THE BLACK PYRE
“Good God!” Orbit exclaimed in horrified accents. “You don’t mean that
the little fellow tumbled down the chute! That he was buried beneath
the coal!—Goddard, my old friend, what can I say to you! Surely this is
only a vague supposition, a last resort! It would be too dreadful, too
pitiful!”
Goddard’s face worked but he was unable to reply and Orbit turned to
the men who, with baskets and shovels, were filing around the rear of
the house.
“I’ll add a thousand to Mr. Goddard’s! Work as you never did
before!—Inspector, can such a fearful thing have occurred? It is
incredible! How could the little chap have fallen down to the cellar
without being seen? I suppose any outcry he might have made would have
been drowned by the noise of the coal itself but—oh, it is too utterly
horrible!”
His shocked, broken tones trailed away into silence and then from below
there ascended through the open chute the ring of shovels and the
clatter of coal falling rhythmically into the baskets. A tortured groan
was forced from Goddard’s lips. Max crouched with his forepaws hanging
over the edge of the aperture and his nose low between them, the hair
rising in a ridge along his back and a soft, anxious whine pulsing from
his throat.
Dennis turned away with a shiver, and saw that Gardner Sloane had
joined his son on the fringe of the group. Snape and the maids of Mrs.
Bellamy’s staff were gathered in a little knot just behind, with the
Parsons’ chauffeur, Danny Sayre the page boy, and the aged butler of
the Sloanes, while Benjamin Parsons himself had emerged upon the steps
of his home and the lower windows of the Goddard house were thronged
with the servants. From a window just above Orbit’s conservatory the
staring face of little Fu Moy looked down in shrinking wonder.
The rhythmic, dreadful scrape and rumble from beneath their feet went
on as though it would never end. 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.”
“Look at the back of him! It makes my own hair lift the hat from my
head to see it!” Dennis shivered again. “Will they never have done with
the shoveling? I could scream like a woman!”
Some of the Bellamy servants had indeed begun to sob hysterically but
they quieted at a look from McCarty. Parsons was slowly crossing the
street and his chauffeur stepped aside for him. Dennis saw that several
older men from the detective bureau were circulating unobtrusively
among the different groups and two of the officials who had come in the
car with the inspector approached him now. He presented them to Orbit
and the interrupted consultation was resumed now between the four.
Dennis surreptitiously took out his watch, an ancient affair of the
turnip variety. The men had been at work for nearly forty minutes; he
recalled the blowing of the one o’clock whistles when Martin came to
relieve him at the east gate. In a little while, now, they would know
the worst! If only the dog would stop whining!
He looked at Trafford and the young man met his glance with a stare of
agonized inquiry but the man he was supporting reeled and he braced
himself for a firmer hold. Then Benjamin Parsons stepped quietly to
Goddard’s other side.
“Lean on me, my friend.” He spoke in the gentlest of accents. “I am old
but strong, an elder brother here to lend a hand. We will wait, and
pray.”
Goddard’s dull eyes filmed and he rested his hand in the arm offered,
saying no word. A lump rose in Dennis’ throat.
“Mac, for the love of God, will they finish this? ’Tis more than mortal
can bear! I’ve dug at a fallen wall with the bare hands of me and the
best lads of my company buried under it, but ’twas not as bad as this!
Orbit’s all in, and no wonder!”
Henry Orbit had turned and was gazing at the coal chute in horrified
fascination, his highly-bred face quivering and eyes glowing with an
awful intensity. As though drawn toward it against his will he advanced
a step or two and the officials also moved forward. Then he seemed for
the first time to behold McCarty.
“Had you the least suspicion of this when you came to me an hour or so
ago?” he asked, his voice a mere toneless breath. “Why did you not tell
me? I have three strong men in my house and I myself would have led
them! Is this your doing?”
“The inspector brought them, Mr. Orbit.” McCarty replied. “I told you
he was coming in a little while but he don’t always tell me what he’s
got planned.”
“He should at least have notified me!” Orbit ran his hand through his
dark, graying hair. “I could have started the work.—But this is sheer
madness! The child cannot have met such a horrible death!”
