“Well, come to my rooms when you leave your sister’s,” McCarty invited. “I’ve accepted a bribe from one of my Homevale tenants, who’s law-breaking in his cellar, and if you’re not afraid of being poisoned like Hughes——?”
“I’ll be there!” Dennis promised with alacrity.
He was as good as his word but when he arrived no refreshment awaited him. Instead, McCarty turned from the telephone with a glint of latent excitement in his blue eyes and announced:
“The news has come, Denny. Horace Goddard has been kidnapped!”
CHAPTER IX
IN THIN AIR
“Glad you could come at once, McCarty.” Eustace Goddard’s ruddy face was pale, and the humorous quirk beneath the ends of the small, sandy mustache had given place to a tremulous droop. “Your inspector thought I had some information for you about that valet’s death when I telephoned headquarters to ask for your address and I didn’t undeceive him. Don’t want any notoriety about this while a shadow of doubt remains—but God! I—I’m worried!”
“You’ll recall Special Deputy Riordan from that first talk we had at Orbit’s?” McCarty indicated his colleague who stood in the doorway. “You told me over the ’phone that your boy had been kidnapped; he’s pretty big for that, ain’t he, and in broad day?”
“What else can we think?” Goddard threw out his arms in a helpless gesture. “Horry vanished in thin air this afternoon! He hadn’t any idea of going out, in fact, he complained of a headache after lunch—he has never been very strong—and his mother left him curled up on the couch in the library here when she went shopping. She returned late to dress for Orbit’s musicale and didn’t inquire for him, supposing him to be with Trafford, his tutor. I reached home from the club about half-past five and found Trafford very much disturbed—But here he is! He’ll tell you himself. Mr. Trafford, these are the men for whom I sent. Will you tell them when you first missed Horry?”
The thin, anxious-looking, bespectacled young man, whom they had seen in conversation with the watchman that afternoon, came slowly forward.
“I went to the library at three to tell him it was time for his Latin lesson,” he began, his voice dazed and shaken. “He wasn’t there and I searched the house for him, surprised that he should have gone out without mentioning it. Then it occurred to me that he might have slipped over to Mr. Orbit’s house next door, where there is an exceptionally fine collection of paintings which fascinate him. His ruling ambition is to become an artist and Mr. Orbit has encouraged him—but I digress. I went there to inquire for him but no one had seen him, and then, really anxious, I questioned the watchman who assured me that he had not gone out either gate.”