THE INSPECTOR BRINGS NEWS
The twain slept late the next morning, and they had only just returned
from the little restaurant around the corner, where McCarty habitually
took his meals, when the bell jangled on its loose wire from below.
“Don’t disturb yourself, Mac,” Dennis admonished with a grin, as his
host threw down his newspaper. “I’ll let the inspector in.”
“And why are you so sure—!”
“’Twas not in my honor you cleaned house last night, but because you
knew the inspector would be here, and you did it then for you were sure
he’d come so early there’d be no time this morning.” Dennis emitted
one of his rare chuckles as he pressed the button which released the
lock on the entrance door. “Since I’ve been associating so much with
detectives, active and retired, I’m getting to work their way, myself!”
“It’s too clever you’re growing, by half!” McCarty grumbled, but there
was a twinkle in his eye as he strode past the other and opening
the door, leaned over the banisters. In a passable imitation of the
inspector’s own amusedly satisfied tones of the night before he called
down: “There you are, sir! We’ve been waiting for you.”
“The devil you have!” Inspector Druet laughed as he bounded up the
stairs with a lightness which belied his gray hair. “Getting back at
me for last night, eh? If you hadn’t held out on me we’d have been on
the job still in the New Queen’s Mall!—’Morning, Riordan! I suppose
you’re crowing over me, too!”
“There’ll not be a peep out of me, let alone a crow, till I know what’s
doing, inspector, for Mac’s told me nothing except the look he saw on
Hughes’ face,” Dennis replied, as he drew forward the shabby easy-chair
and placed an ash-tray within reach. His homely, long face was set
in lines of deep seriousness once more and the inspector’s, too, had
sobered.
McCarty closed the door and taking a box of cigars from the mantel he
held it out to the visitor.
“The autopsy’ll be over, I’m thinking.” He spoke carelessly enough but
his breath labored with suppressed excitement. “What kind of poison was
it, inspector?”
The inspector nodded slowly.
“I _thought_ you had guessed! It was physostigmine, the medical
examiner called it; powdered Calabar bean. It’s colorless, has no
taste, and a single grain would be fatal in three hours or a little
longer, but Hughes had taken a trifle more than a grain.”
“Holy saints!” gasped Dennis. “So ’twas murder, after all!”
An expression of honest gratification had stolen over McCarty’s face
but he shook his head.
“Many kinds of beans I have heard of, including the Mexican ones that
jump like a frog, but never the sort that bring death,” he said. “If
one grain of it would kill in three or four hours, a little more would
kill in two or maybe three, I suppose. It was around nine o’clock when
Hughes fell there across from the station-house, so he must have taken
that powdered bean before he left the Orbit house or right after,
though we’ve not yet fixed the time he did leave. I wonder what would
be the symptoms of that poison?”
“I asked the medical examiner,” the inspector responded. “Pain in the
abdomen, nausea, then spasmodic respiration, numbness, and a complete
paralysis of respiration, which of course would mean death. It doesn’t
explain his staggering along so that Terry thought he was drunk—”
He paused and McCarty lighted his own cigar and drew contemplatively
upon it before he spoke.
“Maybe it would. The pain had passed and the nausea, but it had left
him weak and the paralysis was creeping over the lungs of him so that
he was fighting like mad for breath, reeling and stopping and lurching
forward again. He was choking and gasping when Terry and me first
turned him over and he died with a heave and a snort as if a ton weight
had landed on the chest of him. It was agony that I saw in his face and
the horror of knowing he’d been poisoned; he knew who did it, too, or I
miss my guess, for ’twas that he was trying to tell when the end came!”
“What else did you see?” The inspector’s tone held an unwonted note
of asperity. “I want to know everything that happened, Mac, from the
first minute you laid eyes on the fellow! If you had told me last night
before the watchman opened the gates we might have saved precious time!”
