THE BREATH OF DEATH
“Who is he?” asked Dennis, wide-eyed. “Who is this George Radley?”
“You remember, don’t you, Mac?” The inspector turned to the
ex-roundsman. “Radley was a young chemist—”
“A chemist!” caroled McCarty and Dennis in unison. Then their mouths
shut like traps and they stared at each other.
“What’s got into you two?” Inspector Druet demanded. “This Radley was
accused, together with an accomplice, of sending poison to a mutual
enemy, concealed in candy. An innocent member of the man’s household
ate it and died, but the actual evidence against the accused was so
weak that they could only be convicted of manslaughter after two
disagreements and then the accomplice only got two or three years
and Radley ten. He’ll have several more to serve yet, however, even
allowing for good behavior and then, too, a guard was seriously injured
in trying to prevent that crush-out, so he’s wanted bad. He could never
have got as far as the city in those clothes!”
“He had others outside of ’em, either stole or slipped to him.” Dennis
returned to the closet and produced a pair of dilapidated shoes, gray
trousers and a long mackinaw, together with a soft Panama hat. “Only
the shoes are ragged, you see; the rest is in pretty good condition
and there’s an umbrella in a corner of the closet. He could have got
past the watchman easy on a rainy night, especially if he said he was
coming to see a maid, maybe, in one of the houses.—Still, that don’t
account for his grabbing the Goddard kid, if ’twas him, and going
through his pockets!”
“His clothes may be a find but we’ve not got himself yet. What if he’s
hid under this roof now?” McCarty exclaimed. “He’d have no call to harm
the Goddard lad unless Horace found out he was here and was going to
give him away, but harm or no, if so he’s had no chance to escape—!”
“You’re right, Mac!” The inspector dropped the clothes he had been
examining and started for the door. “We’ll smoke him out!”
But a painstaking search of the great house from attic to cellar failed
to reveal any further trace of the refugee and they departed at last
through the open window in the basement to round the corner into the
court and come face to face with Bill Jennings.
“Mr. Parsons’ butler next door sent me,” the watchman explained. “He
said somebody’d heard a noise in there and I’d better see about it.
Nothing wrong I hope, inspector?”
Open curiosity rang in his tones but the official replied bruskly:
“Nothing. We’ll go over the other empty houses on the block later. It’s
all right.”
“What’s this we’ve been hearing about a strange man who scared the
Goddard lad in this very court not two weeks ago?” McCarty asked as
they approached the sidewalk once more.
Bill Jennings looked uncomfortable.
“There was no strange man got between these gates while I was on!” he
averred defensively. “It must have been some butler or houseman that
works on the block, trying to play a joke on the little feller. It
was a week ago Saturday that he raised the rumpus about it but there
wasn’t any sign of the rough-looking kind of guy he described when Mr.
Trafford and I looked, and we went over every foot of the courts....
There’s Mr. Orbit motioning.”
It was to the inspector and his deputies, however, that Orbit beckoned
and when they had crossed to him he asked with grave concern:
“Is it true that Horace Goddard cannot be found? One of the maids
from next door told Jean, and said that you had been notified, but I
couldn’t believe it! Trafford came to my house yesterday afternoon,
though, inquiring for him—but I forgot, McCarty and Riordan were
present. Is it possible that the little boy hasn’t been seen since?”
“Not so far as we’ve been able to discover,” the inspector responded.
“It’s a pretty bad business. If he was a normal, healthy, mischievous
kid we’d be apt to think he ran away, but from all accounts he was
sickly and timid, not the kind to strike out for himself.”
“Horace is very nervous and highly strung, with remarkable artistic
possibilities,” Orbit observed thoughtfully. “I’m immensely interested
in him and my friend Blaisdell is of the opinion that he’ll become
a great painter some day if his people don’t kill his aspirations
by lack of sympathy; like a sensitive plant he needs encouragement,
nurturing.—But what can have happened to him? If he isn’t with friends
or relatives the child must have met with an accident! Has an alarm
been sent out?”
“We’re trying every way to locate him. He used to run in and out of
your house a lot, didn’t he? Did you ever hear him speak of any one he
might have gone to now?” the inspector asked. “We know, of course, how
disappointed he was when his father and mother wouldn’t let him go on
a sketching tour with this Mr. Blaisdell you mention, but he seems to
have got over it. Do you know if he had any boy friends his own age?”
Orbit shook his head.
