Argosy All-Story Weekly — page 24: what you’re looking at

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$14 to speak, but once more he was forestalled by the opening of the door, and Orbit ush- ered in three gentlemen. The first was slightly younger than his host, stout and bald except for a fringe of sandy hair. His mouth beneath the small reddish mustache had a humorous quirk at the corners which appeared to be habitual, his blue eyes twinkled, and he regarded the police offi- cial and his two deputies with a frank and not unfriendly curiosity. The second gentleman was approxi- mately the same age, but his smooth shaven face was strikingly handsome and his youthfully cut dinner coat was worn with a jauntiness which proclaimed the middle-aged gallant. The last of Mr. Orbit’s guests to enter was a tall, thin young man of about thirty with an inordinately serious expression that was enhanced by the sheil rimmed glasses of huge dimensions which bestrode the narrow bridge of his high, aquiline nose, yet his chin was cleft like that of the older man who had immediately preceded him, and there was an unmistakable family re- semblance between them. Even before the introduction McCarty placed him as Brins- ley Sloane, Second, the older man as his father, Gardner Sloane, and the first to enter, therefore, as the next door neighbor, Eustace Goddard. It was the latter who spoke first when his host had briefly presented the officers of the law. “Too bad about poor Hughes, inspector. ’Pon my soul, if my man died to-morrow, I shouldn’t be able to find a pair of gloves for myself that were mates; so I know how Mr. Orbit must feel. I’ve seen the fellow about the house here for years, of course, but I don’t think I’ve exchanged half a dozen words with him in my life, and I’m quite sure none of the servants in my house- hold know anything more about him than I do.” “Why, Mr. Goddard?” asked the in- Spector. “Well, for one thing, they’re all elderly and staid—been with my family for years. Mr. Orbit happened to mention the fact just now that Hughes fancied himself as a sport and was given to dissipation occa- ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY. sionally. He wouldn’t have found anything in common with our staff, but you are wel- come to question them to-morrow as much as you please.” ‘Thank you.” ‘The inspector turned to the elder of the two remaining guests. “Mr. Sloane, have you happened to no- tice any acquaintance between Mr. Orbit’s valet and your servants?” There was a slight touch of sarcasm in his voice relative to Goddard’s hurried dis- claimer, and the flush which mounted to that gentleman’s scant red hair showed that the shot went home. Gardner Sloane responded with a gpeatty assumption of cor- diality: “ Can’t say at I have, inspector. We are a household of men, for my son and I are alone with my father, who is very old and an invalid. His male nurse, a Swede who speaks little English, and John Platt, the butler, who is nearly seventy, are the only servants in our employ with whom there is any likelihood that Hughes might have come in contact. However, I have observed him on several occasions in the company of a butler in service in another house on this block, and although I find it very distasteful to direct even the most casual of official inquiries to an establish- ment presided over by an unprotected lady—” “Father!” the young man interrupted in precise, shocked tones. ‘‘I am aston- ished—” “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 Mal! I have ever noticed in Hughes’s company is Snape, Mrs. Bel- lamy’s butler. If any of them knows any- thing 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. “Tt am sure, however, that my father must be mistaken, and if you annoy Mrs. Bel- lamy at such an hour as this merely for below-stairs gossip you will distress her ereatly. Indeed, why should any of us be interrogated? The man Hughes dropped Eomichbooks.co