he later wrote in whatever he chose. His cleverness consisted,
at this point, in not overdoing. Had he made the letter a threat of
murder, it would have looked false on the face of it, for Barry is not
like that. Well, he had this letter ready to plant in Gleason’s desk
after he had committed his crime—and he did so. Next, he left no
fingerprints on the telephone or on the revolver, save those of
Gleason himself. Was that clever?”
“Oh, Penny, it was! And he made the prints on the telephone with Mr
Gleason’s fingers after Mr Gleason was dead! And he did the
telephoning himself!”
“Yes; how quick you are, Zizi! That’s exactly what happened, because
that’s the only way it could have been. Now, a man clever enough for
all that is clever enough for anything. Yet I can’t see how he did it.
Nor do I grasp his motive.”
“Jealous of Phyllis?”
“That isn’t enough to account for the crime.”
“No, it isn’t! He had another motive, and I’ve found it out. I found
out up in Coggs’ Hollow.”
“Going to tell me?”
“You bet I am! Right away. How did you guess the man?”
“I didn’t guess. I deduced from his alibi. Such a clever villain—what
would he naturally choose by way of alibi?”
“Just what he did do. Pretend not to have any—but when they
investigate, they find he has a cast-iron one!”
“Exactly, and Manning Pollard’s was all that. But I can’t see how he
managed it.”
“There’s only one way. He must have had a confederate who did the
killing.”
“No; a clever criminal doesn’t have a confederate. No; Pollard killed
Gleason himself. By the way, Zizi, I found Pollard’s fingerprints on
the Barry letter.”
“But Dean Monroe did that.”
“Dean Monroe asked Barry to sign it, but—he told me himself—Pollard
gave him the paper and asked him to get Barry’s signature. This,
Monroe did, and gave the paper back to Pollard. Later, Pollard told
Monroe the plan had been given up. I dug that all out, without
speaking to Barry about it. I don’t want Pollard to imagine we suspect
him. Now, my child, what was his motive?”
“A pretty strong one. It seems that Manning Pollard is an illegitimate
child. He was born in Coggs’ Hollow, of unmarried parents. Later, his
father and mother married, so he was legally legitimized. But of
course, a stigma remains. Now, Mr Pollard is several years younger
than Robert Gleason, so the assumption is that Robert Gleason, who
lived all his boyhood in Coggs’ Hollow, knew this secret of Pollard’s
birth, and had threatened to expose him, unless he desisted from
trying to win Phyllis away from Gleason.”
Pennington Wise thought a few moments.
“That’s it,” he said, at last; “that’s it, Zizi. You’re a wonderful
child for sure! How did you get it?”
“I went straight to the town clerk, and he not only showed me his
books, but he told me the story. He knows nothing of the Gleason
murder, and I didn’t tell him. Up in that little dot of a village they
don’t know the news of New York.”
“But they must know of Gleason’s death. He was a foremost citizen,
wasn’t he?”
“Of Seattle, yes. But when he left Coggs’ Hollow he was a young man of
twenty-five or so, and I suppose they’ve forgotten all about him.
Anyway, the town clerk didn’t remember him very clearly, but he
remembered all about the Pollard family. Of course, it was a
celebrated case up there.
“The fact of the couple’s marriage, five or six years after Manning
Pollard’s birth, was a sensational affair, and though nobody could
blame Mr Pollard, the fact remains that he was really an illegitimate
child.”
“And, knowing this, Gleason probably was quite ready to tell it, and
so——”
“And so, Pollard made it impossible for him to tell. Now, Penny Wise,
that’s a fine theory, a noble deduction—but, how did Pollard commit
that murder when he was at home in his hotel? Like you, I can’t see
him employing a gunman. Rather, I see him going there to plead with
Gleason to spare him. Then, when Gleason refused, in the heat of
passion, Pollard shot him.”
“But the carefully prepared letter from Barry proves premeditation.”
“That’s so. And, remember his threat to kill Gleason. Would he have
said that, if he had really intended to kill him?”