“None. He is a solitary little chap, self-contained and retiring, and I
don’t think he cares very much for the society of other boys. He would
not have gone away and remained like this without a word if he was able
to communicate with his family. It seems inexplicable! Goddard must be
dreadfully cut up about it, to say nothing of the boy’s mother, and I
feel badly myself! I should hate to think of any accident happening to
him! I’m going in to see Goddard and ask if there is anything I can
do.—Meanwhile, you’ve no news for me about Hughes’ strange death, have
you? It is odd that two such mysterious, unrelated incidents should
have occurred in less than a week, even though Hughes must have taken
the poison either accidentally or through someone’s murderous intent,
after he left the Mall that night. Haven’t you come upon the slightest
indication?”
“We’re working on several promising ones.” The time-worn formula was
repeated a trifle wearily. “Let you know when there’s anything to give
out, Mr. Orbit.... Come on, Mac; it’s nearly noon.”
Orbit turned toward the Goddard house but the others had scarcely gone
a half dozen steps in the opposite direction when again they were
halted. This time it was by the pretty little French nurse and she drew
the Bellamy baby closer, gazing at McCarty with wide, affrighted eyes
as she voiced her question.
“Pardon, monsieur, but is it of a truth, that which I have heard? Must
it be that the little _garçon_ of that house there is lost?”
“That’s about the size of it, ma’am,” McCarty removed his reblocked
derby with a flourish. “I don’t suppose you saw him playing around
anywheres yesterday afternoon?”
“But no!” She caught her breath with a slight gasp. “All the night he
has been depart, alors! It is terrible, that! He is so _gentil_, so
good, the little Horace! He would not run away—is it that he have been
stole’? Me, I have fear for the little Maude—”
She hugged her small charge tighter and the baby stared at them
solemnly.
“There ain’t much danger of that!” McCarty laughed reassuringly. “I
guess the lad will turn up all right. When did you see him last?”
“Yesterday morning, when he have passed with M’sieu Trafford. Oh, if he
has been keednap’ we do not go beyond these gates!”
She nodded and led the child away slowly while Dennis remarked:
“Pretty and a lady, but did ever you hear the like of such lingo? No
wonder them French have a fit when they talk; ’tis from trying to
understand each other.”
McCarty darted a quick glance at the harassed frown on the inspector’s
face, and then replied to his companion:
“She had it straight, though. Horace has ‘been depart’ all right, and
if we don’t get him back soon there’ll be a bigger howl than ever from
the chief!—Isn’t that what you’re thinking, sir?”
The inspector nodded gloomily.
“I’m going to the agents in charge of these houses and get the keys.”
He indicated the two closed residences east of Mrs. Bellamy’s. “Try to
get a line meanwhile on who slipped food to the man hiding over there
and what became of him and meet me here in an hour.”
“It’s not much he’s wanting,” Dennis remarked, as the inspector left
them abruptly and strode toward the gate. “Still, if we could trace
what cellar them wine bottles came from that was stacked up on the
shelf in that empty house—look! The ambassador’s limousine is going
away.”
The impressive dark blue car was indeed moving slowly away from the
curb in front of the Parsons house and the great front door closing.
They caught another fleeting glimpse of the sallow-faced manservant and
then McCarty exclaimed:
“Come on! I want a few words with the butler over there anyway, and
maybe the old gentleman himself, and don’t be putting in your oar,
Denny, and rocking the boat; I know what I’m after.”
Dennis followed in injured silence and they mounted the steps of the
stately house and rang the bell. A lengthy pause ensued. McCarty was
about to ring again when the door opened suddenly and the manservant
whom they had seen a moment before stood confronting them.
He paid no heed to Dennis but his dull, sunken eyes fastened themselves
on McCarty and as he stared his sallow cheeks seemed to whiten.
“Hello, Porter. You remember me, I see,” the latter said briskly. “Me
and my friend here want to have a little talk with you.”
“My name is not Porter; it’s Roberts,” the man replied stiffly with an
evident effort. “You’ve made a mistake.”
“Not me, my lad!” McCarty spoke with easy assurance. “Inspector Druet
got you too, the other day, but he didn’t bother you then because we
didn’t know as much as we do now.”
“By God, you’ll never frame me again!” The man shrank back and a harsh,
grating note came into his low tones. “You haven’t got anything on me—!”
“Haven’t, hey? How about the neighbor you’ve had next door for the past
week or so?” McCarty inquired while Dennis held his breath. “Look here,
Porter, I suppose you have been pretty well hounded and I don’t want to
be hard on you but I’m going to get the truth!”
