“Me!” Dennis’ leathery countenance blanched. “’Tis what I get for letting you lead me into breaking the law! Now I’ll get thrown out of the department and pinched, and Molly will change the baby’s name—!”
“Oh, Parsons did not know ’twas you, Denny, he just said it had been cleverly done,” McCarty hastened to explain. “I sprung it on him about Porter and Radley and asked him what would he do if a fellow escaped that he thought was innocent and came to him and he spoke up quick that he’d turn him over to the authorities anyway; ’twould be his higher duty to our social fabric, whatever that is.”
“It would, would it!” Dennis ejaculated in fine scorn. “The social fabric could go to blazes for all of me, but I’d stick to a pal, innocent or no! Howsomever, I’ve not the grand, cold-blooded principles of him!—You know the poor devil’s been caught, crazier than a loon?”
McCarty nodded.
“Porter knows it, too; he’s beaten it for fear he’ll be sent up for hiding him.” He finished his account of the morning’s interview and then drew the torn page from his pocket. “There’s more to this thing about the Calabar bean that I didn’t read you, Denny, so I brought it around and maybe ’twill give us an idea.—Listen: ‘Calabar Bean. Ordeal Nut. The seed of Physostigma ven-en-osum, a twining, half shrubby plant, native of Africa.’”
“What of it?” Dennis was frankly bored. “How is that going to help?”
“Wait a bit.—‘The kernel is hard and white, and yields its virtue to alcohol and less perfectly to water.—’”
“I’ll bet it does, or they’d never have got it down Hughes, if what we’ve heard of his habits is straight!” interrupted Dennis, his interest once more aroused. “There you’ve got it, Mac! Find the last one he took a drink with and you’ll have the guy that croaked him!”
“That’s not all,” McCarty began again. “‘The beans are reddish, gray, or’—um—‘Kidney-shaped, and about the size’—never mind that!—‘Care should be taken to avoid spontaneous—’”
“Did you trail around here in all the rain to give me a botany lesson?” Dennis demanded indignantly. “’Tis not from any book you’ll be learning the truth! I was that upset last night, what with the revolver shot and all, that I never thought to ask you, but what did the old guy you know uptown say about that bu’sted blue balloon? Could he make out from the way it was rotting before our eyes the kind of gas there was in it?”