“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.”
