FOR an instant he stood motionless, and then he backed away from the table, unconsciously wiping at his hands as though he feared they might be stained. The dead man had dropped forward again, sprawled across the table.
Polland reached his own table and sank into the chair. And then it flashed upon him what this tragedy might mean. Here was James Cranton dead—found dead alone in a room with Richard Polland, who had sent a message that he was coming East to get him!
As though in a flash, Polland saw the web of circumstantial evidence in which he might be enmeshed. He had threatened to get his man, he had come immediately to the city, he had sneaked off the train and at a hotel he had registered under an assumed name. Men would say that he had shadowed Cranton, traced him to the restaurant
