THE ADVICE OF EX-ROUNDSMAN MCCARTY
“Shall we go on?” the inspector asked. It was nearly midnight and the
intervening time since that dreadful twilight hour in the laboratory
had been taken up with the formalities necessarily resultant upon
the final tragedy. He, McCarty and Dennis were alone in Orbit’s
sitting-room once more, for the two other officials had returned to
headquarters. As he spoke he took from his pocket the remaining pages
of the diary.
“That’s what Orbit wanted,” McCarty replied in a subdued tone. “He’s
left the soul of him, such as it was, in those papers and though ’tis
not a thing I’d like to let loose on the world, we know the worst of
him and we ought to know the rest.”
Dennis was still benumbed from the successive shocks of the day. He
said nothing but his eyes, as the inspector sorted the papers, followed
the movements of his hands in awed fascination.
“‘Wednesday night.’” The other settled himself to read. “‘For the third
time in a week I have taken life, but the reaction is not the same.
The mental exhilaration came but the thrill is gone, or rather it has
changed into another sensation I have never known before. Is it fear?
I honestly do not know. To-day I finished generating the gas for the
third time and then, sure that I had the formula by heart, I destroyed
it so that my knowledge should be absolute, mine alone. The longing
for a worthwhile experiment with it became an obsession and in actual
agony, torment, I seated myself at the organ to seek peace.
“‘But for the first time music brought no relief to my mind and I felt
stifling. I went to one of the windows to open it, and saw the French
maid, Lucette, from next door, with little Maude Bellamy. The child had
a new blue balloon and the thought came to me that if it were filled
with the poison gas and they were in a closed room—! I invited them
in to hear the organ and gave Maude some candy. As I had hoped she
forgot her toy and dropped it. I picked it up and excused myself for
a moment—only a moment, just long enough to hasten to my laboratory,
deflate the balloon and fill it again with the gas.
“‘When I returned to the conservatory Lucette and the baby were still
occupied with the candy. I handed the balloon to the child and then
seated myself once more before the organ. Handel’s “Largo” came to me
and how I played! The thought that at any instant that toy might burst
tingled in my brain and I found myself listening for it, tortured
with suspense because it did not come. I stole a glance at my guests
finally. They were seated side by side on the marble bench with the
towering cactus just behind them, its spikes reaching out over their
shoulders. If the balloon were to float toward one of them, if a breath
of air should waft it against one of those gigantic thorns, as the
child was holding it now, straight up into the air—!
“‘A louder, almost crescendo movement came just then in the music and
I touched the swell pedal with my foot, urging the keys beneath my
fingers. The shutters of the swell-box were forced open, the current
of air rushed out with the swift volume of sound. But rising even above
that glorious harmony there came a sudden, sharp report! I dared not
cease playing lest others in the house might have heard it, I did not
even dare to look around. Never has the “Largo” seemed so interminable,
but at last, just as I came to the end, I heard—the patter of Maude’s
feet! The baby had escaped me!
“‘I whirled around then and saw her playing about several feet away but
Lucette was lying back dead, the remnants of the balloon at her feet! I
rushed then to open the windows that the deadly vapors might not hang
upon the air to betray me and after the room was quite clear of them I
raised the alarm.
“‘McCarty and his associate were passing and in supreme confidence I
had them called in, glorifying in their mystification. But the balloon
disappeared! After the doctor and the medical examiner’s assistant
had gone, after the body had been removed and the baby sent home the
balloon was missing and somehow I feel, I know that McCarty has it!
That he suspects!
“‘Sir Philip has come but he is writing an important letter and I have
taken the time to jot this down. I am going out. I have McCarty’s
address. I must know!
“‘Later. McCarty did have the balloon. He and his associate went out
leaving the entrance door unlatched and one of the keys I took with me
fitted the door of his apartment. I found the remnant of the balloon
and brought it home, but that is of comparatively little importance
now. With the knowledge that he actually suspects, this strange, new
sensation came to me. Before, mine was the supreme power, I killed
at will, but now I must kill to save myself! From being master I am
become slave—but slave of what?—I shall have use once more for that
key!’”