“I’d nothing to tell but the look on Hughes’ face and him trying so
hard to speak, and that I thought maybe he’d been running like that
because he was delirious from pain and not in liquor. There was no mark
on him when we carried him into the station-house, at least none that
showed, and it come to me it must be poison. But with nothing more to
go on than just my own private suspicions, I didn’t want to air them
unless the autopsy proved there was grounds for them. I’ll be reminding
you, inspector, that I’ve resigned from the Force long since and the
new methods—”
“New methods be damned!” exploded the inspector. “You’ve said that
about every case we’ve worked out together since you did resign, but
you’ve come back long enough each time to find out the truth when no
one else could. I told Orbit last night that you were a special deputy
of mine, and by the Lord you are from now on, till we’ve found out who
killed Hughes.”
“Yes, sir,” McCarty said meekly, avoiding Dennis’ eye, but the latter
had an immediate difficulty of his own on his mind.
“If Hughes took that poison, or ’twas give to him, either before or
just after he left the house, ’twill be on that block between those
two locked gates that Mac will be looking first for clues, and they’re
guarded night and day; you heard what that watchman said,” he remarked
wistfully. “You’ll be getting a pass for Mac, likely, but unless a fire
starts inside big enough for a general alarm there’ll be no chance
of me following him, inspector, and ’twill be the first case ever he
tackled since he left the Force that I didn’t get in on with him from
start to finish, every minute I was off duty.”
“Don’t worry, Riordan,” Inspector Druet smiled. “I’ve never been able
to figure out which of you two has the luck, but your teamwork can’t
be beaten and I’ll see that you get a pass along with Mac. I’ve had a
diagram of the New Queen’s Mall prepared and brought this copy with me
for you two so you may know without loss of time who owns each house
and which ones are occupied.”
He produced a folded paper on which the street had been roughly mapped
out, with spaces, in which names and numbers had been written, blocked
off from it on either side. The two bent their heads over it eagerly.
“You see there, Denny?” McCarty pointed with his forefinger. “Looking
from the Avenue, the opposite gate to that we went into last night, the
corner house, Number Two, on the south side belongs to the Goddards.
That’ll be the stout, bald fellow with the little red mustache and the
twinkle in his eye, you mind him? Next to it, but separated by that
bulge that looks like a conservatory, is Number Four, Orbit’s house;
then comes Mrs. Bellamy’s, Number Six, where that butler Snape works
and after that, Eight and Ten, but they’re marked ‘closed.’”
“The Falkinghams, Number Eight, have lived abroad for more than twenty
years and the sole heiress to Number Ten is Georgianna Davenant, a
little girl of twelve away at school,” the inspector interposed. “That
finishes the Mall on the south side, but starting at the western end
again, a great house taking up the entire space opposite both Goddard’s
and Orbit’s and bearing two numbers, ‘one’ and ‘three’ is occupied by
the Burminster family, who originally owned most of the block and were
the moving spirits in having it enclosed with gates. Number Five is the
Sloanes’; you met two of the three generations last night—”
“That’ll be the handsome, middle-aged flirt and the son who cut him out
with Mrs. Bellamy,” McCarty observed.
“How in the world—?” Dennis’ lantern jaw hung relaxed and the inspector
glanced up quickly.
“’Twas as plain as the nose on your face!” McCarty exclaimed
impatiently. “Let’s go on: Number Seven, next to the Sloanes’, is the
Parsons’. That’s where this Benjamin Parsons lives, who you thought
owned the hat Hughes was wearing, isn’t it, sir?”
“Yes. That hat is still a factor in the case, don’t forget that!” The
inspector bent again over the diagram and indicated the final space.
“This house, the end of the Mall on the north, belongs to the Quentin
family, and two branches of it are fighting over the property; it’s
been unoccupied and in litigation for some years. I’m going to call at
Mrs. Bellamy’s now and interview her butler; want to come along?”
Dennis rose precipitately and stretched a long arm to the mantel for
his hat, but McCarty said with quick decision:
“We’ll go through the gates with you, sir, so that you can square us
with the day watchman, but I think we’d best prowl around for awhile
and not interfere with you. We might drop in at the Orbit house later
to see if any of the other servants can talk a bit more than Ching Lee.”
“If you do, be sure not to mention the autopsy, nor the fact that it
is even suspected Hughes’ death wasn’t a natural one,” warned the
inspector as they passed out to the stairs. “I’ll probably meet you
there later.”
