broke in. “That’s because you’re a Western millionaire, Mr Gleason. Now we poor, struggling young artists think that apartment you’re in, one of the finest diggings around Washington Square.”
“But, man, there’s no service!” Gleason went on, complainingly. “Not even a hall porter! Nobody to announce a caller!”
“Well, you have that more efficient service, the——”
“Yes! the contraption that lets a caller push a button and have the door open in his face!”
“Isn’t that just what he wants?” said Barry, laughing outright at Gleason’s disgusted look. “Then, you see, Friend Caller walks upstairs, and there you are!”
“Yes, walks upstairs. Not even an elevator!”
“But your friends don’t need one,” expostulated Davenport. “You’re only one flight up. You don’t seem to realize how lucky you are to get that place, in these days of housing problems!”
“Oh, well, ’tis not so deep as a well, nor so wide as a church door, but it will serve,” said Gleason, with one of his sudden, pleasant smiles.
“I see your point, though, Mr Gleason,” said Dean Monroe. “And if I were a plutocrat from Seattle, sojourning in this busy mart, I confess I, too, should like a little more of the dazzling light in my halls than you get down there. I know the place, used to go there to see McIlvaine. And while it’s a decent size, and jolly well furnished, I can see how you’d prefer more gilt on your ginger bread.”
“I do, and I’d have it, too, if I were staying here much longer. But I’m going to settle up things soon now, and go back to home, sweet home.”
“How did you, a New Englander, chance to make Seattle your home?” asked Monroe, always of a curious bent.
“Had a chance to go out there and get rich. You see, Coggs’ Hollow, as one might gather from its name, was a small hamlet. I lived there till I was twenty-five, then, getting a chance to go West and blow up with the country, I did. Glad of it, too. Now, I’m going back there, and—I hope to take with me a specimen of your fair feminine. Yes, sir, I hope and expect to take along, under my wing, one of these little moppy-haired, brief-skirted lassies, that will grace my Seattle home something fine!”
“Does she know it yet?” drawled Barry and Gleason stared at him.
“She isn’t quite sure of it, but I am!” he returned with a comical air of determination.
“You know her pretty well, then,” chaffed Barry.
“You bet I do! I ought to. She’s my sister’s stepdaughter.”
“Phyllis Lindsay!” cried Barry, involuntarily speaking the name.
“The same,” said Gleason, smiling; “and as I’m due there for dinner, I’ll be toddling now to make myself fine for the event.”
With a general beaming smile of good nature that included all the group, Gleason went away.
For a few moments no one spoke, and then Monroe began, “As I was saying, there are only three motives for murder—and I stick to that. But you were about to say, Pollard——?”
“I was about to say that you have omitted the most frequent and most impelling motive. It doesn’t always result in the fatal stroke, but as a motive, it can’t be beat.”
“Go on—what is it?”
“Just plain dislike.”
“Oh, hate,” said Monroe.
“Not at all. Hate implies a reason, a grievance. But I mean an ineradicable, and unreasonable dislike—why, simply a case of:
‘I do not like you, Doctor Fell,
The reason why I cannot tell;
But this I know and know full well,
I do not like you, Doctor Fell.’
One Tom Brown wrote that, and it’s a bit of truth, all right!”
“One Martial said it before your friend Brown,” informed Doctor Davenport. “He wrote:
‘Non amo, te, Sabidi,
nec possum dicere quore;
Hoc tantum possum dicere,
non amo te.’
Which is, being translated for the benefit of you unlettered ones, ‘I do not love thee, Sabidius, nor can I say why; this only can I say, I do not love thee.’ There’s a French version, also.”
“Never mind, Doc,” Pollard interrupted, “we don’t want your erudition, but your opinion. You say you know psychology as well as physiology; will you agree that a strong motive for murder might be just that unreasonable dislike—that distaste of seeing a certain person around?”
“No, not a strong motive,” said Davenport, after a short pause for thought. “A slight motive, perhaps, by which I mean a fleeting impulse.”
“No,” persisted Pollard, “an impelling—a compelling motive. Why, there’s Gleason now. I can’t bear that man. Yet I scarcely know him. I’ve met him but a few times—had little or no personal conversation with him—yet I dislike him. Not detest or hate or despise—merely dislike him. And, some day I’m going to kill him.”
“Going to kill all the folks you dislike?” asked Barry, indifferently.
“Maybe. If I dislike them enough. But that Gleason offends my taste. I can’t stand him about. So, as I say, I’m going to kill him. And I hold that the impulse that drives me to the deed is the strongest murder motive a man can have.”
“Don’t talk rubbish, Manning,” and young Monroe gave him a frightened glance, as if he thought Pollard in earnest.
“It isn’t altogether rubbish,” said Doctor Davenport, as he rose to go, “there’s a grain of truth in Pollard’s contention. A rooted dislike of another is a bad thing to have in your system. Have it cut out, Pollard.”
“You didn’t mean it, did you, Manning?”
Monroe spoke diffidently, almost shyly, with a scared glance at Pollard.
The latter turned and looked at him with a smile. Then, glaring ferociously, he growled, “Of course I did! And if you get yourself disliked, I’ll kill you, too! Booh!”
They all laughed at Monroe’s frightened jump, as Pollard Booh’d into his face, and Doctor Davenport said, “Look out, Pollard, don’t scare our young friend into fits! And, remember, Monroe, ‘Threatened men live long?’ I’ve my car—anybody want a lift anywhere?”
“Take me, will you?” said Dean Monroe, and willingly enough, Doctor Davenport carried the younger man off in his car.
“You oughtn’t to do it, Pol, you know,” Barry gently remonstrated. “Poor little Monroe thinks you’re a gory villain, and he’ll mull over your fool remarks till he’s crazy—more crazy than he is already.”
“Let him,” said Pollard, smiling indifferently. “I only spoke the truth—as to that motive, I mean. Don’t you want to kill that Gleason every time you see him?”
“You make him seem like a cat—with nine or more lives! How can you kill a man every time you see him? It isn’t done!”
The two men left the Club together, and walked briskly down Fifth Avenue.
“Going to the Lindsays’ to-night, of course?” asked Barry, as they reached Forty-fifth Street, where he turned off.
“Yes. You?”
“Yes. See you later, then. You gather that Gleason has annexed the pretty Phyllis?”