Orbit frowned again thoughtfully.
“I cannot at the moment recall any one with those initials but naturally I have no knowledge of his friends or associates,” he replied at last. “Surely that is immaterial, however. What was suspicious about the poor fellow’s death? He was an irreproachable servant but when his time was his own his habits were irregular and I should not have been surprised to learn that his heart had failed or he had suffered a stroke.”
“Had he been drinking the last time you saw him; this evening, I think you said?” McCarty asked.
“Certainly not! I have never seen him under the influence of alcohol or he would not have remained an hour in my service. He was fully aware of this, and although I am convinced that he occasionally drank to excess he was careful never to let me see him in such a condition. Had he been drinking when you went to his assistance?”
McCarty ignored the question.
“You don’t ask where that was, I notice. Have you any notion where he could have been going to-night?”
“Not the slightest,” Orbit shrugged. “I have told you that I am quite ignorant of his private affairs and have had no interest in them.”
“Still, he’d been your personal servant for a matter of twenty-odd years,” McCarty insisted. “Wouldn’t you want to know what he was up to if you learned he’d left your house to go down along the waterfront, in one of the toughest districts in the city?”
Orbit stared in genuine amazement.
“‘The waterfront?’” he repeated. “I cannot imagine what he could have been doing in such a district as you describe! Even in his dissipations Hughes was never attracted by anything sordid, to my knowledge, but aped even the vices of men of a higher station than he.”