McCarty

“ McCarty explained as he pointed to the dark stain upon the rug, and then added with seeming irrelevance: "What did they do, Hill, at these stag parties you were telling the inspector about? Play cards?"
Before McCarty's good-natured but keen scrutiny the valet seemed to have lost a trifle of the assurance which he had maintained in the presence of the inspector and now he blinked, staring as if fascinated at the sinister spot upon the floor.
"No. They just ate and drank and smoked." ”

“ In an instant Dennis' long arms and legs writhed out of the shadows and he scrambled down with perilous haste to land at McCarty's feet.
"Some one—a man—got out of that window, straddled the wall and climbed down the back of that next house!" he exclaimed. "He'll be off across fences to the next street north and we'll lose him!"
"Like hell we will!" McCarty seized the despised ladder and setting it against the fence of the de Forests' yard he swarmed up it and hanging by his hands, dropped with a grunt to the ground. ”

“ McCarty crossed the wide rotunda and even as he flung open the front door the bell rang once more through the silent house.
A middle-aged gentleman, small but erect and dapper despite the evident haste with which he had clothed himself, stood fuming on the threshold.
"Who are you?" he demanded peremptorily. "What is the meaning of this? Where is Mr. Creveling, and why have I been summoned from my bed at this unseemly hour? I insist upon an explanation—!"
"Just a moment, sir." The inspector had followed McCarty and the latter stood aside. ”

“ Who the devil are you, anyway? What happened to Mr. Creveling?"
"I'll tell you, sir, when I come."
McCarty hung up the receiver and, returning to the hall, made his way out by the tradesmen's entrance. It was still too early for much traffic but a huge green 'bus like some monstrous beetle came lumbering past in the bright glare of sunlight and as McCarty swung himself aboard he glanced back at the house which he had just left. The lower windows were shrouded and blank but at one of the upper ones he caught a glimpse of a woman's white face staring down at him. ”

“ McCarty grinned. "If it's facts you are looking for, there's two shots gone from the pistol and only one entered the body. Find out where the second one went to, and you'll be a busy man, the day!"
To Dennis Riordan where he sat yawning over an evening paper from which the baseball news had been patriotically but lamentably absent, there came a brisk and buoyant McCarty, with the light of purpose in his eyes. Dennis knew that look of old, and he flung aside the paper. ”

“ McCarty waved his hand expressively. "All the Crevelings' friends except the O'Rourkes! They're every one lying or trying to hide something and hold out on us, or I'm a Dutchman!—But there's one thing: Hill was in the house long before he showed himself at the door of the breakfast room, and when you and me were going through the rooms upstairs and you laughed at me sir, for seeing and hearing things, I was! If I'm not mistaken, 'twas Hill I heard down in Creveling's room when we were up in the servants' quarters and Hill's shadow I saw on the stairs." ”

“ McCarty agreed that it wouldn't be amiss, and putting with Sall's shilling the money that was to get the candles, I was sent to the 'Bottomless Pit' at the house of the 'Nine Nations,' where Mr. Crown had a score with the old woman, and fetched away a quart of his gin, which they said was getting the whole of them. The McCartys took a drop, and the girls took a drop, and the neighbors took a drop, and they all kept taking drops, and the drops got the better of them all. ”

“ The doorman at the gloomy portals of the exclusive club was most impressive in appearance and disposed at first to be supercilious, but when McCarty disclosed the purpose of his errand and hinted at a social scandal that might spread to the very foundations of the aristocratic institution, if the information which he sought in order to hush the matter up were not forthcoming, the factotum bundled him hurriedly into the coat-room, dismissed the attendant there with a lordly wave of his hand and closed the door. ”

“ There is a retributive justice about my work to-night, for last night McCarty and his associate broke in here. I pretended to chloroform myself, hoping to hear from their conversation why they had come and how strong were their suspicions against me, but the man McCarty opened my windows and hurried his associate away. Can he have realized my ruse?
“‘I am afraid, I know it now, but not of McCarty personally. Individual to individual he is infinitely my inferior and yet there is about him a suggestion of strength which takes from me my sense of power. ”

