CHAPTER IIITHE NOSE OF DENNIS RIORDAN
Therewas a second pause and then the inspector asked: “Did he give you any excuse for wanting an evening out to-night?”
“No, none. It was not unusual and I thought nothing of it.” Orbit’s hands clenched slightly. “I cannot believe that poor Hughes is really gone! Perhaps Ching Lee made a mistake, perhaps some one else had come into possession of Hughes’ key-ring. Will you describe him to me, please, and tell me the suspicious circumstances you mentioned?”
“You describe the fellow, Mac; you examined him and his clothes more closely than I did.” There was a double significance in the inspector’s tone and he added: “Special Deputy McCarty happened to be there when this man died.”
Orbit nodded and fixed his eyes expectantly on McCarty as the latter briefly complied with the inspector’s request, without, however, mentioning the letters in the hat. When he had finished, Orbit exclaimed:
“It is he, beyond a doubt! The raincoat and brown sack suit were my own, given to him when I tired of them myself, and he must have copied my cat’s-eye pin and links, although I never saw them. How did he die?”
“Well, sir, he was hurrying along in the rain and all of a sudden he dropped.” McCarty chose his words carefully.“When me and a friend of mine got to him he was breathing his last and the end came as I lifted his head to my knee.... How did he happen to be wearing a hat with the letters ‘B. P.’ in it, Mr. Orbit? Who is B. P.?”
Orbit frowned again thoughtfully.
“I cannot at the moment recall any one with those initials but naturally I have no knowledge of his friends or associates,” he replied at last. “Surely that is immaterial, however. What was suspicious about the poor fellow’s death? He was an irreproachable servant but when his time was his own his habits were irregular and I should not have been surprised to learn that his heart had failed or he had suffered a stroke.”
“Had he been drinking the last time you saw him; this evening, I think you said?” McCarty asked.
“Certainly not! I have never seen him under the influence of alcohol or he would not have remained an hour in my service. He was fully aware of this, and although I am convinced that he occasionally drank to excess he was careful never to let me see him in such a condition. Had he been drinking when you went to his assistance?”
McCarty ignored the question.
“You don’t ask where that was, I notice. Have you any notion where he could have been going to-night?”
“Not the slightest,” Orbit shrugged. “I have told you that I am quite ignorant of his private affairs and have had no interest in them.”
“Still, he’d been your personal servant for a matter of twenty-odd years,” McCarty insisted. “Wouldn’t you want to know what he was up to if you learned he’d left your house to go down along the waterfront, in one of the toughest districts in the city?”
Orbit stared in genuine amazement.
“‘The waterfront?’” he repeated. “I cannot imagine what he could have been doing in such a district as you describe! Even in his dissipations Hughes was never attracted by anything sordid, to my knowledge, but aped even the vices of men of a higher station than he.”
“I was coming to that,” McCarty remarked. “You spoke awhile back of trouble he’d got into more than once; what sort of trouble?”
“Gambling debts and indiscreet affairs with women; upper servants like himself or the wives of upper servants. When monetary settlements were in order he came to me for an advance on his salary and that is how I learned of his difficulties.” Orbit paused and then added reflectively: “He has been in none of late, however; at least, none which required assistance from me.”
“About what hour to-night was the last time you saw him alive?”
“At a little before seven, when he laid out these clothes for me.” Orbit motioned to his attire. “Some guests were dining with me—three gentlemen, all near neighbors—and I was preoccupied but Hughes’ appearance and manner must have been quite as usual or I would have noted a change. My guests are still here.”
He paused significantly and McCarty replied directly to the hint.
“We’re sorry to keep you from them but we’ve got to know what your man was doing down in that neighborhood. You don’t know his own friends maybe, but you might know which of the servants employed by your neighbors he’s been most friendly with, and if you don’t maybe your neighbors themselves would know.”
