CHAPTER XIXDENNIS SUPPLIES A SIMILE
OnSaturday morning, as McCarty opened his door to proceed to breakfast he caromed violently with Dennis at the head of the stairs.
“It’s a wonder you wouldn’t look where you’re going!” the latter observed. “I’ve come straight off duty without a bite or a shave to find out what’s new, but not to be thrown downstairs!”
“Come on, let’s eat, then,” invited McCarty. “You can get a shave after and join me back here, for I’ve had a ’phone from the inspector and he’ll be around soon; he’s got something to tell us.”
Their meal concluded, Dennis betook himself to his favorite barber and McCarty returned to his rooms with the usual collection of newspapers under his arm. Before the half-open door of the antique shop he paused. From an inner room at the rear came the deep strains of a ’cello in a simple, oddly insistent little tune, unsuited to the strains of a stringed instrument, until they swelled into a sweeping arpeggio accompaniment. Girard must have finished setting his stock in order, to be idling away the early morning hour with his everlasting fiddle!
Nevertheless McCarty listened for a moment longer and then, pushing open the door, he went in. The ’cello was silenced and the little old Frenchman’s withered face peered out inquiringly from between the curtains.
“Ah, it is you, my friend!” He came forward in welcome. “You have heard the ’cello? She is in a bad humor because I play upon her German music once more, but it is of a quaintness and charm, that witch’s song from ‘Hansel und Gretel’; I go every year to hear it.”
“Is that what you were playing?” McCarty asked politely. “Would it be opera, now? I’m not up in them, at all.”
“It is from a fairy story for the children,” Monsieur Girard explained. “The witch builds a castle of gingerbread in the woods to attract the little ones and when they touch it they are destroyed.—But tell me! You are again of the police, is it not so? You have found the murderer of my countrywoman?”
“Not yet, Girard. I just stopped by to pass the time of day, and ask you if you should see that red-headed limb of Satan, Jimmie Ballard, hanging around, tell him I’ve left town; he’s too free with his pen entirely!” McCarty returned with some heat. Then his manner changed. “You didn’t happen to notice a man who came to see me night before last, just around dark? I missed him by only a few minutes.”
“But no, my friend.” Girard shook his head. “It rains with such fury that one cannot see before the door and I close the shop while yet it is light.—You do not come in a long time to spend an evening with the old man!”
His tone was wistful and McCarty responded heartily:
“Sure I’ll come, just as soon as this case is over! Don’t forget about Jimmie!”
Leaving the shop he mounted the stairs to his apartment above, and settled himself to read the papers; but they held little of interest, and, as the inspector still delayed in coming, he got out his books once more and wasdeeply engrossed when Dennis reappeared, freshly shaven and well-brushed, with a new collar an inch too small embracing his gaunt neck.
“What are you dolled up for?” his host demanded. “That collar’s so tight the eyes are bulging out of your head!”
“Leave be!” retorted Dennis with dignity. “A man has a right to spruce up of a Saturday! So you’re at them books again! Where’s the inspector?”
“That’s his ring now.” McCarty rose. “Denny, mind you listen to what I tell him about Parsons, but don’t add anything to it. What he don’t know will save a waste of time.”
“What are you—?” Dennis began, but there was no opportunity for him to finish his query; the inspector had taken the stairs two steps at a time and entered without ceremony.
“Sorry I’m late, Mac.—Hello, Riordan, on the job with us again? The medical examiner has had news from Washington.”
“Washington?—Sit down, sir!—About that poison gas, you mean?” McCarty pushed forward the big armchair. “Did they find out what it’s made of?”
“As much as will ever be known.” The inspector’s face was very grave. “I don’t know whether you recall reading about it or not after all this time, but during the last months of the war a report went out from the Capital that a new poison gas had been invented, deadlier than anything yet tried. The formula was a secret one, the property of the government. The papers were full of it and preparations were being made to supply our troops with it when the armistice came. Nobody except the officials in charge of that department have thought much aboutit since until our inquiries of the last day or two. Last night Hinton Sherard, the man responsible for the safety of that folio of secret documents, blew his brains out; the formula for the poison gas had disappeared.”