“ The man gestured toward the park. "Got a bunch of dough but he's a tight-wad; hope you sting him good! He's more trouble than anybody else who leaves their cars here; always kicking, and bullying, and flying into a rage over nothing, and getting his damned little bus out all hours, but the tips he hands out in a month wouldn't buy you a square meal! He's the kind, all right, that would side-swipe you from behind and ride off and give you the laugh!"
"That's just what he did to me, but I'm laughing now!" McCarty said grimly. ”

“ It isn't proper for us to discuss the members of the club, sir, but a fat man like Mr. Waverly oughtn't to get himself all worked up the way he does. He'll drop dead some day right here and there's bound to be unpleasant comment in the papers. I thought myself that he would have a stroke that night!"
"And who was he looking for?" McCarty saw the man's color change.
"I really don't know, sir. I didn't hear him say—"
"Oh, that's all right." McCarty laughed. "If it was Eugene Creveling, the man who was shot that night, you needn't be afraid to say so. ”

“ Creveling was as sane as any man of my acquaintance."
"He was nervous, you say, though," McCarty remarked. "Do you mean that he seemed uneasy about anything, sir?"
"Apprehensive?" the physician amended. "Not in the least; in fact, he was in his usual high spirits. A bit over, if anything; on edge, if you know what I mean."
McCarty nodded gravely.
"It didn't strike you that those high spirits were put on, Doctor, did it? I've noticed in my line of work that when a man tries to bluff he's apt to get it over a little too strong and show his hand." ”

“ Dennis passed over the paper and McCarty read in flaring headlines:
"Failure on Stock Exchange. Lonsdale Ford & Company Go to Wall. Many Small Investors and Speculators Hard Hit in Crash."
Below in smaller type appeared the story in detail, but McCarty merely glanced through it. He was working against time now; against the time when the inspector's dragnet might bring in the girl, Ilsa, or he might tire of waiting and arraign Hill formally before a Magistrate on a murder charge. ”

“ Creveling in a cold, aloof sort of way and Mrs. Waverly is a devilish, snaky vamp. Both mighty attractive and each a different type; get me?"
"You mean that Cutter is using them both as steerers, too?" McCarty's honest tones were filled with shocked amazement. "Ladies like them, with positions in the highest society and more money than they can spend!" ”

“ 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. ”

“ McCarty remarked with dignity. "I just poked around like the old has-been I am.—But there comes the 'bus from the borough headquarters, and you'll be doing me a favor, Clancy, if you'll just forget I'm here until you're asked to tell what you know of it all. I'd like to snoop around a bit on my own account till the inspector gets here."
"How do we know it isn't suicide, anyway?" demanded Clancy, as the clatter of the police gong grew louder on the air and his companion made for the door. ”

“ You see the game now, don't you, McCarty?"
McCarty nodded slowly in his turn and his expression was very grim, but he waited without speaking.
"Mrs. Creveling and Mrs. Waverly are different; they belong by right of birth and their old, withered family trees. They don't have to struggle to get anywhere and in another way they are just as jaded as their husbands. They've exhausted every allowable means of amusing themselves and they turned to the game for what excitement they could get out of it, and it got them—the fascination, I mean. ”

“ After a few final orders McCarty, with Dennis in tow, returned to the drugstore and nodding to the surprised clerk he entered the telephone booth and called up Police Headquarters. A long ten minutes elapsed before he reappeared, red and perspiring, and said in a hurried undertone to his companion:
"Yost is on his way up to the Creveling house as fast as the inspector's own car can take him. He's to find out if Hill is there and stand guard over him." ”

