“We’ve had words, in a manner of speaking, with more than one this morning!” Dennis remarked. “We know as much now as we did before but we’ve not gone a step forward and ’tis near noon.... Look at Little Fu Moy!”
The Chinese boy, looking, in his drab, everyday attire, like some dun-colored moth, had emerged from the side door of the house where he was employed and approached the dog, holding a bit of cake out in one brown little hand, but Max’s somber eyes showed no glint of recognition and he swung out of the child’s way, staggering in sheer weakness until he regained his poise.
Fu Moy stood still, his hand dropped to his side, and the piece of cake falling to the pavement of the court.
“You go ring the bell, Denny, and ask for Mr. Orbit,” McCarty directed. “I’ll be with you in a minute. If Ching Lee takes you to him say you’ll wait for me, that I’ve something more to ask him.”
Dennis obeyed but when Ching Lee appeared and he voiced his query the Oriental shook his head.
“Mr. Orbit is not at home. He has gone down to the wharf with Sir Philip, whose ship sails at noon.”
“Then I’ll wait for him.” Dennis announced firmly. “My friend McCarty will be along in a little while. When Mr. Orbit gets back, tell him the two of us are here.”
Ching Lee showed him to the library and with a bow left him, and Dennis seated himself, feeling regretfully of the pipe in his pocket. What McCarty had in mind he could not conjecture and there was no telling when Orbit might return to find him waiting there without an idea in his head and afraid to open his mouth for fear of balling up the game.
Had Mac just been kidding when he told the inspector he’d know by noon whether his notion was fact or not? He’d learned nothing since but a lot of corroborative detail about things that didn’t matter, anyway. Why on earth was he hanging around outside, fooling with the dog?
Time crawled. Twenty minutes had passed by the great old grandfather’s clock in the corner and still McCarty did not put in an appearance. Dennis rose at last and tiptoed out across the hall and down to the card-room, where he cautiously opened the side door leading to the court. There stood McCarty, chinning and laughing with the little Chink as if he’d not a care in the world!