“Distrust the obvious, Prescott,” said Belknap, didactically. “It is the astute detective’s weak point that he cannot see beyond the apparent—the evident—the obvious.”

“Oh, yes,” Prescott sniffed; “distrust the obvious is as hackneyed a phrase as Cherchez la femme! and about as useful in our every day work. You make a noise like a Detective Story.”

“And they’re the Big Noise, nowadays,” Belknap returned, unruffled.

“All the same,” and Prescott spoke doggedly, “when a guy says he’s going to kill somebody, and that somebody is found croaked a few hours later, seems to me——”

“Seems to me, your guy is the last person in the world to suspect. It’s the obvious——”

“Yes, an obvious that I sorta hate to distrust!”

“Nonsense! And you’ve disposed of Pollard anyway, haven’t you.”

“Yes, I have. Half a dozen people were in touch with him all through the time of the murder. He’s out of it.”

Prescott looked as disheartened as he felt.

“And you’ve wasted good time tracking him down, when you might have been investigating the evidence while it was fresh! I’m disappointed in you, Prescott; you oughtn’t to have fallen for a steer like that.”

Belknap was the Assistant District Attorney, and the Gleason case seemed to him important and absorbing. In his office the morning after the murder, he was getting all the information Prescott could give him, and he was really disgusted with the detective for having followed up the wild goose chase of Manning Pollard’s impulsive speech about the Western millionaire.

Belknap was an earnest, honest investigator, not so much brilliant by deduction as clear-sighted, hard-headed and practical.

He distrusted the obvious, not so much because of the hackneyed aphorism as because his own experience had proved to him that nine times out of ten, or oftener, the obvious was wrong. It must be looked into, of course, but not to the exclusion of other evidence or the neglect of other lines of investigation. And now, he felt, the trail had cooled somewhat, and valuable clews might be lost because of Prescott’s conviction of Pollard’s guilt.

Belknap was of a higher mentality than Pollard, and he also was a man of more education and refinement. He was especially interested on this case, for the Lindsays were an exclusive family and kept themselves out of the limelight of publicity.

But there were rumors that the lovely daughter was a harum-scarum, that the son of the house was addicted to bright lights and high stakes, and that the still young stepmother was quite as fond of social life as her two charges.

But never were their names seen on the society columns or in the gossip papers and now, Belknap reflected, they could be approached by reporters.

Indeed, he saw himself admitted to that hitherto inaccessible home, and in imagination he was already preening himself for the occasion.

But Belknap was methodical, and he was preparing to go at once to the Gleason apartment, to begin his line of investigation.

“How does Mrs Lindsay act?” he allowed himself to ask as he and Prescott started for Washington Square.

“Oh, I don’t know,” returned Prescott; “about like you’d expect a sister to act. She was fond of her brother, I take it, but—well, I didn’t see much of her; still, I’ve a vague impression that she’s revengeful—anxious to find and punish the murderer—that struck me more than her grief.”

“You can’t tell. She may be sorrowing deeply, and also be desirous of avenging her brother’s death. No question of suicide?”

“Not now, no. There was at first. But an autopsy showed the second shot was fired first.”

“What do you mean?”

“The one they thought was second was first. It seems the first shot—through the temple—killed Gleason. And then, for some unexplained reason, the slayer fired again, through the dead man’s shoulder.”

“Whatever for? And how do they know?”

“Oh, the doctors could tell, by the blood coagulation or something. As to why it was done, I’ve no idea. What’s the obvious—I want to distrust it.”

“Don’t be too funny, Prescott. This is a big case. Not only because of the prominence of the people involved, but it’s pretty mysterious, I think. We ought to get something out of the other people in the house.”

“Not a chance. I tried it.”

Belknap said nothing, but a close observer might have thought his silence not altogether an assent to Prescott’s corollary.