“ McCarty responded slyly. "Not being regularly connected with the force any longer, promotion don't bother me and there's nothing to hold me back when I'm in the wrong from saying so, and starting over. I've been thinking that as long as you've got the dragnet out after that Hildreth woman and the stations and ferries and roads watched so that she can't make her getaway from the city, we're bound to land her in time and there's no use in waiting for her to try to get in touch with Hill before we run him in again. ”

“ He was apparently about forty and the small, light blue eyes set in his smooth red face reminded McCarty somewhat irrelevantly of those of a pig. The latter waited for a few minutes and then, rising, tossed his paper aside and walked over to the desk. Two more arrivals had made their appearance and registered in the interim, but above theirs the hastily written signature of the fat man stood out boldly and McCarty smiled to himself. His theory had proved to be a correct one.
"Will you be sending word to Mr. Douglas Waverly that the man he expects is here?" he requested. ”

“ McCarty waited until he had drunk deep and then as the pitcher clattered back upon the table once more he observed:
"So the Crevelings are intimate friends of yours, sir? How long have you known them?"
"Look here, what are you driving at! Creveling and I palled around together for years before he was married and he was a frequent visitor at our house. Naturally when he became engaged my wife met Miss Alexander and since their marriage they have been closely identified with our immediate circle. My wife and Mrs. Creveling are almost inseparable." ”

“ It is remarkable that the literature of romance has concerned itself so little with Daniel McCarty. His ancestry, his own life and that of [38] his descendants unite in offering the richest material but, save in the traditions of Virginia, he is today all but unknown. He was the son of Donal, the son of Donough, Earl of Clancarty. Donal was an officer in the Irish Army that fought against King William and was ruined with its defeat. The Earl and his descendants were exiled and Daniel came to Virginia as a youth and settled in Westmoreland County. ”

“ McCarty's lips moved, but no words came and he walked as if in a trance, staring straight ahead of him with eyes that were round with wonder.
"All right! Keep mum if you want to!" Dennis remarked sourly. "It's little you got from the old one that'd make conversation. Whatever that murdered dago was to her or her family you'll get no word of it from the likes of him."
"He told us more than a word, if you'd been listening for it." McCarty found his voice at last. "According to young Jarvis, his wife was twenty-seven. That would make her sixteen or seventeen when she left the convent. ”

“ Creveling a long time?"
"Since he left the university, but only casually in those earlier years. He was having his fling in the bright lights and my tastes drew me in quite another direction; it was only after his marriage and through a mutual friend that I really came into contact with him and discovered that we had an interest in common which rendered us congenial."
"And what was that interest, Mr. Cutter?" McCarty asked quickly.
"A love of the beautiful in all things: textiles, books, paintings, porcelains, sculpture. ”

“ After some search they located a desk telephone on the writing table, concealed beneath a bell-shaped bronze ornament and the policeman called up his precinct station house and had the satisfaction of knowing that the message was relayed to the borough headquarters.
"It's too big entirely for them to handle," declared McCarty contemptuously when the other had hung up the receiver. ”

“ Yost grinned and McCarty chuckled in perfect good nature at the thrust.
"I'm a has-been," he announced. "And like the most of them I'm harking back to the days of my usefulness. Not that I was in on the Hoyos case, but I'd like to know more about it than I remember."
"What kind of a souvenir of the affair has old Norwood got hold of?" the Inspector asked. "If it was of any importance he should have turned it in at the inquest. We never took him seriously, but he may put something over on us some day, for all that."
"He has nothing, sir," McCarty responded, truthfully enough. ”

“ Hand Terhune all the credit, like you did in that other case last year?"
"Not this time," McCarty smiled. "I'm holding this séance myself in my own rooms at half-past eight, and there'll be no dinky little machines to take records of every breath you draw."
"'Séance'!" Dennis shivered. "Isn't that what they call it when some medium throws a fit and brings back the spirits of the dead?"
"It is, and that's what I'm going to do." McCarty paused, and then added: "Not throw a fit, I don't mean, but it's a spirit I'm going to bring back from the dead all right ”