Isabel Ostrander

“ McCarty returned grimly. “André, do you know the Parsons’ cook across the street?”
“It is a she!” André looked up with a shrug of unutterable contempt. “A woman big like a brigadier with three moles upon her cheek! How should she know the art of the cuisine?—But what would you? They are of the old bourgeoisie, these Parsons. I am not acquaint’ with the Amazon of the three moles!” ”

“ Why does anybody hide? If ’tis not to do something unlawful, couldn’t he have broken the law already and be hiding from it?”
“Denny!” McCarty breathed. “What are you getting at? You’ve found out something! Who is the man?”
“Who’s wanted now, Inspector?” Dennis asked. “Somebody that’s gentleman enough to keep shaved and clean in spite of everything, who’d appreciate good food and wine and the best in life, and yet was a convicted criminal for all that!” ”

“ It will have to be the Calabar bean after all, but whom shall I choose? Not André, his soufflées are admirable, and Jean is the only servant who ever dusted my room and left things where I could find them; not Fu Moy or Ching Lee, for one never knows with these silent, yellow people when revenge will come. Hughes’ services are invaluable to me but he is a dead loss to society, it might even be benefited by his removal. I must decide!’”
“That was it!” McCarty nodded. “The longing for power, to feel that he was the biggest man in the world; ambition with a warped turn to it! ”

“ I told him to go and have his dinner; the servants always dine early when I am entertaining, for their meals are prepared separately. That is how the cigar lighter happened to be left burning. I can’t tell you what time he went out but perhaps André or Jean would know, or Ching Lee. André is the cook; shall I have him sent to you here?”
“If it’s all the same to you we’ll go to the kitchen and talk to him.” McCarty glanced at the mass of exotic blooms, vividly ablaze where the sun poured in upon them through the glass wall. “You’ve some wonderful flowers, Mr. Orbit.” ”

“ Finally McCarty remarked:
“I gave myself away as well as you about breaking into the Parsons house, but that was only after you’d told the inspector I was holding out on him, which I wasn’t, having nothing to hold. As to getting at criminals by way of science I’m not laughing at it, Denny, just because I’m not on to it yet.”
“Nor me!” Dennis agreed. “Only to my mind, science is a lot like spontaneous combustion; if you don’t handle it careful it’ll work up its own heat and break out in a blaze.” ”

“ McCarty asked absently.
“Women!” Dennis waved a huge paw in a vaguely comprehensive gesture. “American or foreign,—and you can tell the last by the strange words they put in when they can’t think of the English of them,—they all begin writing to him as if they was doing him a favor, the scoundrel! After a bit they start bossing him, and nagging and fault-finding, then they throw a bluff at ‘good-by forever,’ and the last of it’s always the same; begging him to come back! ’Tis well for us, Mac, that we’ve steered clear of them, for the both of us would have been wax in their hands!” ”

“ IN THIN AIR “Glad you could come at once, McCarty.” Eustace Goddard’s ruddy face was pale, and the humorous quirk beneath the ends of the small, sandy mustache had given place to a tremulous droop. “Your inspector thought I had some information for you about that valet’s death when I telephoned headquarters to ask for your address and I didn’t undeceive him. Don’t want any notoriety about this while a shadow of doubt remains—but God! I—I’m worried!”
“You’ll recall Special Deputy Riordan from that first talk we had at Orbit’s?” McCarty indicated his colleague who stood in the doorway. ”

“ I cannot hurt him, I am powerless against him, he is the Law! But, for the man himself, I have underrated him; he is more shrewd and clever than I thought. To-day he came to me and in Sir Philip’s presence, with infinite tact, he let me know that he is aware it was I who made that attempt upon his life. Seemingly he holds no grudge; it is apparently a mere part of the game. He claims to have detected the odor of cigar smoke which I left behind me in his rooms, just as his associate smelled the smoke of that little blaze generated from the physostigmine. ”

“ Dennis shivered more from nervousness than chill and his voice came in a muffled whisper from beneath the handkerchief. The flashlight in his hand wavered as he directed its ray against the house wall. “Look at that, now! If the old gentleman keeps any valuables here he must think that the crooks under his roof are enough protection from them outside, for he’s still depending on the old Kip electric system, that a babe in arms could disconnect!... Get you to the mouth of the alley, Mac, and keep an eye out for the watchman.”
McCarty obeyed. ”

“ Terry had waded back through the reeking mire. “He’d be glad of a word with you, too, Mac, so will you give me a hand with the old boy here? It’s only a step.”
With a slight shrug and a smile that was lost upon his companion McCarty assumed his share of their limp burden. Together they bore it across the street to the station house. He blinked in the sudden glare of light, as the sodden figure was deposited on the floor, and then turned to greet the homely, spruce young giant who had come forward from behind the desk. ”