“And ’tis that the murderer used?” Dennis stared. “Did he steal it from the department?”
“Theft would have been impossible, except for some one on the inside but the despatches in code from Washington indicate that Sherard has been deeply involved in some foreign financial scandal. He managed to extricate himself about two months ago by the payment of a large sum; the affair only reached the ears of the departmental heads when he killed himself publicly in the main dining-room of the Weyland Hotel and as he never had as much money as he is reputed to have paid out there’s only one construction to be put on it. He must have sold the formula for that gas.”
“It must have taken a mint of money to buy it,” McCarty observed thoughtfully. “Any of them that live on the Mall could have afforded it, I suppose, providing they wanted it bad enough but—two months ago! The murderer sure planned a good ways ahead! Are you certain there’s no mistake about it? If nobody knows the formula—?”
“The chemist who invented it is still living and three other men in official Washington are familiar with its component parts. They all agree that the effect of the gas inhaled by Lucette, as shown by the autopsy, was identical with what would have been produced by the action of this unnamed gas, and nothing else known to chemistry would have had just that result.—Try one of these instead, Mac; old Mr. Parsons gave them to me and though he doesn’t smoke himself they ought to be good.” He had drawna handful of fragrant cigars from his pocket as McCarty proffered the box from the mantel. “The important thing to us about this affair is that Washington is all excited and determined to get our man and the formula before it passes out of his hands, perhaps into those of some foreign power, do you see?”
“In case there’s another war?”
“Exactly. They’re sending on some picked men from the Secret Service to investigate and you know what that will mean; the case will be practically taken out of our hands.”
“To the everlasting shame of the Force, and through us!” McCarty sprang to his feet and paced rapidly back and forth. “It’s hell, ain’t it, inspector? We’ve done all that mortal could and been blocked at every turn, like Sir Philip in the chess game with Orbit last night; ’twould be the devil and all if we fall down on it now!”
“You’ll not!” Dennis sat up suddenly, the ashes from his pipe falling upon the book laid open across his knee. “Don’t mind him, sir! He’s got something up his sleeve, he as good as told me so yesterday afternoon!”
“Denny!” McCarty paused, grimacing horribly at the base informer. “Don’t you listen to him, inspector! I had just a notion with nothing to back it up, and if I sprung it now and it turned out to be wide of the mark there’s no corner of this earth could hide us from what would come!”
“What is it?” the inspector demanded. “For God’s sake, Mac, don’t hold out anything now! It’s more than your record or my career that is at stake; the pride of the whole department is in our hands! What is this notion, as you call it?”
McCarty shook his head.
“It’s no use, sir! If I had one hint of even circumstantial evidence to support it, I wouldn’t be loafing here this minute, but I’ll tell you what I will do. Come noon, I’m thinking I’ll know whether there’s anything in it or no and if there is I’ll be ’phoning to headquarters, with a request that’ll maybe surprise you. Whatever it is you’ll let me have it, for well you know I’d make no move unless I was sure.”
There was an unmistakable note of finality in his tone and Inspector Druet acknowledged it with a shrug. In his troubled eyes a renewed glow of hope had come.
“By noon?” he repeated. “I’ll be there waiting for your message, Mac.”
“Meanwhile,” McCarty carefully avoided Dennis’ gaze, “I’ve a bit of news for you, sir. Denny and me have managed to lay our hands on the papers that have been missing from Parsons’ house.”
“I thought you would!” The shadow of a smile passed across the inspector’s face. “The department doesn’t countenance burglary, of course, but when two such deputies as you take matters into your own hands I wash mine of the responsibility. What did you find out?”
Dennis was endeavoring to hide behind his book but his agonized contortions bore mute testimony to his guilt. McCarty gazed at his old superior with a world of reproach.
“’Tis not what I expected from you, sir, after all these years, but we’ll try to bear up under the injustice of it! The papers came to us in a confidential way and since all Parsons wants is to get them back again there’s no harm done.”
“Look here!” The amusement had faded from theinspector’s countenance. “Orbit’s house was broken into that same night and he was chloroformed—!”