They entered the Mall by way of the western gate this time and the
private watchman on duty now proved to be younger and less obviously
impressed by the dignity of his office than the one encountered the
night before. He had evidently been apprised of their possible coming
and readily assented to the inspector’s demand that his two deputies
be admitted in future without question. When the official himself had
proceeded to the Bellamy house McCarty turned with an affable smile to
the watchman and tendered a cigar.
“Have a smoke?”
“Thanks, but I’ll have to keep it till later.” He was a tall, muscular
young giant with a good-natured, not too intelligent countenance and he
grinned in an embarrassed fashion at the overture. Then the grin faded
and he added in low tones: “They haven’t brought Alfred Hughes’ body
back yet; I’ve been watching for it all morning.”
“It isn’t going to be brought here; didn’t you know?” McCarty’s own
tones were invitingly confidential. “Mr. Orbit told Denny and me last
night that he was arranging to have it taken to some undertaking
establishment and buried from there. Didn’t he, Denny?”
Not yet sure of his ground, Dennis contributed merely a nod of
affirmation to the conversation and after a disgusted look at him
McCarty asked:
“What’s your name?”
“Bill—I mean ‘William’ Jennings.” The watchman replied promptly.
“Well, Bill, you’ve got a pretty soft job here, haven’t you? If you’re
going to patrol your beat to the other gate Denny and me will stroll
along with you. That’s all you have to do, isn’t it, except to give the
eye to the pretty nurse-girls of all the kids on the block?”
Bill Jennings reddened sheepishly.
“The better the neighborhood the less kids there are in it, did you
ever notice that?” he countered. “In all six of the families living on
this block there are only three children: the Goddards’ boy, Horace,
who is fourteen; Daphne Burminster, two years younger—she belongs in
that great corner house over there but they haven’t come back yet from
the country—and little Maudie Bellamy. Horace is kind of sickly and has
a private teacher—they call him a ‘tutor’—and Miss Daphne has a maid
and a governess, both of them old and sour. The Bellamy baby has the
only nurse on the block and she’s foreign—French, I guess.”
“Some of those French girls are beauties.” McCarty spoke with the air
of a connoisseur and Dennis coughed. The former added hastily: “Is this
one a looker?”
“Pretty as a picture and as nice as she’s pretty!” There was immense
respect as well as admiration in Bill’s voice. “I guess she ain’t been
over long, for she’s awful young and shy but she knows how to take care
of herself, as Alfred Hughes found out.”
He checked himself suddenly but McCarty chuckled with careless
amusement.
“He was a great hand with the women, they tell me!” he commented.
“Not her kind! Lucette—even her name’s pretty, ain’t it?—Lucette is
polite to everybody but Alfred Hughes didn’t understand that and
thought he’d made a hit, I guess. One night real late about a month
ago—Dave Hollis, the night watchman told me about it—Lucette ran out
to the drugstore for some medicine for little Maudie, who’d been took
sick awful sudden, and when she came back Alfred Hughes met her right
in front of her own house. He must have tried to put his arm around
her or something for she gave a little cry and Dave, who’d waited to
fasten the gate again after letting her in, came hurrying up just as
Alfred Hughes said something in a low kind of a voice and she slapped
his face! Then she ran into the house sobbing to herself and Dave says
he gave Alfred Hughes hell—the big stiff!” Bill checked himself again
and added in renewed embarrassment. “I didn’t mean to speak ill of the
dead, but I guess nobody on the block had much use for him, except Mrs.
Bellamy’s butler, Snape; the two of them have been thick as thieves for
years.”
“Is that so?” 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?”
“Underneath, maybe, but you’d never think it to look at him. He’s
younger by ten years at least than Hughes, slim and dark and minds his
own business. If it wasn’t for the gates you’d never know when he went
in or out.”
McCarty darted a quick, sidelong glance at his informant.
“Keeps funny hours, does he?”
