In the hall they met Orbit. There were deep lines graven on his face by the shock and strain of the afternoon’s horror and he was holding himself in such deep repression that only his eyes betrayed his emotion, glowing darkly like live coals in an ashen pallor.
“It is—all over?” he asked in a hushed tone. “Jean tells me the body has been removed and the conservatory thrown open again. I would gladly close it forever, I feel that I can never touch the organ, but I suppose that is morbid. Whatever mysterious, horrible thing came to destroy that girl we can be thankful that the baby escaped! Your inspector is quite beyond his depth, I am afraid, but have you and Riordan no clue?”
“Did the medical examiner’s assistant say it was poison gas did it, the same as the doctor?” McCarty evaded the question.
“He didn’t express an opinion while I was there, but your inspector went away with him, perhaps for some data that may reveal the actual cause of poor Lucette’s death. With all respect to Doctor Allonby I cannot convince myself that the girl was gassed; the sheer impossibility of it under the circumstances can’t be overcome in my mind!—But don’t let me keep you, unless, of course, there are some questions you wish to ask me?”
“Not now,” McCarty shook his head. “We’ll be back later, likely. You’ve my own ’phone number in case anything turns up?”
Orbit nodded and himself showed them out the front door. Bill Jennings met them as they approached the east gate and launched into excited queries concerning the murder but McCarty cut him short.
“You know as much about it as we do, ourselves,” he asserted. “The girl died sudden, sitting in the conservatory with the child playing around her feet and not even the doctor’s sure what took her.—Bill, do you mind that balloon peddler you chased away from the gate when we were coming in? Did you ever see him hanging about before?”
“Many a time,” returned the watchman promptly. “Balloons are a new line with him; it used to be peanuts and before that little plaster images. Tony, his name is,—he knows this boy coming now, that delivers the evening papers for the whole Mall. Is there anything wrong about him? He ain’t ever been inside the gates while I was on!”
“Lord, no!” McCarty replied hastily. “I thought he looked kind of like a dago I used to know myself.... Don’t let any reporters in, Bill, until we get back.”
He hurried through the gate, dragging Dennis after him, and around the corner, where he came to a halt.