With a few minor directions to the rest he led the way back to the sitting-room and closed the door. The air was now quite clear of smoke and only a faint, noisome odor lingered behind.
McCarty seated himself in the chair lately occupied by Orbit himself and drew out the last drawer of the desk. It was filled with open envelopes bearing cancelled stamps and he scattered them on the floor in his haste to empty it.
“He told the truth about the false bottom,” he announced. “I can feel it give but I wonder how does it open?”
One of the officials stepped forward.
“Shall I try, Mac?” he asked. “I was a custom house inspector years ago and there isn’t a smuggler’s dodge I’m not on to; that either lifts or slides and there may be a spring.”
“Go to it,” McCarty acquiesced briefly, and the other complied.
“Look here, Mac!” The inspector looked up suddenly. “Who chloroformed Orbit the other night?”
McCarty chuckled.
“He did, himself! I got that the minute I saw the bottle, for there wasn’t enough gone from it to put a kitten out! The towel was soaked, but with water, and he’d just sprinkled enough chloroform on it to smell. He didn’t want to lose his wits, you see, only to make us think he was unconscious so he could get a line on what we were after and hear our talk. He must have heard us coming up the stairs and looked out or else doped out that it would be us, for it was Denny and me that broke in that night. He paid me a return call the next and rigged up a gun to shoot me in the dark, but I found it first and fired it through the roof!”
“’Twas that I heard!” Dennis exclaimed. “Glory be! Well I knew you were too old a hand to let it go off accidental, like you told me, but little I thought you’d been near murdered, or I’d not have left you, duty or no duty—!”