“I think so. I’ve thought all along, that Pollard’s bravado was his
hope of escape. He would argue that a man who made such a threat would
not be suspected. And, quite as he calculated, everybody said, ‘oh, if
he had meant to kill Gleason, he never would have advertised his
intention.’ That was a bold stroke, but an efficacious one. Yet, we
can’t be right, Zizi, for he was at home. I’ve been to the hotel
again. I’ve tabulated all his movements. He did go home at six, he did
go out again at seven-twenty-five, and during that time he was in his
room, because he telephoned twice, and he talked to the bellboy. And
these three circumstances were at intervals of twenty minutes or so,
therefore, he couldn’t have been down in Washington Square at all.
After he got into his taxi, the driver accounts for his every movement
until he reached the Lindsay house at dinner time. So, there’s his
alibi.”
“Perfect.”
“Yes, that’s the trouble——”
“Now, don’t say, ‘distrust the perfect alibi,’ Penny, for that’s a
platitude and a silly one, too. Your innocent man has a perfect alibi.
He may or may not remember it, but it’s perfect all the same. Now,
this alibi of Pollard’s is, to all appearances, the alibi of an
innocent man. He has that secret of his past, Gleason did know it,
that makes a motive. He did, as you say, fix up the Barry
letter—though that may not be quite true——”
“What do you mean by that, Ziz?”
“I mean perhaps somebody else worked the vanishing ink, and all
that——”
“But who would want to?”
“The murderer—if it turns out to be not Pollard. Look here, Penny,
Pollard is either innocent or guilty. If guilty, all your deductions
are correct, but if innocent they must be transferred to some one
else.”
“Surely. But to whom?”
“Dunno yet. Me, I think it is Pollard—but how, _how_, how did he
manage it?”
“Only by a confederate who did the deed.”
“Which is not the solution! I don’t know how I know it, but I know
that didn’t happen. Why, a villain might get a gunman to shoot
somebody, but not to put up all that elaboration. The fingerprints,
the telephoning stunt—all that was the work of an artist in crime,
the cleverest criminal in the world, as you’ve admitted. Not a
hireling.”
“A hireling might be clever.”
“Not in that way. No, a wizard like that is not anybody’s hireling.
He’s in business for himself.”
“Have it your own way. And I think you’re right. Well, then, how did
Pollard get down there? Aeroplane?”
“No; there’s a simple explanation, only we haven’t got it yet.
Incidentally, how did he get up to New Hampshire and back without
being missed here in New York. Aeroplane?”
“He couldn’t have done it at all. You’re mistaken about seeing him
there.”
“Maybe.” Zizi knitted her pretty brows. “What time did he leave the
hotel in that taxi to go to Phyllis’ dinner?”
“Seven twenty-five. He had two errands on the way. He stopped——”
“I know. For theater tickets and for flowers. How do they know so
positively the exact time he left?”
“That’s a coincidence. The doorman happened to catch sight of
Pollard’s wrist watch as he got into the cab. It has a luminous
face—I’ve seen him wear it—and the doorman noticed it was just
twenty-five minutes after seven.”
“What! Oh, oh, Penny! That explains it all! Oh, me, oh, my! To think
of the simple solution! Oh, what a tangled web we weave, when first we
practise to deceive! Oh, gracious goodness sakes! Be sure your sin
will find you out!”
“For heaven’s sake, Zizi, don’t act like a wild woman! When you begin
to quote things I know you’re luny! Sit down and tell me what you’re
talking about!”
“Is this a dagger that I see before me? Oh, what a noble mind was here
o’erthrown!”
“Don’t get your Shakespeare mixed up. That first quotation is from
Macbeth, but the other is from Hamlet. You look more like one of the
witches!”
“Oh, I am! I am! Double, double, toil and trouble!”
“Zizi, behave! Stop your foolishness!”
The girl was dancing up and down the room like a veritable witch-elf.
She flung her long, thin arms about, and was really excited, her brain
teeming with the sudden revelation that had come to her.
“Do you remember the Macbeth witches?” she demanded, pausing before
him, poised on one foot, and looking like a Sibyl herself.
“Of course I do! Double, double, toil and trouble; fire burn and
cauldron bubble!”
“That’s it—that’s the answer! Oh, Penny Wise, it’s as plain as
day—as Day! I see it all—all—_all_!”
“Might I inquire what enlightened you?”
“The radium watch! The luminous face! Oh, I’m onto the watch! I’m on
the watch!”
“Zizi, you are crazy. I refuse to talk to you as long as you act so
foolishly. Will you be quiet and tell me things?”
“Penny, I’m so excited. Yes, I’ll tell you, after I prove my case to
myself. I’ve got to go to the hotel—to Pollard’s hotel—and see about
something.”
