“Sorry I’m late, Mac.—Hello, Riordan, on the job with us again? The medical examiner has had news from Washington.”
“Washington?—Sit down, sir!—About that poison gas, you mean?” McCarty pushed forward the big armchair. “Did they find out what it’s made of?”
“As much as will ever be known.” The inspector’s face was very grave. “I don’t know whether you recall reading about it or not after all this time, but during the last months of the war a report went out from the Capital that a new poison gas had been invented, deadlier than anything yet tried. The formula was a secret one, the property of the government. The papers were full of it and preparations were being made to supply our troops with it when the armistice came. Nobody except the officials in charge of that department have thought much about it since until our inquiries of the last day or two. Last night Hinton Sherard, the man responsible for the safety of that folio of secret documents, blew his brains out; the formula for the poison gas had disappeared.”
“And ’tis that the murderer used?” Dennis stared. “Did he steal it from the department?”
“Theft would have been impossible, except for some one on the inside but the despatches in code from Washington indicate that Sherard has been deeply involved in some foreign financial scandal. He managed to extricate himself about two months ago by the payment of a large sum; the affair only reached the ears of the departmental heads when he killed himself publicly in the main dining-room of the Weyland Hotel and as he never had as much money as he is reputed to have paid out there’s only one construction to be put on it. He must have sold the formula for that gas.”
“It must have taken a mint of money to buy it,” McCarty observed thoughtfully. “Any of them that live on the Mall could have afforded it, I suppose, providing they wanted it bad enough but—two months ago! The murderer sure planned a good ways ahead! Are you certain there’s no mistake about it? If nobody knows the formula—?”
“The chemist who invented it is still living and three other men in official Washington are familiar with its component parts. They all agree that the effect of the gas inhaled by Lucette, as shown by the autopsy, was identical with what would have been produced by the action of this unnamed gas, and nothing else known to chemistry would have had just that result.—Try one of these instead, Mac; old Mr. Parsons gave them to me and though he doesn’t smoke himself they ought to be good.” He had drawn a handful of fragrant cigars from his pocket as McCarty proffered the box from the mantel. “The important thing to us about this affair is that Washington is all excited and determined to get our man and the formula before it passes out of his hands, perhaps into those of some foreign power, do you see?”
“In case there’s another war?”
“Exactly. They’re sending on some picked men from the Secret Service to investigate and you know what that will mean; the case will be practically taken out of our hands.”
“To the everlasting shame of the Force, and through us!” McCarty sprang to his feet and paced rapidly back and forth. “It’s hell, ain’t it, inspector? We’ve done all that mortal could and been blocked at every turn, like Sir Philip in the chess game with Orbit last night; ’twould be the devil and all if we fall down on it now!”