“‘Neighbor!’” The pseudo-Roberts moistened his dry lips. “I don’t know
what you’re talking about—!”
“Maybe Mr. Parsons does, then; we’ll see him.” McCarty made as though
to push his way past the cowering figure and the man threw out his
hands.
“For God’s sake don’t, just when he’s giving me the only square chance
I’ve had!” It was more an agonized whisper than speech. “I’m Porter
all right but he knows that! He knows I got railroaded and you bulls
wouldn’t let me go straight afterwards; that’s why he took me in. I
don’t know what you’re trying to hang on me now but you’re not going to
drag him into it! What do you want of me?”
McCarty glanced down the long hall which seemed almost bare in its
lofty austerity, in spite of the richness of the carved paneling and
quaint old furniture.
“Take us some place where we can talk without anybody butting in,”
McCarty suggested. “It’s for your own sake, man! If you’ll come clean—?”
“I’ve heard that before!” Porter shrugged, with a shadow of a dreary
smile. “Come along back to my pantry if you want to, but why don’t you
take me right downtown now and be done with it? If you’re out to frame
me, cut all the bluff!”
“Did I ever?” demanded McCarty. “Did I ever try to send you or any
other guy up unless I had the straight goods on them?”
“I guess not, Mac. I haven’t got anything against you but I’ve had a
rough deal; what’s come now is just the luck of the game, I suppose.”
He closed the pantry door carefully behind them and motioning to
chairs he leaned back against the table, gripping its edge with his
thin hands. “What do you want to know? I’ll come clean all right—about
myself.”
McCarty noted the almost imperceptible pause and asked quickly:
“How long have you been out this time?”
“A year and a half. My lungs went back on me and I would have been a
goner if I hadn’t got pardoned, but what good did it do me? Every time
I got a job clerking in a drug store one of the Narcotic Squad came
along with my record and I was kicked out. My record—God! And I wasn’t
guilty! I never knew my boss was crooked and in with the dope ring,
making me the scapegoat!” His voice had roughened again with a sort of
savage earnestness. “I was about at the end of my rope but the—the man
who’d had me pardoned was keeping his eye on me all the time and saw
how hard I’d tried and—and so Mr. Parsons took me on here to give me a
breathing spell. Anything else—about me—you want to know?”
“Yes.” McCarty replied on a sudden inspiration. “You were tried with
Radley, weren’t you, and convicted of sending that poisoned candy—?”
He paused and Porter shrugged again.
“What’s the comedy for? You got that from headquarters, and nobody’s
making a secret of it. It was that old charge, the record of that first
case that convicted me again and it helped convict Radley, too, for we
were both of us innocent—but what’s the use of telling that to you now?”
“There’ll be a lot of use in telling us, for your own sake, what you
had to do with the crush-out last month.”
“Nothing. I haven’t been outside these gates since I came in June.”
“Then you didn’t know anything about it till Radley showed up here a
couple of weeks ago?”
“I don’t know anything about it now, except what I read in the papers.”
Porter faced him squarely. “What do you mean about Radley showing up?”
“You didn’t hide him in that empty house next door and smuggle food and
drinks, and a razor and clothes in to him, did you?” McCarty paused for
a moment again, but Porter maintained a dogged silence and he went on:
“Does Benjamin Parsons know of it? ’Twill be news to him to hear that
after him taking you in and all, you’ve been making him accessory after
a crush-out—!”
“He’s accessory to nothing!” Porter interrupted. “I know the law, for
I have bitter reason to! He’s a fine old man and believes in giving
everybody a fair chance, especially if they’ve been framed, but he’d do
nothing against the law even if he thinks it’s in the wrong. You’ve no
proof that Radley was here or that any one helped him to hide but I’m
glad he made his getaway, glad! I hope to God he’s never caught to go
back to that hell!”
“Even though you go, now?” McCarty demanded. “You’ve one chance to keep
clear of it, Porter, and you’ll not be giving Radley away, either.
We’re wise already that ’twas you helped him to hide and then make his
getaway, but ’tis not Radley we’re after now except as the alarm has
gone out to the whole Force. We’re on another lay entirely but we just
want to find out when he beat it away from the Mall and how he got out.
I never gave my word yet that I broke it, and I’m giving it now that
’twill not be from me nor Riordan either a hint will get out about your
part in all this.”