And in a moment she was gone, and in the shortest possible time she
was at the hotel.
“Again?” groaned the telephone girl, as Zizi earnestly began to
whisper her questions.
“Yes, again—and yet.” Zizi said: “Now, listen, and tell me this. What
did Mr Pollard say when he called his cab that night?”
“Why, that’s a funny thing. Why do you ask that? He said ‘Will you
call me a cab, please.’”
“Why was that funny?”
“Because he always says, ‘Call me a taxi.’ I remember, because I’m
afraid some time I’ll say, ‘You’re a taxi!’”
“Funny girl! Well, I’m trying to prove that Mr Pollard was not himself
that night!”
“Oh—Mr Pollard never drinks anything.”
“How do you know?”
“I just happen to know. You’re wrong, he was perfectly sober.”
“Then why did he telephone to the cleaner’s when he knew it was past
their closing time?”
“I suppose he didn’t think of that.”
“Not like Manning Pollard’s way. One more thing. Isn’t Mr Pollard a
careful dresser?”
“Is he! The finest ever. He’s so particular, he’s an old fuss.”
“You know a lot about him, don’t you?”
“I can’t help it. A telephone operator gets side-lights on people who
are continually discussing their affairs over her lines. I don’t have
to listen in, but I can’t help knowing how often Mr Pollard telephones
to cleaners and tailors and haberdashers and all that. Can I?”
“No, honey, of course you can’t. Good-by.”
And as Zizi left the hotel she met Manning Pollard coming in. He
looked at her curiously, for though they had never met, Phyllis had
told him of the queer girl, and he felt sure this was she.
To confirm it he went directly to the telephone girl and inquired of
her, and the obliging young woman repeated to him the whole of her
conversation with Zizi.
“H’m,” Pollard observed to himself, “h’m—exactly so.”
And he turned on his heel and went out again.
Absorbed in his thoughts, he paid no attention to a slim little figure
that slipped out from a protecting doorway and followed him. Nor did
he notice that the determined little person kept on following him as
he boarded a Fifth Avenue Bus and went southward.
Zizi, who could make herself as inconspicuous as a schoolgirl when she
chose, sat in the rear seat, looking out of the window.
Pollard got out at the Washington Square terminus, and walked briskly
westward. This was away from the Gleason apartments, though Zizi had
not expected him to go there.
She followed, unnoticed, until Pollard entered what seemed to be a
second-rate boarding house.
Nodding her head contentedly, Zizi waited until her quarry again made
an appearance.
Then as the man went over and took a North-bound Bus, Zizi found a
taxicab and gave the order to fly back to Penny Wise.
It was after fifteen or twenty minutes of the excited girl’s
conversation and explanations that Wise was in possession of all the
facts.
“Can we get him?” he asked, and then the telephone rang.
“Hello,” said Wise, and received this astonishing response.
“Manning Pollard speaking. You have been too many for me, Mr Wise. I
give myself up. I don’t know how you discovered so much, but I see
there’s no use in further effort to hide my crime. I confess, and you
may come and take me. I am in my rooms at the hotel.”
“You are a bit astonishing, Mr Pollard,” Wise said. “But I accept your
invitation and I will go at once to you. Will you stay there till I
come.”
“Certainly. When I perceive the game is up, what else is there for me
to do? Moreover, would I call you up and surrender, if I were not
sincere about it?”
“I can’t see why you should. At your hotel, then? All right.”
“Heavens, Zizi, what a man! I’ll start right off. You call Prescott,
and tell him just what Pollard said, and tell him to go to the hotel
with two policemen—or enough to take the prisoner.”
Wise went and Zizi did as he had bade her.
“What?” Prescott cried, over the wire, “you don’t say so! Well,
wonders will never cease! I don’t altogether believe in it, but I’ll
hurry to the hotel.”
Then Zizi herself hurried to the hotel, more excited than ever.
She calmed herself a little on the way, for she knew she must be cool
and collected to take her part in the scene.
She reached the hotel a moment or two before Prescott got there.
But he came, as she waited, and, seeing her, exclaimed, “Are you sure?
Where’s Mr Wise?”
“He isn’t here,” she said, a little unnecessarily. “I’ll go up with
you.”
“Come if you like,” said Prescott, carelessly, and with his two husky
companions he entered the elevator.