“Really, is it as important as that?” There was still no trace of annoyance in Orbit’s voice or manner but merelya dignified protest. “You can understand that any notoriety in connection with the death of my unfortunate valet would be highly distasteful to me, and to have my friends subjected to it would be doubly so. My guests this evening are Mr. Gardner Sloane and his son, Mr. Brinsley Sloane, Second, who live across the street at Number Five, and Mr. Eustace Goddard, from Number Two, the corner house next door to me here. I have no idea whether or not Hughes was even acquainted with any of the servants in either the Sloane or Goddard households, but I will inquire.”
He rose and left the room, and the inspector turned to McCarty.
“Is all this necessary, Mac? I know I said this looked big but that was when I thought the man dead down there near the river was the millionaire Parsons. If it’s just a dissipated valet we can let it slide, at least unless the autopsy discloses foul play of some sort.”
“When you asked me if I’d seen more in this than you, inspector, I told you I’d seen the corpse,” McCarty reminded him quietly. “Now you’re asking me if it’s necessary to find out even before the autopsy who this fellow Hughes was friendly with and I’ll say it won’t do any harm, because I saw him before he was a corpse! Heart disease he may have died of, or apoplexy, but it may be a good thing for us to know what brought it on him so sudden to-night, even if he was just a valet!”
There was no mistaking the earnestness in his tones and the inspector started to speak, but once more he was forestalled by the opening of the door, and Orbit ushered in three men. The first was slightly younger than his host, stout and bald except for a fringe of sandy hair. His mouth beneath the small, reddish mustache had ahumorous quirk at the corners which appeared to be habitual, his blue eyes twinkled and he regarded the police official and his two deputies with a frank and not unfriendly curiosity.
The second man was approximately the same age but his smooth-shaven face was strikingly handsome and his youthfully cut dinner coat was worn with a jauntiness which proclaimed the middle-aged gallant.
The last of Mr. Orbit’s guests to enter was a tall, thin man of about thirty, whose inordinately serious expression was enhanced by the shell-rimmed glasses which bestrode the bridge of his nose. His chin was cleft, like that of the man who had immediately preceded him and there was an unmistakable family resemblance between them. Even before the introduction McCarty placed him as Brinsley Sloane, Second, the older man as his father, Gardner Sloane, and the first to enter, therefore, as the next-door neighbor, Eustace Goddard.
It was Goddard who spoke first.
“Too bad about poor Hughes, inspector. Very hard on Mr. Orbit, I must say. I’ve seen Hughes about the house here for years, of course, but I don’t think I’ve exchanged half a dozen words with him in my life and I’m quite sure none of the servants in my household know anything more about him than I do.”
“Why, Mr. Goddard?” asked the inspector.
“Well, for one thing, they’re all elderly and staid—been with my family for years. Mr. Orbit happened to mention the fact just now that Hughes was given to dissipation occasionally. He wouldn’t have found anything in common with our staff, but you are welcome to question them to-morrow as much as you please.”
“Thank you.” The inspector turned to the elder of thetwo remaining guests. “Mr. Sloane, have you happened to notice any acquaintanceship between Mr. Orbit’s valet and your servants?”
There was a slight touch of sarcasm in his voice and the flush which mounted to Goddard’s scant red hair showed that the shot had gone home. Gardner Sloane responded with a hearty assumption of cordiality:
“Can’t say that I have, inspector. We are a household of men, for my son and I are alone with my father, who is very old and an invalid. His male nurse, a Swede who speaks little English, and John Platt the butler who is nearly seventy, are the only servants in our employ with whom there is any likelihood that Hughes might have come in contact. However, I have observed him on several occasions in the company of a butler in service in another house on this block and although I find it very distasteful to direct even the most casual of official inquiries to an establishment presided over by an unprotected lady—”
“Father!” the young man interrupted in precise, shocked tones. “I am astonished—!”
“You usually are, Brin,” interrupted the elder in his turn. “It is my duty to tell these officers what I have seen. The only servant here in the Mall I have ever noticed in Hughes’ company is Snape, Mrs. Bellamy’s butler; if any of them knows anything about the fellow’s private affairs, it should be he.”