“You mean you’re not here to frame me nor kid me into snitching on
Radley?” A faint tremor of hope ran through his tones as he gazed
searchingly into the honest, square-jawed face before him. “You’ve got
a name for fair play, Mac, and you’re on to enough already to put me
away again if you want to, so what I tell you can’t matter.—It won’t
hurt George Radley either, as it happens.”
Dennis started violently and McCarty asked:
“Why can’t it? You don’t mean he’s croaked?”
“I mean I don’t know any more than you do when he beat it or how he
passed the gates, and that’s the God’s truth!” Porter responded slowly,
his gaunt, sallow face twitching. “I read about his escape in the
papers as I told you and when the days passed and he wasn’t caught I
was happy thinking he had got clean away but I never dreamed of him
turning up here! Late one afternoon, though,—never mind how long ago—I
opened the side door to find him all but leaning against it, weak from
hunger and thirst and fairly desperate. He’d got past the watchman
during a rainstorm a night or two before to try to reach me, his old
pal, and he’d been hiding in that empty house next door, without food
or water, not daring to come openly and ask for me. When I didn’t show
myself he made up his mind to beat it, but he found he couldn’t get out
as easy as he’d got in, and he was near crazy!”
“That’ll be a week ago last Saturday.” McCarty nodded. “When you came
on him he was just after grabbing a kid that lives on the block here
and searching his pockets to see could he find if the lad had a key to
the gates—!”
“Glory be!” Dennis ejaculated beneath his breath.
“Yes. He was half off his head, but he didn’t hurt the boy any, only
scared him. I made him go back next door and lay low till the search
was over, and after night-fall I took him some bread and meat and a
bottle of rare old port from the cellar. It was stealing, and poor
return for all the old gentleman has done for me, but George needed it
bad, and I figured I owed most to him. He needed clothes too, but mine
fitted him, and I didn’t have to steal money for him either, because
the old gentleman pays me good and I’d been nowhere to spend it. The
trouble was how to get him through the gates, for after the scare he’d
given the boy both watchmen were leery of strangers and if he was held
up and questioned I knew he’d go to pieces from the long strain he’d
been under, and it would be all up with him.” Porter reached for a
silver jug of icewater which stood on the table beside him and drank
deeply, then replaced it with a sigh of relief. “No one has keys except
the families themselves and I’d no chance to borrow Miss Parsons’, of
course, nor her niece, Miss Hester’s. The old gentleman carries his on
a ring and sleeps with it under his pillow and though I tried twice to
get it he woke up both times; I had a job of it to explain what I was
doing in his room and I didn’t dare risk it again. George was getting
wild with the waiting and worry, and took to prowling out at night in
spite of all I could say; I was getting pretty desperate myself when
all at once he’d gone, and that’s all I know.”
He straightened his narrow shoulders as though a load were lifted from
them and McCarty rose.
“When did you see him last?”
“Sunday night late when I went to take him some food. I handed it in
through the window and we talked for a minute, but I didn’t dare stay
longer. George was almost ready to give himself up, for his nerve was
gone and it was all I could do to persuade him to wait. We’d arranged
that I was to go to him every other night—I couldn’t risk it oftener—so
I didn’t miss him Monday. Last evening I got some rolls, a cold
pheasant and a half-bottle of burgundy and waited under the window as
long as I dared, but he didn’t come and finally I took down the loose
iron bars and let myself in. There wasn’t the least sign of a light
from his candle and he didn’t answer when I took a chance and called,
so I left the food and came away, but I was awake all night worrying
and towards morning I went back and got the stuff, which hadn’t been
touched. I was afraid the cook would miss the pheasant and it might be
found and traced; I never thought about the wine bottles!”
“So he might have got away any time from Sunday night on?”
“That’s right. I’m giving it to you straight, Mac, and I knew when I
saw you an hour ago that you’d be after me sooner or later, especially
when Miss Parsons—the old gentleman’s sister, Miss Priscilla—heard a
noise next door and told me to notify the watchman! I was afraid it was
all up with us last week when Inspector Druet came, but it was about
that valet from across the street who was poisoned and the inspector
didn’t even let on he recognized me.”
“Do you know the kid that Radley tried to get a key off of?” McCarty
ignored the observation.
“Only by sight. Red-haired, isn’t he, and lives next door to where that
valet worked? I see him now and then going by on the other side of the
street.”
“Have you seen him since he got that scare?”