At Pollard’s door the group paused, and Prescott knocked.
“Come in,” they heard, and went in.
The man sitting in an easy chair sprang up.
“What the devil!” he cried.
“Easy now, Mr Pollard,” Prescott said, “you told us to come and get
you, and we’re here.”
“Told you—come and get me—— Get out, I say!”
Prescott stared. Was this Manning Pollard? Talking so unlike himself!
Clearly, it was not!
“Who are you?” Prescott said, curiously; and then, illogically, “Mr
Pollard, who are you?”
“I’m not Manning Pollard. If you’ve come to arrest him, you’ve got the
wrong man.” But though blustering, the speaker was white with fear.
Overcome with surprise and terror, he fell back into his chair and
began to swear fluently.
“None of that, now,” said Prescott, dumfounded, but vigilant. “If
you’re not Manning Pollard you’re his twin brother! Is that it?”
“No—oh, no.”
“Well, then, who are you?”
“I’m—oh, hang it all—I’m Horace Taylor.”
“And just what are you doing in Pollard’s rooms? And why do you look
so much like him? You’re his very double!”
“Double, double, toil and trouble!” Zizi chanted softly, to herself,
but no one noticed her.
“I am,” said Taylor, bitterly, “and he has betrayed me. I’ll make a
clean breast of it. I’ve done nothing wrong—and I didn’t know he was
going to. I’m—well I’m his half-brother.”
“You’re the exact image of him in form and feature, but your manner is
utterly different.”
“Yes, because he has had education and culture—and I’ve had none.”
“Well, out with your story.”
“Manning Pollard is the son of the man who was also my father. We are
exactly alike, though I’m a couple of years older.”
“Are you a legitimate son?”
“I am not—but neither is Manning, though he was legally made so, by
his parents’ marriage some years after he was born.”
“You know all that?” cried Zizi. “You were up in Coggs’ Hollow day
before yesterday.”
“Yes, miss. I saw you there, at the clerk’s office. I knew then there
was trouble brewing for Manning.”
“Double, double, toil and trouble——”
“Yes, miss, exactly that! Manning hired me to personate him here in
his rooms the night of—well, you know that night, Mr Prescott.
He—oh, thunder! shall I tell it all?”
“Yes, tell it all,” Prescott was breathless with curiosity and
interest.
“Well, he paid me heaps to meet him at a certain spot.”
“Fifth Avenue and Forty-second Street?”
“Yes, in the crowd. He had supplied me with clothes just like his own,
and given me full instructions.”
“What were the instructions?” Prescott demanded.
“I was to meet him there, at about six, and I was to assume his
identity for a time. I was to come here, come up to his rooms, here,
dress for dinner, take a taxi and go away at exactly twenty-five past
seven. While here I was to telephone once or twice, also to call a
bellhop and see him.”
“What a plot!” exclaimed Prescott, “oh, _what_ a plot!”
“I did all this, and then, later, when I went into the Astor for the
theater tickets, Manning met me there, and in the crowd, we changed
identities again, he got into the cab I had got out of, and he went on
to the dinner and I went home.”
“You knew what his object in all this was?”
“I did not! Before God I never would have consented if I had. He told
me it was to play a joke on some of his friends, and the price he
offered was so great I consented.”
“And you telephoned to the cleaner’s and all that?”
“Yes; and called the bellboy to take the letter—which Manning had
prepared. Then afterward, when I read the papers I felt sure that
Manning had killed Robert Gleason. I never taxed him with it, for it
was none of my business and if it was true I didn’t want to know it.”
“This explains Mr Barry seeing Pollard over in Brooklyn—it was you, I
suppose.”
“I suppose so. What are you going to do with me?”
“Hold you for the present, but if your story is true, you’re merely a
dupe. How come you here now?”
“Manning came down to my place about an hour ago, and said for me to
come right up here and personate him again for an hour or so, and then
he said he’d never trouble me again.”
“You came willingly?”
“Oh, the poor chap was so upset, seemed in danger, and said I could
save his life by doing this.”
“You have. Of course he’s miles away by now. What a mess—oh,
_what_ a mess!”
Prescott was disgusted. First that such a gigantic hoax had been put
over on him, and second that he had utterly lost all chance to catch
the perpetrator thereof.
“You put it over neatly enough,” Prescott growled, looking at the man,
Taylor.