“Sure, he did!” McCarty nodded. “I told you about the revolver waiting
for me on a pulley the next night, but I’d like to know how ever he got
hold of a police positive!”
“He tells that on the next page,” the inspector remarked. “Here it
is: ‘I have just laid a trap for him in his rooms and he will blunder
into it, but it has cost me the service revolver I picked up in one
of my solitary walks down on the East Side, when a young policeman
had been killed by gangsters and the body just removed. 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. Is it
because of what he represents? I am above the law and beyond its reach,
but is it because he stands for the law, for the cumulative will of
society, that my own will seems almost puny?’”
“Grand words!” McCarty grunted. “He was getting cold feet, that’s what!
He’d let his craze for murder run away with him, after all, and then
lost his nerve when he found he wasn’t putting it over!”
“I don’t know about that, Mac!” Dennis shook his head. “Any guy that
can plan such a finish for himself as he did don’t lack nerve, even
if he was such a cold-blooded, black-hearted devil! I’m thinking he
guessed right; it was the fear of the law, of every man’s hand being
against him, that made him put his back to the wall!”
“There’s just one more entry,” the inspector observed. “That one was
dated Thursday and this one is Friday, the twenty-fourth.”
“That’ll be yesterday, or rather last night. Let’s have it, inspector!”
“Well.—‘I have failed! This morning, alive and unharmed, McCarty came
to the Mall! 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. He gave me to understand, also, that he knew of
my trick with the chloroform, and he lied most unnecessarily about
minor details, with the full knowledge that I was aware of the truth.
To-night he appeared again with utterly trivial questions and it is all
too evident now that he is indeed studying me, making up his mind.
“‘I have a peculiar, indescribable feeling, almost a conviction, that
he will win out in this contest between us! If he does, I shall know
what to do; from this hour I shall be prepared. I am the last of my
line and for such a line there can be but one end,—annihilation! I am
possessed with an odd desire that he should read these pages and if he
wins I shall arrange to have them pass into his hands. It grows late
and I am tired. I wonder what to-morrow will bring?’—That is all, Mac.
That is the last word!”
“Well, he knows now!” McCarty drew a deep breath. “I’m glad that’s
over! It’s going to take me all my time to forget these last ten days,
I can tell you!”
“There’s more than one thing that’s not clear to me yet,” Dennis
remarked reflectively. “For instance, Mac, you said Hughes had been
took sick sudden. I heard nothing about it.”
“You did, Denny, the same as me, only you didn’t get it. All the other
servants told of how greedy he was starting in with his dinner, and how
all of a sudden he didn’t want any more, not even the things he was
most partial to; ’twas the Calabar bean first working in him, making
him sick. He got out into the air and walked like he’d been told, poor
devil, till he dropped in his tracks! But he knew the truth in the end!
Do you mind the horror I saw in his face and how hard he tried to speak
and tell me?”
“But what really made you suspect the truth, Mac?” the inspector asked.
“Was it the toy balloon?”
“Partly. Then again, when Ching Lee called us into the conservatory
with Lucette lying there dead, it seemed to me that Orbit was a trifle
too calm and collected, for all his fine-spoken words. He had his
story down too pat and he didn’t talk in short, jerky sentences, like
a man does when he’s almost beside himself; every word was said for
effect, as if he was acting a part. He forgot it too quick, too. Even
yesterday, when Sir Philip was talking about Lucette’s death, he was
more amused with the way the Britisher was trying to express himself,
than sorrowful over the murder, and the girl not two days cold!
“After I left him I went to a little joint to get a bite and whilst I
waited I was feeling pretty rotten because I couldn’t see my way clear
like in the old days. It came over me that I’d been getting rusty since
I was out of the game and I kind of wished I was back again, though I
remember well what a dog’s life it was in some ways. That is just the
phrase that come in my mind, ‘a dog’s life’—and then I thought of Max!