“May my right arm drop off this minute if we had anything to do with that!” McCarty’s solemn tones held the ring of truth. “I won’t say that I’ve not my own suspicions about it, but they come to me since and they’re all part and parcel of that notion I’ve got concerning the whole case. However, getting back to Parsons, maybe you’d like to look over what was stolen from his filing case in that outrageous robbery. You’ll know then why the housemaid and the page boy looked familiar to you.”
He handed the records of Parsons’ domestic staff to the inspector and watched with a twinkle as the other ran quickly through them. When his astonished comments had ceased, he produced the manuscript notes but drew no attention to the reference to fluorine gas, nor did he mention the leaf he had torn from the encyclopædia as he briefly recounted the interview with the eccentric philanthropist on the previous day.
“I left asking myself was he a crook or a crank or a saint on earth?” he concluded. “What’s your opinion of him?”
“He may be a dreamer, with a lot of ideas for bettering the world, that will never work out while we’re full of original sin, but I think he’s a wonderful old character and worthy of his family,” the inspector replied reflectively. “I was talking to one of these psycho-analysts who is going to lecture to us in the commissioner’s new school the other day and he knew all about them; it seems they’re celebrated among students of heredity as a shining example of what good blood means. There are thousands of ‘Parsons,’ I suppose, but I’m talking about the descendantsof the first David Parsons and the old gentleman we know is the last in the direct male line.”
“I know,” McCarty remarked. “Five governors they’ve given to the New England states, eight clergymen in America, fourteen foreign missionaries, eleven college professors and two of them became college presidents, and I can’t recall how many army and navy officers and other big men. I’ve been looking them up a little, myself.”
“The devil you have!” The inspector stared. “Keeping up with the commissioner’s latest innovations, eh? Did you know that the Parsons have been contrasted by these same students of heredity with another family that’s supposed to be the worst on record?”
“I’ve no way of getting at things like those psycho-analysts,” McCarty responded apologetically. “What about this other family?”
“I’ve forgotten the name but they died out long ago, the male members, anyway. Every kind of crime and general crookedness was represented among them.—But we’re wasting time. I suppose you want me to return these papers to Parsons with the best excuse I can think of?”
“No. We’ve an hour to spare before we can do anything, and Denny and me thought we’d take them to him ourselves.” McCarty gazed ceilingward through the wreaths of smoke. “Denny wants a little talk with him.”
“Every day,” Dennis laid down his book at last. “Every day, in every way, my friend Timothy McCarty is getting to be a better and better liar—”
“Denny, what have you got hold of now!” McCarty flushed hotly.
“One of your new lesson books,” the other replied withimmense satisfaction. “’Tis by a foreign gentleman with a name like an Australian bushranger’s call—”
“I bought it by mistake, thinking it was about this psycho-stuff too, because I couldn’t understand it!” McCarty slammed the desk drawer upon the embarrassing volume and turned to the inspector, who had risen. “You’re going, sir? It may be a little past noon when I call you up, but you’ll hear from me one way or the other.”
Mutual recriminations of a more or less acrimonious nature took place after the inspector’s departure but they merely cleared the air. Finally McCarty remarked:
“I gave myself away as well as you about breaking into the Parsons house, but that was only after you’d told the inspector I was holding out on him, which I wasn’t, having nothing to hold. As to getting at criminals by way of science I’m not laughing at it, Denny, just because I’m not on to it yet.”
“Nor me!” Dennis agreed. “Only to my mind, science is a lot like spontaneous combustion; if you don’t handle it careful it’ll work up its own heat and break out in a blaze.”
“Like what?” McCarty paused with his hat halfway to his head.
“Spontaneous combustion.” Dennis repeated. “When anything that generates its own heat, like hay in a stable, is shut up too long without air getting to it, it’s liable to take fire by itself. That’s one of the first things ever I learned when I joined the department.”
McCarty chuckled.
“And that’s your idea of science, is it? Maybe ’tis as good as any other!—Now let’s go and ease the old gentleman’s mind about his stolen property.”