“ Goddard swayed weakly but Trafford flung an arm about his shoulders. The inspector had replied to Orbit with noncommittal gravity and now they conversed together in an aside, while Dennis edged over to McCarty.
“Why ever didn’t you tell me?” he whispered. “No wonder you said ’twas fair sickening to think of, Mac! If the poor boy’s found down there ’twill be one crime that’s no crime at all! How did you know?”
“I don’t know!” McCarty responded candidly. “’Tis the only guess, though, that will cover the facts as they come to me, but Max needed none; I’m banking on the dog’s instinct, Denny.” ”

“ Parsons, I’d like to ask you something.” McCarty bent forward. “If a guy—I mean a man—was sent up and escaped and you thought he was innocent, would you think it your duty to hide him or turn him over to the law again?”
“I should deliver him to the authorities.” The answer came without an instant’s hesitation. “A man’s personal opinion could not be allowed to weigh against the mandates of our laws or our whole social fabric would centuries ago have been undermined. The individual must be submerged in the collective body, if civilization is to endure!—But why do you ask?” ”

“ McCarty had carefully kept his bulk between his visitor and the sight of what lay in the fireplace and the moment the latter went away he removed the death-dealing paraphernalia and locked it in his bedroom closet beneath a pile of old boots, together with the revolver. This had proved on examination to be a replica of his own old service one. How could his would-be assassin have come into possession of a “police positive,” a .38 manufactured for the department alone?
While he was pondering this the telephone rang and Jimmie Ballard’s voice came to him over the wire. ”

“ I’m going to tell Parsons in the morning, for he’ll not spread such a thing, and there’s something I want to know. If there’s any sense at all to this heredity notion, it don’t look as if Henry Orbit stood much of a chance!”
“I can scarcely believe it yet, gentlemen!” Benjamin Parsons exclaimed. “The news that Henry Orbit had committed suicide in some mysterious manner, leaving a written confession, came like a thunderclap but now that you tell me the blood of the Jessups flows in his veins it explains many things!”
“Did you ever meet Orbit, Mr. Parsons?” McCarty asked. “Ever talk to him?” ”

“ How could it be, with the servants around all the time and Orbit right there in the room? ’Tis the first murder ever I heard of that could be pulled off with a man playing the organ not twenty feet away and a little child running about in the midst of it and neither of them the wiser! There’s the baby now!”
They had reached the rear court and in the tradesmen’s entrance of the Bellamy house next door a buxom housemaid appeared with little Maude in her arms. She stood eyeing them in undisguised curiosity and interest and McCarty lifted his hat, approaching her with a bland smile. ”

“ McCarty observed, neglecting to mention that the “wizard” had an interesting police record. “I’ll take the box with what’s left of that blue balloon in it up to him, come morning, but we’ll not breathe a word of it to another living soul! ’Tis somebody on the Mall or with easy access to it that’s walking around with two murders and a disappearance on the conscience of him, maybe giving us fair words every day and the grand laugh behind our backs. We don’t know who it is and till we do we’ll be telling nothing to any of them.”
“True for you!” Dennis nodded. ”

“ The two listeners who had remained a little apart, saw now that he carried a small leather portfolio and a sketch book.
“An artist, the lad is!” Dennis exclaimed beneath his breath. “It’s out playing baseball he should be, and getting into a good healthy fight now and then. Look at the hollow chest and spindly legs of him!”
“Poor little cuss!” McCarty murmured as Horace Goddard with a parting word to the watchman passed them with a mere glance of well-bred inquiry. “Say, Bill, what’s that family doing to the kid? Making him learn to paint?” ”

“ Look out for poison gas!”
McCarty had groped grimly forward but Dennis was more thoroughly at home in the crisis than he had been at any time since the inception of the affair. He shouted directions and encouragement, darting about as unconcernedly and with as much certitude as though his eyes could penetrate the murky, opaque gloom which enveloped him.
The sound of their own rushing footsteps and the successive crash of furniture as the officials lunged against it drowned out all others until close at hand a door [Pg 279] slammed and a mocking chuckle of laughter seemed to drift back to them. ”

“ No one could force a way through the plants without leaving some trace or making their presence known. There is a French window in the card-room which is probably open and a person might enter unseen from the court between this house and Goddard’s, and the kitchen or tradesmen’s door may have been left ajar.” He spoke slowly as if to himself. “The cook is out and Jean, Ching Lee and Fu Moy are the only others in the house besides myself. Great heavens, Sir Philip arrives this evening! ”

