What would the old gentleman think if he knew the actual burglar stood before him? McCarty could feel his honest face grow hot, but he held his chin a trifle higher. After all, Parsons had known about fluorine gas and powdered Calabar bean, he’d a bunch of crooks in his house and knew it, and when his notes had been taken he didn’t feel like coming clean about them! He might have a bit of explaining to do himself!
“Lieutenant McCarty, sir.” The elevation in rank was patent flattery and McCarty’s eyes twinkled as Benjamin Parsons bowed.
“That will do, Danny.—Mr. McCarty,” he added as the page boy withdrew, “I have asked you to come here because your inspector is occupied with matters of graver import to the little community in the Mall. From your question over the telephone this morning I gather you have been informed of the occurrence here on Wednesday night?”
“Yes, Mr. Parsons,” McCarty replied. “Your house was entered by way of the rear window, wasn’t it, and some papers taken? As I heard it, the wires were cut outside and a pane of glass knocked out.”
“An interior alarm system of my own was also very cleverly disconnected so that it would not register in my bedroom.—But won’t you sit down?” A slender hand waved to a chair and McCarty obeyed. “All this is as unimportant as is the identity of the intruder, or as his identity would be if he had come merely for gain like the usual housebreaker; but this he was not. Articles of value were practically within reach of his hand—gold and silver plate, ivories and bronzes and ceramics which would have meant a fortune to the ordinary burglar, remained undisturbed, while the documents he searched for and found could be of no possible pecuniary benefit to him.”
Mr. Parsons’ eyes were fastened on McCarty in an earnest, steady gaze which the latter found somehow disconcerting. He cleared his throat nervously.
“The inspector told me ’twas notes for a book that was missing, and some other papers that was personal,” he remarked.
“Personal to others than myself, I regret to say,” Mr. Parsons shook his head. “That is why I did not go into particulars at first, but since I reported the matter to the authorities I have made another discovery which, taken in connection with the rest, leaves me no choice. The personal documents removed from this filing case over here related to the unfortunate past history of several people whom I count among my friends and it would be unjust to give publicity to them now, much less to permit these records to remain in unworthy hands. The manuscript of my book is perhaps small loss to the world, but it is the result of years of profound thought and research. I may add that it was intended as a message, an appeal for universal peace and I had dwelt in detail upon the horrors of the last war, describing in full the methods employed by man to destroy his fellows. I am stating this because one of the weapons so described was fluorine gas, and the formula was given. Fluorine gas has been mentioned in the papers in connection with the sad death of the young nurse across the street, but I did not even think of the coincidence until I made a further discovery last night.”
“What was it?” McCarty felt that the question was expected of him although he well knew what was coming. Was the old gentleman the grand character he appeared or as shrewd as they make them and playing safe? He could have blushed for his own suspicious mind, but Parsons called the crooks his “friends” and was trying to protect them. What the devil did it all mean?
“When your inspector first called upon me to make certain inquiries last week, at the time a manservant—from the same house as that in which the young girl passed away—also died, he told me of the poison believed to have been used: physostigmine.”