Dennis took a tentative step forward, but at that moment McCarty turned with a pat on the shoulder to Fu Moy and started for the rear of the house. Dennis was forced to beat a hasty retreat lest the boy find him spying.
What could Mac have found to talk about to the lad? Dennis knew him too well to be taken in by that idly jocular air, and he’d not be wasting a minute at this stage of the game. Could it be from somebody in Orbit’s household, after all, that Hughes had got his death-dose and poor Lucette that puff of poisoned air? Could the boy Horace be even now hidden in some secret corner of Chinatown or the French quarter?
He had little opportunity to speculate further, for the front door opened and after a moment Orbit’s tones came to him raised in singsong Chinese. Little Fu Moy replied and then the master of the house entered.
“Good morning, Riordan. Where is McCarty? Fu Moy says you both wished to see me. What can I do for you?”
For a horrible moment Dennis’ tongue clove to the roof of his mouth and then an inspiration came.
“Mac has something to ask you, Mr. Orbit, but he was stopped outside. He’ll be in right away. ’Twas about that chloroforming the other night that I wanted to see you. You woke up sick and found nothing had been touched, but there was the bottle and the towel, and the side door open downstairs. Did you happen to notice anything else?”
“Only proof that there were two of them,” Orbit responded thoughtfully. “I forgot to mention that to the inspector. One had big hands, fat, and a trifle soft, but the other’s were thin and strong with a wiry grip and a broken finger on the left one.”
“You don’t tell me!” Dennis ejaculated and his own left hand promptly fumbled with his coat pocket as though seeking cover there. Then in confusion it dropped to his side again. “And how might you be knowing that? Sure, the inspector said you’d no time to move, before the towel was clapped down over your face!”
“They had left their marks behind them.” Orbit laughed. “Fat Hands had raised my windows higher and he must have been the one who actually drugged me, for Broken Finger was nervous and during that operation he gripped the post at the foot of my bed so tightly that the impression was plainly left in the satiny finish of the wood. The prints could have been made by none of the household when they came in response to my ring, for Ching Lee’s hands are very long and slender, Jean’s as thin as claws and André’s fat but small. Fu Moy did not wake up and I would not permit Sir Philip or his man to be disturbed.”
“Maybe there was more than two of them,” Dennis suggested hopefully. “Was there nothing else but just them finger marks? The bureau don’t take so much stock in that kind of evidence any more, what with the new science and such.”