“Which is Mrs. Bellamy’s house?” the inspector inquired.
“Number Six, next door to this on the east,” the younger Sloane replied hastily. “I am sure, however, that my father must be mistaken, and if you annoy Mrs. Bellamy at such an hour as this merely for below-stairsgossip, you will distress her greatly. Indeed, why should any of us be interrogated? The man Hughes dropped dead in the street, I understand; it means nothing to any one except Mr. Orbit, who has lost an efficient servant!”
Again the inspector sent a hurried glance at McCarty, who ignored the indignant young man and turned to the master of the house.
“Mr. Orbit, have you any notion what relations Hughes had?”
“None, in this country. He was the son of a blacksmith in Cornwall who went to London when a lad and took service as a bootboy. From this he rose to the position of valet and when he came to me he was, as Mr. Sloane has observed, a most efficient one.”
“Then,” McCarty spoke musingly, as though to himself, “there’ll be no one to notify about the funeral arrangements.”
“I shall assume all responsibility, of course,” Orbit announced. “I will arrange with an undertaking establishment to send for the body at once. It has been removed to the morgue?”
McCarty nodded.
“To-morrow’ll do, sir; there’ll have to be some formalities, permits and such. The inspector will let you know.”
McCarty and his companions had remained standing since the re-entrance of Orbit with his guests and now he signaled with lifted eyebrows to his former superior and nodded almost imperceptibly toward the door. Inspector Druet nodded in response and turned to the four men collectively.
“We won’t trouble you any further, and if we can obtain the information we want elsewhere it will notbe necessary to question the servants of any one living here in the Mall. Goodnight.”
The Chinese butler was waiting to show them out but McCarty lingered for a moment after the others had preceded him.
“You’re the butler here?”
The other bowed in silent affirmation and McCarty went on:
“How many other servants are employed here and what are their names?”
“André the chef, Jean the houseman and little Fu Moy the coffee boy. That is all except Hughes.” The reply came without a pause in the falsetto singsong monotone.
“Hughes is dead,” McCarty said abruptly.
Again the Chinese bowed and when he raised his head his expression had not changed an iota.
After vainly waiting for some remark in response, McCarty asked:
“You were all in to-night? Did any one leave this house since afternoon except Hughes?”
“No one.”
There was a suggestion of finality in the oddly chanting tones now and the discomfited questioner shrugged and rejoined the inspector and Dennis who were waiting on the sidewalk before the many-turreted house next door. All the lights had been extinguished except one on the top floor which gleamed down upon them like a single wakeful eye.
“What were you getting out of that Chink?” Dennis demanded as they started toward the eastern gate where the watchman waited.
“Not a living thing that I wanted except a list of the other servants of the household and word that none ofthem but Hughes had left the doors this night,” McCarty responded disgustedly. “What he got out of me was my goat! I sprung it on him quick that Hughes had croaked and he never turned a hair nor uttered a word but just waited politely for me to go along about my business!”
“It is conceivable that Orbit told him when he went to bring his guests,” the inspector observed dryly.
“Did he strike you as being the sort that would stop then to talk to one of the servants? He didn’t me,” McCarty averred. “He may tell this Ching Lee, as he called him, after his three neighbors go, but it’ll be only so that he can break the news to the others before the morning papers come out. Twenty-two years this Hughes has been with him and Orbit knew no more about his affairs than the day he hired him! ’Tis unnatural that never once in all that time did they talk together as man to man and yet I don’t think Orbit lied, at that. Look at the way he treated us! He was polite and friendly enough and never once could you have laid your finger on a word or a look from him that was haughty or arrogant like the most of them act over here when the police get snooping around, and yet didn’t you kind of feel as though you were talking to a Royal Duke at the least? It’s the grand manner of him, that he don’t even know he’s got.”