“In fact,” Prescott went on, “I believe you’ll find your murderer among Gleason’s own bunch. Not the people in the house he lived in. You see that place was wished on him by a friend, and Gleason hated it. I got this from those men who know him. Miss Lindsay agreed to it. Gleason meant to move out—only took it because it was represented to him as a bijou apartment, and he thought it was a luxurious little nest—and, it isn’t. As you can now see for yourself.”

At the house, Prescott pushed the button below McIlvaine’s card, and after a moment the door clicked, and grudgingly, as it seemed, moved itself a little, and Prescott pushed it open.

“That’s the way the murderer got in,” he said positively.

“Maybe not,” demurred Belknap. “Maybe he came in with Gleason.”

“Oh, maybe he came in at the window, or down the chimney!” exclaimed Prescott shortly; “you can’t admit the obvious ever, can you?”

Belknap chuckled at the other’s quick temper, and they went upstairs.

They found Policeman Kelly in charge, and he greeted them gladly.

“Get busy,” he said, genially. “Sure, there’s enough to engage your attention.”

Belknap, beyond a word of greeting, ignored the officer, and took a swift, comprehensive survey of the place.

It was a large front room, apparently library and cutting room. A bedroom was back of it and a bath room behind that. An old house, quite evidently remodeled for bachelor or small family apartments.

Though up to date as to plumbing, lighting and decoration, the window and door frames proclaimed it an old building. The furniture was over ornate, and the pictures and ornaments a bit flamboyant. But it was a comfortable enough place, and the personal belongings of the dead Gleason were scattered about and gave a homey appearance. A silver framed photograph of Mrs Lindsay was on a table, and on another were two more portraits of less distinguished-looking ladies.

“That’s Ivy Hayes, the movie star,” Kelly said, as Belknap looked at one picture.

“I know it,” the attorney said, so shortly that Kelly lapsed into silence.

“Nothing been disturbed?” Belknap asked presently, and receiving a negative answer went on observing.

Kelly winked at Prescott, with an expression that said, “I like ’em more sociable, myself!” and Prescott nodded acquiescence.

But at last Belknap began to talk.

“Dressing for dinner, they tell me,” he said.

“Yes,” said Prescott, eagerly, “I was here right away, quick, you know. They took the body to the Funeral Rooms, early this morning. But he was in his shirt sleeves—day shirt——”

“Yes, here are all his evening clothes on the bed in the next room. Was he going to the Lindsay dinner?”

“Yes, he was. I believe he said it was to be the occasion of the announcement of his engagement to Miss Lindsay——”

“Does she say that?”

“She does not! She denies it.”

“Then you’d better keep still. You have no gumption, Prescott. Don’t you see you mustn’t say those things?”

“Oh, bother! let up on knocking me, and get down to business. Don’t touch the telephone or revolver. I’ve had them photographed for fingerprints.”

“Yes, that’s good.” Belknap was getting more genial. “Anybody been through his papers?”

“No; Lane is his lawyer, Fred Lane. He’s coming here to-day to look over them.”

“All right.” Belknap was already absorbed in the loose papers scattered on the desk. “Several notes from ladies.”

“Yes, I noticed them. Old Gleason had a few friends in the chorus, I judge. But, unless they have any bearing on the case, there’s no call to exploit ’em, eh?”

“No, of course not. Nor any reason to mention them to the Lindsays.”

“They’ll know all there is to know. You can’t fool ’em. Miss Phyllis is as wide-awake as they come, and the Mrs is nobody’s fool. The boy, I don’t think much of. Say, aren’t you going up there? Don’t you want to see them?”

“Later, yes. But me for the other tenants here, first. Here’s where Gleason lay, was it? Near the telephone table—look here, if the first shot did for him, how could he telephone to the doctor that he was wounded?”

“Oh, I don’t know! I don’t believe that dope about the doctors knowing which shot came first. And, as you say, it couldn’t have been the fatal one first, or how could he have phoned? Anyway he could only have called the doctor if it was a suicide. You don’t think, do you, that the murderer would stand by and let him call up!”