“We’ll know soon enough.” McCarty’s tone held a note of sternness. “In
a minute or two more—!”
As though his words were a signal, the clank and rattling patter from
below ceased abruptly and a moment of electrified stillness ensued.
Then it was broken by a rising murmur of hoarse voices which were
in turn drowned by the sustained hail of coal being flung in every
direction.
Orbit uttered a stifled exclamation and then stood immovable as a
second groan forced its way from Goddard. One of the Bellamy maids
shrieked aloud. Then the noise from the cellar ceased once more and the
dog rose slowly lifting his nose into the air. A low, wailing cry broke
from him. At that moment a grimy head and shoulders rose in the opening
of the coal chute and a hoarse, shuddering voice addressed McCarty.
“We’ve—found it, sir!”
The various groups merged and swept toward the aperture then shrank
back again in horror. A hubbub of subdued cries came from among them
but Eustace Goddard did not hear. His head had fallen forward, his
knees sagged and doubled and he slumped, insensible, between the two
who supported him. Instantly two plainclothes men were beside them and
the unconscious man was carried into his house.
It was significant that neither McCarty, the inspector, nor the two
officials had moved to assist him. Now as Orbit, after his first
horrified recoil from the brusque announcement, turned and hurried into
the house they followed, with Dennis bringing up the rear.
Aware of his doubtful status in the eyes of the strange officials he
remained discreetly in the background and when he caught up to the
little group they were standing in the rear hall before the open door
leading to the cellar steps, with Orbit at their head and Ching Lee,
André and Jean by the pantry.
Orbit was staring down into the brazen, orange glow of the electric
lights in the cellar, listening to the shuffle of feet and the murmur
of rough voices lowered in pity. Then there came a slow tread and two
of the shovelers appeared bearing between them something slender and
pathetically small wrapped in a heavy dark cloth.
As they ascended the stairs the servants and even the officials drew
back but Orbit stood his ground with no sound or movement. Only his
eyes followed the men with their burden as they mounted, passing him so
closely that he could have reached out and touched them. Then he turned
and passed upstairs to his sitting-room, followed by his uninvited
guests.
The murmur outside rose to a swelling chorus of cries and then was
abruptly shut out by the closing of the door. Orbit turned with both
hands raised to his head and a shuddering groan came from his shaking
lips.
“This is horrible!” he gasped. “Gentlemen, I shall ask you for an
explanation, but not at this moment—I am too inexpressibly shocked—”
“The explaining will have to be done now, Orbit!” McCarty, after a
glance at his superior, stepped forward. “’Twill not come from us,
either!”
“What do you mean?” Orbit demanded. “Surely you are not mad enough to
insinuate that I knew that the child was lying there? It is monstrous!
Do you think I would not have let you know?”
He turned to the inspector.
“Inspector, when did you learn what had become of the poor little
fellow?”
“I didn’t; it was McCarty,” the inspector admitted frankly. “He told
me this morning that he might have news for me by noon but until he
telephoned ordering the squad of men with shovels I hadn’t an inkling.”
“Then you—?” Orbit turned again to McCarty.
“’Twas the dog first put it in my head by hovering all the time about
that coal chute,” the latter responded. There was a new note in his
voice as he went on. “It struck me too, as kind of funny you’d be
having that coal put in an hour before your party, dirtying the place
all up; even if it had been ordered you could have sent it away again
for you’d not be lighting up your furnace for weeks yet. I found then
that you never ordered it till half an hour before it got here and
you’d ’phoned three times, at that, to hurry it up, yet you told me
this morning that it had been arranged four days ago. About twenty
minutes before you sent for it first you went down to the kitchen
and got a glass of milk from André. Did you drink it yourself, Henry
Orbit?”
“I did not!” Orbit’s eyes seemed burning into his face. “It was for
Vite, the monkey!”
“But Vite was locked up at the top of the house to be out of the way of
the party and Ching Lee had the only key; Fu Moy told me so.”
“Fu Moy is only a child and does not understand English well; Vite was
not locked up until just before my guests arrived. What are you trying
to insinuate?”
