“I want to make sure; Orbit said he wasn’t a good sleeper, you’ll remember, and if he could rest easy in his bed this night, with that poor girl murdered under his roof not so many hours past, he’s not the man I took him for! We’ll go up the back stairs and then sneak along the hall to his door. Thanks be, we know the lay of this house!”
They crept silently through the card-room and past the pantries to the back stairs, where they stopped and removed their shoes again before venturing upward. No faintest ray of light shone from under any door on the floor above, but from behind one on the left deep and regular stertorous sounds denoted that one at least of the household, doubtless the distinguished arrival of the previous evening, slumbered, unhaunted by morbid visions.
Before the door of Orbit’s own bedroom they halted but no sound came from within and at length McCarty motioned to his companion and tiptoed into the sitting-room adjoining.
“You’ve been in that bedroom before.” His lips barely formed the words close to Dennis’ ear. “You’ll know how the furniture’s placed, so as not to fall over it. Go in and see is he asleep; I’ve our story all fixed if he should jump you.”
“I’ve not!” Dennis retorted in palpable reluctance. “Moreover there’s a queer, sweetish smell on the air; don’t you get it? If he or anything else in there jumps me I hope you’ll get busy first and explain afterwards!”
He left McCarty’s side and the latter heard his feet pad softly off toward the connecting door between the rooms. A pause ensued, then came the footsteps again but fainter now. After a moment a low light flashed. It wavered, steadied, went out suddenly and a dull thud came to McCarty’s ears as the electric torch itself struck the thick pile of the rug. He started forward as Dennis’ low, shaking voice was borne upon the silence.
“For the love of the saints, come here, Mac! Somebody’s been before us!”
CHAPTER XVI
A QUESTION ANSWERED
For an instant McCarty’s stout legs wabbled beneath him, then he drew himself together and pressing the button of his own flashlight he strode over the sill.
A strange scene presented itself to his staring eyes. Dennis was clinging weakly to an upright post at the foot of the heavily carved bed upon which Orbit was lying. His firmly molded chin was relaxed and the sunken, closed eyes were mere blotches of shadow in the grayish pallor of his face. The pajama jacket was open at his throat and his arms were flung above his head as though helplessness had come upon him in the effort to protect himself from an attack. As he noted these things McCarty became aware of the pungent, sweetish odor that assailed his own nostrils.