“Scarcely. That’s why I haven’t given up the idea that it was a suicide.”

“Never mind, Oscar, you will. Why, that man was too happy to kill himself. His friends all say so. No, he was shot, all right, but the two shots make a mystery that I can’t get yet.”

Belknap frowned deeply, and thought for a few moments.

“Great mistake,” he said at last, “to reason from insufficient data.”

“Another of your ‘familiar quotations,’” chaffed Prescott.

“Another good rule,” retorted the attorney, and went out in the hall.

Prescott followed and together they went to the Mansfields’ apartment.

“We’ve been thinking it over,” Mrs Mansfield said, after she had admitted her callers and taken them to her living room, “and my husband and I feel we ought to tell all we know.”

“You certainly ought to,” Belknap assured her.

“Well,” the blonde head nodded mysteriously, “that man, Gleason, he was a gay old bird.”

“Just what do you mean, Mrs Mansfield? Speak plainly,” adjured Belknap.

“Oh, well,” she shrugged her shoulders pettishly, for she was the sort of woman who loved innuendo better than statement. “I don’t know the girls, of course, I’m not in that class of society, but he did have gay looking girls coming to his apartment now and then.”

“Every day?” Belknap looked at her sharply.

“Oh, my land, no, not every day. Just now and then?”

“Every other day?”

“No,” pettishly.

“Maybe once a week?”

“Maybe.”

“Maybe, you saw one, once——”

Mrs Mansfield laughed out.

“That’s it, Mr Belknap,” she said. “How you do pin me down. Well, all I can swear to is one time I did see a fly little piece of baggage go in at his door.”

“Day or night?”

“Daytime.” Mrs Mansfield spoke aggrievedly, as if all the zest had been taken out of her news.

“Humph! And she might have been his lawyer’s stenographer, with an important paper.”

“She might not!” Mrs Mansfield declined to lose her last shred of excitement. “Stenographers are flippy enough, Lord knows! But this little snipjack, now, she was a real little vamp!”

“You don’t know her?”

“My land! I guess I don’t! I’m a respectable married woman——”

“And probably she is a respectable unmarried woman——”

“Coming to see a man in his apartment?”

“Well, until we know the circumstances we can’t judge her. I say, Prescott, get that photograph, will you. You know, the——”

“I know,” and Prescott went back across the hall. He returned with the picture of the girl Kelly had called Ivy Hayes.

“This the lady?”

“That’s the one,” said Mrs Mansfield, drawing away from it, “but she’s no lady.”

“Oh, come, now, you don’t know her. She’s a little moving picture actress. She may have had business with Mr Gleason.”

“She may have!” and the disdainful lady sniffed. “But it’s none of my business, and I don’t care to discuss her.”

“You say you saw her go in there, yesterday?”

“Good land, no! I didn’t say yesterday! I said, one day.”

“All right, I’m glad you told us about it. It might mean something and it might not.”

“Of course, it means something!” Mrs Mansfield didn’t want her news scorned as naught. “An actress calling on a man like that—of course it means something!”

“If it does we’ll find it out,” Belknap said. “You don’t think this little thing shot Gleason, do you?”

“I don’t know why she couldn’t. Little women have done such deeds.”

“So they have. Now, you’ve nothing more to tell us?”

But though Mrs Mansfield said quite a bit more, she had really nothing more to tell them that they wanted to hear, and they got away, though with some difficulty, for the lady was of a garrulous type.

To the floor above Belknap went, Prescott returning to the Gleason rooms to look about.

The apartment above McIlvaine’s was occupied by a spinster named Adams who was, as the attorney deduced, from New England.

This good lady was even more disgusted than Mrs Mansfield with the whole matter of Gleason, his life and death. More especially the last for, it seemed to her, no one had a right to die a violent death under the same roof with refined and conservative people.

“Why, he was a loud-voiced man,” declared Miss Adams, as if pronouncing the last and worst word of opprobrium.

“Ah, you heard him from up here?”