“Nothing. I’m telling you what I know. Fu Moy understands a lot more
than you think, Orbit! What time did Horace Goddard come over to see
you Tuesday afternoon? If that glass of milk was for the monkey, why
didn’t you ring for it instead of going yourself to the kitchen; was it
because you wanted nobody to know the lad was here? What did you put in
that milk, Orbit, to make Horace unconscious or kill him, the way you
poisoned Hughes? I know from André how you got all the servants out of
the kitchen and pantries after, so you could get the lad’s body down to
the cellar without being seen but _why_ did you do it? What reason had
you for bringing such a horrible death on the child who’d done you no
harm? What reason did you have for murdering the valet who’d looked out
for your comfort for more than twenty years? Why did you put poison gas
made from the formula you bought from Hinton Sherard into the Bellamy
baby’s toy balloon to kill both her and her nurse? How did you fix
it to burst when it did and what chance had you to pump the gas into
it? You’re far from crazy, Orbit! Why did you take the lives of these
people you had no grudge against, no reason for wanting out of the way?
Was it because of the blood that’s in you from generations back urging
you on? Answer me that, Henry Orbit!”
“I shall answer nothing—to you.” Orbit’s dark eyes blazed but his voice
was dangerously calm. “You admit that I am not insane; I cannot say as
much for you in the face of these monstrous accusations!—Inspector,
if you are in authority at this highly irregular proceeding, am I to
understand that I am formally charged with this atrocious series of
crimes? Am I to consider myself under arrest?”
Inspector Druet glanced uncertainly at McCarty and the latter nodded,
a world of mingled demand and entreaty in the slight gesture. The
inspector hesitated for a moment and then drew a deep breath.
“You are!” he replied. “I arrest you, Henry Orbit, for the murders of
Alfred Hughes, Horace Goddard and Lucette Guerin!”
The two other officials after a startled glance between them advanced
one on each side of Orbit, but he shrugged and took a step forward.
“That being the case, I shall not say another word. Now you may play
on this ridiculous farce for the moment. In the meantime, may I ask
your indulgence for a few minutes? I desire merely to seat myself at
that desk over there and write a short note to the one person in the
world most interested, besides myself, in this extraordinary situation.
I shall seal and address the envelope and leave it upon the desk, for
you to deliver at your discretion. Lock the drawers of the desk if you
will; I can assure you, however, that I have no intention of taking any
weapon from them to defend myself or attempt assault upon you!”
The contempt in his tone was galling and even the inspector winced
beneath it, so compelling and dominant was the personality of the man
before him. He nodded.
“Write your note, Mr. Orbit, only make it short. If the news of this
gets out before we can take you downtown all the reserves in the city
couldn’t protect you!”
Dennis turned in stupefied amazement to McCarty, but the latter was
watching Orbit who had seated himself at the desk. He wrote, not
hurriedly but without hesitation; a faintly amused smile curved his
mobile lips, and when he had finished he sealed the envelope with a
steady hand, wrote a name and a single line beneath it, propped it
against the inkwell and rose.
“Now, gentlemen, I am at your disposal,” he said. “I am ready to
accompany you—_if you can find me_!”
The last words were uttered in a tone of ringing challenge and his hand
slipped beneath the edge of the desk. On the instant, before the five
men grouped before him could move or draw a breath the room was filled
with rolling billows of black, foul smoke which belched forth in clouds
from around the wainscoting of the wall as from the mouth of a volcano,
obliterating everything about them.
Startled, warning exclamations came from the two officials and a cry
from the inspector:
“To the windows! 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 slammed and a mocking chuckle of laughter
seemed to drift back to them.
“He’s gone!” One of the officials gasped, as he found a window at last
and flung it open.
“He won’t go far!” the inspector retorted grimly. “Find all the windows
and doors and let’s get a draught through! I want that letter he wrote!”
In the rush of fresh air which came swirling in, the room rapidly
cleared and they saw that it was indeed empty of any presence save
their own but the white square of the envelope tilted against the
inkwell was plainly discernible and the inspector seized upon it.
Choking, strangling, with smarting, streaming eyes, he peered closely
at the inscription and then threw up his head.
“Great guns! It’s addressed to McCarty!”