“There you are!” The detective lieutenant rose from his knees with the false bottom of the drawer in his hand. “It was a new one on me after all, but I managed to work it. There’s a lot of papers underneath that look as though they’d been torn from a blankbook and they’re covered with writing.”
“It’s Orbit’s!” McCarty gathered the loose sheets up and spread them on the desk before him. “Do you mind when he wrote that list for me here in this very room, of the guests he’d had during the last few months? The writing is the same, and ’tis dated; it looks like the diary, all right! Do you want to read it, inspector? I’m not much good at it, and if he uses as big words as he talks with—!”
Inspector Druet took the pages from him and seated himself near the window. For a long moment he sat silent glancing over the papers and as he read his face darkened and then paled. Then with a sudden start he looked over to McCarty.
“My God, this is frightful! The man was the greatest wretch that ever lived! He must have been mad, of course, but listen! This is dated the thirteenth; that would be a week ago last Monday.—‘I succeeded in making it to-day from the formula and tried it on the white kitten from next door. The result was amazing! If it had been known a few years ago the history of the war would have been changed! If I could only experiment with it on a human, what a magnificent way it would be for me to learn the thrill of that last experience that awaits me! To take the place of providence, to play at fate, to make destiny! The longing haunts me, I cannot rest, I must know that ultimate sensation of power! I can’t use the gas, though; I don’t need to see the death I bring about and it must come far from the house. It will have to be the Calabar bean after all, but whom shall I choose? Not André, his soufflées are admirable, and Jean is the only servant who ever dusted my room and left things where I could find them; not Fu Moy or Ching Lee, for one never knows with these silent, yellow people when revenge will come. Hughes’ services are invaluable to me but he is a dead loss to society, it might even be benefited by his removal. I must decide!’”
“That was it!” McCarty nodded. “The longing for power, to feel that he was the biggest man in the world; ambition with a warped turn to it! ’Twas nothing but the lust of killing born in him that he wouldn’t admit even to himself!—But go on, sir. What’s the next?”
“Two days later, the fifteenth; that was Wednesday. He says: ‘It must be Hughes. The neighbors are still amusing after their fashion and I could not be sure they would go outside of the Mall immediately. Physostigmine is soluble in alcohol; I could put a grain or two in wine and leave it about but that will not do. I must give it to Hughes with my own hand. I shall have to await my opportunity, then give him a drink and send him on an errand to a strange part of town. I cannot wait!’—That’s all of that entry and the next one is midnight after the murder.—‘It is done! Hughes is dead and I have killed him! I could shout, sing, dance as wildly as a savage about a pyre and yet I am strangely calm, like a god! I am a god, for I hold the power of life and death, I know what it is at last! The only drawback was that it was too easy; Hughes has been dissipating lately and it gave me an idea to-night. I mixed some bitters together with a dash of absinthe—just enough for one dose—added two grains of the powdered bean and put it in an old tonic bottle. When Hughes came to lay out my things for dinner I told him he looked badly, needed more air and exercise and persuaded him to go out and take a long walk, breathing deeply. Then I gave him the drink I had prepared,—poured it out for him myself and watched it pass with a gurgle down his gross, fat neck! I looked at him when he put down the glass and could not realize that it was actually accomplished! The man standing there before me was a dead man even though he still moved and talked and probably thought of his dinner, and it was I who had done this! It had rested in my hands whether he should live or die and I had condemned and executed him! I shall never forget that moment of exquisite exhilaration, the ecstasy of omnipotence! But I was discreet, I controlled myself. I warned Hughes that the medicine might make him feel a trifle ill, might even restrict his breathing but he must walk it off and he would be greatly benefited. He actually thanked me—thanked me for bringing death upon him! All the evening while Goddard and the Sloanes were here, I kept my triumph to myself but nothing could withstand my sense of power. My bridge was unsurpassed—I knew that—and I played the organ as I never have played before!—And then it came, that for which I had been waiting. Three blockheads from the police arrived to tell me of Hughes’ death!’”
McCarty chuckled grimly.
“Fu Moy overheard that conversation and told me about it only to-day—between Orbit and Hughes, I mean, about the medicine. He don’t say anything about the fire after, does he?”
Dennis looked up quickly as the inspector glanced ahead and nodded:
“Here it is.—‘There was only one flaw in this magic evening. I used the powdered bean from the smaller box and it was just enough. I did not open the other, forgetting how long it had been since its contents had been exposed to the air, but thrust it down in a seam of the cushioned chair and almost immediately after I had gone downstairs spontaneous combustion occurred.’”