“Yes, but I nearly muffed it. While I was dressing here that night,
some guy called up to know Robert Gleason’s address. I hadn’t a
notion, but I chanced to see a little address book on the desk, and I
soon found it.”
“Yes, that was the butler of Davenport’s patient,” Prescott
remembered. “Well, it was one great game. And we’ve lost our man!”
And then Pennington Wise came.
“Taylor?” he said, looking curiously at the double. “Well, you
_are_ an exact duplicate!”
“What do you know about this?” cried Prescott, “Where’s Pollard?”
“Dead,” replied Wise, gravely. “I’ve just left your place, Taylor, and
your precious half-brother shot himself there fifteen minutes ago.”
“Spill it,” commanded Prescott.
“I knew when I got the message from Pollard that the dupe would be
here so I sent you, Prescott, while I went down to Taylor’s home. As I
expected, Pollard was there. He made a full confession, seeing the
game was up, and then eluding my watchfulness, he shot himself. I
called the police in and I came up here to tell you.”
“I can’t get over it,” said Prescott, his eyes wide with wonder. “What
a scheme!”
“Simple in the main,” said Wise, “but elaborate as to details. He left
nothing unprovided for. He foresaw every condition and met it. The
only thing, and the thing that proved his undoing was his forgetting
that Mr Taylor had not enjoyed the same social advantages that he
himself had.”
“What do you mean?” growled Taylor.
“He had evening clothes ready for you here. He planned for every item
of your conduct, but he couldn’t know that you would wear a wrist
watch with evening dress! That little incident caught the attention of
Zizi, and from that she instantly deduced that the man that got into
that taxi with a wrist watch on in the evening, could not have been
Manning Pollard himself! Moreover, he drew the attention of the
doorman to the time on its illuminated dial, and so, the luminous face
fixed the time, but Pollard would have had on no wrist watch.”
“That’s so,” agreed Prescott, “Pollard’s a perfect dresser, I happen
to know.”
“He confessed it all,” went on Wise. “He was game, I’ll say, and he
told me frankly that Gleason had threatened to tell of his shameful
birth. He was very sensitive about the matter. Gleason told him he
would disclose the secret unless Pollard ceased his attentions to Miss
Lindsay. Also, Pollard knew, from Lane, of Gleason’s will. Therefore,
rid of Gleason, Pollard figured he could win Miss Lindsay and the
fortune. So he set about to get rid of Gleason—and did. His threat
that day was, of course, with the idea that such a remark would tend
to divert suspicion from him—which it did. His alibi, so perfectly
prepared, he scorned to declare, knowing that when it was learned by
inquiry it would be satisfactory, which it was. That’s all, except to
credit my assistant, Zizi, with the acumen which found out the truth.
Her suspicion of a double was roused by the wrist watch episode. She
came over here, and learned that the exact doings of the man here that
fatal evening were not precisely in Pollard’s usual manner. She
watched Pollard come in and go out again. She followed him, and when
he went into a house, she felt sure it was the home of his double. It
was! She saw a man come out, and though it was like Pollard, her newly
attentive eyes showed her it was not really he. Off guard, Taylor has
many dissimilarities from his brother. She flew back to me with the
story, not knowing how soon the denouncements was to come. And then,
when Pollard telephoned he would give himself up, I knew at once he
meant to have Taylor here in his place. So I went to Taylor’s place,
and a more surprised man than Manning Pollard I never saw!”
“As my reward,” Zizi said quietly, “I want to be allowed to go and
tell Phyllis Lindsay the truth. I love her so, and I don’t want her
shocked at hearing about it from a lot of policemen.”
There was no objection on the part of anybody, and Zizi went on her
errand.
An hour later, when all three of the Lindsays had been told, and had
indeed been shocked and horrified, Philip Barry came in.
“Phyllis,” he said, scarcely seeing any one else.
Phyllis rose and went straight to him. He held out his arms, and she
clung to him as they closed round her.
“I never doubted you for a minute, Phil,” she said, “but that man had
a sort of power over me—a—oh, almost an hypnotic power, I think.”
“Forget him,” Zizi advised, smiling at the pair.
“Now, you two talk over things, while I go in the library and flirt
with Louis, with Mrs Lindsay for chaperon. Forget everybody else, and
think there are only you two in the whole wide world.”
THE END