But they were destined to meet with still another delay, for on entering the west gate of the Mall they encountered Mr. Gardner Sloane. The supercilious manner had fallen from him and he greeted them with marked cordiality.
“Horrible week we’ve been through, gentlemen!” he declaimed. “Leaving the death of Orbit’s valet out of it, a murder, a kidnapping and two robberies make a frightful record to contemplate. I trust you are taking every measure to protect us here? By gad, there’s no telling where this thing will strike next!”
“Did you ever find your key to the gates?” McCarty asked suddenly.
“Confound it, no; had to have another one made!” Sloane fumed. “Let me see, it was a week ago that I missed it. I’d used it Saturday morning to enter the east gate, I remember it distinctly, and I must have dropped it near the Parsons house.—But I hope you’ll tell your inspector that I depend on him to have a special watch kept over our home; my father had a very bad turn on Tuesday and if any excitement like a burglary were to take place it might prove fatal.”
“Did you get a good nurse for him?” McCarty asked solicitously. “The last one you had beat it, didn’t he?”
“Otto? Oh, he’s back; came Tuesday afternoon, fortunately. Stupid ass but a splendid attendant and my father’s used to him.—You won’t forget to have us properly guarded?”
McCarty reassured him heartily and as they watched him swing off toward the Avenue with a jaunty air Dennis remarked:
“So Lindholm showed up again, and we never even thought of it! On Tuesday, too! Do you suppose—?”
“I’m through supposing!” McCarty interrupted. “We’ll stop by and find out!”
The Sloane house, in spite of its almost oppressive luxury, unmistakably betrayed the fact that a feminine hand had been for long absent from its care and arrangement. There was a cold, detached air about as though those beneath its roof were transients with no foothold and little interest of a personal nature. Dennis voiced his impression when the ancient butler had hobbled away to summon the nurse.
“’Tis like a hotel!” he whispered. “Grander than most, but public like. If ’twas the old days I’d have been minded to ask the old guy where the café was!”
“You’re not used to the high society we’ve been moving in lately, Denny,” McCarty replied, adding, as soft but heavy feet padded down the wide center staircase of the reception hall: “Wisht! Here comes the squarehead!”
The man who entered almost before the words had left his lips was a blond, massively built giant with an up-standing brush of hair so light as to be almost colorless, and sleepy blue eyes in a round face ruddy with health.
“Ay Otto Lindholm.” He bent a mildly inquiring gaze upon them. “You bane same mans dat go to my missus?”
“Sure we are!” McCarty beamed in a friendly fashion. “What the devil did you run away for? You’d nothing to fear because of a row with Hughes!”
“My woman!” Otto shrugged as if that settled the matter. “Ay tal her we better stay but she has a scare on. You bane married, you know.”
“Neither of us, thank God!” McCarty replied devoutly.“You quarreled with Hughes on Thursday night a week ago, didn’t you?”
“Ay tal him he keep ’way from my woman or Ay bane goin’ to fix him.” He spoke with stolid satisfaction. “Next time he write latter to her Ay bane kick him ’roun’ de street like yaller dog. Dat’s all.”
His clear, placid eyes regarded them still in good-humored inquiry and McCarty asked:
“When did you see him again?”
“De next night. Friday.”
“What-t!” The quiet answer had been all but overwhelming, but Otto seemed unconscious of its portent.
“De next night,” he repeated patiently. “It bane yust start to rain an’ he var sitting on stoop of house t’ree street down, holting on wit’ bote han’s to stomach. He var ver’ sick mans. Ay tal him Ay take him home but he tal me go to hell. He look w’ite lak sheet, Ay t’ank he bane soffer mooch but he say he bane goin’ walk it off. Dat’s last Ay see of him.”
“You went on and left him sitting there? That would be about eight o’clock?”
“Yes, ’bout eight. Ay stay to see can Ay halp him but he get oop an’ walk ’way. Ay t’ank to mysalf den he look lak deat’ but Ay did not guess it var poison. He tal me he bane get sick at dinner an’ Ay t’ank he yust eat too mooch.” Otto shook his head. “Hughes var bad mans but murder is not so good! Dat Calabar bean he bane get here in de Mall, sure!”