“Ask the other boy.” Prescott gave this order shortly. The scene was getting on his nerves. Pollard, quiet, calm, but superior. The clerk, ready to enjoy the detective’s discomfiture, if he failed to prove the point he was evidently trying hard to make. Black Bob, the elevator boy, his white teeth all in evidence, and his admiration for Pollard equally plain to be seen. And even the telephone girl, smirking from her switchboard nearby. All of these were in sympathy with Pollard, and Prescott felt himself a rank outsider. But he persevered. Joe, the other elevator boy, declared he had not carried Mr Pollard up or down that evening, and the clerk said there were but two cars. “Go on, Mr Prescott,” Pollard adjured him. “I have prepared no air-tight alibi.” “Did any one here see Mr Pollard in his room,” the detective asked in desperation, and to his surprise a bellhop piped out, “I did.” “You did!” and Prescott turned to him. “How did you happen to do so?” “He rang, and I went up there, and he gave me a letter to mail for him. It was a wide letter, too wide to go in the chute.” “Did you mail it?” “I put it with the stuff for the postman to take. He hasn’t been round yet.” “Get the letter.” The bellhop did so, while the others looked on. It was a large, square envelope addressed to a business firm downtown. “Your writing, Mr Pollard?” said Prescott, not knowing, in fact, just what to say. “Yes,” said Pollard, glancing at it. “Open it, if you want to. It’s not private business.” “No; I don’t want to. It looks very much as if you were in your room during the hour between six and seven.” “It does have that appearance,” said Pollard, “but I make no claims.” “He telephoned twice,” vouchsafed the girl at the switchboard. “He did!” Prescott wheeled on her. “Once not very long after he came in—maybe fifteen or twenty minutes after.” “To whom?” “To a Cleaning Establishment. I remember, because I couldn’t get them—the shop was closed. And then, he telephoned again for a taxi, when he was ready to go out.” “At what time?” “About half-past seven—or maybe a little earlier.” “Earlier,” said the doorman, who had drawn near again. “Not more’n twenty past. I put him in the taxi myself. And it wasn’t as late as half past.” “Where did he drive to?” “I don’t know. He ’most always gives the driver a slip of paper with the numbers on it—’specially if he’s going to more than one address. He did this tonight.” “Where’s that taxi man?” asked Prescott, feeling his last prop being pulled from under him. “He’s outside now,” said the doorman. “He’s waiting for a man upstairs.” “Call him in.” The taxi driver looked at Pollard, nodded respectfully, and replied to Prescott’s queries by saying that Mr Pollard did give him a memorandum of the places he wanted to go to, and that they were, first, the Hotel Astor, where he went in for a moment, and came back with some theater tickets which he was putting in his pocket.