“Late ones.” Bill grinned again. “I guess Mrs. Bellamy doesn’t know
it, but being the only man in her house he has it all his own way. He
ain’t any too anxious to have his doings known, though, for Dave says
he’s tried more than once to slip in with the milk! I ain’t spoke ten
words to him and I’ve held down this job over a year. Here comes Horace
Goddard now!”
The trio had strolled past the closed houses which flanked that of Mrs.
Bellamy and were nearing the eastern gate. As Bill hurried forward,
McCarty glanced through the high iron bars of the fence and saw a
slender, undersized boy, with very red hair and a pale, delicate face,
who approached with a droop of his narrow shoulders and a dragging
step. At sight of Bill Jennings opening the gate, however, he quickened
his pace, a smile lifting the corners of the sensitive mouth.
“Hello, Bill!” His voice was still a clear, almost childish treble.
“Hello, there, buddy! What’s the good word?” the watchman returned
cheerily.
“It isn’t very good, not for me!” The boy’s face clouded once more.
“Mr. Blaisdell is going away on a sketching tour for October. I—I wish
I could go with him! He’d take me but Dad won’t hear of it!”
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?”
The watchman had strolled up to them once more and at the question his
grin broadened.
“_Make_ him? They can’t keep him away from it! We’re great buddies,
him and me, and he’s a lonesome kind of a little feller and talks to
me every chance he gets. You heard what he said? This Blaisdell guy is
one of the greatest painters in the country and he met the kid at Mr.
Orbit’s house one day and took a fancy to him. He let Horace come to
his studio and watch him work, it seems, and Horace began trying to
copy him and now he’s giving him regular lessons. Going to stroll back?
I take the other side of the street.”
“No, we’ll be looking in to see what arrangements Mr. Orbit has made
for the funeral.” McCarty touched Dennis’ sleeve. “So long.”
“See you later.” Bill nodded and turned to cross to the opposite
sidewalk and his erstwhile companions started back the way they had
come.
“A lot you got out of him!” Dennis remarked.
“I got what I was looking for, dope on some of the families and their
servants,” replied McCarty. “I didn’t want to crowd him too much at the
first go, and besides, we’ve no more time to spend on him just now.”
“Going to tackle that Chink again?” asked the other innocently.
“I’m going to tackle every last mother’s son of them!” McCarty set his
lips firmly and his step quickened. “I want a talk with Orbit, too,
before the inspector breaks the news.”
In response to their ring at the bell the door was presently opened
by a fat little Chinese boy, whose round, yellow face was wreathed in
smiles. On seeing them he bowed straight forward from the waist with
both short arms spread wide and ushered them into a huge, dim room
at the left, where their footsteps rang on a bare, mosaic floor of
exquisite design and inlay. McCarty observed that the whole opposite
wall was of glass, curving out in a swelling arc, like a gigantic bow
window. It was filled with a mass of strange, vivid flowering plants,
the like of which neither of the visitors had ever seen before, and a
delicate, elusive fragrance hung upon the super-heated atmosphere.
On their right, at the back, the pipes of an enormous organ reared
their slender tubes. Stone settles and benches were scattered about,
backed by towering masses of palms and cacti, but the echoing,
high-ceilinged room held no other furnishing.
They seated themselves on the nearest marble bench and McCarty, who was
commencing to perspire freely, pulled out his handkerchief and mopped
his forehead.
“’Tis for all the world like that grand undertaker’s where the lodge
gave Corcoran his funeral!” Dennis had spoken in his normal tones but
they swiftly sank to a hoarse whisper as they reverberated. “God save
us, did you hear that? It’s worse than a tunnel!”
“Wisht! The little heathen is still hanging around.” McCarty
admonished. “Come here, son.”
The little boy who had lingered in the doorway smiled again and sidled
forward silently in his soft embroidered slippers.
“My name Fu Moy,” he announced.
“Oh, you’re the coffee boy?” McCarty remembered his conversation with
the butler.
“Can do!” Fu Moy bobbed his head delightedly at the recognition.
“And is Ching Lee your father?” McCarty disregarded the dissimilarity
in family names.
“Ching Lee on-clee.” He labored over the difficult word with evident
anxiety to make himself understood.
“Uncle, is he?” His questioner paused. “You know Hughes?”
