“Father!” the young man interrupted in precise, shocked tones. “I am astonished—!”
“You usually are, Brin,” interrupted the elder in his turn. “It is my duty to tell these officers what I have seen. The only servant here in the Mall I have ever noticed in Hughes’ company is Snape, Mrs. Bellamy’s butler; if any of them knows anything about the fellow’s private affairs, it should be he.”
“Which is Mrs. Bellamy’s house?” the inspector inquired.
“Number Six, next door to this on the east,” the younger Sloane replied hastily. “I am sure, however, that my father must be mistaken, and if you annoy Mrs. Bellamy at such an hour as this merely for below-stairs gossip, you will distress her greatly. Indeed, why should any of us be interrogated? The man Hughes dropped dead in the street, I understand; it means nothing to any one except Mr. Orbit, who has lost an efficient servant!”
Again the inspector sent a hurried glance at McCarty, who ignored the indignant young man and turned to the master of the house.
“Mr. Orbit, have you any notion what relations Hughes had?”
“None, in this country. He was the son of a blacksmith in Cornwall who went to London when a lad and took service as a bootboy. From this he rose to the position of valet and when he came to me he was, as Mr. Sloane has observed, a most efficient one.”
“Then,” McCarty spoke musingly, as though to himself, “there’ll be no one to notify about the funeral arrangements.”
“I shall assume all responsibility, of course,” Orbit announced. “I will arrange with an undertaking establishment to send for the body at once. It has been removed to the morgue?”
McCarty nodded.