“I’m not going near him, not till I’ve found and talked to this Truda. It’s Snape I’m after and I’ll be leaving you outside the gate, Denny, for maybe you’ll be scraping acquaintance with him to-morrow, after all.”
Bill Jennings admitted him and stopped for a word with Dennis, while McCarty went quickly to the Bellamy house and rang the bell. The door was opened promptly by a tall, slenderly erect man of thirty-five or a trifle more, with the strongly marked features and intelligent, self-contained expression of an actor. The slight puffiness about the slate-gray eyes and fine lines at the corners of his mouth were the only evidences of the possible dissipation of which the watchman Jennings had spoken. He waited with an aloof but courteous air of inquiry to learn the visitor’s errand.
“You’re the butler here? Snape is your name?”
“Yes, sir,” the man replied with no hint of surprise in his tone but his eyes narrowed and a certain touch of deference vanished from his manner.
“I’m a special deputy, headquarters.” McCarty showed the old badge which he had resurrected just before leaving his rooms with Dennis. “Inspector Druet thought you forgot one or two things this morning that you might have had time to remember by now. Where can we talk private?”
Snape hesitated for a minute and then stepped aside for McCarty to enter.
“Come this way.” He closed the door, and, turning, started down the hall toward the rear, with McCarty at his heels. The butler led his unwelcome guest through a door opening into the domestic quarters of the establishment and to a plainly but comfortably appointed dining-room where he motioned to a chair at the table and seated himself in another opposite.
“What can I do for you?” His tone was brisk but not truculent, and McCarty, too, came to the point without preamble.
“You can tell me the address where Truda’s working now, taking care of the sick woman.”
“‘Truda?’” Snape frowned, as though perplexed, and McCarty assumed an air of impatience.