“Sometimes, yes. He had chums visit him, and they would laugh and talk so loudly, I couldn’t help hearing them.”

“Could you distinguish what they said?”

“No; not words. But I could hear well enough to know whether he was merry or angry—for, I assure you, sometimes he was the latter.”

“Did you hear anything from that apartment yesterday?”

“Oh, yes, I heard the two shots.”

“You did! What did you do?”

“Nothing. What should I do? As a matter of fact I didn’t think they were shots. I thought them tire explosions or some noise in the street. But after I knew about the murder, I realized that I had heard the fatal shot.”

“Yet you said nothing to anybody?”

“Man alive, what could I say? I had nothing to do with Mr Gleason or his murder——”

“But your duty as a citizen——”

“Look here, what do you mean? Where was any duty? You people—you police people knew the shots were fired, didn’t you? Then why should I inform anybody that they were? And that’s all I knew—or know about them. They were fired. I heard them. No more.”

The sharp-featured, sharp-tongued old maid sat bolt upright in her chair, and glared at Belknap. Her hair was drawn up in a tight knot, after the fashion of New England spinsters, and Belknap wondered what it was about her appearance that seemed so strange.

Then he realized it was her exposed ears! He had not seen a woman with bared ears for so long that it looked most peculiar to him.

For the rest, Miss Adams was angular, even gaunt, and apparently of a decided and forceful nature. And her testimony might be valuable.

“Your knowledge is of importance,” he said, gravely. “To be sure we know the shots were fired, but a witness is always of interest. What time was it that you heard the shots?”

“I’ve no idea,” she returned, carelessly. “Oh, I know, in the story books, the witness always knows, because he was just going to keep an engagement—or, setting his watch, or something. But I don’t know at all.”

“You are quite conversant with detective stories, though!”

“Yes. I read them, since they’re getting so popular. Anything more you want to ask?”

“Yes, please. I want to try to fix the time of those shots.”

“And I tell you I can’t do it. Look here, did you meet any one you know, on the street yesterday afternoon?”

“Why, yes, I did—I met two or three.”

“All right. Mention one.”

“Well—a Mr Hartley.”

“All right, what time did you meet him?”

“I don’t know exactly——”

“About?”

“Oh, about half-past four or five—no, it was later——”

“There!” triumphantly. “It is not easy to state the time, when you paid no special attention to the occurrence.”

“You’ve proved your point, Miss Adams!” Belknap exclaimed, looking at her with new interest. “I wish you had noted the time—you would have done so accurately.”

“Yes, I should have. But I didn’t. Now, when I tell you that’s all I know about the whole matter, will you go away and leave me in peace?”

“No; Miss Adams, I won’t!”

“Why not?” and to Belknap’s satisfaction she turned a shade paler.

“Because, I am sure you do know more. You are too cute to be so ignorant. Your smartness has overreached itself. You’re trying to disarm me by the appearance of absolute frankness, and you almost did so—but—I’ve—well, I’ve got a hunch that you know something else.”

“I swear I don’t,” and Miss Adams set her thin lips in a tight, straight line. “You go away.”

“I’m going, I’ve much to do. But I warn you I shall return. You know something, Miss Adams, something of importance, but I do not think you are yourself implicated. Moreover, what you know frightens you a little, and you don’t want to tell it. Now, if I can get all the information I want, without yours, well and good. If not, I shall come back for yours. And don’t try running away—for you won’t get far!”

“Are—are you going to have me watched!” she gasped.

“No—not quite that. But if you attempt flight, we may have to follow you.”

As a matter of fact, the astute Belknap had sized up the old maid pretty carefully, and was convinced that what little she knew was unimportant to him, though it doubtless seemed vital to her. Also, he had no time just now, to persuade or wheedle her, and he feared frightening her would do little good. So, he concluded to wait and see what else he could find out, before seeing her again. A woman on the floor above could easily know something definite, yet somehow Miss Adams did not impress him as doing so.

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!”