“It isn’t of any matter, sir. The medical examiner was saying that ’twas only in medicine or milk the Calabar bean powder could be dissolved.”
Orbit moved with a slight trace of impatience.
“Surely such minor details are unimportant just at this time, anxious as I am to have the mystery concerning Hughes’ death cleared up! Nothing can restore him or that poor girl who died so strangely in my house, but there is Horace Goddard! This is the fourth day since his inexplicable disappearance and his father tells me that no effort has been made to approach him for ransom. If the boy has not been killed in some accident he may be in horrible danger! He is delicate, he could not long endure hardships, privation.” Orbit hesitated and then went on: “I don’t know whether the suggestion may be worth anything or not, but has his own home been searched thoroughly? It is an enormous, rambling old house with innumerable storerooms and closets upstairs—I have remembered them since I was a mere lad. Horace is a solitary, meditative little chap, fond of getting away by himself. Isn’t it possible that he may have gone up to some portion of the attic and either fastened himself in or been locked away there by some one who didn’t know he was around? Finding he couldn’t get out he may have been frightened, fainted,—the possibilities are too awful to be imagined!”
“No, there’s no chance of that, for every inch of the house has been gone over a dozen times, but it may be, of course, that he met with an accident somewhere and the body hasn’t come to light yet; the inspector was saying something like that awhile ago. The lad could have been dead even before he was missed by Trafford; you recall the tutor coming here to ask for him that day whilst we were talking to you? The coal men had been after getting in your supply—?”
“Yes, yes!” Orbit nodded quickly, impatience at McCarty’s garrulity evident in his voice now. “Most inconvenient time, too, just before the arrival of my guests! I had ordered it days before.—But these idle speculations about Horace won’t help any, I suppose; the Goddards themselves can scarcely be more anxious than I am for some real results from this investigation!”
“Well, the inspector’ll be around in a little while, if you’re home.” McCarty signaled to Dennis with a jerk of his head. “There’s something in his mind he wants to talk to you about, and maybe you can help him. We’ve not made much headway, and that’s a fact, but ’tis the worst case ever the department handled.”
There was an injured note in his voice and Orbit responded with sympathetic tact:
“I’m sure you’re doing all you can and I shall be glad to see the inspector or either of you at any time.” He pressed the bell and as Ching Lee threw open the door he added: “The medical examiner has come to no definite conclusion about the girl’s death? If it was really gas of some sort it seems odd its nature can’t be determined. But I speak ignorantly, of course; I know little or nothing of chemistry in any form.... I shall wait to hear from the inspector.”
“I don’t get you this morning at all!” Dennis remarked plaintively when the door of Orbit’s house had closed behind them. “While I waited I saw you kidding the little heathen out in the side court and then you went to the back, and Orbit came in and I had to string him. For what did we go there in the first place? You’d little to ask him and you got less for it, when you did finally come in! Is it stalling around for time, you are?”
“There’ll be no more stalling, Denny!” There was a new note in McCarty’s voice. “’Twas little I got from Orbit himself, but we’ll go to Goddard now. I want to use his telephone.”