“ McCarty turned deliberately to his self-effacing colleague. “Didn’t somebody say as much to you, Denny?”
“That Hughes and this Snape were friendly? Sure!” Emboldened by having found his voice Dennis added guilelessly: “’Twas that Chink butler at Orbit’s told me, I’m thinking. Nice, sociable fellow, if he does wear a pigtail; didn’t you find him so, Mac?”
“I found he’d more brains than most of the galoots who come over here and land in the fire department!” McCarty retorted with withering emphasis, then turned to the watchman again. “What sort of a guy is this Snape—the same kind as Hughes?” ”

“ McCarty paused with his hat halfway to his head.
“Spontaneous combustion.” Dennis repeated. “When anything that generates its own heat, like hay in a stable, is shut up too long without air getting to it, it’s liable to take fire by itself. That’s one of the first things ever I learned when I joined the department.”
McCarty chuckled.
“And that’s your idea of science, is it? Maybe ’tis as good as any other!—Now let’s go and ease the old gentleman’s mind about his stolen property.” ”

“ Dennis mourned.
“What for? ’Twould help us none and ’tis not from what’s already happened we’ll find out the truth, but from what’s maybe coming! It’s as well to have the poor thing’s body out of the way.”
In silence, then, they listened to the heavy tramp of feet, but when the front door had closed once more McCarty beckoned to his companion and started for the conservatory. Its door stood wide, the windows had been flung open again and a slight breeze which had sprung up stirred and rustled the leaves of the palms, but nowhere did there remain any sign of the tragedy so recently enacted. ”

“ McCarty led the way without further waste of words and Dennis followed him to the entrance hall below where they stationed themselves in the embrasure of a window beside the door.
“Whilst you were asking Jean about the layout of the rooms upstairs I thought I’d have a look at the ones Orbit keeps for himself,” Dennis explained in a slightly defiant tone. “He sleeps in a bed with a roof to it, all hung with curtains like a hearse. The chair that was burned is gone but there’s a scorched place in the rug and the smell is hanging on the air yet. ”

“ McCarty demanded, adding with a very sober countenance: “Wasn’t there time in the two generations to get acquainted?”
Goddard shrugged.
“Not in their estimation, evidently. From the beginning they held themselves aloof and made it plain that they wanted no social intercourse with the rest of us here; they live in a world of their own and for years none of us has tried to invade it. Orbit’s newer than they—his father bought that house next door within my memory,—but he’s a different sort.” ”

“ It led him on a long and diversified path through that day’s storm; to headquarters, the Public Library, the city’s mortuary and the laboratories of the university. For the first time since the inception of the strangely complex case he steered clear of the Mall and it was not until darkness had fallen that he returned to his rooms, rain-soaked and weary.
Inside the living-room he felt mechanically for the light switch in the wall, but the button clicked futilely. ”

“ What would the old gentleman think if he knew the actual burglar stood before him? McCarty could feel his honest face grow hot, but he held his chin a trifle higher. After all, Parsons had known about fluorine gas and powdered Calabar bean, he’d a bunch of crooks in his house and knew it, and when his notes had been taken he didn’t feel like coming clean about them! He might have a bit of explaining to do himself! ”

“ McCarty drew a long breath and turned to his former superior.
“I’d like to be following him,” he said wistfully. “If so be some guy is hiding in there—the same one that grabbed the lad—he’ll be desperate enough to kill, and Denny’s too slow-thinking and slow-moving to take care of himself! I’m heftier than him and ’tis long since I did any shinnying, but maybe that pipe would hold me after all!”
“A man with four medals from the fire department for meritorious conduct and conspicuous bravery doesn’t need a nursemaid, Mac!” the inspector responded with a laugh. ”

“ All had known Hughes by sight for years and had spoken to him occasionally in casual greeting but it was plain that they had not approved of him and were not particularly interested in his death.
“And them living next door to him for twenty years and more! ’Tis not in nature!” Dennis exclaimed, an hour later, when he and McCarty met by prearrangement at a modest East Side lunchroom and the latter disgustedly voiced his opinion of the apathetic Goddard staff. “There’s no woman too old to be curious about a neighbor’s sudden death, if it’s only for the gossip of it! ”

“ Dennis grinned. “Leave the medical examiner find out what kind of gas was it; we know how ’twas give to her, though not what busted the balloon right in her face nor how the gas got in it! The notion come to me that ’twas not meant to kill Lucette, anyway.”
“Not kill her!” exclaimed McCarty. “The first whiff of it must have knocked her cold!”
“But what if it was intended for the baby and not for her?” Dennis lowered his voice. “What if the murderer has a craze for killing children? I’ve heard tell of such things and so have you! ”