“You’ve no definite clue yet, you say? None of Hughes’ associates, whoever they may have been, can suggest any reason for such a purposeless crime as this appears?”
“We’re looking for more of his associates, Mr. Orbit. The gentlemen who’ve visited you here—the most of them brought their own valets with them, didn’t they?”
“Naturally.” Orbit nodded and blew a smoke ring thoughtfully into the air.
“Hughes may have grown thick with some of them, though you’d not be likely to know of it. I’d like a list as near as you can remember of the gentlemen who have stayed here during the past year, say, so we can look up their servants.”
“I can tell you offhand of several of my guests but it will take more time than I can spare this afternoon to give you a complete list, and frankly, it is distasteful to me to have my friends annoyed.” Orbit’s tone was pleasant but firm. “The latest to visit me, whom I can recall, are Professor Harrowden, from the Smithsonian Institute, Sir Philip Devereux and Conan Fairclough of London, Sabatiano Maura, Yareslow Gazdik—”
“Mr. Orbit, would you write the last two?” McCarty interrupted earnestly. “Where might Professor Harrowden be found?”
“In South America just now, leading an expedition up the Amazon.” Orbit laid his cigarette in a tray of curiously hammered red gold and reached obligingly for a pen. “Fairclough’s off for Africa again, I believe, and Gazdik is playing a series of concerts at Biarritz.”
“Are the others at the ends of the earth, too?” The question was bland, but McCarty’s smile was a trifle grim.
“Oh, no!” Orbit smiled also in understanding, as he rose and offered the sheet of paper. “Sir Philip is on his way here from the West to visit me again for a few days and Maura’s portrait exhibition closes in Philadelphia before the end of the month when he, too, will return before sailing again for Madrid. I’ll send the complete list to headquarters for you, but I’m afraid you won’t find that their menservants learned much of Hughes’ affairs in the brief time they were here.”
McCarty thanked him and they took their departure, encountering Ching Lee in the hall below who showed them out in silence.