“’Tis keen for one thing it’s been trained to for many a year, and that’s fire. Mac, there’s been a fire in Orbit’s house, and not more than a few hours before we got there!”
“A fire, is it!” McCarty snorted. “There’d likely been one in the kitchen, since dinner was cooked there, and you saw the log burning on the hearth in the library—!”
“Stoves and hearths don’t burn wool and silk and carpets and varnished wood, my lad!” Dennis laid his pipe on the mantel and rose. “It could only have been a small bit of a fire, for the smoke of it had cleared away entirely, but the smell hadn’t; there was enough of that hanging in the air for me to get the whiff, anyway, even though nobody else could. I’ve not the gift to explain it right, but there’s a different smell to everything that’s inflammable, if you’ve the nose for it, and it was house furnishings had been burned this night!”
CHAPTER IV
THE INSPECTOR BRINGS NEWS
The twain slept late the next morning, and they had only just returned from the little restaurant around the corner, where McCarty habitually took his meals, when the bell jangled on its loose wire from below.
“Don’t disturb yourself, Mac,” Dennis admonished with a grin, as his host threw down his newspaper. “I’ll let the inspector in.”
“And why are you so sure—!”
“’Twas not in my honor you cleaned house last night, but because you knew the inspector would be here, and you did it then for you were sure he’d come so early there’d be no time this morning.” Dennis emitted one of his rare chuckles as he pressed the button which released the lock on the entrance door. “Since I’ve been associating so much with detectives, active and retired, I’m getting to work their way, myself!”
“It’s too clever you’re growing, by half!” McCarty grumbled, but there was a twinkle in his eye as he strode past the other and opening the door, leaned over the banisters. In a passable imitation of the inspector’s own amusedly satisfied tones of the night before he called down: “There you are, sir! We’ve been waiting for you.”
“The devil you have!” Inspector Druet laughed as he bounded up the stairs with a lightness which belied his gray hair. “Getting back at me for last night, eh? If you hadn’t held out on me we’d have been on the job still in the New Queen’s Mall!—’Morning, Riordan! I suppose you’re crowing over me, too!”