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?”