“He was forever hovering around that coal chute as if there was
something down there he wanted—then I remembered the coal getting put
in, and the lad missing right at that hour, and the whole thing broke
over me!”
“But you said you’d had the key to it all right in your hands from the
start!” Dennis objected.
“I had. It was this!” McCarty reached in his pocket and drew forth a
thin pamphlet bound in blue paper. “You’ve both kidded me about reading
up on this psychology stuff, to try to keep up with the boys down at
headquarters, but it was getting to me and I wanted everything I could
lay my hands on that seemed to have any bearing on it. The first night,
when we came here to let Orbit know his valet was dead, I found this
behind some other books downstairs in the library and I—borrowed it.
It turned out to be nothing at all but the history of a family, like
a kind of a sermon on heredity, and I saw it had been published in
London. I began to read it, wondering why Orbit would be interested in
it, and I never heard the like of such a crew! From sheep-stealing to
assassinating crowned heads, there was nothing they didn’t go in for,
and I’d say that not one in ten generations died in their beds! They
were a rare old family, the Jessups!”
“‘Jessups!’” the inspector repeated. “Why, they’re the family I spoke
about this morning, though I couldn’t recall the name!—the ones that
are contrasted with the grand record of the Parsons.”
“Sure, they are!” McCarty grinned. Then his face sobered. “I knew it
then, for I’d put in good time in the library on Thursday looking them
both up, but I didn’t mention it because Orbit himself is the last of
the Jessups.”
“Orbit—!”
“His grandmother on his mother’s side was the daughter of old Gideon
Jessups who was hung down South for highway robbery and murder; another
of his daughters died insane and two of his sons were convicts—but
there’s no use going into it all. You’ll mind you said the male members
of the line died out long ago, but it happens that no record was kept
of the female side of the house except this little book here. 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?”
“Once. It was two years ago but the experience, though trivial in
itself, was so curiously unpleasant that it has never passed completely
from my mind.” He paused, glancing toward the window through which
the sunshine was pouring and listening to the not-far-distant chiming
of church bells. “I came home very late from an evening meeting of a
charitable organization. It was raining in torrents, I had forgotten
my key to the gates and the watchman was standing in the shelter of a
doorway far down the block; I could not attract his attention and I was
drenched. All at once some one came up behind me, said: ‘Allow me, Mr.
Parsons!’ and opened the gate for me. I was surprised, for the voice
was unknown to me, but in the light of the street lamp I recognized
Henry Orbit.
“You are familiar with his appearance, you have heard his voice, felt
the magnetism of his personality and its dominance; did you feel also
that strange sense of antagonism that is almost physical, as though you
shrank from his touch, dreaded to breathe the same air?”
“I can’t say I have, Mr. Parsons,” the inspector replied thoughtfully.
“As though he were a reptile, something poisonous, you mean? No, until
yesterday I thought Orbit was a fine man. He had me buffaloed.”
“I mean as though he were the incarnation of all things evil!” Parsons’
voice was very low. “I did not gain that impression at first so
strongly, but I felt a curious repugnance toward him in spite of the
charm of his manner. He walked down the block with me, taking it for
granted that his company was welcome and I responded as cordially as I
could, for he had just rendered me a service.
“When we were opposite my own house I paused, thanking him once more
for his kindness, and started to take leave of him, when he astounded
and distressed me by asking me to come into his house for a little
while. He said that he was lonely, a saddened mood was upon him and he
would greatly appreciate it if I could spare him half an hour.
“I could not very well refuse, but it was with a reluctance wholly
out of proportion that I accepted his invitation. His house, although
comparatively small, was beautiful beyond any palaces I have seen
abroad and filled with priceless works of art but without any tangible
reason my aversion deepened to actual horror. A tall Chinese servant
had taken my hat and Henry Orbit led me to his library, pressing
refreshments on me and talking fluently and well on a variety of
topics. I endeavored to listen, to reply pleasantly, but all the time
my uncharitable, unreasoning loathing of him increased and I longed, as
I have never longed for anything else in this world, to be out in the
storm once more—anywhere, away from that house!