The round face clouded.
“Me catchum Mlistler Hughes. Me no like. Mlistler Hughes gone away. Me
glad.”
“That,” observed Dennis judiciously, “was straight from the shoulder. I
couldn’t have put it better myself if I’d known the spalpeen!”
Fu Moy hung his head shyly but McCarty pulled a shining new quarter
from his pocket and held it out.
“You catchum some of those nuts with the raisins inside for
yourself—lichee.—But tell me first why you no like Hughes.”
The small, yellow, claw-like hand closed avidly over the coin.
“When Honorable Gleat Lord come, Mlistler Hughes say Fu Moy velly nice
boy. When Honorable Lord no come, Mlistler Hughes kickee, stlikee,
hurtee head, allee time say Fu Moy go hellee.” The little slippered
foot shot out suggestively and he rubbed his ear in realistic fashion.
“The dirty hound, for abusing and cursing a little shaver, heathen or
no!” Dennis exclaimed. “Who’s the honorable lord, youngster? Mr. Orbit?”
Again Fu Moy nodded and a look of adoration shone on the childish face.
“Can do!” His tone was fervid. “Honorable Lord Orblit velley gleat man,
allee same Lord High Plince!”
“So that’s that! We know how he stands with the kid, all right,”
McCarty interposed as Dennis started to speak again. But Fu Moy had
evidently struck a congenial topic.
“Ching Lee catchum Mlistler Hughes make do.” He pulled up the sleeve of
his embroidered silk jacket disclosing the fresh, livid marks of five
thick fingers on his plump arm. “Ching Lee gettee knifee, can do!”
Fu Moy drew his hand across his throat and Dennis shuddered.
“For the love of the saints!”
“When was this?” McCarty was careful to keep his tone indifferent.
“Yes—yes—!”
“Yesterday?”
Fu Moy’s bullet head bobbed.
“Honorable Lord come takee knifee away from Ching Lee, say no can do,
p’leecee man would come. He say Mlistler Hughes hurtee Fu Moy he go!
Mlistler Hughes gone. Honorable Lord one piecee gleat man.” He looked
down at the coin and then up with a sudden thought. “Lichee nuts no can
do! Slipples can do! Slipples ’long Honorable Lord!”
He had gestured toward his feet and Dennis turned puzzled eyes on his
companion.
“Does the youngster mean that he wants to buy a pair of slippers
for Orbit?” Fu Moy’s expression was sufficient answer, and Dennis
suggested: “Sure, he must have plenty of slippers, lad?”
Fu Moy’s head shook decisively.
“Allee blurn. Bang-bang flier Honorable Lord’s loom. Littlee flier,
gleat big bang-bang! Slipples ’longside chair, all same blurn.”
“I’ve got him!” McCarty spoke aside in a hurried undertone; to the
little boy whose dark, bright, slant eyes were fixed upon him as though
for approval, he added: “Sure, son! Get your honorable lord a pair of
slippers, and if you can find any for a quarter let me know where. Now
you run and tell him that two of the men who were here last night would
like to speak to him. Think you can make him know what you mean?”
“Honorable lord—speakee—Mac and me—here?” Dennis interpreted
unexpectedly.
The child nodded gravely.
“Can do. Honorable Lord talkee my talk.” With another bow he turned and
trotted from the room, and Dennis murmured:
“Could you beat that? Orbit speaks Chinee! That kid was talking about
the fire last night, but what did he mean by ‘bang-bang’? Did somebody
fire a shot, do you suppose?”
“They did not!” McCarty replied impatiently. “Something exploded in
Orbit’s room and set fire to a chair and the slippers under it, but
that’s neither here nor there. He’s a bright kid, little Fu Moy, with
a gift of the gab that I’m wishful his uncle had! Only yesterday this
Ching Lee tried to murder Hughes for mistreating the child, but Orbit
stopped him; Fu Moy’s just been told that Hughes has gone away, Denny,
and he thinks Orbit discharged him and worships the boss accordingly. I
wonder if maybe Ching Lee tried again? I wonder if he ever heard of the
Calabar bean?”