“A fine gentleman, Mr. Orbit,” Dennis agreed. “We’ve found out nothing, though, about what Hughes was doing down in Mike Taggart’s precinct nor why he ran like that till he dropped, and likely we’ll not find it here between these two gates.”
“There’s something more than that on your mind, Mac!” the inspector declared shrewdly. “You’d never have insisted on questioning Orbit’s friends if you hadn’t some idea of what caused Hughes’ seizure, and that it ledback here! What did you see before he died that you’re keeping to yourself?”
“Tell you to-morrow, inspector, if you’ll drop in when you’ve nothing better to do, or ’phone Denny and me the word to come downtown to you,” replied McCarty hurriedly in a lowered tone for they had almost reached the gate and the watchman was advancing to meet them. “Denny’s off duty and I’m taking him home with me the night, though I misdoubt he’ll keep me up till dawn with his wild theories as to what desperate crime took Hughes down to the waterfront! Thanks be, the rain has stopped and he’ll not be wanting to ride home in state!”
But it was McCarty himself who hailed a prowling taxi when they had taken leave of the inspector and discreetly rounded a corner, and he had no time on the homeward way to glance at the meter, being engaged in mollifying his outraged companion.
“Will you never learn, you simpleton, when I’m talking about you for the benefit of somebody else?” he demanded in exasperation, when Dennis with bitter resentment had spurned his hospitality. “’Twas to put off the inspector I dropped that hint about being wishful for my sleep or he would have trailed along with us to find out what I’d got up my sleeve, and well you know ’tis nothing but the expression on a dying man’s face and the way he tried to speak but couldn’t! He’ll have the laugh on the both of us to-morrow if the medical examiner says ’twas ‘natural causes,’ and he’ll forget all about this night’s doings, but I won’t; I’m going to find out why Hughes ran the breath from his body and what it was he tried so hard to say.”
“Some day,” Dennis began darkly, but with a tell-tale softening in his tones, “some day you’ll broadcast through me once too often and this radio station will shut down onyou! The inspector was right, though; I can see that now. Whatever made Hughes throw that fit, you think it happened back in that society fire line or you’d not have listened to the fat, bald little man, nor yet the old he-gossip and his son. I misdoubt but some night we’ll be putting a scaling ladder against that iron fence and chloroforming the watchman, so you can put that butler next door through the third degree!”
Back in McCarty’s rooms once more Dennis dried his rain-soaked boots comfortably before the little coal fire in the grate and watched with a quizzical light in his eyes while his host stowed his newly acquired library carefully away in a closet and then proceeded to clear out the accumulated litter of several days’ bachelor housekeeping, but he said no word until the task was accomplished. Then he observed:
“When you’re working on a case, Mac, you use your head, and the eyes and ears of you, but to-night another of your senses was asleep at the switch. Not that it had anything to do with Hughes, of course, but no more did anything else we learned except his name! You overlooked one little bet.”
“Oh, I did, did I!” McCarty retorted, stung but wary. “And what sense of mine was it that was not working?”
“Smell.” The reply was succinct. “Unless you’re holding out on me, your nose was not on the job.”
McCarty stared.
“What was there to smell?” he demanded. “Since when is your nose keener than mine?”
“’Tis keen for one thing it’s been trained to for many a year, and that’s fire. Mac, there’s been a fire in Orbit’s house, and not more than a few hours before we got there!”
“A fire, is it!” McCarty snorted. “There’d likely been one in the kitchen, since dinner was cooked there, and you saw the log burning on the hearth in the library—!”
“Stoves and hearths don’t burn wool and silk and carpets and varnished wood, my lad!” Dennis laid his pipe on the mantel and rose. “It could only have been a small bit of a fire, for the smoke of it had cleared away entirely, but the smell hadn’t; there was enough of that hanging in the air for me to get the whiff, anyway, even though nobody else could. I’ve not the gift to explain it right, but there’s a different smell to everything that’s inflammable, if you’ve the nose for it, and it was house furnishings had been burned this night!”