Dennis sat forward suddenly and took his pipe from his mouth.
“Do you mean the Parsonses themselves are not on the level?” he demanded. “The old gentleman, with his grand charities and his pious talk, the old maid sister and the young niece? Do you think the old gentleman is cracked, maybe, and turned murderer wholesale? Is it him that’s planted a hotbed of crime right there in the Mall?”
“Somebody has,” McCarty shrugged. “Of course the two murders happened in Orbit’s house, if ’twas there Hughes got his dose of Calabar bean, and the Goddard kid disappeared from next door—”
Dennis snorted.
“Would Orbit be killing the valet that give him perfect service all these years till he can’t so much as put on his own shirt for himself, no less murdering a nurse-girl, and running off with a boy? None in the Bellamy household could have had a hand in Lucette’s death and it stands to reason Goddard didn’t kidnap his own son! Orbit’s likely to be under fire now and come in for a lot of notoriety and maybe—well, there’s others under that roof besides himself!”
“I’ve been turning that over in my mind, too.” McCarty took a last pull at his cigar and laid the stub in the tray. “We’ve put in this evening so far breaking balloons and that’s about all we’ve been doing since first this case started; opening up one gas-bag after another and getting nothing but empty air! I’d like a chance to go through the Parsons house and Orbit’s too, with no one the wiser, and if you were not such a clumsy, heavy-footed galoot, Denny, we’d be paying them a little visit to-night without leaving our cards.”
“‘Clumsy,’ is it!” Dennis repeated indignantly. “Me that’s been scaling walls and ladders since you tramped your first beat! We’ve broke in an empty house there in broad day and we can get in the others at night just as easy, in spite of what newfangled burglar alarms they may have. I’m on to most of them through fighting fires, thanks be! Since the first night we went through those gates I’ve felt in the soul of me that sooner or later we’d be marauding in there like a couple of second-story workers and now it’s come! If instead of Parsons and his convicts it should be one of those Frenchmen or the Chink in Orbit’s house, we’ll spot him!”
“The first thing we spot will be the restaurant around the corner. ’Tis near ten o’clock and we’ve had no dinner,” McCarty rejoined. “We won’t be showing up near the Mall till midnight or after and we’ve a lot to plan first.”
Their meal finished they returned again to the rooms. McCarty paused for a moment in the doorway of the living-room, a peculiar expression crossing his face.
“Sit you down and light your pipe, Denny.” He threw open the closet door as he spoke. “I’ll be with you in a minute. Now where—?”