“Oh, yes.” Porter smiled faintly in surprise. “Only a day or so ago.
George didn’t mean to scare him even,—he wouldn’t harm a fly!—but the
thought of those gates shutting him in as though he was back up the
river almost drove him mad!”
“You’ve been here since June, you say, Porter? Did you know that valet
who died?”
“No. I think I’ve seen him with the butler from the next house, but I
don’t want to know any of them. I was glad enough to stay here and do a
servant’s work myself till I could get my nerve back to go out and hunt
up my own kind of a position again where the bulls wouldn’t keep moving
me on.” He smiled again, but bitterly. “I guess there isn’t a chance
of that now with you on! I’m not sorry, though; I’d do it again for
George! He was innocent, the same as me, and look what was done to him!”
“If I find you’ve come clean I’ll keep my word, Porter,” McCarty
reiterated as he moved toward the door with Dennis in tow. “You may
not know it but I’m not on the Force any longer, nor connected with
headquarters except to mix in now and then for old times’ sake, and the
inspector didn’t recognize you the other day; he kind of knew your face
but he couldn’t place you. Riordan and me will just forget you laid
eyes on Radley unless it comes to a showdown, and then we’ll do what we
can for you.”
Cutting short the ex-convict’s broken thanks they took their departure,
to find Inspector Druet pacing impatiently back and forth before the
two closed houses opposite and Dennis’ comments on the interview just
ended were necessarily curtailed.
“Did you get any dope from Parsons?” the inspector asked.
“We didn’t even see him,” McCarty parried. “I was getting a line on the
servants; do you recall saying you’d seen one or two of them before?
Have you thought where?”
“Lord, no! I’ve had enough else on my mind! I had an idea one of the
housemaids and the page-boy who runs errands looked familiar, but there
wasn’t anything out of the ordinary about them.”
Dennis coughed and McCarty remarked hastily:
“I guess none of them knows what’s become of the man who has been
hiding next door, nor anything about the Goddard lad and that’s all
that matters right now, isn’t it, sir? Did you get the keys to these
houses?”
“Yes, and explained again to that fool of a watchman, Jennings. I had
time to look around pretty thoroughly outside them while I waited for
you and I couldn’t find a window or door that had been tampered with.
Let’s see what’s inside.”
One o’clock had come and gone and another hour passed before they
emerged from the second of the two houses after a fruitless search.
Dust and mold were all they had encountered in the huge, echoing,
partially dismantled rooms and the footprints they themselves left
behind them were the only recent signs of human presence.
Dennis blinked and drew in the fresh air deeply when they stood once
more in the sunlight.
“’Tis like coming out of a tomb!” he averred. “What’s it to be now,
inspector?”
“I’m going to Goddard and make him talk!” that official responded with
a certain grimness which was eloquent. “Until he comes across with his
suspicions as to who kidnapped the boy our hands are tied and every
hour counts. You two had better get a bite to eat and meet me at his
house later.”
Nothing loth, they accepted the hint. It was mid-afternoon before
they approached the east gate of the Mall again, to find Jennings
energetically engaged in driving away a swarthy vendor of toy balloons,
whose basket freighted with globes of bright, crude color bobbing
on slender sticks, resembled an uprooted garden patch of strange,
grotesque blooms.
“They’re a pest, those peddlers!” he declared as he admitted them.
“They’re not so bad, though, as the reporters that have been trying to
get in since you left! Say, did you know Horace Goddard is lost—?”
“Sure we know it!” McCarty interrupted. “Didn’t Trafford tell you so
himself yesterday afternoon?—Hurry, Denny!”
Leaving the watchman staring speechlessly, they quickened their pace
toward the Goddard house and were passing the entrance door of Orbit’s
when it was flung open and Ching Lee appeared.
For once the Chinaman’s wooden impassivity had deserted him. His
slant-eyes were rolling wildly, his yellow face distorted and his queue
streaked out behind him like a tail as he plunged down the steps and
seized McCarty with an iron grip of long-nailed, tapering fingers.
“The nurse-baby!” he babbled, his singsong voice high and shrill. “The
Flench maid of next-door baby! Come quick!”
“Lucette, do you mean? The Bellamy child’s nurse?” McCarty halted.
“Stop chattering like a monkey and tell me where is she, and what’s the
matter?”
“Lucette!” Ching Lee nodded vigorously and pointed in at the open
windows of the conservatory. “She is the next! She has breathed the
breath of death!”