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Page 72
Manton did not betray anything except a quiet smile. "Poor old
Phelps," he said. "I guess he's pretty uneasy. You know he has
been speculating rather heavily in the market lately. There was a
time when I thought Phelps had a bank roll in reserve. But it
seems he has been playing the game on a shoestring, after all."
Manton casually flicked the ashes from his cigar into a highly
polished cuspidor as he leaned over. "I happen to have learned
that, to make his bluff good, he has been taking money from his
brokerage business"--here he nodded sagely--"his customers'
accounts you know. Leigh knows the inside of everybody's affairs
in Wall Street. They say a quarter of a million is short, at
least. To tell you the truth, poor Stella took a good deal of
Phelps's money. Certainly his Manton Pictures holdings wouldn't
leave him in the hole as deep as all that."
I reflected that this was quite the way of the world--first
framing up something on a boob, then deprecating the ease with
which he was trimmed.
Was it blackmail Stella had levied on Phelps, I wondered? Was she
taking from him to give to Gordon? Had Stella broken him? Was she
the real cause of the tangle in his affairs? And had Phelps in
insane passion revenged himself on her?
In the conversation with Manton there was certainly no hint of
answer to my queries. With all his ease, Manton was the true
picture promoter. Seldom was he betrayed into a positive
statement of his own. Always, when necessary, he gave as
authority the name of some one else. But the effect was the same.
A hurried call of some sort took Manton away from us. Kennedy
turned to me with a whimsical expression.
"Let's go!" he remarked.
"What do you make of it, offhand?" I asked, outside.
"We're going about in a circle," he remarked. "Strange group of
people. Each apparently suspects the other."
"And, to cover himself, talks of the other fellow," I added.
Kennedy nodded, and we made our way toward the laboratory.
"I'll bet something happens before the day is over," I hazarded,
for no reason in particular.
Kennedy shrugged.
As we went, I cast up in my mind the facts we had learned. The
information from Manton was disconcerting, coming on top of what
had already been revealed about the inner workings of his game.
If Phelps had secretly "borrowed" from the trust accounts in his
charge a quarter of a million or so, I saw that his situation
must indeed be desperate. To what lengths he might go it was
difficult to determine.
XX
THE BANQUET SCENE
For once I qualified as a prophet. We were hardly in our rooms
when the telephone rang for Kennedy. It was District-Attorney
Mackay, calling in from Tarrytown.
"My men have positive identification of one of the visitors to
the Phelps home the night after the murder," he reported.
"Fine!" exclaimed Kennedy. "Who was it? How did you uncover his
trail?"
"You remember that my deputy heard the sound of a departing
automobile? Well, we have been questioning everyone. A citizen
here, who returned home late at just about that hour, remembers
seeing a taxicab tearing through the street at a reckless rate.
He came in to see me this morning. He made a mental note of the
license number at the time, and while nothing stuck with him but
the last three figures, three sixes, he was sure that it was a
Maroon taxi. We got busy and have located the driver who made the
trip, from a stand at Thirty-third all the way out and back. On
the return he dropped his fare at the man's apartment. The
identification is positive."
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