“I am sure this must sound like madness to you, but I cannot explain
it even to myself. I only know that my horror deepened as the moments
passed and at last I did an unpardonable thing! I rose in the middle
of a sentence from him and without a word of explanation or excuse I—I
fled the house! I cannot yet describe the motive which actuated me,
nor could I then have found any reason for it beyond an overmastering
impulse. I have never known such a feeling against a stranger before in
all my life!”
“You went out into the storm, Mr. Parsons—without your hat?” McCarty
asked suddenly. The inspector smothered a half audible exclamation and
Dennis stared.
“I really forget—but I must have done so, of course, for I distinctly
remember the cold rain beating down upon my bare head as I crossed the
street, and being most grateful for it.”
“Then you left your hat hanging up in Orbit’s house,” McCarty pursued.
“Can you recall what it was like, Mr. Parsons? Could it have been a
soft, dark felt?”
“Probably. I seldom wear any other.” Then Parsons started slightly.
“You don’t mean—! Could it really have been my hat, after all, that the
unfortunate valet was wearing when he fell dead!”
“It looks that way, since your initials were in it,” McCarty added:
“That was the final detail we had not cleared up.”
“But why, sir!” Dennis found his voice. “Why did you feel that way
towards Orbit? He took in everybody else in the world!”
“I’m thinking I’ve got the answer to that, though it may sound like
blarney saying it to your face, Mr. Parsons. We know who your family
are and their record. ’Tis one to be proud of!”
“It is one to be thankful for,” Mr. Parsons replied modestly. “But I
should like to hear your theory.”
“Well, we know who the Jessups were, too, and ’tis my opinion that the
good in you for which you’re not responsible, and the evil in him which
he couldn’t help, just sort of recognized each other at once and what
you call your instinct warned you to get away.”
“It may be.” Mr. Parsons eyed him wonderingly. “I think you have
grasped it, Mr. McCarty; the good and evil that men do live after them!
I know it seemed to me that satanic vapors were rising all about me in
that house and that I was in the presence of a monster! It never even
occurred to me to make excuses for my conduct or send for my hat!”
“There’s just one thing that I’m curious about, though it has nothing
to do with the murders. Have you missed this? It was with your papers
when they came into our hands.” He produced the silver leaf and
Parsons’ face lighted up.
“Ah, that is the bookmark I slipped between the pages of my
encyclopædia! I told you that a leaf was torn from it! I am glad,
indeed, to regain this, for it is a souvenir from a dear friend, an
English army officer then stationed in South Africa—”
“It comes from Table Mountain, don’t it, off of a silver tree?” McCarty
smiled also as he rose. “Mr. Parsons, we’ll be keeping you no longer.
The trouble’s been laid for all time here in the Mall, I’m thinking,
and there’ll be no more evil come out of that house over the way.”
“And you three have brought peace to us again in a miraculous manner!”
Mr. Parsons held out his hand. “Without you and the providence which
led you to the truth I shudder to think what further horrors might have
been visited upon us!”
“I don’t know about providence!” McCarty’s eyes twinkled. “I’m no hand
at giving advice as a general thing but if I was to offer a word of it
to you, sir, ’twould be this:—in future, be mighty careful where you
hang your hat!”
THE END
Transcriber’s Notes
pg 11 Changed: What it it, Mac?
to: What is it, Mac?
pg 119 Changed: have nerve enought to run away
to: have nerve enough to run away
pg 125 Changed: poisoning children and servants, premiscuous-like
to: poisoning children and servants, promiscuous-like
pg 184 Changed: Dennis betrayed acute symptons of alarm.
to: Dennis betrayed acute symptoms of alarm.
pg 191 Changed: and now he was in the bathroon
to: and now he was in the bathroom
pg 196 Changed: poison gas! Flourine
to: poison gas! Fluorine
pg 271 Changed: I don’t now!
to: I don’t know!
pg 287 Changed: sprinkled enough choloroform on it
to: sprinkled enough chloroform on it